Page 153 of Dance of Madness

“It’s not me…” I croak, trembling as the tears roll down my face. I look up at him through tear-blurred eyes, pleading with him. “Nero…”

“Well, now it’syouwho means nothing tome,” he growls coldly. “So you’re going to stay here until I figure out how I’m going to get my pound of flesh.” His eyes bore into me. “How I’ll break you. How I’ll destroy you, and everything you love.”

The sound of my weeping fills the darkness.

“Because like I said, Milena,” he says, his voice utterly devoid of emotion again, “you mean nothing to me. And this is all justa means to an end. Isn’t that right.”

I’m still sobbing as he turns and walks out of the light, into the shadows, and from the room. A heavy metal door slams behind him, leaving me crying on my knees in the cold darkness, the TV still looping.

“I’m proud of you,malyshka. Doing what the family needs you to do.”

“Of course, Papa. This is what we Kalishniks do.”

31

NERO

I stand over her,watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.

She finally fell asleep.

She’s curled on her side on the cot, one arm folded beneath her cheek, the other wrapped around her body, protecting her like the blanket she doesn’t have.

Her skin is smudged and dirty, pebbled with goosebumps as she shivers slightly in her sleep.

I fight against that part of me that wants to warm her. Ikillthe piece of me that still wants to take her in my arms and tell her it’s going to be okay.

It’s not.

My gaze drags over her filthy, torn dress, stained with grime and sweat. One strap hangs off her shoulders, and I won’t deny the flicker of heat in my pulse when I see the way the hem has slipped up her bare thighs.

Fuck. She might be a wrecked version of the little princess ballerina she usually is. But even in captivity, in my chains, she’s still got her hair up in that fucking ponytail, as always.

The steel manacle remains around her ankle, the other end of the chain locked to the bars. She’s not going anywhere, not until I decide what I’m doing to her next.

I should feel satisfaction as I consider how best to seek my revenge.

But I don’t. I just feel wrecked, tired, and as much a captive as she is.

I study her, rage burning in my chest despite whatever I feel for her.

She did it. Maybe she didn’t pull the trigger on my parents herself. But she was part of the apparatus that night.

Yes, Papa.

She didn’t just lead them to me, and get me alone so they could take a shot at me. She pulled me away from my mother and father. Maybe I would have been killed execution-style, same as my father, if I’d gone that night.

But then again, maybe I could have saved them. Could have fought back, shielded them. Bought them time.

But I’ll never know, because this woman lured me away from them.

I drag a hand through my hair, fingers twitching as they tighten into a fist.

What if, though?

The thought’s been plaguing me since I left her and went back upstairs to pace the empty Greymoor Mansion.

What if she’s telling the truth? What if the videoisa fake?

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