Inked Adonis: Chapter 12

“Who?”

I heard him; I did. I just can’t believe this is who we’re talking about after he dragged me, mid-panic attack, through Lincoln Park.

“Katerina Alekseeva,” he repeats in a flawless Russian accent. Silver eyes pin me to the leather seat like a butterfly in a collection. “How long have you been working for her?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks, I guess? Since I started walking Rufus.”

“Don’t pretend this is about the dog.” Gone is the man who made me scream his name in my bathroom. In his place sits a stranger wearing an executioner’s eyes.

I tilt my head, channeling my inner confused puppy. “Have you been body-snatched? Is this some kind of alien invasion thing?” I twist around to look at Rufus, who’s giving me the same bewildered expression from the third row. “What else would this be about? I’m a dog-walker, Sam. I walk dogs.”

His nostrils flare. I clock the way his hand tightens on his knee, practically aching for violence. God knows I’ve seen that before—just not on him. “When did she approach you?”

I catalog every detail of him like I’m solving a puzzle that might save my life. I’m desperate for him to transform back into the charming man who didn’t mind when I ruined his suits, who laughed at my jokes and touched me like I was precious.

But from where I’m sitting now, that man was nothing but a beautiful lie.

“She didn’t approach me,” I say, measuring each word. “She was already in Hope’s client list, looking for personal assistance. Then I joined Hope’s team, and I started walking Rufus. Today was the first time I’ve even seen this woman. She’s an important client and⁠—”

“I’ll bet she is,” he mutters acidly.

“What the hell is going on?” I wipe my sweaty palms against my jeans, waiting for him to answer, to make sense, for any of this to make some fucking sense.

But… nothing. Crickets. He stares straight ahead like I’m not even here.

I let out a bitter laugh. “Figures. We hauled ass across the park, but now, you have nothing to say?” Again, I wait for a reaction. This time, when he ignores me, I snap. “Sam!”

“How much is she paying you?”

I frown. “Considering the shit Rufus has put me through the last couple weeks and the size of her house, not nearly enough.”

His head whips towards me. “You’ve been to her greystone?”

The hair on my arms stands on end. How does he know where she lives? “Er, yeah, I have. Have you?”

“And you expect me to believe that you met her only today?”

“I did!”

“Kat doesn’t let just anyone into her home.”

The way he says her name tells me everything and nothing at the same time. He knows her, but how?

“What is going on?” At this point, I’m asking the universe. The man next to me isn’t much for answers.

His lips press into a cruel line. “What does she want from you?”

“Oh my God.” I point at my face. “Dog-walker.” Then back at Rufus. “Dog. I’m not sure how I can explain that more clearly. Katerina is busy and rich, and she clearly has no interest in taking care of Rufus herself, so that is where blue-collar peasants like me enter the equation.”

He turns to stare out his window. The muscle in his jaw works like it’s trying to escape his face.

“Sam,” I try, lowering my voice, “please tell me what’s going on.”

He doesn’t bother to look back as he answers. “You play your part well, Nova. You almost had me fooled. But I’m not going to fall for your innocent act again.”

He isn’t touching me—he isn’t even yelling—but Samuil Litvinov wields words like others do weapons. And he knows exactly where to stick them to make me bleed.

I blink back tears and try to understand how I got here. Better yet, how I’m going to get out.

After I’ve cycled through all of my options—a whopping total of none—Samuil asks, “What have you told her about me?”

“Nothing! We never talked about you. The only person I told was Hope. No one else—” I bite my tongue.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell the man who just kidnapped me that no one else knows he and I are connected. I mean, who would even believe it? Hope could barely believe it, and she witnessed our first meeting with her own eyes.

Two nights ago, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Now, I’m wondering if I’ve just won a one-way ticket to my own funeral.

“This will go a lot easier for you if you cooperate with me.”

“Is that a threat?” The confidence I’ve gained in the last ten minutes is as precarious as my voice right now. I clear my throat and try to make both a bit more solid. “I’ve told you what I know: Katerina is a client. I met her today to talk about Rufus. I walk Rufus. That’s it.”

My words don’t sway him.

That fist of his stays clenched on his lap. And even though he’s half-turned from me, I can see enough of that dark gleam in his eye to start to ask the horrible question I used to ask of my father…

How much longer until he’s willing to use it?

“Who are you?” The whisper scrapes my throat raw. “Like, who are you really?”

“Someone you don’t want to lie to.”

The panic is back. It’s clawing at my throat, cinching around my chest. Hope mentioned something about the Litvinovs being involved in the mafia, didn’t she? Of course, she’d said it with a squeal and a giggle. Like it was a good thing.

Nice suits and blacked-out cars and, like, champagne and caviar at galas! How fun!

Note to self: if I don’t get murdered and buried in a shallow grave, tell Hope that mafia guys aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

The sex was phenomenal.

The kidnapping? Not so much.

The SUV jerks to a stop. If it weren’t for my seatbelt, I’d be kissing the back of the front seat. Before I can catch my breath, Samuil’s out of the vehicle.

Then my door is torn open, and I’m staring directly into those suddenly soulless silver eyes.

“Get out.”

I move like I’m on autopilot. The idea to run doesn’t even occur to me. Where would I go that someone like Samuil wouldn’t find me? Inside a church, maybe, because I get the feeling he might get struck by lightning if he tried to follow me in there. Short of that, I have no options—and there aren’t any churches in sight.

So, with a gulp, I duck my head and follow him into the towering Gold Coast apartment building that I’ve only ever seen in photos of the skyline.

The lobby smells just like I thought it would: potpourri and tax evasion. Samuil punches in a code that he shields from me with one hand, summoning a private elevator. The interior is encased in polished chrome, giving me a three-sixty view of myself, small and trembling, with walls of sunglassed muscle on either side.

The elevator rockets straight to the penthouse—surprise, surprise.

I have no more than a few seconds to look around the palatial apartment before I’m herded down a long hallway and into a room with wall-to-wall windows overlooking the lake.

One step in, and the door clicks shut behind me. I don’t need to try the handle to know it’s locked.

I’m not sure why, but I feel vulnerable without Samuil next to me. It’s not as if he was on my side, but at least he was the devil I knew.

The man standing in front of me is a total stranger.

“You must be Nova Pierce.” He’s good-looking in a rough-around-the-edges kind of way. Slightly shorter than Samuil, but his muscles have muscles. His biceps strain against his black t-shirt like they’re plotting an escape. These aren’t gym muscles—these are break-you-in-half muscles.

“Who are you?”

He smiles and gestures towards a suede couch. “Myles. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I’d rather not.”

“I just don’t want you to pass out,” he explains. “You look a little unsteady.”

“Being abducted in broad daylight can make a woman a little weak in the knees.”

He doesn’t deny my accusation. He doesn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest, actually. “Fair enough. You thirsty?”

Yes, actually. But I glare at him. “I don’t want a drink. What I want is to leave.”

“Sure, sure, we’ll get to that.” He ambles closer, looking casual as if that will disguise the way he’s cutting off my escape routes. “You just need to answer a few questions for me first.”

“I already answered all of Samuil’s questions. I have nothing more to add.” My knees wobble again, and I grudgingly lower myself onto the sofa. I’m hanging on by a thread here.

“Listen, I understand that this is overwhelming. I understand you want to leave.”

“Great. Glad we could see eye to eye. Easy solution: let me go.”

“Unfortunately,” he sighs, “it’s not that simple.”

“Abducting innocent women rarely is.”

He rakes a hand through his close-cropped crew cut. He’s not a bad-looking man, honestly—both in the “easy on the eyes” and “doesn’t seem like he’s actively interested in disemboweling me” versions of the phrase.

“That’s the rub: the kind of people who associate with Katerina Alekseeva are rarely innocent.”

“For God’s sake!” The words explode out of me. “How many more times do I have to say it? Katerina is a business client. And my ‘business’ is walking fucking dogs! Our clientele are rich, snobby, and probably shady as hell. But as long as they aren’t smuggling cocaine balloons up their dogs’ buttholes, it’s none of my business. They pay me to walk dogs. End of story.”

The man cocks his head to the side. “You’re very convincing.”

“It’s easy to be convincing when you tell the truth.”

“Then you won’t mind if we do a little background check on you?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to squeeze away the headache I feel coming on. I’m half-tempted to click my heels together and start murmuring There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

Myles is silent for a few seconds, studying me carefully. Then he smiles sympathetically. “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time… it wouldn’t be the first time.”

I look up at him and blink, not sure I’m hearing him correctly. “Are you… agreeing with me? Are you saying you’ll let me go?”

“Assuming your background check is clean, I’d have no reason to keep you here.”

My heart leaps into my throat. “Fine! Great. Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”

“Wonderful.” He slaps his palms against his knees as he rises to his feet. “Let me show you to your room.”

“I don’t need a room. I can just wait here while you run your background check.”

He winces apologetically, but there’s something in his eyes that tells me he’s enjoying this. “I’m afraid our process is going to take longer than a few hours.”

I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve sensed it.

The catch.

Sooner or later, it always comes.

“How much longer?”

I brace myself. Twelve hours? Twenty-four? Maybe forty-eight, if it’s over a weekend?

“Two weeks, at least.”

I clutch the arm of the sofa, my nails sinking deep enough to leave permanent scars in the luxe fabric. “‘Two weeks?!’”

“At least.”

“You’re going to keep me prisoner here for two freaking weeks?”

“At least.”

“Stop that,” I cry. “Stop repeating yourself! Say something useful, like why the hell it takes so long for a background check!”

“Because even if the background checks, surveillance footage, phone data, and online footprints come back clean, our team of lawyers will have to write up a whole metric fuck-ton of NDAs for you to sign before you can resume your normal life.”

I’m in real danger of hyperventilating.

Or throwing up.

Or passing out.

Maybe all three. We call that “bingo” in the panic attack game.

For some reason, “online footprints” is the part that’s really sticking with me. All of those pictures of Samuil shirtless… the hours I spent scrolling…

I should be worried about my life, not my dignity.

But I’ve always been a good multitasker.

“I just want to go home,” I whimper.

Myles gives me a tight, sympathetic smile. “For the next two weeks, this is your home.”

His words fall like a guillotine blade, severing the last thread of hope I’d been clinging to.

Welcome to Penthouse Prison, Nova.

Hope you survive the stay.