Page 22 of Her Vicious Angel

Andrei parked the motorcycle, then lifted me off beside him. He had a firm grip on my arm.

Where the fuck does he think I’m going to go?I wondered.

I saw some of his men put guns in their waistbands, but as far as I could tell Andrei didn’t.

When we walked into the theater, I knew why.

He didn’t need a gun to make anyone fear him.

The theater was impossibly gorgeous and luxurious inside, with a sumptuous front lobby. I peeked into the main theater and saw row after row of satiny black seats with white and gold classical art placed all around the edges.

Everyone we met clearly recognized Andrei, and they turned awed or frightened faces to him. He strode through the lobby and into the main theater, interrupting a group of graceful ballerinas who were practicing. A big man with a bald head came out to greet us. I felt flopsweat from the manager, even though he was outwardly calm.

Andrei folded his arms and shot something off in Russian to the man, who immediately began to try to explain himself.

I watched, unwillingly fascinated, by how Andrei projected his power.

When I felt lust begin to creep and prickle all over my body, I went to the stage to talk to the ballerinas to distract myself from how my desire grew the more brutal he was.

I wondered uncomfortably if I was lying to myself about being a nice, normal person. There was something about Andrei that ripped through my skin and tore through me, exposing me as made out of the same dark materials he was.

The ballerinas were happy to talk with me and even showed me some of the dances from the Nutcracker Ballet, which they had just finished performing.

I was transfixed as they floated effortlessly and elegantly across the stage, and I applauded enthusiastically.

“Maybe we will see you at our next performance,” said Maria, who was a thin, athletic woman in her 40s with tightly pinned back blonde hair. She was the creative director for the Mirovogo Klassa Theater.

“I hope so,” I said, smiling, although I remembered that Andrei did not want to marry me so I had no idea where I would be tomorrow, let alone next month when the next show opened.

“Do they come here often?” I asked, to change the subject.

Maria’s smile seemed pasted on, and she said with some constraint, “Not too often, but we always enjoy having them.”

It seemed like such an obvious lie that anyone would want a bunch of murderous Russian mafia around, but I said nothing.

“They don’t usually bother us,” piped up one ballerina. She was particularly tiny and looked only 18 or 19 years old. “Except for that one.”

I turn around and of course it’s Sergei. Staring at the ballerinas with a weird expression on his face.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets the creeps from him.

Maria hissed at the girl to be quiet just as I say, “yeah, stay away from that one.”

I was about to say more, but Andrei calls me back down.

“Come, Cerise,” he says, and I walk back to him.

Andrei snapped out more orders, and we followed the big bald-headed man into an office.

I couldn’t follow anything Andrei was saying, but he pointed imperiously at the filing cabinets and his voice was hard and uncompromising.

Various papers and printouts were handed to Dmitri.

Apparently Dmitri was the brains of the operation.

But the papers and printouts were only a pretext.

Suddenly, Andrei struck, taking the big man’s head and smashing it down brutally on the desk in front of him.

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