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The knife slips beneath the ribbons of my shoe, grazing my anklebone, and I gasp. I hate myself for the instantaneous reaction, but I can’t help it. The fear that runs through me is chilling and instantaneous, even as Mikhail wraps a gentle hand around my foot, the softness of his touch a sharp contrast to the danger of the knife so close to my Achilles’ heel.
“You were his daughter.” The knife cuts through the ribbon like nothing, slicing it so effortlessly that I feel a wave of nausea go through me, imagining how easily it would cut through my flesh. “You were his heir. Hisonlylegitimate child. You would have been close to him. Aware of all that he was doing. A part of his empire.” Mikhail pulls the ribbons loose, sliding the shoe off of my foot as gently as if he were the prince and I were Cinderella, in backwards motion.
I bite back a strangled cry as I feel the tip of the knife slide down the sole of my foot, the thin material of my tights parting. I’m extremely ticklish, and it’s all I can do not to jerk backwards. If I had, I have no doubt it would have cut me.
Mikhail tosses the shoe aside, reaching for my other ankle. “Answer me, Natalia.”
“You didn’t ask another question,” I snipe back, despite my better judgement. “Try one I can answer, and maybe I will.”
He slices the ribbons away on my other ankle so swiftly that I gasp again, feeling the tip nicking my skin. Not enough to draw blood. I can feel how skillful he is with his hands, with the knife, and I know he’s done this before. He handles it with surgical precision, and it should be comforting to know he won’t accidentally cut me, but it only terrifies me more.
If he hurts me, it will be with that same terrible precision.
“You should think about your circumstances,” Mikhail says slowly, “before you speak to me in such a way, Natalia. “It will only hurt you more in the end.”
“I don’t know anything about his business dealings,” I snap as Mikhail pulls away the other ballet shoe, the tip of the knife sliding through my tights again, skimming over my sensitive sole. “I’m a fuckingwoman. I was good for marrying off, and that’s it.”
“So why aren’t you married, then?” Mikhail reaches for first one foot and then the other, tearing the tights where he cut them, baring my feet entirely. He straightens, kicking the pointe shoes aside, and I realize what he’s done. Without the tips of the pointe shoes to hold me up, the very tips of my toes brush the tile, leaving me without actual purchase, dangling me from the ceiling. I can feel the faint ache in my shoulders already.
He watches me impassively, his face frighteningly blank. “If all you were was a pawn in your father’s alliances, as so many daughters are, then you should be married. You’re past the age most Bratva men look for in a wife. So–why not?”
That, at least, is a question I can answer. “I convinced my father to let me study ballet,” I tell him honestly. “He had a marriage arranged for me, and I didn’t want it. I convinced him to put it off, in favor of my performing until I was twenty-eight.”
Mikhail laughs. “You’re telling me that you, the daughter of the most powerful man in Moscow, managed to convince that man to let you do what you wanted until you were nearlythirty, instead of marrying a man who would strengthen his power base, as you were expected to do?”
He reaches out, the tip of the knife pressing into my waist just above my hip, and it takes everything in me not to cry out in fear. I clench my teeth and my fists, trying to ignore the growing burn in my shoulders, and then Mikhail jerks the point of the knife down, and a muffled scream escapes from behind my teeth. I can’t help it.
But the knife doesn’t pierce my flesh. It rips through the thin elastic waist and silky fabric of the skirt I’m wearing over my leotard, cutting through it like wet paper, and the skirt falls away, leaving me in only the leotard and my torn tights.
Mikhail laughs under his breath as he sees my face, stepping back again. “Now, Natalia, answer my question truthfully.”
“Idid,” I seethe out from between my teeth. “My father tried to force me to marry someone. I fucking hated him. So I went to his office and told him that I wouldn’t do it, and he beat me over his desk with a belt. When I took it like a fucking man and then stood up and told him I still wasn’t going to do it, and what I wanted, he actually fucking listened to me.”
Mikhail stares at me for a moment, a curious expression on his face. There’s something in his gaze that almost looks as if he’s impressed, and something else too–a flicker of jealousy, which makes me laugh, despite the horror of the situation I’m currently in.
That, I can tell, pisses him off. “You think this is funny?” he growls, flicking his wrist so that the light in the basement glints off of the blade of the knife. “You have no idea, the things I can do to you, and still leave you living.”
“I have some idea,” I snap. “After all, like you said, I am the daughter of a Bratva man. But yes, I think it’s fucking funny that I told you my father beat me to try to make me marry someone, and you looked fuckingjealous, as if I enjoyed it.”
Mikhail raises an eyebrow, stepping towards me. Slowly, very slowly, he hooks the tip of the knife under one of the snaps holding my leotard closed, and I swallow back the lump of fear in my throat, feeling the knife pressed so closely between my legs. “Didn’t you enjoy it?” he asked silkily, and I glare down at him.
“Of course not, you sick fuck,” I snap. “I didn’tenjoygetting belted by my fuckingdad.”
Mikhail laughs under his breath, flicking the knife, once, twice, three times, and each snap comes loose, suddenly only the thin material of my tights and panties between the knife blade and my flesh. “I don’t mean likethat, kotenok,” he murmurs, amusement thick in his voice. “But you did enjoy it. You enjoyed proving how much you could take, that you could take that beating and still throw your defiance back in his face. Just as you enjoy it with me. Only with me–” the knife presses a little closer, and I press my lips tightly against a whimper of fear.
“With me,” he continues, his voice that soft croon still, “with me, it’s not just defiance, it’s desire. You love proving that you can take all the fear and pain and hurt that I dish out and threaten. You love proving how brave and tough and strong you are. But with me, you’re fucking turned on by it, aren’t you, naughty little kitten?”
He grins. “Answer me.”
I glare at him, but I don’t dare lie. Not with the blade so close to my most intimate places, threatening.
“Yes,” I spit out, grinding the word to dust between my teeth. “Yes! Are you fucking happy? All of this turns me on, and Ihateyou for it. I hate you for making me want any of this.”
Mikhail laughs. “Good girl,” he praises, stepping back as he takes the knife away. “See? Telling the truth wasn’t so hard.” He reaches up, releasing one of the knots where the ropes are bound together, and there’s suddenly an inch or so of slack in the rope, letting my feet rest against the tile.
I can’t help the gasp of relief that slips out of me as I feel the floor under my feet, the burn in my shoulders easing for a moment. I glare at Mikhail, but his face remains impassive as he circles behind me, the tip of the knife suddenly pressing between my shoulder blades.
“I can’t say I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmurs, the sharp blade biting through the wet material of my leotard. “After what your family has done, after whatyouhave done, I can’t pretend. And I don’t like to lie, any more than I like to be lied to,krastoka. But I can say that this doesn’t have to be as bad as I can make it, if you are honest with me.”
