Inked Athena (Litvinov Bratva Book 2)

I find her by the loch hours later.

She’s a silhouette cut against the dark horizon, a shape that would make better men than me fall to their knees and pray. But I stopped believing in divine intervention the day my mother took twenty grand and walked away from her son forever.

Her face is turned up to the sky. Moonlight paints her cheeks silver. But when she turns her eyes on me, they’re hard and cold.

I hoped leaving her alone would help her process the news about her family, but Nova has never been one to waste time on grief when anger is an option.

“It’s cold. You should come inside.”

She tugs her sweater more tightly around her shoulders. “I’m fine right here.”

“Nova—”

“Why can’t I speak to Hope or Grams?” she demands. “They’re not involved in any of this.”

I slide my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for her. “And we want to keep it that way. I have men watching them around the clock. If there’s a target on their backs, we’ll know about it.” The wind bites through my jacket, reminding me that Scottish autumn nights are brutal. “But I’ve underestimated the Andropovs before. I won’t make that mistake again. If they’re monitoring Hope or your grandmother, we can’t risk giving them more reasons to act.”

I don’t mention how Ilya or Katerina would love nothing more than to gut Hope or Serena just to watch Nova break. Just to watch me shatter as I hold the pieces of her.

This woman isn’t just my weakness. She’s a collar around my throat, a target on my chest, and the only thing that makes my black heart beat. My enemies know it.

And now she’s paying for it.

“My grandmother lost her son and two grandsons in one day.” Her voice breaks. “She’s going to be terrified of losing her only granddaughter, too.”

“I’ve sent word as securely as I can to both Hope and Serena. They know you’re safe.”

The look she gives me could freeze hell twice over. “I suppose you want me to thank you?”

What I want is for her to let me hold her while she falls apart. What I want is to piece her back together with my hands, my mouth, my soul—what’s left of it.

But she’s planted her feet in the rocky Scottish earth like she’s ready for war, so I stay where I am and meet that frozen gaze head-on.

“You don’t need to thank me, but you have to understand. If we’re going to make it, Nova… If this thing is going to—” I blow out a harsh breath as I drag a hand through my hair. “I’m not keeping you from them to be cruel. I have to tread carefully. We have to lie low, and⁠—”

“You’re still talking to your father, aren’t you?”

It’s an accusation. For me, it’s an unfortunate reality.

“I have to speak with him.”

“And you can do that safely, but I can’t speak to my family?”

I want to shake her and hold her and toss her in the loch and kiss her. I settle for shoving my hands deep in my pockets. “This is a chess match, krasavitsa. There’s one board and many players. I have to lay my traps carefully. In order to do that, I have to be patient. We have to be patient.”

“How many people are going to die while I’m busy being ‘patient’?” She stands up, her hair rippling in the wind like the water across the loch.

“I get why you’re angry,” I say softly. “It’s hard not getting the closure you crave from the people who’ve hurt you the most.”

She whirls on me, lips parted for battle. But several heartbeats pass before she finds her voice. “I don’t need closure from any of them.”

Bullshit.

“I mean it,” she doubles down, like she can sense my doubt. “I was never going to get closure from my father or my brothers. They were all assholes and they weren’t ever gonna change. The only thing they ever gave me was permission not to mourn their deaths.”

“And yet here you are, raging at me because of it.”

“I’m not raging at you because they’re dead!” The words echo across the water. “I’m raging at you because I can’t go home or call my grandmother to ask how she’s doing! I’m angry because I’m helpless out here and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I’m frustrated because this is my life and you’re treating it like it’s a game.”

“Nova—”

“Don’t you get it?” she interrupts. “This is not what I signed up for—chess and players and midnight shootouts. Who’s the king and who’s the pawn? Who comes out on top and who ends up the loser? You think I don’t know what that means? It means that sooner or later, every player in your stupid game will end up dead, Samuil! And all the time and money in the world won’t mean shit!”

If her words were blades, I’d be bleeding from a thousand different cuts.

“You wanted to know the plan, Nova. That’s why I told you. I thought you could handle it.”

“I can handle it,” she snaps defensively. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Before I can respond, she strips off her sweater, casts it at her feet, and strides straight into the loch like she’s got a death wish. The water reaches her waist, her thin shirt going translucent in the moonlight, and still she doesn’t stop.

It’s too fucking cold—the kind of cold that can kill. Every instinct screams at me to drag her back to shore, but I know my Nova. The more I try to save her, the deeper she’ll go just to prove she doesn’t need saving.

Which is why I bite my tongue and follow her to the edge of the loch.

After a few silent seconds of standing with the dark, frigid water lapping at her hips, she picks up a rock and flings it across the surface.

She tries to make it skip, but it just sinks to the bottom with a sad little plink. I grab a stone myself and flick it casually across the lake’s surface. It skips half a dozen times before it’s swallowed up.

With a little growl, Nova picks up another stone and tries again.

Another sad little thump.

Another sinking stone.

I skip another. This one goes nearly twice as far as the first.

She glares at me. “You suck, you know that?”

A laugh escapes before I can stop it. I wade in after her, biting back a curse as the freezing water climbs up my legs. My balls try to crawl back inside my body, but Nova’s standing there vibrating with enough rage to keep herself warm.

“Want me to show you how it’s done?”

“No,” she says. “I’m not interested in more games.”

Sighing, I step a little closer and place my hand on her stomach. She freezes, her eyes darting to mine.

“Yes, I play games—but only because I have to. That doesn’t mean I take them lightly. Just because I strategize doesn’t mean I don’t understand the stakes.”

She takes a deep breath that I feel against my palm, then looks across the loch to a derelict rowboat that’s been rotting in the weeds since before I bought this place.

She nods toward it. “Mr. Morris said that boat’s been floating there for a decade. No one’s paid it the slightest bit of attention.”

“I’ll buy a new one, if you want.”

“I don’t want a new one. I want that one.” Her jaw sets. “I want to fix it up. Especially if…” She swallows. “If we’ll be here for a while.”

I nod, wishing I could give her a timeline. Wishing, more than anything, that I could give her absolutely everything she wants.

But all I can do for now is keep her here and keep her safe.

A shiver wracks her body. “I suppose I might as well find a project, then.”

It doesn’t sound like we’re talking about the boat anymore.

“You can try,” I tell her. “I know it’s in your nature to want to heal what’s broken. But not everything can be fixed.”

Her eyes meet mine for half a heartbeat before skittering away. “I have to try.”

The need to protect her wars with pride in her stubborn strength. I understand why she has to do this—why she needs to believe she can salvage something from this mess I’ve dragged her into.

But I’m as worried about her succeeding as I am about her failing.

Because the truth is, I am who I am. Son of a monster, brother to a snake, heir to an empire built on blood and bone.

And as fierce and determined as Nova is, trying to fix me might be the thing that finally breaks her.

The moon watches from above as we stand in the freezing loch, her body trembling against my palm, both of us knowing this isn’t just about a broken boat anymore.

Some things are meant to stay fractured. Some men are meant to stay damned.

And sometimes, love isn’t enough to save us.