Page 99 of Inked Athena

The room goes silent. Like someone hit pause on a movie. Even the candles seem to stop flickering.

Then Leonid Litvinov fills the doorway like a storm cloud.

His presence swallows all the air in the room, leaving nothing but cold anticipation. His dark eyes sweep the gathered guests before landing on me.

Unlike the last time we crossed paths, I no longer see any trace of Sam in his face. No proof of warmth or humanity at all. Just calculation and hunger as his thin lips curve into what might be a smile.

Or a declaration of war.

“Well,” he says, his raspy voice carrying to every corner of the suddenly breathless room, “isn’t this a charming family gathering?”

34

SAMUIL

It takes everything in me to stay unmoving.

“You still flinch when doors slam,”my father used to tell me.“Like Mother’s departure left permanent echoes.”

Tonight, his entrance silences the dining room like a gunshot.

My first thought is for Nova. I reach for her and find her hand under the table. It’s cold and trembling, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her face. From the shoulders up, she’s ready for fucking war.

But she won’t have to fight those fights. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I’m for: to go to battle on her behalf.

And if it’s my father on the wrong end of my displeasure? So fucking be it.

He’s earned his grave many times over.

But even then, she manages to surprise me. I’m halfway out of my seat, already clearing my throat to tell Leonid to fuck back offto whichever rat hole he crawled out of, when another voice cuts me off at the pass.

“Welcome to our home, Mr. Litvinov.” Nova’s voice carries clear across the room. Every eye turns on her. “I trust your journey from London was pleasant?”

Leonid’s cold, gray eyes—the ones I inherited, but with hardly an ounce of the life in them—assess her from head to toe. He waltzes toward us with the measured steps of a predator. His cane tip scrapes over the flagstones. Nails on a chalkboard. Not an accident.

“My dear, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. And please, call me Father.”

Nova’s fingers curl into fists at her sides. “I reserve that title for those who’ve earned it.”

The other oligarchs at the table shift uncomfortably. My muscles coil, ready to intervene, but Nova continues with perfect poise.

“Your place is set at the far end.” She gestures to the opposite end of the table from where we sit. “I’m told you prefer distance from family gatherings.”

Fuck. Even I feel the sting of that one.

My father’s lips twitch. Amusement? Anger? It’s never clear with him. “Far be it from me to wander where I shouldn’t,” he says. Then he reaches into his jacket and produces a small velvet box. “But before I go, a gift for my future daughter-in-law.”

Something in my gut withers and dies. It’s my body recognizing the object long before my mind does.

I can’t look away as she takes it. As she opens it. As the flickering lights of the candle-lit chandelier overhead catches the familiar grooves and jewels of a ring.

The one my mother used to wear every day of her life.

It’s silver and worn. It wouldn’t look out of place in a pawn shop. But it sure as fuck looks out of place here—in this place that’s supposed to be happy, supposed to be secure. It doesn’t belong under this roof.

And it doesn’t fucking belong in my fiancée’s hands.

Nova, oblivious—because how could she know?—accepts it with a graceful nod. “How thoughtful. I’ll add it to the collection of family heirlooms we keep in the east wing. The ones we never use.”

---