Page 166 of Dance of Devils

Brooklyn

Sir.

The next text that comes through has my cock swelling to steel in my trousers. It’s a selfie of her, sitting on the dining room table at the house, her legs spread, her skirt hiked up, and her fingers pulling the lacy gusset of her panties aside.

Yeah,fuckthe steak.

“I’m a lot fuckin’ smarter than you think I am.”

I’m only slightly startled when I hear Lou’s voice from the shadows. Mostly because he isnot, in fact, smart at all. I watched him jimmy open the emergency exit door to the garage from my laptop upstairs. I watched with grim amusement as he drank from a flask and then prowled around until he found my car.

The only surprise is that he’s dumb enough to confront me here, alone.

This will not end how you think it will, motherfucker.

“In five seconds,” I growl, turning to face him, my eyes boring into him, “I’m going to break your face,again, then cut your balls off with my car keys.”

Lou glares at me.

“Five.”

“I know you’re teaching that little bitch,” he snarls.

“Three.”

Lou’s face darkens. “The fuck happened to four!?”

“You lost it when you called her a little bitch.Two.”

I jangle my keys loudly.

“Yeah? Well, I also know somethingelse,” Lou spits. “I know that fancy fuckin’ ballet company in Moscow doesn’t just care about talent.”

I pause. What the fuck is the little creep getting at.

He seems emboldened by the fact that I haven’t said “one” yet. “They also care aboutcharacter,” he sneers. “As in, they only take dancers who areclassy people.”

Lou chuckles.

“Wonder what they’d think about a ballerina stripping on a fuckin’ pole. I wonder if they'd want someslutwho used to grind all over men’s dicks for cash.”

Lethal fury ignites inside me. Mental images I have no interest in flood my brain anyway—images that make me want to break something.

I don’t judge herat allfor what she did to survive. I know what being trapped between annihilation and the abhorrent feels like, and I’ve donemuch worseto avoid the former.

That still doesn’t mean I enjoy the thought of what she used to do.

I take a menacing step toward the greasy little shit grinning at me. Lou pales, backing away from me and wagging a piggy little finger at me.

“Nuh-uh,” he says. “You kill me, all of this gets sent to that ballet. Just try and—eee!”

Lou flails as I grab him by the throat and level a withering look at him.

“I don’t have tokillyou,” I growl. “I could just throw you in front of a fucking bus and turn you into a vegetable for the rest of your life, how's that sound.”

He swallows against my hand, his beady eyes darting about frantically.

“I—I have security measures in place!” he blurts. “F-for my safety!”