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I’m the bait.
And now… so is she.
But she won’t be a plaything for these ruthless men who enjoy breaking pretty things. I’ll protect her with my life as I vowed to before God, as I’ve been doing since the day she came into this world.
I motion my men, Dmitri and Grigori, forward from where they stand near the entrance with two briefcases full of cash, and commit to fucking our entire plan. “I’ll take her.”
She stills with a sharp gasp. Goosebumps race across her shoulders. She doesn’t turn. She doesn’t need to. My voice is as familiar as her father’s and mother’s.
She sways against me, her round full ass brushing over my shame straining against the metal teeth of my zipper. I wrap my fingers around her throat and tilt her head just so, exposing the slim column of her neck. Her pulse races under my thumb as my lips brush against the shell of her ear.
“You’re in big trouble, Pcholka.”
CHAPTER THREE
NIKOLETTA
I slam my clenched fists on my dressing table, making the makeup and brushes rattle with the force. It’s as if my fantasy conjured him out of thin air. Only now, he owns me.
Two years have passed since the last time I saw my godfather—my Konstantin. Two years since he picked me up clean off my feet to hug me, where I buried my face along his neck, letting his shoulder-length hair hide me from my father’s harsh scrutiny.
Kostya, my nickname for him from the time I learned to talk, hugged me tighter and longer that day than ever before and I let myself fantasize that maybe the same feelings coursed through him as they did through me. Not that it mattered. Now that my father found out my secret, I was lucky to be going to Paris. There were far worse alternatives.
In the end, I choked back the lancing pain, like a part of me being carved out with a hot blade, and let him go before my father could suspect him of something. He’d been at my father’s side my entire life—since they were kids according to the stories they told us growing up. His best friend, his right-hand man, the brother he chose. Kostya never broke my father’s trust. Not once. But if my father got it in his head that he might have, that’s all it would take. Bonds would break and blood would spill.
He’ll take me back to my father now. Without a doubt. He’ll tell him how he found me on the stage, selling my body—my innocence.
When my father finds out he bought me, he won’t believe it to be coincidence. He’ll go right back to that day when he found my diary—my fantasies right there in black and white. The ways I dreamed my Konstantin—a man thirty years my senior—would touch and take me.
Nothing will stop the wheels from turning in my father’s head, and my godfather would pay with his life.
I have to tell him the truth. The mortifying truth before he can contact my father. At the very least, then he can protect himself.
His touch lingers with me even now. I sensed him in the darkness and told myself I was crazy. When he took my hand, my heart leapt into my throat, but I dismissed my reaction as nothing but longing. When he tied my bodice back into place, I thought I was hallucinating his scent, but then his voice, his deep rumble washed over me.
Every part of me came to life. For one singular moment, I forgot about the danger, the fear, the promise of a future mired in pain, and lost myself in the nearness of him.
Did he watch me the whole time? When I bared my breasts to them, did honor have him turning away? Did I disappoint him?
My heart pinches at the thought. He has to understand I had no choice.
“Save a little for the rest of us, why don’t you. Slut,” Stacy says as she makes her way past me.
I’ve been careful to control my temper, but with my nerves raw, my body awakened by Konstantin’s touch, and the danger looming, my control fractures. A snarl bursts from my throat. Fisting my fingers around the metal nail file under my hand, I spin on her, snatch her by the back of the hair, yank her head down, and press the tip of the file into the delicate skin under her eye.
The chatter around us dies on a series of gasps. Someone runs out of the room, her heels clicking as she scurries away, no doubt running to Silas.
Good.
Anger and fear war in her jaded blue eyes. Her chest heaves and her fingers lock on my wrists like she has a chance of stopping me. I let her fear wash over me, relishing every second she cowers before me, wondering what I’ll do to mar her beautiful face. In this moment, we’re the same. Both facing looming uncertainty and the guarantee of pain.
This is the Romanoff in me. The part of me deep inside I’m afraid to let run free. The broken part of my soul desperate to turn away from everything good, ready to set fire to her dreams, and embrace her legacy of blood and death.
“Call me a slut one more time and I’ll scoop that pretty little eyeball out of your skull. Understand me?”
A whimper breaks free and she nods carefully, the tip of the file biting into her skin just a bit.
Letting her go, she crumples to the floor and the other dancers rush over to help her up and drag her to the other side of the room.
