“Are you ready, Niki? You’re on in five.”
I rise en pointe to test out my shoes. A hard-won lesson. “I’m ready. Thank you again for this opportunity.”
Louis nods, his eyes moving down to my ankle. I know he’s worried it won’t hold up, and in all honesty, it might not. But I’m grateful he gave me a chance, even if it’s a small one. My days of being a soloist are over, but for tonight, I have a guest spot at the local ballet company, performing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
One last dance.
While my days spent teaching children are fun, it isn’t the same, and it will never be the same. My love for the ballet cannot be fulfilled through teaching. A dancer who can’t dance is as good as an artist who can’t create. I don’t know what my future holds, but I know that I’m ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life.
“Niki?” One of the stagehands waves to get my attention.
“Yes?”
“Someone left this for you.”
My hand trembles when she offers me the solitary white lily. She smiles, and I think I smile too, but my mind has just gone from zero to sixty, and I think I might throw up. When she disappears back down the hall, I open the attached note, reading the words with deliberate care.
Shine bright little star before you burn out forever.
A tingling sensation expands my heart and out through my limbs. One lily. Alexei mentioned to me once that it’s considered bad luck to give anything but odd numbers of flowers in Russian culture. The message is cryptic, and it could be from any of the Vory. But the flower itself has meaning that can’t be ignored.
In ballet performances, white lilies signify purity. It could only be from him.
“One minute,” someone tells me.
I need to think about so many things, but there isn’t time. I set the gift aside and take a breath. It’s my turn, and to say that I’m nervous as I make my entrance onto the stage would be an understatement. The last time I did this, it ended horrifically. But I can’t let that night stain this memory for me. Before I retire my shoes forever, I want to pay tribute to everything that ballet has given me. And if that note is any indication, it might be the last thing I ever do on this earth.
I throw everything I have into the performance—body, heart, and soul. Magic is real, and it exists on the stage. Around me, butterflies and fairies twirl. Tinkers and tailors and weavers enter the fray, hair whipping and arms swaying as they perform their duties. Lovers quarrel, and a forest is born. Stars cross, and chaos ensues. Kings and queens fall, and I learn how to fly again. Leaping through the air with slicing jetés and bounding across the stage with the lightness of a feather. It’s the most painful performance I’ve ever given, but it’s also my best.
Because I am free.
Tears cling to my cheeks as the final curtain falls, and when I exit the stage, I’m limping but at peace. I collapse onto the closest chair I can find and bask in the adrenaline high. Several of the dancers congratulate me on a job well done as they exit the stage behind me, everyone buzzing with the excitement of our collaborative effort.
“It appears that the angel has found her wings again.”
Ocean eyes crash into mine, and his name exalts from my lungs before I can stop it.
“Nika.”
He smiles, and it feels like sunshine after an eternal winter. Everything else falls away, and there is only the chaos in my heart when I look up at him.
“Come.” He holds out his hand for me.
My relief falters. It can’t be him. I can’t look into those eyes as he bleeds the life out of me. He should have sent Viktor. He should have sent anyone else.
“Do you no longer trust me?” he asks.
“Should I trust you?”
“Does it matter at this point?”
I shake my head. It doesn’t. He’s here. He found me. And whatever he decides, my fate is sealed.
“Come, zvezda,” he urges. “It’s time.”
“What if I say I don’t want to?”
His hand wavers, but he doesn’t retreat. “Then it would break my heart.”
“I didn’t realize you had a heart to break,” I whisper.
“Even monsters have hearts, my sweet.”
I know it’s true because a monster lives inside me too. I take his hand, and his fingers close around mine.
“You are sore?”
I nod, and Nikolai wraps his free arm around my waist. We walk together, and he takes me into the room where the stage props are stored. Behind the larger-than-life trees and one-sided building displays, he corners me.
When he touches my face, my eyes fall shut, and my chest heaves. He will probably strangle me. It’s an intimate way to die, and Nikolai is nothing if not intimate. He will want to see my face. Burn my skin with his fingers. Feel the last dull thump of my beating heart beneath his hands. His scent will be the last thing I breathe. His lips, the last thing I taste. And his skin, the last thing I feel.
A fresh tear leaks from the corner of my eye, but it’s bittersweet. I’m afraid that even in death, he will find a way to haunt me.
“Don’t cry, pet.” He wipes away the salty emotion with his thumb, smearing the evidence
into my skin.
“Will you make it quick and painless?” I ask.
His body cages me in, and his lips hover over mine. “It will be painless,” he murmurs. “But it won’t be quick.”
My heart leaps into my throat when he jerks me around and presses my face against the wall, his hands mauling my body as his lips come down on my throat.
“Nakya.” He grinds his erection against my ass while his fingers slip down between my legs, cupping me through the leotard.
“Tell me that you’re mine.”
“You already know I am,” I rattle.
His thumb drags over my clit while his teeth graze my shoulder. “I’m going to fuck this pretty little ballerina. You better be quiet if you don’t want anyone to hear.”
The thought of someone catching us leaves me panting. Ragged breaths wrench from my chest when he yanks my leotard aside, ripping a hole in the tights. I’m scared, and I’m so swollen for him it hurts. Nikolai yanks me around like a doll, forcing my hips back and arching my spine forward.
The position drags my nipples against the fabric of my suit as he jostles me forward, rubbing his cock against the hole of my tights.
“Are you still pure for me?” he asks. “Are you still mine?”
“I haven’t been with anyone else.”
“Good girl, zvezda.” He pets my face and wraps his hand around my throat, forcing my head to arch back until my eyes meet his.
We stay like that while he squeezes his cock inside me, and I whine as my body adjusts to the size of him all over again. He is impatient, and my nerve endings scream when he drags himself out only to stuff me full again.
“Please, Nika,” I beg, unsure of exactly what I need.
“Don’t say please,” he growls. “Don’t cry or beg or tell me that this is wrong. Just be sweet and come on my cock.”
I don’t have a choice when he touches me with his fingers. I come for him, and it is without mercy. The orgasm leaves me in a state of total devastation, clutching his forearms to stay upright as he drives into me over and over again.
“My pussy. My tits. My ballerina.” He punctuates every declaration with a thrust. “Tell me yes.”
“Yes,” I shout.
He groans and buries himself as far as I can take him, his dick pulsing jets of hot cum deep inside my womb. His hands come around my waist, and he continues to fuck me, long after he has come, until his dick has gone soft and he has too.
His hands are gentle, and his lips are full of worship. I’m still holding my breath, afraid of what happens next. He will probably tell me he’s sorry before he ends my life. He will probably even mean it too.
“Nakya.” He kisses my ear. “Are you happy with this life? Are you happy with the freedom you have always wanted?”
His questions throw me off balance, and I revert to my natural protective instincts. “Yes, I’m happy.”
“You haven’t been taking care of yourself,” he murmurs.
“I … I’m fine.”
He removes himself from inside me and adjusts our clothing to a more appropriate state before turning me in his arms. There is no hiding from him now. Not when I face his eyes.
“Lie to me again,” he dares me.
“What do you want from me?” I ask. “Why did you come here, Nika? Is it not enough to kill me? Must you torture me too?”
He kisses me like he’s defusing a bomb, and it works.
“You didn’t betray me,” he says.
“Only your ego would allow you to say so.”
“Don’t trifle with me, Nakya. You couldn’t give me up, so just admit it.”
“And look what good it did me. You found me anyway. You came to take your pound of flesh.”
“I’m not here to kill you.” He reaches for my hand, pressing it against his heart. “I’m here to keep you.”
“What does that mean?” I croak. “What about Ana?”
“Tell me the truth, zvezda,” he says. “It’s the only time I’m going to ask you before I leave your life forever. If you love me, say it now.”
My throat burns. My eyes burn. Everything burns, and I’m afraid that what he says is true. He will walk away forever, abandoning me to this existence without him. But what he’s asking isn’t fair.
“You tell me first,” I demand.
He grabs me around the waist. “So stubborn, pet. You want to hear me admit it first?”
I nod.
“Very well then. I love you, my sweet. I love you more than the stars in the sky love the moon. I love you more than I love my Vory brothers, and I would die to prove it. Is that what you want to hear?”
I cling to his shirt, desperate for his assurances. “You said it wasn’t meant to be. The stars weren’t in our favor.”
“So maybe I’ve rewritten our stars.”
“Don’t play games with me.” My voice wavers. “I can’t take it, Nika. Are you really here to collect me?”
“You should know that we have many customs.” He releases me and falls away from my arms. “The stars on my knees dictate that I should bow before no man.”
Nikolai lowers to his knee and takes my hand in his. “But I will bow to you, Nakya, if it means that you will agree to be my wife.”
Emotion steals my voice. It steals my ability to breathe or think. What he’s asking seems impossible. This is the life I swore I would do anything to leave. I promised myself I wouldn’t be a mafia wife, and that I’d rather die than live that way.
But when I search Nika’s ocean eyes, he is not just mafia. He is not Dante or my father, or any man who I have ever known before. He is my artist. The color of my life. My thief, and the stealer of my heart. I don’t know how I could possibly go forward in this life without the other half of my soul.
I get down on my knees to meet him, grasping his face in my hands. “Do you promise to be loyal to me? Do you promise that I will be your only warmth? The only woman in your life?”
“You are the only woman in my bed, my heart, and my life,” he assures me. “My loyalty is with you, now and forever.”
His eyes plead with mine. Blue to my amber. Until now, I didn’t know that I was dying of a thirst I never knew I had, and he was the bluest water I ever tasted. For eternity, I could drink him, and for eternity, I would never be satisfied.
“Tell me that you’re mine,” I whisper.
He drags me against him, tipping my chin up so he can taste my lips. “I’m yours, Nakya.”
“And I’m yours,” I assure him.