Inked Athena (Litvinov Bratva Book 2)

What kind of colossal ass⁠—

What kind of power-hungry maniac⁠—

What kind of supposed friend would do something like this?

My hands tremble as I pace the tower bedroom for the hundredth time, my footsteps echoing off stone walls that have witnessed centuries of drama but surely never anything this absurd. The portraits of stern-faced Scottish lords seem to judge my life choices as I stomp past them. Even Finbarr has taken shelter under the massive four-poster, only his judgmental green eyes visible as he watches me wear a path in the floor.

“This is insane,” I tell him. She blinks slowly, unimpressed.

Myles is packing his bags right now, and it’s all my fault. Myles, who snuck me phone calls to Hope and Grams when I was crying myself to sleep. Myles, who remembers my weird pregnancy cravings for haggis and strawberry jam. Myles, who’s been Samuil’s right hand through god knows how many riots and wars and business dealings that definitely aren’t in any company prospectus.

Gone. Exiled. Never to darken Castle Moorbeath’s door again.

Because he was kind to me.

“Goddammit!” I cry at the empty room. The syllables echo back, mocking me.

I wonder if Samuil can hear me. I wonder if, down in whatever dark, cobwebby corner he’s found to hole up in, he’s hard at work convincing himself he’s done the right thing.

It would be fitting. I’m up here hating myself—he’s down deep, so utterly certain in his own convictions.

I can’t help but remember the look on Myles’s face as he left the library. I remember the awful things Samuil said. And I remember that all of it was because of me.

My fault.

My fault.

My fault.

As I make the hundred and fiftieth circuit around my room, my jaw sets with determination.

I have to find Myles. I have to speak to him before he leaves.

I’m halfway out the door when I come to an abrupt stop, my hand gripping the centuries-old brass handle. The corridor stretches before me. More dark portraits of stern-faced Scots watch my indecision.

On second thought, it’s not Myles I should be looking for.

It’s the stubborn brute who is making him leave in the first place.

New target in mind, I charge through the castle, my nervous energy suddenly chomping at the bit now that it has a purpose and a nemesis. I need to track Samuil down before it’s too late.

I’m so set on my mission that I almost bowl poor Mrs. Morris over on my way to the ground floor.

My hands shoot out to steady her frail shoulders as guilt floods me at the thought of adding yet another soul to my hit list today. The wool of her cardigan is rough against my palms. “Mrs. Morris, where’s Samuil?”

She squints at me over the tops of her bifocals, nostrils flaring in alarm. “Are you alright, sweetness?”

“I’m fine. I just really need to speak to Samuil.”

She pushes me in the direction of the kitchen like she’d love me to be someone else’s problem. “You’ll find him in there, lass. I just put a plate out for him.”

I mutter a hurried thanks at her and follow the trail of savory scents through stone corridors, each step fueled by righteous, pregnancy-powered fury. The massive kitchen hearth blazes, and there he is: the lord of the castle himself, hunched over his dinner like a gargoyle made flesh.

The fire throws his shadow against the far wall, twenty feet high and monstrous. I have half a mind to shove his face in his shepherd’s pie.

He straightens up when he sees me, broad shoulders squaring beneath his black sweater, eyebrows furrowing like he already knows what I’m here to say.

“Not now, Nova.”

“Actually, I think now is the only time to have this conversation. If we don’t, it’ll be too late.” I stride around the table to face him. “How can you sit here and eat while Myles is packing his bags?”

He doesn’t look at me, focusing instead on mutilating his dinner with surgical precision. “I have the appetite of someone whose conscience is clear.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I wait for him to answer, but he just spears another piece of meat. “You think I should feel guilty?”

Guilt might be what drove me from my tower, but I’ll be damned if I’m admitting that now. Not when I need every scrap of moral high ground I can get.

“Before you,” he remarks, “Myles was never so easily persuaded.”

“Glad to know that some men are capable of evolving.”

He sighs tiredly. “It’s been a long fucking day, krasavitsa, and I haven’t eaten for most of it. Can you save the dramatics for the morning?”

Without thinking, I lunge forward and grab the fork right out of his hand.

He looks merely bored as he gazes back at me. “Planning on stabbing me with it?”

“I haven’t ruled it out yet.” The fork does feel good in my hand. Getting a reaction out of him other than apathy—say, by stabbing the tines into his giant shoulder—might feel even better.

Samuil gestures for me to continue. “Well, get on with it then. I’d like to get back to my dinner once you’re done commandeering my cutlery.”

He cares, insists a voice in my head. Somewhere under this rock-hard veneer, the cold-hearted bastard actually fucking cares.

“He’s your best friend,” I whisper, my voice breaking. My throat feels tight, like all the unsaid things are choking me. “Your right-hand man.”

His jaw hardens, muscle ticking beneath his skin. “Which is exactly why he should have known better.”

“He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.”

“He knew exactly what the fuck he was doing. He knew he was crossing a line.” He sets his plate on the stones of the hearth and rises to his feet. His silver eyes simmer dangerously. “That’s why he kept it from me.”

“I made him do it. If you have to punish someone, punish me.”

He takes a step forward until the points of the fork I’m holding touch his chest like a trio of metal fingertips. “This is not a negotiation, Nova. You don’t have a say in this.”

I jab the fork upwards, in front of his face. “Look at this fork, Samuil. Look at the tines.”

His face screws up into a frown. Clearly, he has no idea where I’m going with this.

That makes two of us.

“There are three tines.” I touch them one by one. “You. Me. Myles.” Samuil’s frown recedes back into simple impatience, but I’ll take it; it’s better than the rage back in the library. Or the forced indifference. I might be able to work with this. “We’re like these three tines. They’re separated, but always connected at the root. Always moving in the same direction. Always.”

He arches a dark eyebrow. “And which direction do you think the three of us are headed?”

“Towards cornering Katerina once and for all.”

He sighs, like there are entire universes of darkness in his head that I can’t begin to comprehend.

“You don’t understand, Nova. This is so much bigger than just Katerina. She may be manipulative and psychotic, but she’s just a cog in a much bigger wheel.”

“I get that⁠—”

“No.” His words are sharp and curt. “You don’t. Because if you understood, you wouldn’t have wanted to contact Hope or your grandmother in the first place. If you’d truly grasped what was at stake, you would’ve known that contacting them meant risking their lives.”

My chin starts to wobble.

Samuil steps towards me, his fingers curling over the sharp tips of the fork. If it hurts him, he shows no sign of it. “You see three parts of a whole connected by a solid base? Well, I see three separate, rigid entities—standing in isolation, never meeting.”

My mouth is too dry to work well. I have to wet my lips before I can speak again. “You can’t be that pessimistic.”

“I’m not. I’m realistic. You should try it some time.”

I relinquish the fork, abandoning it on the stone island with a sad, muted clatter. “This is stupid, Samuil. We should be working together. We should be in this together.”

“We were,” Samuil intones. “Then Myles betrayed me by going behind my back. He understands why he was exiled. So should you.”

I shake my head. I know I’m pushing against a mountain, expecting it to bend. And still, I try. Because the guilt is eating me alive.

I have to fix things.

“Please don’t do this, Samuil.” Pride is a small price to pay if it means Myles can stay. “You can go to him, rehire him, ask him to stay… Please.”

A log shifts in the fire, sending up a shower of crimson sparks. The kitchen suddenly feels too small, too confined, like the stone walls are closing in with the weight of Samuil’s words. Outside, a gust of Highland wind howls against the castle walls. The world itself is warning me.

“Since you seem to enjoy cutlery metaphors so much, here’s one for you.” Samuil takes a step back and plucks the knife off his plate. “The Andropovs are a knife, Nova. Made of ruthless, relentless steel. Their only job is to sever and divide. If they set their sights on you, they will cut until they draw blood.” It feels like he’s looking right through me. “My orders were clear. Myles chose to ignore them, and by ignoring them, he put you directly in harm’s way. If he can do that once, he can do it again⁠—”

“He won’t if you just⁠—”

“I’m not taking that risk.” He drops the knife back onto his plate. His chin is raised, his posture defiant, but his eyes are seeing things that I can’t. “Myles knew the rules.”

A bitter laugh rips from my throat. “‘Rules?’ Do you even hear yourself? Fuck rules! There are things that don’t need ‘rules,’ and relationships are one of those things.”

He simply shakes his head. Sad. Solemn. Unyielding. A mountain cloaked in rain. “Not in my world,” he says. “This is how things are.”

“But they don’t have to stay that way.” My voice is shaky, but I force the words out—my last chance to make things right. “Those are the rules your father wrote, but you can change them, Sam. You can be better than the men who came before you. You swore you would. Don’t you remember?”

Something flickers in his expression—pain or rage or regret, I’ll never know. Because he stands, adjusts his sweater, and walks out.

Leaving me alone in the massive kitchen with nothing but dying embers, cooling shepherd’s pie, and the weight of everything we’ve lost.

I press my hand to my belly. “Your father,” I whisper, “thinks he has to choose between love and survival.” My voice breaks. “I just pray he figures out they’re the same thing before it’s too late.”

The Highland wind howls its answer.

It sounds an awful lot like grief.