Inked Adonis: Chapter 40

This time, I go looking for Samuil the second I get back to the penthouse.

Let no one say Nova Pierce doesn’t learn her lessons.

“Samuil?” My voice echoes through marble halls that suddenly feel more like a mausoleum than a home. Rufus and Ruby trail behind me, their nails clicking against the floor. “Sam?”

My hands shake as I move through the house. Leonid was right: Sam was at the rink this morning. But he should be back by now. When he doesn’t answer, dark possibilities swirl in my brain.

Is he gone? Did the enemies he mentioned the other night come for him?

Is Leonid one of those enemies?

Considering he’s walking around paying off the women in Samuil’s life to leave him, I wouldn’t say he’s Team Samuil.

I push the door to Sam’s home office open, not really expecting to find him, but there he is.

He’s kicked back in a chair, clad in a navy suit, his hands steepled under his chin. He’s frowning at his laptop so intently that he doesn’t even see me in the doorway.

“Sam?”

He blinks away from the screen, his eyes lifting to me slowly.

For a moment, it feels as though he’s looking right through me. Like his head is somewhere else entirely.

“You’re home,” he says simply.

“So are you. I wasn’t sure. You didn’t answer when I—” I wave it off, suddenly unsure. The man I woke up with this morning felt touchable. This version? Impossible. “It doesn’t matter. I need to talk to you.”

He reaches out with one heavy hand and closes his laptop. The snap of it shutting makes me flinch. Just last night, he told me I should bring anything and everything to him, but now, I can’t help but feel like I’m interrupting something I shouldn’t have.

His hair is shorter than it was earlier today and his soft beard has been shaved back into a shadowy stubble. This morning in my bed feels like a different life. A different woman. A different man.

Maybe that’s why I perch on the edge of his desk and reach for his hand. It’s only once his fingers wrap around mine that his blue eyes clear. Finally, he focuses all of his attention on me, running a thumb along my knuckles. “What’s going on?”

“There’s not really a good way to segue into this, so I guess I’m just going to go for it.” I take a deep breath. “I just met your father.”

“What are you talking about?” His voice drops an octave, setting off every warning bell in my body.

“The man who gave you half of your genes—I just ran into him at Lincoln Park. Or, really, he ran into me. Well, he didn’t run into me, he just—” I press my hands to my hot cheeks and force myself to exhale. “I’m rambling, but it’s only because I’m probably still in shock.”

Death threats have a way of throwing off your equilibrium, I’m finding.

Sam squeezes my wrist. “Calm down, krasavitsa. Start at the beginning.”

“I don’t want to calm down.” The laugh that tears from my throat sounds unhinged. “I want to break things. I want to scream. I want to understand how the hell you grew up with that man and survived.”

“You really did meet my father,” he mutters under his breath.

I laugh again—just like I did at the park. This time, the wild sound catches in my throat, coming out more like a sob. I slide my clammy palm to my flushed neck. “I can’t believe that just happened. I mean, what the hell is up with that park? The police should post up down there. It’s full of shady people.”

“What did he say?”

I expected Sam to charge out the door the second I told him, chasing after his father. I also expected him to push some super-secret button under his desk that would bring steel bars hurtling down over the doors and windows.

But he’s perfectly at ease. Relaxed, even.

He has to know what his father is capable of, and yet…

“He offered me money to leave you,” I say quietly. “A million dollars to walk away. Maybe I should be flattered. That’s a lot of money for someone like me.”

“And what did you tell him?” Sam asks evenly.

“I—” I study his face, trying to decide if he’s serious. Everything about him says he is. “Is that a real question? I laughed in his face and left. Obviously.”

Is that relief I see flashing in Samuil’s eyes? As if I’d ever accept a dime from his father?

“I don’t think many people have refused him,” I continue, remembering the way Leonid’s face had twisted with rage. “Because he did not look happy. Actually, I know he wasn’t happy. Unless murder threats are his love language.”

Samuil jolts to his feet. “He threatened you?”

This is more of the kind of reaction I expected. Apparently, I should’ve led with the murder threats.

“He said Ruby and Rufus ‘aren’t vicious enough to protect me from what’s coming.’ But he wasn’t specific about what exactly is coming. He might not even know. I don’t think he had a detailed threat planned. From what he implied, most people choose to take the money.”

The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. Leonid said he offered Samuil’s mother money. Katerina told me Sam’s mother abandoned him when he was only a little boy. She told me he was broken because of it.

The last woman Leonid flashed cash in front of didn’t make the same choice I did.

And now, she floats between us like a ghost.

“I-is it true?” I ask. “That he gave your mother money to leave and⁠—”

Sam drops my hand like it burns, every muscle in his body coiling tight. “I will not discuss this with you.”

His chest rises and falls, betraying the apathy on his face.

Still, I find myself drifting towards him, seeking him out even when he pulls away. “Sam… Your family is toxic. Trust me, I know a thing or two about it. You’ll never be free until you get away from them. All of them. Like I did.”

He stays facing out of the window. “You want me to run.”

“Don’t you want to?” I press. “Your father mentioned that there was a time when you considered leaving the family business. He said you wanted to play hockey.”

“When I was eighteen.” In the reflection, his scowl is all I can see. The rest is shadow. “I grew up.”

“What I’m saying is, would it really be so bad to pursue a different career? A different life?” My hands clench at my sides, fighting the urge to touch him. “Working for the Litvinov Group means you have to keep your father and brother in your life. But if you left, you could be free.”

He turns to me slowly, every movement deliberate. Controlled. Like he doesn’t trust himself to move any faster. “I don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Sam.” I grab his hand, desperate to make him understand. To save him from this darkness he’s drowning in. “You—we—can leave. We can get out of Chicago and start fresh somewhere else.”

Hope would understand. She’d visit. I could take Grams and the dogs with me.

I can picture it all so clearly it hurts—Sam and I, anonymous in some city far from here. No spies or death threats or bodyguards. Just us, building something real.

But the downward twist of his lips doesn’t bode well for my little fantasy.

“Being free is an illusion, Nova. I can’t run from the Litvinov Group—I am the Litvinov Group. I can’t change my name or my birthright. And I wouldn’t want to.”

He doesn’t want to.

He doesn’t feel trapped; Sam has chosen this life.

He curls a finger under my chin, forcing my eyes up to meet his. “I worked too hard to let it all go now.”

“I don’t understand.” My voice breaks. “I thought you’d want to escape.”

His face might as well be etched from stone. If so, it’s the saddest sculpture I’ve ever seen. Solemn and sorrowful all at once. “You were brave to leave your family behind, Nova, but I wasn’t built to leave or run. I was built to stand my ground and fight for what’s mine.”

I swallow, trying to blink away the tears threatening to resurface. “So what does that mean for me? For us?”

He holds my gaze for a moment. Then his hand falls away. “We’ll discuss this later. I have to leave.”

My breath hitches. “What do you mean?”

“I have to go back to Moscow. Something’s come up that requires my immediate attention.”

The intense focus on his face when I came through the door makes sense now. The way he closed his laptop does, too.

The way he won’t meet my eyes now seals the deal: this is more Bratva business.

He’s leaving. Sam is always going to be leaving and fighting and surviving, and I’m supposed to understand without ever asking questions.

“Do I get to know why?”

“It’s better if you don’t.”

I stare down at my shoes. “I can’t believe this is happening again already.”

“I’ll call you this time,” he promises. “I won’t go completely dark, but… I have to go.”

“And I’m just supposed to stay here and wait? When will you be back?”

He doesn’t say a word.

His silence fills my lungs like smoke, choking off everything I want to scream at him. We’d been so close this morning – his fingers in my hair, his lips on my neck, his promises against my skin. Now he might as well be in Moscow already.

In between the soft, tender moments we had this morning, there’s always going to be this dark, twisted flip side. A revolving door of almost-happiness followed by inevitable goodbye.

I wrap my arms around myself, fighting the chill that settles over me. The dogs press against my legs, seeking comfort or offering it, I’m not sure which. But their warmth can’t touch the ice spreading through my chest as I watch Sam turn back to his laptop.

Just like that, I’m dismissed. Cast aside for whatever Bratva business demands his attention now.

I can’t believe this is happening again. So soon. Too soon.

It hasn’t been a day since he knelt in front of me and gave a grand speech about being my equal. Not my captor, not my warden, my equal.

And here he is now, stashing me away in the dark again. Ignoring my questions again. Keeping me out of sight, out of mind, out of his fucking way.

Again.

I can’t live like this.

“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t unpack, then,” I say. He doesn’t try to stop me as I make my way to the door. “If you’re not going to be here, there’s no reason for me to be, either. I’m going back to my apartment.”

Here’s another lesson I’m learning: It’s not first cuts that are the deepest. It’s the ones that slice you open in the same spot, again and again and again.

At a certain point, you just don’t have any more blood left to spill.