Dance of Deception: Chapter 9

The theater is empty.

Dark.

Silent and familiar, which is what I need right now.

The only sound is my own gasping breath as I collapse onto the stage, body slick with sweat, limbs shaking from exhaustion.

I had no reason to be here tonight. There was no rehearsal. No company meeting. But I needed to move.

Madame Kuzmina trusts her dancers enough that most of us know the access code for the side door to the theater, so we can come and do exactly this if we want. I’m not quite sure our sadist of a director had “therapy” in mind with that decision. But tomayto, tomahto.

Tonight, I needed my muscles to ache and my lungs to burn. I needed to feel grounded. Because all day, I’ve been running from my own thoughts.

From the interview. From Carmine. From the notion that I was insane enough to try and blackmail a man like him.

I feel like that needs to be stressed more than once: I—little old me—tried to blackmail the new don of one of the most powerful Italian mafia families in the country.

I mean what the fuckity-fuck, self?

I haven’t spoken to Milena or Bianca since I ran out of the Barone mansion without stopping or looking back. Didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t try to cover my exit with a joke. I’ve been ignoring their texts, too.

Because what the hell do I even say? Especially to Bianca?

And also? I don’t know what’s worse: what I did already, or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You should have stayed Miss Nobody who heard and saw nothing, little dancer. Because the one fucking thing you don’t want to be with me is someone who saw far, far too much. Now run away, and pray to whatever god you believe in that I don’t feel like chasing you this time.”

Even replaying the words is enough to send a violent shiver up my spine. I flinch, glancing over my shoulder. I’ve been doing that since I ran yesterday.

But so far, there’ve been no men dragging me into an alley.

No retaliation.

Nothing.

…Not yet.

I exhale slowly, pressing my palms against the stage and lowering my forehead to the floor in a deep, satisfying stretch.

The theater is dark except for the faint blue footlights and a single work light illuminating the floor immediately around me.

It’s comforting, in a way. Like I can pause time and everything else out there and just exist in my own little bubble here in a comfortingly familiar world—feet encased in slippers, sweat on my skin, and a sprung dance floor grounding me, like it’s done my whole life.

Except right then is when the air changes. Grows colder. Turns black.

I freeze as a prickle of awareness crawls down my spine.

I’m being watched…

My pulse ramps into high gear as I cautiously lift my head, my breath stuttering. Beyond the light, in the deep black of the empty house, something moves.

Someone.

A figure, stepping out of the shadows. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing darkness like a second skin.

Oh, God.

It feels like a blade teasing over my every vertebra as Carmine materializes out of the gloom. His suit is black, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up like he came straight from committing violence.

He moves like he owns the world, owns this theater, owns me as he oozes down the middle aisle and comes to a stop in front of the stage.

And somehow, even though I’m looking down at him from an elevated position, it’s still painfully obvious that the power lies entirely with him.

His gaze pins me in place, his blue eyes burning, staring me down like a predator sizing up his prey.

My throat works as I slowly climb to my feet, my arms wrapped around myself.

“How… How did you find me?” I ask quietly.

Carmine doesn’t blink.

“You’re hardly in witness protection, little dancer,” he murmurs. His brow furrows. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“The dance you were just doing.”

I wet my lips. “It’s part of the pas de trois. From Swan⁠—”

“Lake, I know,” he finishes. “My sister dances.”

His jaw ticks.

“Do it again,” he says.

My stomach tightens. “Excuse me?”

Carmine tilts his head slightly, his expression sharp but otherwise unreadable. “Again. Dance for me.”

The words are rough—an order, not a request.

I should tell him to fuck off. Should walk away. Run away.

But there’s a darkness in the way he’s watching me that terrifies and captivates me equally.

His voice drops even lower, to a lethal rasp. “I said, dance for me.”

Fuck.

This is a bad idea. Dancing has always been mine. The only thing no one could touch, not even Arkadi. And now Carmine is standing here, demanding it from me like I owe it to him.

Maybe I do.

Maybe this is the way we settle whatever score I fucked with by even showing up the other day, let alone threatening him.

If so, yeah, I can dance for this controlling psycho.

The music is only in my head, but that’s okay.

I close my eyes.

And I dance.

I move like I’m letting every thought I don’t want to have bleed out. Every memory, every fear, every lingering touch from the other night—from him—that shouldn’t have felt so good, but did.

I don’t dare open my eyes, but I can feel the weight of his gaze dragging over my skin.

It shouldn’t make me feel the way it does.

When I finally stop, I’m panting, my chest rising and falling, and I shudder when I realize Carmine is no longer standing in the audience, looking up at me. Somehow, while I was dancing, he made his way up onto the stage, and now he steps a bit closer, melting out of the shadows and coming into the light.

Slowly. Deliberately.

He keeps moving—more like prowling—toward me. I want to say it’s because I’m exhausted from running through the piece again, but no. It’s the piercing, unhinged, almost inhuman glint in his eyes that pins me in place, forcing me to stand there until he’s looming over me again, the citrusy scent of him swirling through my senses.

His hand slips into his pocket. For a brief second, part of me wonders if he’s about to pull out a gun and tie off this loose end right here and now.

But Carmine doesn’t pull out a gun. Nor does he murder me on stage like something out of an angsty Baz Luhrmann movie.

He just extends his hand, palm down, like he’s holding something.

“Your hand,” he growls.

Slowly, shivering, I raise mine. And suddenly, he’s dropping something into my open palm.

My breath hitches as I stare at Aunt Alison’s necklace, my brain trying to make sense of how it’s here in my hand again.

…That’s when I realize it’s wet. And sticky.

And red.

My heart leaps into my throat as I stare at the blood staining my palm and the delicate necklace chain. I almost drop the fucking thing, then Carmine closes my hand around it with his.

My pulse skips violently.

He smiles. But it’s not friendly. Not one bit.

“Your debt to Grigori Popov has been settled,” he growls. “Bought out, if you will.”

I stare at my closed fist, my fingers trembling.

“But I didn’t buy off your debt, little dancer,” Carmine continues, his voice silk and steel.

I look up. He smiles coldly.

“I bought you.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

He lifts a hand, brushes my cheek. “You’re going to marry me, Lyra,” he murmurs. “You belong to me now.”

The whole world glitches around me. Reality doesn’t quite make sense for a second. As if I’m watching a movie and the stream buffers.

I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

Literally.

And I realize, slower than I should, that both of those things are directly related to the fact that he’s just wrapped a powerful, veined hand around my throat, his fingers sinking into my flesh.

Choking me.

Ensnaring me.

My eyes widen as my hands fly to his arm, clawing, hitting, smacking at him. But there’s no fighting him. No overpowering him. And it hits me that if he wanted to kill me right the fuck now?

He could.

My mind blanks as his fingers tighten, pressing into the soft, vulnerable skin of my throat.

“What makes a psychopath truly dangerous isn’t just their capacity for violence…

They learn your vulnerabilities without you realizing it and may use those vulnerabilities to their advantage.”

My fingers claw and smack, fighting against the iron grip around my neck.

His eyes burn into mine, his expression calm, like he’s already decided how this ends.

I never had a choice at all.

Then his lips curl into a smirk, and he leans in, his tone low and final.

“This isn’t a game you get to quit, Lyra. You made your move. Now you have to deal with me.”

And then—he lets go.

I collapse onto the stage, gasping for air and choking roughly.

By the time I blink away the haze and look up, he’s already vanished into the shadows.

And I’m left there, clutching my bloodied necklace.

Firmly caught in his snare.