Inked Adonis (Litvinov Bratva Book 1)

My hunger strike is off to a rough start.

I’m locked in my room, but it turns out that cell reception doesn’t care too much about deadbolts. My phone hums with pictures from Samuil of chicken satay dripping in peanut sauce, pad thai glistening with oil and lime, and a chilled glass of white wine big enough to swim in, all artfully arranged against the Chicago skyline.

I have only myself to blame. I handed the bastard the playbook to my own undoing.

When he texted me that first week to ask what my final meal on this earth would be, I thought it was so he could take me out on a thoughtful date. I never thought it might be so he could make it my actual final meal.

My phone buzzes again.

SAMUIL: You sure you don’t want to eat? I make a mean pad thai.

I snort, rolling onto my back on the cloud-soft mattress. The idea of Samuil Litvinov cooking anything is laughable. Though the food in the picture does look homemade, with bits of crushed peanuts scattered just so and fresh herbs still bright green…

NOVA: I’d rather dine with Satan himself than break bread with you.

SAMUIL: Satan’s a terrible dinner companion. No table manners.

Against my will, my lips twitch. I throw my phone onto the bed a few feet away from me. I refuse to be sucked into a flirty text exchange with the man who’s holding me prisoner. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.

I don’t care that this prison comes with a five-star view and a memory foam mattress—a prison is a prison, no matter how pretty.

Forty-five minutes later, however, the five-star view is starting to look like a five-course meal. The skyscrapers morph into deli subs and long kebab skewers loaded with succulent, perfectly seared chicken and beef.

Almost as though he’s monitoring my thoughts, my phone pings with a message.

SAMUIL: Care to join us?

The question is accompanied by a picture of Rufus sprawled across Samuil’s lap, tongue lolling in a doggy grin.

“Traitor!” I hiss at the screen.

NOVA: If Rufus actually cared about me, you’d be in pieces on that fancy floor of yours.

SAMUIL: Dogs are excellent judges of character.

NOVA: Stop texting me.

He does.

Then I spend the next half hour staring at my phone, waiting for him to text again.

Because prison is boring, and apparently, I haven’t hit my rock bottom yet.

The silence stretches, broken only by the soft hum of the central air and the distant sounds of Chicago traffic fifty floors below. Eventually, I give up on both food and Samuil and crawl under the covers.

I curl up under sheets that feel like clouds against my skin, determined to ignore both my growling stomach and the man who thinks he can buy my compliance with Thai food and dog photos. Sleep comes surprisingly easy in this stranger’s bed, dragging me under before I can wonder why that is.

That’s when the nightmares find me.

The dog is going to wake Daddy.

I listen for the sound of floorboards creaking, but all I can hear is the barking. “Shh, Morrie,” I beg, walking to the window. “Stop barking.”

But Morrie can’t hear me, either. He strains against the metal chain that keeps him tethered to the neighbor’s fence. The hot morning sun glints off his pale fur, making the streaks of dried blood glow where the collar has rubbed him raw.

He’s too loud. Daddy got home late. He needs to sleep today. If he doesn’t…

Morrie barks louder, the sound dry and grating. I can hear how thirsty he is. I see his water bowl tipped over next to the fence.

I pull my sneakers on over my pajama bottoms, the canary yellow ones Grams gave me for my seventh birthday. Then I fill a metal thermos to the brim with cold water from the tap and tiptoe carefully to the front door.

Daddy told me to stay inside, but he wouldn’t mind this. He’ll never even know.

As soon as I’m off the porch, I race across the driveway to Mr. Cooper’s house. His lights are all off, his curtains shut tight.

“Morrie!” I call in a raised whisper. “I brought you some water.”

Morrie’s ears perk up. His eyes land on me, and he growls.

That’s when I notice his front leg is bleeding fresh. The steel chain is twisted around his paw, digging into his skin.

“You poor thing. Bless your heart.” I say the same thing Grams said when I fell and skinned my knees the day she took me to the park.

I take another step, but Morrie growls again. Somehow, it feels louder than his barking. His teeth are bared, his tail tucked securely between his legs.

“Please, Morrie,” I plead. “Be quiet. Daddy told me he’ll ‘take care of you’ if you wake him up again.”

I don’t know what that means, but I know it’s not good.

I inch forward, water bottle raised like a white flag. “I can help,” I keep repeating. “I can help.”

I know animals. The only reason they get angry is because they’re scared. Morrie’s not really angry with me. He’s just in pain and that’s making him scared.

I have to be brave.

I am brave.

I dip down low and reach for the chain around Morrie’s paw. His growling increases. It’s getting louder, but I’m almost there. If I can just get it loose…

“NOVA!”

I jerk—moving too fast, tugging on the chain tangled around Morrie’s leg—and Morrie snarls.

Blinding pain sears through my wrist as his teeth clamp down hard. I fall to the damp grass, and there’s more pain. My hip this time.

“What did I tell you about staying away from that fuckin’ animal, girl?” Daddy roars, appearing out of the shadows like a monster.

“No, Daddy!” Pain rips through me, but it’s nothing compared to the terror clawing at my chest. “Please…”

His massive frame blocks out the morning sun, reeking of Jack and bad decisions. My brave, compassionate seven-year-old heart shatters when he grabs Morrie’s chain with hands that have never known gentleness.

“Get your ass inside before I really show you what happens to little girls who don’t listen.”

Blood drips from my wrist onto my canary yellow pajamas—Grams’ birthday gift now ruined like everything else Daddy touches. I try to stand but crumple. My legs won’t work right.

Through tears, I watch him drag Morrie toward his truck. The same truck he uses to haul away the neighborhood’s other problems. The ones that never come back.

“Where are you taking him?”

“Animal Control,” he spits. “Since you’re too stupid to follow simple rules, that dog’s going somewhere you’ll never find him.”

He doesn’t bother looking back as he continues hauling Morrie away. “It was my fault,” I croak under my breath. Either Daddy can’t hear me or he doesn’t care. “He was just scared…”

The truck’s gate slams shut. My father’s eyes are empty when they finally meet mine.

The last thing I see is Morrie’s desperate gaze from the truck bed, watching me with a forgiveness I’ll never give myself as Daddy drives away, taking with him the last shred of my childhood belief that love can save anything.

I wake up screaming my father’s name.

The room is pitch black except for a slice of hallway light cutting across my bed. A huge shadow fills my doorway—Samuil. My nightmare’s nightmare.

He should terrify me more than the dream did. He’s the real monster here, the one actually holding me prisoner in this gilded cage fifty stories above Chicago.

But my body is a traitor.

It responds to his quiet strength, to the way he fills the space without moving, without speaking. To the careful way he watches me, like he knows exactly what it’s like to wake up trapped in memories that won’t let you go.

My hands are shaking. My heart won’t slow down. And I hate, hate that some broken part of me wants him to come closer.

His footsteps are silent on the thick carpet as he approaches, because of course they are. Men like Samuil don’t make noise unless they choose to. They don’t show weakness unless it serves a purpose. They don’t offer comfort unless they want something in return.

I press myself against the headboard, trying to put distance between us even as my backstabbing body yearns to close it. In the slice of light from the hallway, I catch the predatory gleam of his eyes. The way his shoulders fill the space. The careful way he holds himself, like he’s afraid I’ll bolt if he moves too fast.

He’s right. I might.

“Can I touch you?” Samuil asks in that growled voice that makes everything sound like both a promise and a threat. He hesitates, then adds, “For comfort only.”

The words hang between us like a noose. Like a promise. Like something far more dangerous than either of those things. His lips wrap around each syllable like dark silk, and I hate how my skin prickles in response. How my body remembers his hands on me just days ago, before I knew what he was.

I want to tell him to go to hell. To remind him that comfort from my kidnapper is the definition of Stockholm syndrome.

Instead, I nod.

Because the truth is, I need this. Need him. Need something to ground me before I spiral completely into panic.

His hand settles on my back, moving in slow, steady circles. Clinical. Impersonal. Like he’s soothing a spooked animal.

But it works. My breathing steadies under his touch.

“I am sorry,” he says after a moment, “that my actions gave you bad dreams.”

A bitter laugh escapes me. “Not everything revolves around you and your empire, Samuil.”

His hand stills on my back. For a long moment, the only sound is our breathing in the dark. I expect him to snap back, to remind me that in this place, at this moment, everything actually does revolve around him and what he decides to do with me.

Instead, his voice comes soft and thoughtful. “No. Not everything.” His palm slides up to rest between my shoulder blades, warm and steady. “But some things do. Your safety, for instance.”

“My imprisonment, you mean.”

“If that is how you choose to see it.” There’s something almost weary in his tone. Like he’s tired of being the villain in this story, even though he wrote the script himself.

A tremor runs through me—leftover adrenaline from the nightmare, maybe, or just the endless tension of being here, of never knowing where I stand with him. His hand moves in response, resuming those maddening circles on my back.

“Tell me about the dream,” he says after another stretch of silence.

I almost laugh. Almost tell him to go to hell. But in the dark, with the nightmare still clinging to my skin like cobwebs, the truth slips out instead.

Stupid. So stupid. But I can’t stop myself.

“When I was seven,” I whisper to the darkness, “I learned what happens when you try to save something my father wants to destroy.”

It’s not the whole truth. I leave out how my father came home from the shelter and made me understand what happens to things—to people—who disobey him.

Just enough of the story to make Samuil think I’m being honest, make him believe he’s earned my trust.

But then his thumb finds the scar on my palm, the one the dog’s teeth left before my father took him away. He traces the raised tissue with a gentleness that undoes me.

That touch terrifies me more than his armed guards do. More than the locks on the doors and the long drop from his penthouse windows. Because it’s not calculated or cruel. It’s just… tender.

“Your father,” Samuil says quietly, still stroking my scar. “He used fear to control you.”

It’s not a question. And there’s something in his voice—recognition, maybe—that makes me wonder what scars he carries that I can’t see.

The darkness wraps around us like a confessional, and I hear him draw breath to share his own story.

“My father did the same. He kept mastiffs,” Samuil says, his voice thickening with memory. “Not as pets. As weapons.”

I can hear the calculation behind this offering. A strategic trade of vulnerability meant to draw me in, to make me trust him. But there’s something raw in his voice that feels real.

“They were trained to be vicious,” he continues. His thumb hasn’t stopped tracing my scar. “To attack on command. To kill if necessary. I was terrified of them as a child.” His laugh is dark and hollow. “They would have rolled over for you, I think. The way you are with dogs… you would have seen past what my father made them into.”

“Like you rolled over for me?” I challenge, because apparently, I have a death wish. “Are you vicious, too, Samuil?”

His laugh this time is dark honey, dangerous and sweet. “Probably.” His fingers tighten slightly on my wrist. “But don’t try to tame me. You won’t like what happens.”

The threat in his voice should send me running. Instead, it draws me closer, like a moth to a beautiful, deadly flame.

His finger stills on my scar. The silence stretches between us, thick with all the things we’re not saying. The darkness makes it too easy to forget who we are to each other—captor and captive, predator and prey. Too easy to pretend this moment exists outside of everything else.

“You should be afraid of me,” he says finally, his voice rough. “Not seeking comfort in my arms.”

“I am afraid of you.” The confession slips out before I can stop it. “Just not in the way you think.”

His breath catches. In the slice of light from the hallway, I see his expression shift—hunger and hesitation warring in those storm-gray eyes. Like he’s fighting the same battle I am.

“Tell me,” he demands softly.

“I’m afraid…” My voice breaks. I swallow hard and try again. “I’m afraid of how much I want to trust you. Even knowing what you are. What you could do to me.”

His other hand comes up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. The tenderness in that touch makes my chest ache. “And what am I, little one?”

“Dangerous,” I whisper. “Beautiful.” My eyes flutter closed as his thumb traces my bottom lip. “Everything I should run from. Everything I can’t.”

The kiss, when it comes, catches me off-guard.

One moment, he’s warning me away, and the next, his mouth is on mine, hot and hungry and tasting of danger. Not comfort. Not romance. Pure want wrapped in shadows.

I should push him away. Should remember that he’s my captor, that this is probably just another way to control me. But his kiss speaks a language my body understands better than my brain does—one of need and heat and forgetting.

His hands cradle my face like I’m something precious even as his mouth claims me like I’m something owned. The contradiction undoes me.

When he finally pulls back, I’m breathless and broken open. He guides my head to rest against his chest, where his heartbeat drums a steady rhythm against my cheek.

I let exhaustion drag me under, knowing I’ll hate myself in the morning, knowing this moment of weakness will cost me.

But right now, in the dark, I let myself pretend this could be real.

And why couldn’t it? His body touching mine is real. His heat blooming beneath me is real. The strength in his arms where they keep me close—that’s very, very real.

The last thing I register before unconsciousness claims me is the brush of his lips against my temple. So gentle it might be my imagination. So tender it has to be a lie.

Sleep takes me before I can hear him leave.

Morning hits like a slap in the face. Samuil’s gone.

In his place, a stern-faced Russian woman offers me coffee in a heavy accent, informing me that “Mr. Litvinov will return for dinner.” Like this is normal. Like I’m a guest and not a prisoner.

The housekeeper hovers, watching me with sharp eyes that miss nothing. She’s older, maybe sixty, with steel-gray hair pulled back in a severe bun and hands that look too strong for her small frame. Her black dress and sensible shoes scream efficiency. The kind of person who keeps secrets for a living.

“You will eat,” she says, not a question. “Mr. Litvinov insists.”

Of course he does. Can’t have his prisoner wasting away. Bad for business, probably.

I accept the coffee but ignore the spread of pastries she’s laid out on the food cart. They smell amazing—all butter and sugar and everything I normally love. But my stomach is too knotted to handle food right now.

The reality of my situation comes into sharp focus as I rise and walk the penthouse with Rufus pressed against my leg. Tattooed men with dead eyes have sprouted overnight like mushrooms after rain. They’re stationed everywhere—one scrolling his phone by the private elevator, another “casually” reading a newspaper on the terrace, a third lounging in the kitchen, positioned suspiciously close to the knife block.

I count four gleaming new cameras just in the living room. Five in the hallway. The floor-to-ceiling windows showcase a view of Chicago that reminds me exactly how far up we are.

How isolated. How trapped.

Last night feels like a fever dream. The comfort I found in Samuil’s arms twists into something ugly in the harsh light of day. Because nothing has changed. I’m still his prisoner, and two weeks might as well be forever when your life hangs on a bad man’s whim.

If Samuil—or any of his lackeys—decide I’m a liability, I’ll disappear. No one will know what happened to the silly woman who vanished from Lincoln Park. I’ll just become another urban legend, another cautionary tale about trusting the wrong man.

And the worst part? The most dangerous part?

Now, I know what it feels like to want him. To crave his touch even knowing it could destroy me.

That knowledge alone might get me killed.