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“Um… Did I say something wrong?”

“Nope,” I grunt coldly. “We’re just done here.”

“Oh,” she says quietly.

I want to focus on that. Want to dial this whole fucking thing back three minutes, to that strange sense of peace I felt before the ghosts of the past reared up to tear me apart.

Too late now.

“You know where the door is,” I growl.

I chance a look back at her, my jaw tightening at the way she’s staring at me.

Confused. Concerned, maybe. Probably pissed.

But I don’t have the bandwidth to address that right now.

So I don’t say a word before I turn, march out of the room, and leave her there.

…Before I drag her down into my madness.

18

MILENA

I keep tellingmyself I should be relieved.

That I dodged a bullet. Got out before I was crushed or scarred by something over which I have no control.

Instead, I feel hollow.

My arm jerks as the zipper of my dance bag sticks. I scowl at it, the empty sensation gnawing at my stomach before I yank it again. This time it opens loudly, the ripping sound echoing in the empty locker room.

People will start arriving for rehearsal any minute now. But I’ve been here for an hour and a half, using the treadmill in the weight room in the basement. I love to run, but these days, Papa insists that at least two of his men shadow me. And having two giant, gruff, unsmiling guys dogging your every step through Central Park isnotas motivating as you might think.

So, sometimes I come here early to pound the imaginary pavement. Madame Kuzmina knows, and gave me the code to the side door a few months ago.

I peel off my sweaty running clothes and pad over to the showers, letting the water get hot before I step under the spray. I groan as it massages my aching muscles. Wince as it streams over my bruises and aches from the madness of Greymoor two days ago.

Nero’s been MIA ever since.

I refuse to believe it’s because I called him a “troublemaker”: it would be insane for anyone over the age of six to get even a little mad about that, let alone pissed enough to shut me out, turn ice cold and disappear.

But I saidsomethingthat flipped him from rational, if not totally normal,pillow-talkNero, into a solid black brick wall where communication goes to die.

One second, we were existing in this serene moment after the insanity of what we just did. The next, he was—gone.

And I don’t know why it hurts. I don’t know why I’m nothappyabout this.

He’s not my boyfriend. “We” are not a “we” in any way, shape or form. We just have a mutual affinity for supremely fucked-up sex games.

If anything, being or havingthatwith Nero should terrify me. His bottomless ability to go darker, deeper, and more feral should be a huge line of red flags.

Avalancheof orgasms aside, I should feelrelievedto be out of his crosshairs.

So why do I keep checking my phone like an idiot teenager, worried I’ve missed a text from him?

I wince again as the water hits a certain spot, glancing down at the marks covering my body.