Page 101 of Inked Athena

“Counter offer.”

I lean over the table, line up my shot. “You walk out of here tonight. Never contact me, Nova, or our child again. And in exchange, I won’t burn everything you’ve built to the ground.”

The solid green ball drops with a satisfying thunk.

“So angry.” Leonid’s smile slithers across his face. “My boy. My precious firstborn.” He circles the table, tapping his cue against the floor with each step. “I came here tonight to congratulate you. On the engagement. On the baby. Such joyous occasions deserve family, do they not?”

He sinks a red without looking. “This is a prosperous time for us, Samuil. The Litvinov name commands more respect than ever. Our influence spans continents.” Another shot. Another striped ball disappears. “But there’s a shadow over us. A rift that needs mending.”

I grip my cue tighter. “Ilya made his choices.”

“He did. But he’s young. Impetuous. The thing with Katerina—” Leonid waves his hand dismissively. “You were both fools over that woman. But now, you’ve found happiness. Real happiness. Shouldn’t your brother have the same chance?”

“The same chance he tried to take from me?” I bark out a laugh. “The same chance that ended with him plotting to destroy everything I built?”

“The past is past.” Leonid misses his next shot. On purpose. “Invite him here. Let him see what you’ve created. Show him there’s a place for him in our future.”

I study the table. Study the angles. Just like I study my father’s face for signs of the trap I know lurks beneath his words.

“And if I refuse?”

Leonid shrugs. Sets his cue in the rack with careful precision. “Then I suppose we’ll never know if your child could have had the family you never did.”

The laughter bubbles up from somewhere deep and dark inside me. A place I didn’t know existed until Nova crawled in there and made herself at home.

I line up another shot, focusing on the cue ball like it’s Ilya’s head. “You want me to give him another chance? After what he did to me?”

“Family is?—”

The cue strikes true. But it’s too much. Too angry.

The ball rockets off the table and explodes against the wall in a shower of composite fragments.

Father’s eyes widen a fraction. Good. Let him see what decades of his psychological warfare have created.

“Let me tell you what family is.” I stalk toward him, leaving the broken pieces where they fell. “Familyis the woman out there who carries my child.Familyis the friend I almost lost because I was too much like you. Family is what I’m building—what I’m protecting—from the poison you and Ilya represent.”

“Such dramatics!” But his voice wavers. “I only want?—”

“I know exactly what you want.” The laughter comes again, soft and deadly. “You want me to take the snake back into my home. Give him another chance to strike. But here’s what you don’t understand, Father.”

I lean in close. Close enough to see the pulse jumping in his throat.

“I’m not that little boy anymore. The one desperate for scraps of your approval. I’m not the man who married Katerina to please you. And I’m sure as fuck not going to risk my child’s future on your games.”

His eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “This isn’t the reaction I expected.”

“No.” I grin. “I bet it’s not.”

Turning back, I lean against the rack. “Three months ago, your precious Ilyusha took my pregnant fiancée. Tied her up. Made her think I was coming to execute her.” My voice stays conversational. Almost bored. “Before that, he used her as bait to start a war with the Andropovs. A war that’s already claimed lives.”

Father opens his mouth, but I hold up my hand.

“And that’s just what he’s done recently. Should we discuss the years of sabotage? The clients he’s poached? The deals he’s torpedoed?” I straighten my cuffs. “Or maybe we should talk about how he fucked my wife while planning to steal my company?”

“The past?—”

“—is exactly where Ilya belongs.” I push off from the rack. “If you think I’d let that rabid dog anywhere near Nova or my child, you’re even stupider than he is.”

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