Inked Adonis: Chapter 46

Ten minutes into my ride, I text Hope: Watch my grandmother. Whatever you hear about me in the next few hours, keep her safe.

Hope’s reply is instant: Nova WTF???

I switch the phone off and stuff it in my pocket.

“Everything okay back there, miss?” asks the driver.

That’s a loaded question. Physical pain has nothing on the emotional kind. My fractured arm throbs beneath its bandages, my savaged ankle screams, but it’s the sick knot in my stomach that’s truly unbearable.

“I’m fine,” I tell the driver. “Just take me to the address I gave you.”

He eyes me in the rearview mirror. I know what he sees: a woman who looks like she went three rounds with a meat grinder and lost. The German Shepherd did quite a number on me. But these injuries might actually help sell my story to the Andropovs.

Poor little thing, they’ll think. So desperate she dragged herself here straight from the hospital.

The cab turns onto Wacker Drive and Andropov headquarters looms ahead. Sixty stories of black glass and razor edges. The building doesn’t just occupy space in Chicago’s skyline, it threatens it. Even the pigeons avoid landing on its knife-sharp ledges.

Of course my father’s “friends” would operate out of a literal tower of evil.

I make the driver stop a block away. No sense in giving him more connection to this mess than necessary. When he offers to help me out of the car, my heart cracks a little. There are still good people in this world.

I’m just not one of them anymore.

I slide him a hundred for a thirty dollar fare. “I’ve got it from here. But thank you. Really.”

I know too much about this world to think I’m not being recorded from a dozen different angles right now. But it’s okay. No matter what anyone thinks, the truth will come out.

I touch the server in my bag. The intel on it is useless—corrupted code and dead ends that will take the Andropovs weeks to unravel. By then, I’ll have explained everything to Sam. He’ll understand why I had to do this.

He has to understand. Because if he doesn’t…

A gust of winter wind knifes through my thin sweater. I square my shoulders and limp toward the revolving doors. Time to get this over with.

I look back to the road before I duck through the entrance. The black SUV that was tailing my taxi across the city is idling on the other side of the street now. Could be my father’s men making sure I follow through. Could be Andropov’s people tracking their mark.

Could be Samuil’s men, about to witness my betrayal in 4K.

Which means changing course is not an option.

Not that it ever was. The second my father threatened Grams, my part in this little drama was a guarantee.

The lobby is a cathedral of corporate menace, all gleaming black marble and precision angles designed to remind you just how small you are. The security desk stretches wide as an altar.

I see the neat row of receptionists along the back wall, just like my father said I would. They sit behind what I’m sure is bulletproof glass, typing away. The clicking of their keyboards echoes off the hard surfaces of the lobby.

The petite receptionist doesn’t look up from her computer as I approach her desk. “Can I help you?”

“I need to deliver this to Paul Andropov.” I read the words off the mental script in my mind, saying and doing exactly as my father instructed.

She looks up at me for the first time. Her expression doesn’t change one bit as she takes stock of my bandages and bruises. I doubt I’m the first banged-up person she’s had stumble into this lobby looking for Mr. Andropov.

I place the tote bag on the marble countertop. “It’s important.”

All at once, her face smooths out. There’s no doubt now that she’s been expecting me. “Your name?”

“Nova Pierce.”

I should’ve given her a fake one—not that it really matters. One brief look around the room reveals the glowing red lights of security cameras in every corner and behind every receptionist.

She nods like my name is some kind of password. “You can leave the package here. I’ll see that he gets it.”

I slide the entire tote bag under the small gap in the glass, saying goodbye to my yellow sweater in the process. The woman accepts it with a nod and then promptly goes back to her computer screen.

I hesitate, waiting for some kind of receipt—a voucher that says “Evil Deed Completed” that I can hand to my father as proof.

“Is that all?” I finally ask.

She exhales impatiently. “Unless you have something else to hand over…?”

“No, nothing.”

When she doesn’t say anything, I take that as my cue and turn tail towards the revolving doors.

My tongue has gone back to sandpaper roughness and the pain in my limbs is incapacitating. All I want to do right now is go back to the penthouse, pop a fistful of ibuprofen, and tunnel under my duvet for eighteen hours of dreamless sleep.

I’ll need the rest if I’m going to explain this to Sam in any coherent way.

And I’ll have to explain it to him somehow. Because once the Andropovs realize the server I handed to them was a dud, my father will follow through with his threats. He’ll rip Grams out of her home and stop paying for her care, and I’ll need Sam on my side if I’m going to save her.

He’ll understand, I tell myself as I limp to the curb. He’ll take care of you and Grams. Sam is a good man.

Just as I raise my arm to hail a cab, someone grabs my bandaged arm.

Instantly, I howl in pain, but whoever is holding onto me doesn’t care. They squeeze tighter until I’m sure they’re going to snap my arm clean in two.

“Get off!” The words come out in a plea. I’m too desperate for the pain to stop to be angry.

I double over, looking to the side just long enough to catch a flash of icy-blue eyes and a bloodthirsty smile.

Ilya squeezes my arm, grinning as I cry out in pain. “Looks like you could use a lift.”

He shoves me into the back of a black SUV. I’m unfortunately familiar with that concept, but the agony that ripples down my arm and through my leg is new. I’m sure whatever stitches I have are ripped. Blood is leaching through the bandage on my arm, and I don’t even want to think what that means for my fracture.

I roll onto my good side, groaning softly, just as Ilya slams the door closed.

“Let me go.”

I know it’s no use, but I have to at least ask.

He clicks his tongue. “No can do.”

He raps once on the ceiling. The tires screech, and I flop against the backseat with another whimper of pain.

“Up you go.” Ilya hauls me out of the well between the seats and slumps me against the car door. I’m in so much pain, I can’t even argue with him as he drags a black pillow case over my head.

“Wh-where are you taking me?”

“Worried you’ll miss an appointment?” He snorts. “You’ve already visited your father, popped into the penthouse to steal from my brother, and then hand-delivered the goods to his enemies. Busy, busy day you’ve had.”

So it was Ilya in the SUV all along. I’d say I’m surprised, but the pain lancing through me is too intense to even register an emotion. It’s just a soft, mental Oh, of course.

And then right back to the regularly scheduled programming of trying not to vomit from the agony.

“You can try to argue, but I’ve got it all on tape,” he informs me smugly. “And as of two minutes ago, I sent that video to Samuil. He’s gonna be so disappointed in his little lover. He was so sure he could trust you.”

“He can,” I pant, the air inside this pillowcase mask already growing stale and humid. “He can trust me. It’s not— I was doing it for Samuil. To help.”

But even as I say it, the thought of Sam opening his phone to see clips of me prancing into the fortress of his enemies to pass over sensitive intel makes me even more nauseous than the pain.

Because I know what’s going to happen.

That glimmer of gold I saw in him will disappear. It’ll get clouded behind black rage, black betrayal. His eyes will go cold and he won’t look at me with love or tenderness or hope.

He’ll look at me and see a woman sliding a knife in his back.

And everything we might’ve had will be lost.

That pain hurts worse than anything the dog did to me. I double over, wincing, cheeks wet with tears. It’s one thing to be hopeless. It’s another thing to have a happy future right in the palm of your hand…

And then feel it all slither away.

“Save the waterworks for Samuil,” Ilya spits. “That’s where we’re headed, by the way—to see your boyfriend. Which, I’m pretty sure, means you’re about to die.” He winces like he actually cares. “Sorry about that. Tough break.”

I know there’s no point in it, but I can’t stop myself from sucking in as much air as I can and screaming. No one outside this car can hear me and no one inside cares, but I try.

I have to try.

Then there’s a sharp pain on my arm. A metallic jab, followed by a cold sensation in my bones, like Chicago winter creeping in from the inside out.

I stop screaming.

And the world goes dark.