Inked Adonis (Litvinov Bratva Book 1)
Inked Adonis: Chapter 37

I let the dogs loose from their leashes in the elevator. Like me, and despite a six-mile run, they’re still vibrating with unspent energy when the doors part. Rufus darts into the apartment with his nose pressed to the floor.

Some small part of me thinks Nova might be back. That same small part was sure she’d show up to walk the dogs this morning.

But it was wrong then. It’s wrong now, too. Just like this morning, just like last night, Nova still isn’t here.

Instead, I find Myles standing on the other side of the island. He raises a steaming mug of coffee in greeting to me and bends down to scratch Rufus and Ruby.

Once the dogs are content, he peeks up at me with an arched brow. “You look like ass.”

I kick off my running shoes and pour myself a cup of coffee. “If you wanted to insult me, you could’ve done it over text. That’s how you handle everything else these days, isn’t it?”

His laugh holds no humor. “If you’re trying to make me feel bad for not telling you to your face that I drove Nova home, you’re wasting your breath. I know better than to put myself in your path when your dad is in town.”

I can’t decide which part to pick at first. My bad mood had nothing to do with my father and everything to do with Nova lying to me.

As my head of security, it’s Myles’s job to report important information to me. And a five-word text—Nova @ apt, needed space—hardly qualifies as a thorough debrief from the man who’s supposed to be keeping the boundaries of my empire intact.

I latch onto the bit still reverberating in my ears. “What ‘home’? This penthouse is her home now.”

“Feel free to tell her that yourself.”

I slam the coffee pot back onto the burner, the dregs at the bottom sizzling. “Maybe Katerina can. Nova seems to listen to her.”

“You say that as if you stopped breaking things for long enough to ask Nova what exactly Kat might have told her,” he fires back.

“I didn’t have to ask; she had the fucking proof in her bedside drawer!” I seal my hands around the mug, the heat burning the pads of my fingers with a kind of dull pain that I need more than anything right now. “Not that you managed to catch that security breach. Ilya had to do it for you. Do we need to do a performance review?”

“Great. You’re mad at me now. Let’s hear it.” He waves me on. “We both agreed Nova was clean and my time would be better spent looking into the Ukrainian mole you won’t stop running around the city having clandestine lunches with. But I can’t wait to hear how this is all my fault.”

“The Andropovs put a cellphone in the hand of my girlfriend, and you’re my head of security. Who else’s fault would it be?” I bark.

Myles huffs out another lifeless laugh. “You know, I actually believed you when you said you had ideas for how to handle things yesterday.” He mimes a big swing and a miss. “What went down must’ve been a first draft.”

“Fuck you.” I set the mug down hard enough for black coffee to slosh over the rim and singe my hands. Again, I welcome it. The pain is good. Pain is a reminder: Do not stray from the path you chose for yourself.

“Pithy,” Myles says, unfazed. “You always did have a way with words.”

“I found the evidence you failed to notice for over a week,” I snarl. “From where I’m standing, my plan worked out great.”

“I shudder to think of the kind of shitstorm we’ll be in if one of your plans ever goes poorly.” He plants his hands on the counter next to the spilled coffee, his head lolling low like he’s the one who’s tired. “It’s my job to be honest with you, Sam.”

“No, it’s your job to protect my assets. Not chauffeur them to unsecured apartments all the way across the fucking city. You’re a glorified fucking babysitter at best.”

“If you really think I left her apartment unsecured, you should fire me right now.” He holds my gaze, hesitating like he’s giving me the opportunity to consider the offer. “If you think I’m that useless at my job, then let me go. Because—fucking hell, Sam, how long have we been at this together?”

Long enough. Even as I hear myself belittle him, I know I’m wrong, that I’m going too far in all the wrong places. He’s no babysitter—he’s the one man I trust at my side. Myles Hagerty is the lone person in this world who doesn’t make me feel like I need to hold their hand to get the job done. He’s thorough. He’s consistent. He’s never let me down. Not once.

So why am I ripping into him?

I wish I had an answer I was willing to face.

He shoves away from the counter, sighing deeply. “Look, this was a fuck-up. I know that. I will carry every ounce of my piece of the blame that there was even an opportunity for the Andropovs to have a spy in this house. But, Sam… they didn’t get to Nova. She’s still clean. We can trust her.”

My lips contort in a vicious sneer. “She worked for Kat before I knew her. Her father is on the Andropov payroll.” I count each offense off on my fingers. “She kept the phone Kat gave her. She went to my brother’s office alone. How much more does it take to condemn her, man?”

“She went there looking for you!” He shakes his head in disgust. “Samuil, what are we doing here? You let Ilya and Leonid get to you yesterday, and then you took it out on Nova.”

“She carried that phone around for over a week! She let Katerina get to her. I didn’t do a damn thing.”

Myles nods like he agrees. “Right. You didn’t do anything. You definitely didn’t prepare Nova for the kind of threats she’ll be under now that she’s in your life. She has no fucking clue the kind of mess she’s in.”

“She knows who Katerina is. She isn’t stupid⁠—”

“No, but she’s scared. I know because I saw it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You destroyed the evidence and stormed off, but I saw Nova last night. She was a wreck, man.”

When I tried to close my eyes last night, all I could see was her face as I backed her against the wall. The way she almost screamed when I touched her. And the way she swallowed that scream right back down before it could pass her lips—as if she’s had a lifetime of practice of cowering in the face of violent men who mean to do her harm.

I blink the image away now. “Guilt has a way of eating away at a person.”

Myles tilts his head, studying me for a beat. Then he sighs yet again. “For what it’s worth, ‘glorified babysitter’ or not, I did do my job, you know. Snapping the phone in half didn’t make said job any easier, but I was able to sift through the shrapnel you left me and find the internal memory. I gave it a thorough search.”

Despite my better judgment, I ask, “And?”

I never really went as far as to imagine what Nova would’ve told Kat—the kind of information she would’ve shared. Even now, when I’m trying, I still can’t.

What could she have told her?

How my face looks when I bury myself inside her and feel like I can finally breathe again?

How, when both of us have come and floated back down to earth, we stay intertwined like the mere thought of letting each other go is pure agony?

How I want her when she’s just a room away?

How she’s brought me to my knees, again and again and again, how she’s made me lose control, and how I’ve never once thought to hate her for that? How I loved her for it instead?

“Nova held onto that phone for a week and never even powered it on, brother,” Myles says quietly. “No texts. No calls. She didn’t breathe a word to Katerina.”

She’s innocent.

She did not betray you.

Her only crime was making you love her.

“She kept the phone,” I growl. “That’s enough.”

He runs a hand through his shorn hair. “If being skeeved out by Katerina is a crime, then we’re all guilty. But hey—you’re the boss. If you’re happy with how things went, then so am I. The grim silence in this penthouse is the sound of success. Cherish it.” Myles downs the rest of his coffee and puts his mug in the sink. “Anyway, I’ve got shit to do. Babysitting is a full-time gig, apparently.”

“When did she say she was coming back?” I ask just before he’s out of the room.

“She didn’t.”

I stand at the counter long after Myles leaves, hating how transparent I’ve become. The penthouse feels wrong—too quiet, too empty, too much like the fortress it was before Nova crashed into my life.

The sound of success, Myles called it. No, it’s the sound of fucking disaster.

Last night, I convinced myself her absence would make things simpler. Cleaner. The way they used to be, when I could focus on what matters: power, control, survival.

The tasks ahead are too crucial for distractions. Ilya’s preparing his next move. Katerina and the Andropovs are circling. Father’s mood changes with the winds, and who the fuck knows what the next shift will bring to my doorstep.

I don’t need Nova’s scent on my sheets or her laugh echoing through these rooms or her stupid documentaries playing in the background while I work.

But as I stare at the coffee stains on marble, all I can think about is how she dances while she makes breakfast, how she hums when she thinks no one’s listening, how she looks at me like I’m something more than the violence in my blood.

The women who came before her wanted my money, my name, my power. Nova just wanted me.

And I repaid that trust by treating her like every other threat to my empire.

Rufus butts his head against my leg with a whine that sounds too much like an accusation. When I meet his dark eyes, I see the same emptiness there that’s threatening to swallow me whole.

He doesn’t understand why she’s gone. Neither do I, not really.

I can justify my reaction. She kept secrets. She met with Katerina. She put herself at risk.

But she also stood between Ilya’s gun and this mutt without hesitation. She calls me out on my bullshit. She makes me want to be worthy of the way she looks at me.

My father would say I’m weak for even considering this. Ilya would laugh. The other Bratva families would see it as a vulnerability to exploit.

Let them.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” My fingers find the spot behind Rufus’s ears that Nova always scratches. “Let’s go get our girl.’