Page 20 of Inked Athena

Instead, I hold her tighter and whisper more dangerous truths into the dark.

“Ya budu zashchishchat tebya vechno.”

I will protect you forever.

Her breath catches, though she can’t understand the words. Maybe she hears the weight behind them anyway.

She turns in my arms to stare out the porthole, watching the dark waves that carry us further from everything she’s known.

“Tell me about Chicago.” Her request comes soft and unexpected, like the first drops of rain before a storm. “Tell me what you see when you look at my city.”

I could tell her about the corrupt web of power binding the streets together. About the deals made in penthouses while servants scrub blood from marble floors. About the men who rule from corner offices, their hands clean while their souls drip red.

But that’s my Chicago. Not hers.

“I see your park,” I say instead. “The paths you walked with your dogs. The shelter where you volunteered. The small ways you carved out space for yourself in a place that tried to swallow you whole.”

She stiffens against me. “My father…”

“Owns half the cops on the North Side. I know.” My fingers find a knot of tension in her shoulder, work it loose. “But you built something real there anyway. Something that had nothing to do with his power or his control.”

“And now, it’s gone.” The words crack like ice. “Everything I built. Every bit of freedom I clawed out for myself. He wins again.”

“No.” The denial comes fierce and fast. “He loses. Every breath you take away from his influence, every moment you spend healing and growing stronger—those are victories he can’t touch.”

Her laugh holds no humor. “Is that what this is? Healing? Running away on a yacht that probably has more surveillance than a prison?”

“This isn’t a prison, Nova.” But the guilt twists in my gut anyway. Because she’s not entirely wrong. “This is a fortress. And the difference is that every door opens for you. Every security measure exists to keep threats out, not to keep you in.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, processing. When she speaks again, her voice carries the weight of years spent under her father’s thumb.

“I used to dream about escaping him. About building a life so far removed from his influence that he couldn’t touch me.” Her fingers trace patterns on my chest. “I never imagined escape would look like this. Would feel like this.”

The raw honesty in her voice cracks something open inside me. Makes me want to show her that not every man with power uses it as a weapon.

For years, I’ve built walls of wealth and violence, collecting power like ammunition. Every decision calculated to expand my control, to ensure no one could ever make me weak.

Now, I find myself dismantling those walls, brick by brick, to let this woman breathe.

The yacht’s engines thrum beneath our feet, a steady pulse of raw power. But for the first time, that power feels hollow. Empty. What good is an empire of fear if it can’t give Nova the peace she deserves?

“I made a call today,” I tell her, watching her face in the dim light. “Transferred control of Hope’s Helpers to a shell corporation. Your friend can keep running it, but my name will shield it from your father’s influence. From anyone’s influence.”

Nova goes very still against me. “You didn’t have to?—”

“I wanted to.” The truth of it surprises me. “My resources should do more than just destroy things. They should protect what matters.”

She lifts her head, studies me with those amber eyes that see too much. “And what matters to you, Sam?”

Everything I am screams at me to deflect. To maintain distance. To keep my priorities locked behind steel doors where they can’t be used against me.

Instead, I brush my thumb across her cheek and whisper, “You’re changing all my answers to that question.”

The waves slap harder against the hull, making the cabin creak. Nova lifts her head and whispers, “I’m not going back to Chicago, am I?”

I tense, but keep my arms loose around her. The darkness beyond the porthole makes it easier to face this truth. Makes it easier to be the man she needs right now, not the vengeful bastard I’ve trained myself to be.

“Not until I know you’ll be safe there.” My voice comes out rough. Foreign. As if all my carefully maintained control has rusted away in the salt air.

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