Page 172 of Dance of Devils

I frown. “You need a break.”

“I'm fine.”

“Brooklyn, you’re?—”

“Practicing, yes,” she snaps coldly. “Turn it back on, please.”

I'm not turning the music back on when she can barely stand.

“What is this?” I ask cautiously.

“I told you: I'm practicing. If I’m going to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting intoImperiya Korona, I need to be better.”

My jaw locks. “Brooklyn?—”

“Please. Just turn the music on.”

“Can you please look at me for one?—”

“Turn the music on.”

I shake my head. “Why are you killing yourself like this? Babygirl, you’re phenomenal?—”

“Not as phenomenal as Inessa Moskovic.”

The words lash out like a slap. She’s still got her back to me, but slowly she turns around, her expression tight and grim.

“You’re using your connection with Ivan to get her in, right?”

Fuck.

My eyes lock on hers as I shake my head. “It’s not that simple,” I say quietly.

She shrugs. “Oh, but it is. There’s one opening, and you’ve already decided who's going to get it.”

“That isnothow it wo?—”

“It’s fine,” she snaps coldly. “Iwashurt.” Her mouth twists. “But now I’m just motivated. She’sreallygood.” She gives me a pointed look. “Inessa, that is. She came to dance with us today.”

My jaw sets.

“Still, I have that callback with Ivan next month. I know there’s only one apprenticeship—well,none, I guess, since it's taken. But if I work my ass off between now and then, maybe I can convince him to?—”

“Brooklyn.”

I start to walk toward her, but she tightens her mouth and spins away from me, getting into her starting position.

“Ireallyneed to get back to work,” she says flatly. “So if you could just turn the music back on—hey!!!”

She hisses, kicking and yelling as I grab her up in my arms and march over to the big sofas by the fireplace. I sit heavily in one, forcing a squirming, fighting, twisting Brooklyn onto my lap.

“Let me the fuck go!” she spits, trying to free her arms. “I have to?—”

“No,” I hiss, grabbing her wrists, yanking them to the small of her back and pinning them there as she struggles on my lap.

“Let me the fuckGO?—!”

“STOP IT!” I roar, holding her wrists tight and shaking her. My eyes blaze into hers. “There’s another Bratva organization—the Moskovic Bratva. My own organization and theirs have been at odds since my father was alive and the Nikolayev Bratva was just a small gang of street thugs. It’s beendecadesof bullshit, fighting, and declarations of war, and itcannot continue.”