MILENA
I keep telling myself I should be relieved.
That I dodged a bullet. Got out before I was crushed or scarred by something over which I have no control.
Instead, I feel hollow.
My arm jerks as the zipper of my dance bag sticks. I scowl at it, the empty sensation gnawing at my stomach before I yank it again. This time it opens loudly, the ripping sound echoing in the empty locker room.
People will start arriving for rehearsal any minute now. But I’ve been here for an hour and a half, using the treadmill in the weight room in the basement. I love to run, but these days, Papa insists that at least two of his men shadow me. And having two giant, gruff, unsmiling guys dogging your every step through Central Park is not as motivating as you might think.
So, sometimes I come here early to pound the imaginary pavement. Madame Kuzmina knows, and gave me the code to the side door a few months ago.
I peel off my sweaty running clothes and pad over to the showers, letting the water get hot before I step under the spray. I groan as it massages my aching muscles. Wince as it streams over my bruises and aches from the madness of Greymoor two days ago.
Nero’s been MIA ever since.
I refuse to believe it’s because I called him a “troublemaker”: it would be insane for anyone over the age of six to get even a little mad about that, let alone pissed enough to shut me out, turn ice cold and disappear.
But I said something that flipped him from rational, if not totally normal, pillow-talk Nero, into a solid black brick wall where communication goes to die.
One second, we were existing in this serene moment after the insanity of what we just did. The next, he was—gone.
And I don’t know why it hurts. I don’t know why I’m not happy about this.
He’s not my boyfriend. “We” are not a “we” in any way, shape or form. We just have a mutual affinity for supremely fucked-up sex games.
If anything, being or having that with Nero should terrify me. His bottomless ability to go darker, deeper, and more feral should be a huge line of red flags.
Avalanche of orgasms aside, I should feel relieved to be out of his crosshairs.
So why do I keep checking my phone like an idiot teenager, worried I’ve missed a text from him?
I wince again as the water hits a certain spot, glancing down at the marks covering my body.
I mean, Jesus Christ. I look like an abuse victim.
The door to the locker room bangs open, making me jump.
Nero.
I cringe the second the thought hits my brain, hating that it’s the first thing that came to mind when the door opened.
But it isn’t. Nero, that is.
“What up, lady? You’re here early.”
I glance over my shoulder to see Brooklyn walking into the changing room. She slings her heavy dance bag off her shoulder with a groan.
I nod, ducking my head back under the spray. “Yeah, I went for a run downstairs.”
“You do realize you live on Central Park, right?”
I roll my eyes, glancing back at her as she peels her top off. Both of us tense for a second, our eyes taking in each other’s bruised bodies.
The tension hangs in the air, just the sound of the shower filling the void.
“Brook—”
“I won’t ask if you don’t,” she says quietly.
I scowl. “Fuck that. I know how I got these, and it’s nothing criminal.” My eyes angrily take in the black marks on her ribs. “Brooklyn, who the fuck—”
“Can we drop this?” she murmurs, her eyes begging me. “Please?”
“No, Brooklyn. I’m not seeing that and not—”
The door bangs open again. This time, it’s Val who strolls in, dance bag slung over one muscled shoulder.
“Dude, c’mon!” Brooklyn snaps, whirling away and yanking a towel around herself.
I roll my eyes, turning to finish rinsing myself off before I crank off the shower and grab a towel, too.
“What?” Val frowns, dropping his bag with an utterly disinterested look on his face. “I’ve seen your tits a million fucking times by now, both of you.”
“Yeah, well, there is a men’s dressing room, jackass,” I sigh, tightening my towel around my body and walking to my locker. “Which, by the by, I thought you were exclusively using these days?”
It’s never been weird up till now that Val sometimes uses our changing room. But in the last few months, we’ve all decided without actually saying so that he should stop, because it clearly makes Dove, one of our newer dancers, uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable enough for her to say anything, but it’s pretty clear to the rest of the girls in the company, and that’s fair.
Of course, there’s a hundred different theories about her reasons, which are sometimes tied to one of the thousand different rumors about her background. It’s common knowledge that her father is Cesare Marchetti, head of the Marchetti Italian mafia family, but what’s not known is why she’s been MIA from New York for a few years.
Psych ward in France. Rehab facility in Switzerland. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t heard “empress of Mars” floated.
“Seriously,” Brooklyn mutters, dropping her towel and ignoring Val as she tugs on her tights. “Go play in boy-land.”
Val’s brow furrows as he rakes his fingers through his dark hair. “Yeah, well…” he frowns. “Trouble in paradise right now. I’ll be disrobing here, if that’s all right. Don’t worry,” he grunts, peeling off his shirt. “I’ll be gone before the international woman of mystery gets here.”
I glance at Brooklyn, who glances back at me. Then we both turn to Val.
“What’d you do?”
He rolls his eyes, turning away and dropping his jeans before reaching for his tights.
“You know the phrase ‘fuck around and find out’?”
I snort. “This’ll be good. Who’d you fuck?”
“Étienne’s girlfriend.”
Brooklyn makes a face, but Val quickly holds up a finger.
“For context, before Miss Judgement over here climbs down my fucking throat, I was invited to do so. They wanted to spice shit up and bring in another dude…” He shrugs. “My reputation—”
“Precedes itself, by about a mile,” I interject.
Val bows dramatically. “Precisely,” he grins.
“So…?” Brooklyn prods. “If you were invited to join them, how’d you fuck it up with our illustrious guest artist?”
Étienne normally dances with the Paris Opera Ballet. But he’s guesting here for two months.
“First of all,” Val grunts, raising a middle finger. “Fuck you very much.”
“Just tell us what happened,” I sigh, rolling my eyes.
“Fine,” Val mutters. “Étienne’s straight, so it was just meant to be about her. But…” He arches his brows as he pulls on his top. “Apparently Simone doesn’t moan like that with him…”
Brooklyn grins. “Oh, shit.”
“Dude, tell me about it,” Val sighs. “Plus, I mean, size-wise, it was real awkward when I took off my—”
“Ah-dat-dat-dat-dat,” Brooklyn cuts in, shaking her head and a finger as she pulls her leotard up. “Nope. TM-fucking-I, my dude.”
“So this is why you’re not welcome for the time being in the men’s room,” I sigh.
Val nods. “Exactly. He fucked around and found out his girlfriend actually comes with another dude. Not my problem, though.”
“No, just ours,” I smile sweetly at him as we all finish up and head for the door.
Brooklyn holds me back for a second.
“Hey,” she says quietly after Val is out of earshot. “Look, what you saw…”
My face twists. “James?” I ask quietly.
She gives me a pleading look. “It’s done, okay? For real, it’s not a thing anymore. I swear, I’m okay.” Her brow quirks up. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”
I make a face. “Pass.”
“Fuck that. What happened?”
Oh, I got chased by a maniac through a haunted mansion, got the shit railed out of me, and came literally more times than I can count. No big deal.
The instant I think that, other thoughts and emotions filter into me.
The emptiness. The confusion about why I feel empty.
“Nothing.”
She groans, rolling her eyes. “Well, it looks like you got fucked by a biker gang.”
I snort. “Nah, only half of one.”
She grins. “Asshole.”
“You bitches coming?”
“Yeah, do not call me that,” Brooklyn snaps as we walk over to where Val is waiting by the door.
“I’ve always admired the British for keeping cunt alive and well,” he shrugs, grinning as he opens the door.
“You call me a cunt,” Brooklyn says sweetly, “and I will cut off your dick and fuck you in the ass with it—”
Every molecule of air seems to be sucked out of the world as we step out of the dressing room and almost directly into Kir Nikolayev.
I stumble to a stop. Miracle of miracles, Val himself seems to be at a loss for words. Brooklyn, who’s almost walked right into Kir’s chest, gapes up at him with a horrified expression on her shocked face.
“Fuck…” she croaks.
It’s not that weird to see him here. When he’s not ruling half of New York as one of the most undisputedly powerful Bratva leaders in the city, Kir occasionally does drop by the Mercury Theater to check in.
I mean, he does own the building, and is the chief financier of the company itself.
He’s also disturbingly gorgeous. Dark hair, haunting dark eyes, and the jawline of an Armani model, which he also happens to dress like, too.
All of us freeze as his dark eyes sweep over us, then land squarely on poor Brooklyn, who’s looking up at him like she just got busted in the middle of a murder.
“That’s…quite a descriptive threat, Ms. Ellis.”
It’s wild: you can literally see her face change colors in real-time. Pale to the point of blue, then white, then a sudden dash of pink that explodes into crimson.
“I…thought so,” she mumbles.
Kir’s brow arches. “I’ll have to use it someday.” His steely gaze shifts to Val. “Mr. Bancroft,” he growls, his voice quiet but somehow carrying insane power. “May I ask what earned you such a threat?”
Val clears his throat. “I’m guessing the part where I threatened to call her a cunt?”
A shadow flickers in Kir’s dark eyes.
“That would do it,” he grunts. “I suggest based on her threat that you…don’t.”
“Heard loud and clear, sir,” Val nods.
Just then, Madame Kuzmina floats up the hallway, rings glittering on her fingers as her dark eyes sweep over us accusingly.
“I’m quite sure the three of you should be in Conditioning Class by now,” she says coldly. “Not bothering Mr. Nikolayev.”
She’s a holy terror when she wants to be, but I have a soft spot for Madame Kuzmina. Maybe it’s our shared Russian heritage, or the fact that she looks like some sort of wild-ass fortune teller.
It’s also funny that we all think of her as being so much older, because of the way she rules the company with an iron fist, wrapped up in her dark, shapeless shawls. Up close, though, you realize that she’s probably only thirty-five or something.
Still supremely terrifying, though.
“Now, my dears,” she breathes with malice.
Kir gives us all another piercing look and deft nod of his exquisitely perfect jawline, then he and Madame Kuzmina turn and walk off down the hallway.
I shiver, but not because of Kir’s genetics. Because of a scene I’ve still got playing on repeat in my head.
A scene in the shadows outside Greymoor, where Nero and Kir were talking quietly…right before Nero cut two men’s throats.
“Every tribe needs a ghost story. Every club needs a boogeyman. I can be that for you.”
Why the fuck were Nero and Kir killing two men that night? Why and how do they even talk at all?
My brain replays the spine-chilling glint in Nero’s eyes that night, right before he spilled blood. It’s not that different from a look I’ve seen directed at me.
…Right before he was about to chase me. Or right before he fucked me. A look like the eerie calmness of a shoreline right before the hurricane slams in with a thunderclap.
And suddenly, the emptiness is back.
The confusion and hurt I don’t even want to acknowledge.
“Hey, Milena…”
I blink, yanking my gaze to Brooklyn. “Huh?”
“You know how I ask you how to say things in Russian all the time?”
I arch a brow. “Yeah?”
“How do you say big dick energy?”
I roll my eyes as Brooklyn and Val crack up.
“I legit almost said loud and KIR instead of loud and clear,” Val groans. “What the fuck.”
“He’s so fucking hot,” Brooklyn sighs. “Like, insanely, ridiculously, illegally—”
“And also the notoriously vicious leader of a giant criminal organization?” I smile pointedly at Brooklyn. “Shouldn’t our fantasies maybe switch to non-violent men? Like, guys who paint, and grow flowers, maybe raise ducks?”
Val frowns. “Uh, that doesn’t sound nearly as fucking hot as a Bratva Crime Boss?”
“Pakhan,” I toss back. “The Russian is Pakhan.”
“Well, that motherfucker is definitely Pakhan.”
I roll my eyes as Brooklyn snorts and cracks the fuck up. “Oh, for sure.”
“You guys are gross,” I groan. “Let’s get to conditioning.”
“Do you think the word juicy would be appropriate for his dick?” Val ponders, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“Absolutely,” Brooklyn giggles.
I leave the two of them rhapsodizing over Kir’s dick as I head off to rehearsal.
Still feeling the weird, confusing, empty ache inside.
And still imagining those green eyes glinting in the darkness.
