Page 23 of Encore
“The four of you are just as vain as Marsden. Nyx has a bullshit meter I can appreciate. Beyla is an agent with the Paranormal Investigation Bureau, andnoneof you assholes figured that out?”
“No, but I have a feeling it’s important,” I said.
“Marsden didn’t spend three hours at the salon trying to get his greys covered. He was getting a natural salt and pepper look to his hair at the salon. Marsden’s natural hair color is black, even now.”
“When I go grey, I’m going to totally own the whole silver fox thing, but I won’t go out of my way for that hashtag before it happens naturally,” Merlin said.
“Do you think Marsden would take my solo away and stick me back in the corps if I did a video about how fucking stupid that is?” Nyx asked.
“Put it on the back burner,” I said. “I just have this feeling in my gut it’s important. I don’t want him to know he’s being followed, and it’s the only clue we have.”
“I’ll never doubt a fellow woman and her gut, but Marsden dyeing his hair grey on purpose isn’t a huge clue,” Nyx said.
“On the contrary,” Madame Lucinda said. “I can’t say much because of the geas, but when you figure outwhyhe’s doing that, it’ll lead you straight to Santiago Suarez. Now, all of you need to get back to the studio for rehearsal. You’re all dancing the roles you were meant to be dancing. Nyx should have been promoted to soloist years ago, and Beyla was born to play Damita. Get out of my sight and go grill Marsden about why both of his girlfriends tried to kill Beyla.”
That was a damned good question. He might be tightlipped about everything. I needed to do my job and stop Marsden from keeping Santiago Suarez's whereabouts a secret. I might not know why he was dyeing his hair grey on purpose or how that connected to Santiago.
But he was going to look me in the fucking eye and explain to me why both of his girlfriends wanted me dead.
Chapter20
Beyla
When we got back to the studio for rehearsal, Marsden was up by the piano laughing and joking with the accompanist. He appeared to be in a really fucking good mood considering he was having one girlfriend blackballed from ever doing ballet again for putting his other girlfriend in a situation where I got shot, and every other cast member in the room murdered the shit out of her for it.
I was done. I didn’t mind all the time I spent on the floor with Nyx preparing my pointe shoes, but I regretted softening them up a bit when I loudly dropped my dance bag on the floor. I didn’t have to say anything to my guys. They formed an army behind my back and waited for me to speak.
“You know, I don’t know what’s more fucked up—when I thought you or Santiago gave Bellatrix that gun or finding out your other girlfriend did.”
“Beyla, I brought you here sono onewould die. I wasn’t expecting you to be an amazing dancer. I would have stopped it if I had known what Ivory was planning. They were never with me together because Bella wasn’t into that, but if one of them wasn’t with me, they were generally together. They’d come over sometimes just for dinner. Ivory always seemed to be a calming influence on her. Ineversaw this coming.”
“You spent time alone with them. Youknewwhat they were doing to your dancers. Why did both of your girlfriends want me dead?”
“You’d better explain, or all of us are walking,” Arden growled.
Marsden sighed. I doubted he would have done a thing if I threatened to walk but losing all four of these men after Bellatrix and Ivory would be career suicide. He owed this explanation to every dancer those two hurt; but he brought me here to protect people, not get shot at.
“Bella came from a very cutthroat ballet school. It was a nasty school that was eventually shut down. Everything Bella did after she left was things that had been done to her. The staff there didn’t care. The male teachers were grooming the young dancers and not waiting until they were eighteen to take them to their beds. They made all kinds of promises about getting them auditions when they graduated. The female staff wasn’t much better. They were doing the same thing and encouraging sabotaging the other dancers.”
“High school sucked for literally everyone,” Bevan snarled. “Most people realize that shit is unacceptable when they enter the real world unless they are enabled. Do you know how vile she was toward gay people? In an industry that accepted us long before the rest of the world?”
“I can explain that, too. Bella fell in love with her partner in her firstpas de deuxclass. He was friendly with her and tried to help her with one of her teachers that was being inappropriate with her. He was genuinely a nice guy who cared about her as a friend and looked out for her. However, she took it very badly when she tried to kiss him, and he didn’t want it because he was gay. She, apparently, didn’t notice he was dating another student.”
“I’m sorry, but Bellatrix is a succubus,” Merlin said. “Our gaydar is perfect unless we are lying to ourselves. That’s not an excuse for the shit she said to Bevan.”
“I’m not saying it is. She’s dead and can’t defend herself anymore. I’m just trying to explain how her mind worked a little.”
“That doesn’t explain her trying to shoot me or Ivory giving her the gun.”
“Bellatrix was schooled in an environment that if you didn’t take out your competition, they’d take you out. That didn’t fly in every company she danced with after that. I took a chance on her. I invited her to dinner and asked her to explain what happened at her previous companies. She was honest with me because no other company would have her at that point.
“I promised her I didn’t run my company like that. None of the other dancers here would hurt her to take her place. She was different for a while. She was at peace here and a different person than the one you all know.
“That changed as she started fighting with her body and neared retirement. She became neurotic and resorted to everything she hated about her old ballet school. Bella wasn’t suited to teach. She didn’t have the best environment to learn growing up. Ballet isn’t exactly a career that offers a pension. The retirement age is much younger than any other career. She wouldn’t have been able to collect social security. I’m not excusing anything she did, but she was terrified of the future when she left ballet.”
“She wouldn’t have had a future if she shot Beyla in the back,” Arden growled. “I would have killed her myself. She has nothing now because she’s dead.”
I got Bellatrix a little better. Not why she didn’t grow out of that shit once out of the environment or why she felt that shooting me would end well, but why she was the way she was. Yet, there were still things I didn’t understand.
