His Ballerina

by Darcy Rose

  She’s completely out of place around here. To call this area depressed would be an insult to depressed areas. There’s garbage in the streets, spilling out from abandoned buildings, filthy alleyways. Homeless people huddle in doorways. Men call out to her, using all sorts of language, and my blood boils. Only the thought of what she would do if she knew I was following keeps me from jumping out of the car and blowing them away.

  She seems to float through it. Like she’s there but not there. Like she’s somehow above it. And she is. She doesn’t belong here. She deserves more than this.

  I’m about to ask myself what makes me so sure of her goodness, her sweetness, when my phone rings. The sight of ACE on the screen only makes me growl. “What?” I bark on answering.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? You never went home last night.”

  “How do you know I didn’t go home?”

  “You didn’t disarm the security system.”

  I forgot he can access my system through an app on his phone. He doesn’t love that I don’t live in the family mansion and wants to keep an eye on me. I don’t appreciate it, but I do appreciate how protective we all are in my family. We have to be. “For all I knew, you could’ve been lying in a ditch somewhere with a slug in your skull.”

  “Obviously, that’s not the case, or I wouldn’t answer the phone.”

  “Thanks for stating the obvious. So, where the hell are you? What gives?”

  Meanwhile, Madison is walking into a little greasy spoon diner, one of those places that looks like an old train car somebody left in the middle of a neighborhood. Maybe if the chrome on the outside was updated and the neon fixed on the sign, it might look like a half-decent place. Right now, it looks like a rat buffet—a disease factory.

  “Hello? Where’d you go?”

  I growl again at my observation being interrupted. “Did it ever occur to you I have my own shit to deal with? Do I have to check in with you every minute of the day?”

  “Hey, take it easy. Since when do you snap at me like that for asking a totally normal question?”

  “Maybe I don’t feel like being questioned?”

  “Then maybe you should stop doing weird shit like this. Since when do you disappear after a job?”

  “I got the job done, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, then you sent somebody else in to clean up after you. That doesn’t happen. So I’m sorry if this sudden change made me wonder.”

  I roll my eyes at the offended tone in my brother’s voice. “Listen, everything’s fine. That’s all I can tell you. I’ll check in with you later.” I end the call there since all Ace is going to do is ask more questions and demand I tell him the story.

  Honestly, I don’t even know where I would start. What would he think if I explained? Hey, no big deal, but I met a girl last night. That is, she witnessed the hit. And instead of killing her, I’m following her around because I can’t stand the idea of her being alone in this neighborhood. It meant going the whole night without sleep and not leaving my car, but it’s what I have to do.

  He’d have me committed.

  And if I were in my right mind, I wouldn’t blame him. If this were any of my brothers, I would have to question their sanity after they took an about-face like this. Because this isn’t me. This isn’t who I am; it’s not what I do. I don’t skulk around in the shadows, trailing random girls.

  I don’t trail any girls. They trail me. If I’m in the mood, I’ll fuck them. If not, I’ll ignore them. But it’s always my choice, my decision. And if they’re disappointed, that’s on them. I can’t even remember the name of the last girl I screwed—probably because I never asked for it. What difference does it make? It’s not like I’ll ever see her again.

  She was a nobody, just like all the other nobodies. Madison might as well exist on another planet. Another galaxy.

  It’s not ten minutes before I see her again through the window, and now she’s wearing one of those polyester waitress uniforms. She probably got it from an office in the back, and it’s at least two sizes too big. I don’t know whether I’m glad she didn’t go in there to eat or sad for her.

  But she’s smiling. I can see it from here when she greets the booth full of men who just got out of a pair of trucks parked alongside the building. She’s warm, kind, the sort of kindness that shines out of a person. It’s not fake, not put on just for the sake of earning tips. One of the guys tells a joke, and she laughs, making the rest of them laugh with her.

  I want to know what her laugh sounds like. I want to be the one who makes her laugh. My hands tighten around the steering wheel when I think about the guy who told the joke. Who does he think he is, speaking to her in the first place?

  But they’re older guys, and I doubt any of them are seriously trying to pick her up. Besides, she might look small and weak, but there’s a core of steel inside this girl. I witnessed flashes of it last night. Something tells me she would know how to put a guy with the wrong idea in his place. She would probably do it with a sweet smile, with kindness.

  Of course, not all men know how to take no for an answer. Which is where guys like me come in. I would more than happily wipe anybody who dared put a hand on her from the face of the earth. I know how to do it, so nobody ever finds them.

  I meet my own gaze in the rearview mirror. The hardness in my eyes comes as a surprise, though it shouldn’t. All this thinking about her has my protective instincts running on overdrive. No wonder I look so intense.

  It goes deeper than that, though. Down to the core of who I am. I’m not kind. I’m not sweet. I don’t have a gentle bone in my body. She is the complete opposite of me. Maybe that’s what makes her so irresistible.

  She’ll be at it for a while, I’m guessing, so I decide to head home to shower and change before going back and waiting for her to finish her shift.

  She’s still working when I return, and she doesn’t leave until seven. It’s dark, just the way it was when she first left home this morning, and I can’t help but feel sorrier for her than I did before.

  Especially when she stops next to a pair of homeless people and leaves a Styrofoam container in front of them that I’m guessing holds food from the diner. Was she taking it home to feed herself? And she decided at the last minute that they needed it more?

  How can she stay this way when she’s surrounded by so much misery?

  Just when I think she’s in for the night, she comes out again around nine o’clock. The fact that I’ve spent the entire day watching her, waiting for her, doesn’t escape me as I follow once again. I would spend the rest of my life doing this so long as it meant being the angel over her shoulder, making sure no harm comes to her.

  Though I doubt anybody would ever call me an angel.

  She steps inside a rundown gym not too far from where we met last night. This is where she was coming from? The place must’ve closed way before we ran into each other—in fact, I wonder why she’s here at all since it can’t be open much longer. Sure enough, not long after she goes inside, a paunchy bald man comes out and locks the front doors before pulling away in an old beater.

  What gives? Once the beater pulls away, I get out of my car, my head on a swivel as I approach the building. Most of the lights are off inside, though I can see somebody walking around in the half-lit weight room.

  It’s her. And now she’s sweeping the floor, picking up empty bottles and cans and tossing them into the trash. It looks like she’s muttering to herself, and I can’t blame her. People are slobs.

  And she has to clean up after them. God, can this get any worse? This girl works harder than anybody I’ve ever known, and her day isn’t over yet. How she doesn’t collapse is a mystery.

  I wait in the shadows while she heaves bags into the dumpster behind the gym before going back inside. I can see her as she turns off the lights in the weight room, and I follow down the length of the building, coming to a stop when she does in what looks like a dance studio with mirrors on the walls.
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br />   I duck a little, careful to avoid notice. She sits on the floor and laces up a pair of those ballet shoes with the ribbons that go around the ankle, they look a little more beat-up than the kind you usually see dancers wear. Not that I’m a huge ballet fan or anything, but even I know these shoes have seen some wear and tear.

  She’s wearing a leotard now, giving me an ample view of her body. Toned, tight, curves in all the right places, just enough to fill my hands as she rides me.

  It seems wrong, even sacrilegious, to think of her that way, but how can I help myself? She’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen. Angel or not, I could make a life’s work out of memorizing every inch of her body, then worshipping those inches the way they deserve.

  And once she starts dancing, arms and legs moving like water as she almost floats around the room, that perfection crystallizes in my head. She’s bewitching like she’s putting a spell on me with every move. Calling to me. Tempting, teasing. I can believe I’m the man she’s dancing for—ust me.

  By the time I think to check my watch, I’m surprised to find it’s almost midnight. She’s been dancing since ten, which means I’ve watched her for two hours. What do I care? I could stand here all night, so long as it meant watching her do something she clearly loves.

  No, she’s no professional. But she loves it. Her face, my god, it’s like the sun. She smiles at nobody, dancing alone, the sort of smile a person wears when they’re doing something they were meant to do. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way for a single moment in my whole life.

  Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m feeling that way right now. Because as I stand here, watching through the window as this perfect, precious thing dances back and forth across the room, I can’t help but think I was meant for her. To protect her, to adore her. Forever.

  5

  Madison

  It’s way too late by the time I get my stuff together to leave the gym. I should know better, especially after what happened last night, but I can’t help myself.

  If anything, being able to dance tonight made it possible to work out all the tension I’ve been carrying around with me all day—the anxiety.

  I’m pretty sure I saw that black SUV at least once, though I might’ve been paranoid about that. Isn’t it how life always goes? You see a black car, and all of a sudden, that’s all you see. It’s not that there are necessarily more black cars around. It’s just that you notice them now.

  That was how my entire day went. Every time I glanced out the window at the diner—when I had the chance to do it and wasn’t too busy being overwhelmed by a busier-than-normal day—I noticed a black SUV sitting at the curb. Across the street, then further down later on in the day.

  It could’ve been two separate drivers. Couldn’t it?

  I’m still asking myself that question as I grab my bag and hurry out through the back door. I’ll take the streets and sidewalks tonight as soon as I make it out of the alley behind the gym. The front door is always padlocked by the time I leave, so I don’t have a choice of how I exit. All I have to do is lock the back, and that’s it.

  After I do, I turn around, ready to sprint if I have to.

  And I end up running straight into a chest covered in a black leather jacket.

  My head snaps up, and I look straight into Archer’s eyes. They’re dark, stormy.

  He’s pissed. Maybe I wouldn’t have run into him if he hadn’t been standing there, watching me.

  “What is wrong with you?” It comes out as a bark. “Why can’t you get it through your head?”

  “I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to bump into you.” And I would be running right now if it wasn’t for him holding my arms.

  He blinks hard. “Huh?”

  “If you weren’t standing here all quiet, I would’ve known you were there, and I wouldn’t have bumped into you so hard.” I’m starting to think again, now that the shock is wearing off, and it occurs to me that he must’ve been waiting.

  Watching. Holy hell, he was watching me. Has he been watching all day?

  His hands tighten to the point where I wonder somewhere in the back of my panicked brain if he’ll end up bruising me. “I was talking about you walking around here late at night, alone. Didn’t I already warn you last night? What does it take to get through to you? Don’t you know where you live?”

  “Of course, I do, and you’re starting to hurt me.”

  Just like that, the pressure from his hands eases. But he doesn’t apologize. “This place isn’t safe. The gym, the neighborhood, your apartment. Especially not your apartment. You have no idea what I saw last night when I was outside.”

  So it was him. I don’t know what to think, what to say. Whether I should ask what he thinks he’s doing, stalking me.

  One thing is obvious. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it. He doesn’t even sound apologetic when he talks about sitting outside my building all night or embarrassed. He should be.

  I doubt a man like him feels embarrassment over anything he does. Or guilt. I did watch him murder somebody in cold blood, didn’t I? What do I expect?

  He looks me up and down. “You’re not staying here another minute.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “What did I just say? It’s not safe. Somebody has to look out for you if you won’t do it yourself.” I don’t know if he’s disgusted or determined. Either way, it’s enough to make him hold onto me and practically drag me away from the building, toward the street.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Until we find someplace better for you, we’re going to my place. You’re coming home with me.”

  “With you?” I plant my feet. Even he can’t move me when I’m determined not to go. “What are you talking about?”

  He tugs my arm with a scowl. “Stop wasting my time. You’re coming with me, and that’s that.”

  “I’m not. You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do.”

  When he cocks an eyebrow, my blood runs cold. “Can’t I? You don’t think I can make you do anything I feel like? You’re sure about that?”

  “I—I mean—”

  His eyes narrow, his jaw twitches. “Because I can. And I will. You’re getting in my car, and I’m bringing you home with me for your own good. Either you come with me, or I take you. It’s your choice.”

  Not much of a choice. I can either go with him or have him force me into it. Either way, he’s going to get what he wants. All things considered, I would rather come out of this unharmed.

  Though what could he do to me once we’re alone?

  Couldn’t he have chosen to hurt me last night if he wanted to?

  All of this goes through my head in a flash, the way thoughts tend to do when a person is terrified. “Okay, fine,” I decide. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Smart girl.” He pulls me the rest of the way to the shiny black car, which I’m now sure I saw throughout the day. It just about swallows me up when I climb inside. I’ve never felt so small and defenseless in my life, which is saying something after everything I’ve seen and lived through.

  We make the drive in silence, with my nails digging into my palms the entire time. Where’s he taking me? What’s he planning to do once we get there?

  It doesn’t take long to find out. Before I know it, we’re in a much nicer part of the city. Skyscrapers tower around us. I could disappear here, and nobody would ever know. I’m nobody—less than nothing. And I can’t seem to get away from this man.

  He pulls around to a garage behind one of those skyscrapers and slides the SUV into a spot close to the entrance. He helps me out of the car, though I don’t need the help, and walks me to a door at the far end of the garage. After typing a code into a keypad, the door opens, and we step into a lobby.

  I have so many questions, like how he can afford an apartment in a fancy building like this, with security code access and marble floors in the entry and everything. Maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal to him, but it’s very much a big de
al for a girl like me.

  “Come on. Hurry up.” He tugs my arm when I slow down to take a look at everything around me, pulling me into the elevator and looking back and forth before following me inside. Like he’s on the lookout at all times. He probably is.

  Maybe I’m assuming too much. “Do you live here alone?” Why am I whispering?

  He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he hustles me out of the elevator and propels me to a door where another keypad stands between us and entry. I notice how he shields the keypad and wonder if it’s me he doesn’t trust or the rest of the world.

  “Now I won’t have to worry about you.” He sounds genuinely relieved once we’re inside the spacious apartment. The man has money; that much is obvious. But it’s… cold. Not very homey. What did I expect? He doesn’t strike me as the warm-and-fuzzy type.

  There’s no time for a tour, obviously. He’s all business, striding down the hall, past the sleek living room and open kitchen, coming to a stop, and flipping the light switch just inside an open door. I realize we’re standing in front of a bathroom bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before. It even has a tub and a separate shower stall that looks like it could hold five full-grown people at once. “It’s the size of my apartment.”

  I didn’t mean to say it out loud. Archer snorts, going to the deep clawfoot tub and turning on the water. “I bet it is. Don’t worry. You won’t have to look at that place ever again.”

  Before I can ask what he means by that, he turns to me and takes off his jacket. He’s wearing a black T-shirt underneath—it seems to be his color—and I can’t help but notice his broad chest, his thick biceps, the flat stomach, and slim waist. I once heard somebody described as being built like a brick shithouse, but I never understood what that meant until now.

  This is a strong man. A powerful man. The sort of man a girl doesn’t refuse unless she wants a lot of trouble.