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“I’m trying,” I breathe out. “I can’t answer questions I don’t know.”
“Why did your father agree to let you dance, instead of marrying?”
“I told you–”
“Yes, yes. The brave, tough Bratva princess took her beating and insisted on getting her way anyway. Butwhy?” Mikhail insists. “What did he get out of it?”
I let out a sigh. I resent telling him anything right now, but there’s no reason to withhold that, and the feeling of having my feet on the ground is too good to give up so quickly. “The prestige,” I tell him flatly. “He told me if I proved to be as good as I thought I was, that he would allow it. If I reached the heights that he expected, that would bring accolades and prestige to our family, that would enable him to mix in the most respected and powerful families, even those who might not have wanted to work with Bratva. He said that if I could bring as much worth through my dancing as a marriage might have, he would be willing to delay the latter. But I had to agree to marry whoever he chose, when the time came.”
“And you made that deal?”
I nod, giving Mikhail a bitter look. “What choice did I have? It bought me time. That was good enough for me, living the life I lived. I always knew it was inevitable.”
“So you want me to believe–” he pauses, reaching up, and I feel him yank the rope upwards, dragging my feet off the tile again as he re-knots it. “That your father valued and respected you enough to give you what you wanted, but not enough to tell you anything about his business dealings? You knew nothing of his contacts? The things he did? But you knew enough to know how to have him killed.”
He circles around to face me, his eyes dark and angry. “Do you know what else is inevitable, Natalia?” The knife presses between my breasts, sliding up, to the top of the scooped neckline of my leotard. “How you will suffer if you keep lying to me, hiding things from me.”
“I’mnot,” I force out between gritted teeth. “He didn’t tell me very much of anything, beyond who I needed to speak to and be friendly with at social events.”
“You were his heir.” The knife starts to part the pink fabric, pulling downwards, leaving a thin line down my pale flesh, though it doesn’t draw blood yet. “You can’t expect me to believe he told you nothing.”
“I wasn’t his heir. I was his only child, but that doesn’t mean he was going to give me any power, or let me inherit all of it when he died.” It takes everything in me not to struggle as the fabric tears open, contracting on either side and baring my small breasts to Mikhail’s gaze, my nipples stiff in the cool air.
“So you haven’t inherited it all?”
“I don’tknow,” I hiss. “I ran right after he died. I have no idea what was in his will. For all I know, he left it all to some other male family member.”
“Hm.” Mikhail drags the knife down further, slicing, until the leotard rips open, leaving the front of me entirely bare as it hangs from my shoulders. “Who would he have planned to have inherit?”
“I don’tknow. Whoever I married? He certainly didn’t intend to die anytime soon,” I snap. “Whatever it is that you want, whatever information you’re looking for, I don’t fucking have it. I wasn’t privy to his business dealings. I knew which guards to flirt with to get a clear path down to where I wanted the men I let into the compound to go. That’sall.”
Mikhail smirks. With two quick flicks of the knife, one under each underarm, he slices the rest of the leotard free, and it falls to the tile floor, leaving me in nothing but the torn tights.
“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, tracing the fingers of one hand between my breasts. “Your body is stunning,krasotka.A work of art. It would be such a shame to destroy it.”
I can hear that waver in his voice, that thread of lust that I know leads down the rabbit hole of forgetting, of him losing himself in his desire for me. His hand slides to one side, palming my breast as he runs the tip of the knife beneath the other one, and the contrast of his warm hand and the cool steel of the blade sends a tremor down my spine that ends in a pool of heat between my thighs.
“You need to be punished,” he murmurs. “For what you’ve done. For who you’ve hurt.”
“I don’t understand.” The words come out more tremulously than I mean for them to. “I don’t know what I’ve done, Mikhail. If you would just tell me–”
“I told you not to lie to me.” His eyes flick up to mine, as the knife slides upwards, over the small swell of my breast, to press against my nipple.
I can hear his breathing quicken, see the way his focus shifts as he touches me, his fingers stroking my nipple as he circles the other with the tip of the knife. I know this is arousing him, distracting him, and I stop fighting my own body’s reactions as hard as I have been, hoping to draw him further away from the goal of pain, into at least pleasure.
He looks almost dazed as he drags the knife down, tracing my ribs with the point, soothing away the thin pink lines with his fingers. “The way you danced for me–” he murmurs, hand sliding down my waist. “You are everything I thought you were. Exquisite. It’s a shame–”
“What?” I breathe. “I don’t understand, Mikhail. Truly, I don’t.”
“Tell me about your father and Viktor,” he repeats, circling my navel with the point of the knife. “Tell me why he plotted against him. Tell me why he kidnapped Viktor’s wife.”
“Caterina?” I look down at him, surprised. “I remember her at a party–not long after they were married, I think. Some Italian girl he married. I remember everyone being surprised at him marrying her, and not a Bratva girl. I think my father was irritated by it, but I don’t know–”
“Liar,” Mikhail hisses, glaring up at me as he trails the knife point lower, down towards my clit. Fear pulses in my throat, choking me, but at the same time, more heat pools between my thighs. “You were his only child. Youknow.”
He slides the knife down, cutting open my tights between my thighs, through the thin nylon and the silky fabric of my panties, baring my pussy to the cool air and the cold blade of his knife. I barely keep myself from crying out in fear, staring down at him in numb terror, as he cuts all the way up to the waist of my tights, through both layers of fabric.
He presses the sharp tip against my clit, and I can’t speak a word, no matter what I know or don’t. I stare down at him, trembling with fear, and Mikhail laughs low and deep in the back of his throat as he rubs the flat of the blade against my clit, slowly back and forth, his fingers spreading my folds open as he does to keep from cutting me.
