Dance of Ruin: Chapter 2

My entire body jangles. My breath is ragged and uneven, my blood hammering so hard through my veins that I swear I can hear it. But I don’t move.

Nico still has my wrist.

And he hasn’t pulled me up yet.

For a long, endless moment I dangle there, thirty stories of nothing below me. His grip is firm—solid, unshakable—but he doesn’t make any move to get me to safety. Instead, he just…watches me.

His sharp blue eyes flick over my face, peering at me. Like I’m a puzzle he hadn’t expected to stumble upon tonight that he’s now trying to unravel. A slow smirk curls the corners of his mouth, as if he finds this entire situation mildly amusing.

My stomach clenches, ice slithering up my spine as I drink in the slightly impassive way he looks at me.

Just as I’m about to open my mouth and beg, his arms flex, and I gasp as he yanks me up in one swift, effortless motion.

The rooftop slams beneath my palms as I collapse forward, gasping. My knees scrape on the cold stone and my dress catches on the rough surface.

I blink, shaking as I drag my gaze up, realizing that I’m back on the part of the roof that I first walked out onto.

“Technically, sneaking onto private terraces is breaking and entering, you know.”

His voice is low. Almost sensual. And yet, it’s not flirtatious. It’s more like a warning, etched into skin.

I shiver, clambering to my feet and turning to him. Nico stands on the ledge with the city behind him, casually leaning with one shoulder against the wall, ankles crossed and arms folded over his broad chest.

He’s in dark jeans, black t-shirt, and a leather jacket—the sleeves tugged up a little to display the ink swirling down his forearms. Another swath of it creeps up his neck all the way to his chiseled jawline.

His dark hair is short on the sides and slicked to the side and slightly back on top, and I find myself swallowing nervously as those piercing eyes bore into me.

“And that’s a crime,” he murmurs, an almost amused lilt to his tone.

My throat bobs. “Last time I checked, so is⁠—”

What. The. HELL. Self!?

I clamp my mouth shut before the truly insane shit I was about to say—out loud, to this man, of all people—comes tumbling out.

So is murder.

I’m not fast enough. The air turns a little chillier as his brow cocks. A low hum tingles over my skin when he unfolds his arms and slowly steps down off the ledge, a jungle cat slinking out of a tree in the darkness. A jaguar sniffing out his prey.

“You were saying…?”

The words fall from his lips in that same near-sensual tone. And yet there’s nothing sexy or charming about the look on his face, or the dark gleam in his eye.

“Nothing.” My throat works as I shrug and take a step back from him.

“I—I wasn’t saying any⁠—”

Nico takes one more step toward me.

“Mmm, it really sounded like you were about to say something.”

I suck my lips in on themselves, teeth pressing over the soft flesh as my pulse pounds.

“I—I was at the party, downstairs. My father⁠—”

“I know who you are, Naomi,” he growls quietly.

He takes another step toward me.

He knows who I am.

For a second, there’s this truly insane, cringey schoolgirl feeling inside me. It’s not like we’ve ever hung out—not really. But we’ve seen each other in passing since I’m close friends with his younger sister, Bianca.

But the Nico I’m face to face with now is not “Bianca’s older brother”. He’s not even “one of Vito Barone’s sons, second only to Carmine in the entire Barone mafia family.”

Right now, between the dark, sharp shadows of his face backlit by the neon of the city, the cold glint in his unblinking eyes, and the way his jaw tightens as he prowls menacingly toward me, he’s not anything close to something or someone I know.

He barely even looks human as the darkness surges behind his face, misting off his skin like black smoke.

Nico takes another slow, predatory step toward me. I move back again, and he slides to his right, like he’s trying to get around me. I sidestep as well, keeping him dead center in my field of vision, rotating slightly, stepping back again when he steps forward, maintaining the distance between us.

“Are you scared of me, Naomi?”

Icy coldness teases over my skin and finger-walks down my spine.

“Should I be?” I whisper.

Yes.

Yes, you should. You just watched him murder someone.

The thought clings to me, digging its claws into my skin. I know what I just witnessed. But when it happened literally in front of me, some kind of self-preservation instinct took over, urging me to run away before he could see me.

Except… He did.

And now I’m alone on a dark roof with a man with a dangerous glint in his eyes who’s just proven that he’s more than willing to push people from said roof.

Our slow dance continues. He moves to his right, I rotate to mine, keeping him dead center. He advances toward me, I retreat, not taking my eyes off him for a second.

It’s not until something cold and solid hits the small of my back that I flinch awake from the dark spell he’s cast over me. I jolt, my gaze on him breaking as I glance behind me.

Shit.

I was so focused on keeping him in my center field of vision—as if he’s a lion stalking out of the savanna grass toward me—that I lost track of my positioning.

Nico wasn’t trying to outflank me. He was trying to turn me, knowing I’d keep backing away from him as he advanced. Which means now, I’m pinned against the very ledge of the roof I almost just fell from…and he’s still advancing on me.

Quite suddenly, I find myself frozen as he melts from the shadows into my personal space, looming over me, a menacing aura swirling around us like black fog.

He’s too close.

The scent of tobacco smoke, leather, and dark, lethal masculinity fills my lungs. For a ridiculous second, I think that if danger had a scent, it would smell like him.

Nico’s blue eyes pierce the swirling blackness around us, cutting into my core as I tense against the stone behind me. I’m suddenly much more aware of everything around me—the chill in the air, the slightly worn surface of the stone ledge pressing against me, the distant noise of the city below me.

Danger incarnate, cocking his head to the side and studying me. Appraising me.

Judging my fate.

“Because we know each other,” he growls quietly, “why don’t we spare each other the embarrassment of lying to one another’s faces.”

A cold shiver ripples up my spine as he moves even closer, so close that his body is pressed to mine, literally pinning me to the ledge behind me.

“What did you see.”

I swallow uncomfortably. My pulse thuds like doom in my veins.

He knows me. I’m friends with his sister. He wouldn’t just KILL me.

My insides curdle.

Right?

“If I wanted to kill you,” he murmurs quietly—like that cold blue gaze is capable of penetrating my skull and reading my very thoughts—“the opportune moment would have been when I had you dangling over thin air, wouldn’t it?” His lips curl, like he’s amused by the idea. “I wouldn’t have needed to do a thing, actually. I could have just watched you fall.” His smile widens.

What is he, deranged?

“Funny, I thought ballerinas were supposed to be graceful.”

“We can’t fly,” I mumble.

“You know, when we were kids and Bianca first started taking ballet, I used to think that the tutus acted like parachutes.”

This entire scenario feels like a fever dream.

I’ve just watched this mankill someone. Then he saves me from falling, even though I saw what he did, and he knows it. And now we’re talking about…parachute tutus?

Nico’s brows knit. “Although thinking about it now, I’m guessing that was probably something I saw in a cartoon.”

A cold shiver creeps up my spine as I swallow the dryness in my mouth.

“Nico…” I say quietly, fear still rampaging through my veins.

“Hmm?”

“What are we doing?” I whisper.

He doesn’t respond instantly. Instead, he lets his lips curl a little, as if he’s about to smile.

But he doesn’t, and that “almost-a-smile” stays where it is, a slightly off-kilter, somewhat deranged thin line.

And there’s nothing smiley about his eyes.

“We were discussing what you, unfortunately, appear to have seen just now.”

My head shakes automatically. “I didn’t⁠—”

I gasp sharply, adrenaline spiking through my system as his hand suddenly wraps around my throat.

And squeezes.

“I thought we’d decided notto lie to each other, Naomi.”

He sighs, rolling his neck, making the tattoo ink there flex in the neon light of the city.

“So, we can agree that you saw what you saw.”

I tense.

“Acknowledging that I could have let you go, or merely not done a thing to stop you from falling three and a half minutes ago, and yet here you stand—you’re welcome, by the way…”

I frown, a jangling symphony of emotions and firing synapses clashing inside me.

“I—yeah, thank you,” I mutter.

“You can thank me by looking me in the eye and telling me what you saw.”

My body stiffens, my pulse skipping a beat as my throat tightens even without his hand squeezing any tighter.

“Naomi.”

“I…”

“Say it,” he murmurs darkly, that weirdly sensual tone drifting over my skin like a dark caress.

“I saw you…”

“Saw me…what?” he pushes.

I shake my head, then close my eyes, taking a shaky breath.

“I saw you push him,” I half-whisper. “That man.”

Silence. I feel my skin pebble from the chill as I slowly open my eyes.

Jesus.

I almost flinch at the intense way he’s looking at me, his blue eyes flaying me open like a science experiment.

“Good girl.”

I make an immediate choice not to acknowledge the tightening sensation I feel in my core when he says that.

“Now, was that so hard?” Nico smirks.

I feel my pulse skip again as I shake my head.

“And now, my little ballerina friend, I’d like to know what you heard.”

My chest constricts. I should have known this would be the next question.

“Nothing,” I lie.

He chuckles, low and dark. “You’re funny.”

“And you’re terrifying,” I whisper back.

Nico grins. And scariest part about it is that it’s totally and completely genuine.

Now, with his hand around my throat, pinning me to the ledge, and with the neon abyss behind me.

He’s grinning.

I tense as his gaze drops. I follow it, looking down at my elbow. There’s a thin line of blood from where I scraped it on the stone when I slipped.

Before I can react, he reaches down and swipes his thumb over the cut, collecting a small smear of blood on his fingertip. Then he lifts his hand slowly, bringing it up between us, his eyes locked on mine as his tongue flicks out and drags across his finger in one slow, deliberate motion.

My breath stutters and a shiver moves through me, something foreign and indescribable twisting in my stomach.

Then, without another word, his hand drops from my throat. His eyes level one more piercing stab into mine before he suddenly turns and starts to walk away through the shadows, back toward the door to the stairs.

“Wait…” It tumbles out before I can stop myself.

He half-turns, the lights of the city casting strange shadows across his face.

“How do I know you’re not going to kill me?” My voice barely makes it out of my throat. “I mean…later.”

Nico chuckles softly, shaking his head. “You don’t.”

And then he turns completely, walks over, and steps back into the light of the stairwell, letting the door click shut behind him.