Page 68 of Inked Athena

He arches a dark eyebrow. “And which direction do you think the three of us are headed?”

“Towards cornering Katerina once and for all.”

He sighs, like there are entire universes of darkness in his head that I can’t begin to comprehend.

“You don’t understand, Nova. This is so much bigger than just Katerina. She may be manipulative and psychotic, but she’s just a cog in a much bigger wheel.”

“I get that?—”

“No.” His words are sharp and curt. “You don’t. Because if you understood, you wouldn’t have wanted to contact Hope or your grandmother in the first place. If you’d truly grasped what was at stake, you would’ve known that contacting them meant risking their lives.”

My chin starts to wobble.

Samuil steps towards me, his fingers curling over the sharp tips of the fork. If it hurts him, he shows no sign of it. “You see three parts of a whole connected by a solid base? Well, I see three separate, rigid entities—standing in isolation, never meeting.”

My mouth is too dry to work well. I have to wet my lips before I can speak again. “You can’t be that pessimistic.”

“I’m not. I’m realistic. You should try it some time.”

I relinquish the fork, abandoning it on the stone island with a sad, muted clatter. “This is stupid, Samuil. We should be working together. We should be in this together.”

“We were,” Samuil intones. “Then Myles betrayed me by going behind my back. He understands why he was exiled. So should you.”

I shake my head. I know I’m pushing against a mountain, expecting it to bend. And still, I try. Because the guilt is eating me alive.

I have to fix things.

“Please don’t do this, Samuil.” Pride is a small price to pay if it means Myles can stay. “You can go to him, rehire him, ask him to stay... Please.”

A log shifts in the fire, sending up a shower of crimson sparks. The kitchen suddenly feels too small, too confined, like the stone walls are closing in with the weight of Samuil’s words. Outside, a gust of Highland wind howls against the castle walls. The world itself is warning me.

“Since you seem to enjoy cutlery metaphors so much, here’s one for you.” Samuil takes a step back and plucks the knife off his plate. “The Andropovs are a knife, Nova. Made of ruthless, relentless steel. Their only job is to sever and divide. If they set their sights on you, they will cut until they draw blood.” It feels like he’s looking right through me. “My orders were clear. Myles chose to ignore them, and by ignoring them, he put you directly in harm’s way. If he can do that once, he can do it again?—”

“He won’t if you just?—”

“I’m not taking that risk.” He drops the knife back onto his plate. His chin is raised, his posture defiant, but his eyes are seeing things that I can’t. “Myles knew the rules.”

A bitter laugh rips from my throat. “‘Rules?’ Do you even hear yourself? Fuck rules! There are things that don’t need ‘rules,’ and relationships are one of those things.”

He simply shakes his head. Sad. Solemn. Unyielding. A mountain cloaked in rain. “Not in my world,” he says. “This is how things are.”

“But they don’t have to stay that way.” My voice is shaky, but I force the words out—my last chance to make things right. “Those are the rules your father wrote, but you can change them, Sam. You can be better than the men who came before you. You swore you would. Don’t you remember?”

Something flickers in his expression—pain or rage or regret, I’ll never know. Because he stands, adjusts his sweater, and walks out.

Leaving me alone in the massive kitchen with nothing but dying embers, cooling shepherd’s pie, and the weight of everything we’ve lost.

I press my hand to my belly. “Your father,” I whisper, “thinks he has to choose between love and survival.” My voice breaks. “I just pray he figures out they’re the same thing before it’s too late.”

The Highland wind howls its answer.

It sounds an awful lot like grief.

26

SAMUIL

Whoever said misery loves company doesn’t know a fucking thing.

---