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“You bitches coming?”

“Yeah,do notcall me that,” Brooklyn snaps as we walk over to where Val is waiting by the door.

“I’ve always admired the British for keepingcuntalive and well,” he shrugs, grinning as he opens the door.

“You call me a cunt,” Brooklyn says sweetly, “and I will cut off your dick and fuck you in the ass with it?—”

Every molecule of air seems to be sucked out of the world as we step out of the dressing room and almost directlyintoKir Nikolayev.

I stumble to a stop. Miracle of miracles,Valhimself seems to be at a loss for words. Brooklyn, who’s almost walked right into Kir's chest, gapes up at him with a horrified expression on her shocked face.

“Fuck…” she croaks.

It’s notthatweird to see him here. When he’s not ruling half of New York as one of the most undisputedly powerful Bratva leaders in the city, Kir occasionally does drop by the Mercury Theater to check in.

I mean, hedoesown the building, and is the chief financier of the company itself.

He’s alsodisturbinglygorgeous. Dark hair, haunting dark eyes, and the jawline of an Armani model, which he also happens to dress like, too.

All of us freeze as his dark eyes sweep over us, then land squarely on poor Brooklyn, who's looking up at him like she just got busted in the middle of a murder.

“That’s…quite a descriptive threat, Ms. Ellis.”

It’s wild: you can literallyseeher face change colors in real-time. Pale to the point of blue, then white, then a sudden dash of pink that explodes into crimson.

“I…thought so,” she mumbles.

Kir’s brow arches. “I’ll have to use it someday.” His steely gaze shifts to Val. “Mr. Bancroft,” he growls, his voice quiet butsomehow carryinginsanepower. “May I ask what earned you such a threat?”

Val clears his throat. “I'm guessing the part where I threatened to call her a cunt?”

A shadow flickers in Kir's dark eyes.

“That would do it,” he grunts. “I suggest based on her threat that you…don’t.”

“Heard loud and clear, sir,” Val nods.

Just then, Madame Kuzmina floats up the hallway, rings glittering on her fingers as her dark eyes sweep over us accusingly.

“I’m quite sure the three of you should be in Conditioning Class by now,” she says coldly. “Notbothering Mr. Nikolayev.”

She’s a holy terror when she wants to be, but I have a soft spot for Madame Kuzmina. Maybe it’s our shared Russian heritage, or the fact that she looks like some sort of wild-ass fortune teller.

It’s also funny that we all think of her as being so much older, because of the way she rules the company with an iron fist, wrapped up in her dark, shapeless shawls. Up close, though, you realize that she’s probably only thirty-five or something.

Still supremely terrifying, though.

“Now, my dears,” she breathes with malice.

Kir gives us all another piercing look and deft nod of his exquisitely perfect jawline, then he and Madame Kuzmina turn and walk off down the hallway.

I shiver, but not because of Kir’s genetics. Because of a scene I’ve still got playing on repeat in my head.

A scene in the shadows outside Greymoor, where Nero and Kir were talking quietly…right before Nero cut two men’s throats.

“Every tribe needs a ghost story. Every club needs a boogeyman. I can be that for you.”

Why thefuckwere Nero and Kir killing two men that night? Why and how do they even talk at all?