Prima

by Alta Hensley

  “Conducive to you making a proper penance?” he offered with another soul-shattering chuckle.

  If he were standing before me and I had a gun, I knew I’d kill him, and that thought had me wondering exactly how thin the divide was between good and evil. And though I doubted hell existed anywhere other than the very planet I stood on, I wasn’t willing to find out just yet. I’d signed a contract with the devil four years ago, and it seemed he wasn’t exactly the forgiving or forgetting type.

  “I was thinking more private, but however you wish to think of it,” I said instead.

  “I’m at The Drake.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “I can look over your head at the water while you’re busy getting my head nice and wet,” he said, painting a vile picture in my mind.

  The click of the call disconnecting ended any hope I had of persuading him to give me more time. I’d been stupid enough to think finally things might be better, might turn around as I started down the new path Alek had not only opened, but was walking down with me. But again, no luck. It felt as if the world were pressing in on me, conspiring against me, desperate to send me down the road I was so anxious to avoid. I couldn’t even drag in enough air to scream. I couldn’t let this man back into my life.

  I couldn’t afford to keep him out of it either.

  I had made this bed and as awful, as corrupt, as horrid as it was, it was only me who would be climbing between the sheets yet again. I might not be able to keep Nikolai away from me, but I’d be damned if I’d allow his evil to touch my grandmother or taint Alek with its darkness.

  Dropping the phone, I brushed the wetness off my cheeks and pulled back out into the street.

  Alek

  I was smiling as I pulled into my parking spot behind the theater. It was later than I’d expected, but I hadn’t minded the time spent with Olga when I went to go check on her. She’d looked at me with a smile that welcomed me and seemed to ease something inside her. My questions of if she was all right had her brushing my concern aside as she prepared tea in the biggest damn pot I’d ever seen.

  I’d both accepted her hospitality and enjoyed the conversation. Olga was a font of information of the ballet. She shared stories of my mother’s performances I’d never heard. The fact my mother had been a Russian icon was old news, but she’d never been one to toot her own horn. Hearing how much she’d done to inspire young women to dance was also nothing new, but learning how she’d actually persuaded the men in power that allowing her to bring children to the grandest stage in all of Russia and dance with them was a tidbit I hadn’t known. I could easily picture my mother smiling as she helped a young girl assume the proper pose before even going up onto her toes and taking that first step.

  Climbing out of the car, the thought of another special ballerina had me glancing around the parking lot. I looked a second time, moving my head a bit slower as if to make sure I hadn’t skipped over Clara’s car. My eyes dropped to the watch on my wrist. She was never late.

  Shrugging as if to shake off anything bad from settling in place, I went inside to seek out Yuri. Perhaps she’d called to tell him she’d decided to take a day or two to make sure her grandmother was truly okay. Of course, I’d just left their house and hadn’t seen Clara.

  “I haven’t heard from her,” Yuri said as he opened the bottle of water I’d snagged on my way to the rehearsal stage. “I thought she was with you.”

  “No.” I looked at the stage and saw an empty spot that should have held a ballerina dressed in leotards, her feet clad in the shoes I’d given her, her blonde ponytail swaying as she followed the intricate steps of Yuri’s choreography. I was halfway to my office when I turned back. “Hey, what was it you wanted to talk to me about last night?”

  “Some guy called asking questions about Clara,” Yuri said.

  “Reporters call all the time—”

  “Really?” Yuri said, the roll of his eyes as sarcastic as his tone. “Believe me, I’m well aware. He didn’t act like he wanted to know anything other than her personal life. Nothing about the ballet. Actually hinted around that she wasn’t above fucking the boss to get ahead.” He paused and gave me a long look, but I didn’t bite. Finally, he shrugged. “Struck me as… I don’t know… off, I guess.”

  Yuri was experienced at fending off inquisitive reporters but also knew how to walk the thin line as our company certainly didn’t need some aggrieved reporter writing bad press. “What’d you tell him?”

  “Suggested he call the press office and arrange for an interview.”

  I nodded. “Let me know if he calls again,” I instructed.

  “Will do,” he said and, after a final swallow, lobbed the bottle into the trash can before clapping his hands and turning back to the stage. “Breaks over, take it from Act Two.”

  I continued toward my office. My gut started to churn, and I knew something was wrong.

  27

  Clara

  As I made the final turn onto the street that would take me to my house, I threw yet another plan out the window. Even if I managed to come up with some huge amount of money to try to buy him off, Nikolai would laugh in my face. Oh, he’d take the money from me anyway, but he’d most likely use the bills to light his cigars just to teach me he couldn’t be bought — at least not with my money. He had all the funds he needed and if not… well, all he had to do was snap his fingers and someone would find him the cash he required no matter how illegal the gains might be.

  My gasp had me realizing I’d been holding my breath until I’d driven close enough to see there were no cars in my driveway. No sensible black Audi nor a flamboyant silver Lamborghini blocked my space. Thanking the stars Alek was not here, and trusting that Nikolai would remain at The Drake, unless, of course, I didn’t show up, I took the time to compose myself before grabbing my purse and my phone. According to the little screen, I had less than fifteen minutes to change and get to the hotel.

  Although it wasn’t like Nikolai was going to give a shit what I wore or let me keep my clothes on for long anyway…

  I was sure my clothes would be ripped and torn while I paid my penance… an act required because I’d chosen to leave. Well, this time I was making another choice that was threatening to fracture me beyond repair.

  But, no, I was even stronger than I’d been that night four years ago. This time I wouldn’t let myself get sucked into the addiction. I was sure of that.. This was survival, nothing more. I would not allow this man to become my drug.

  Not again.

  As I stared at the house I’d turned into a home, I allowed everything I was giving up to flood through my mind. Volkov Ballet, the trust people had in me, my relationship with Alek…

  Alek.

  Of course, Alek. I was going to have to give him up to get through all this. I could not drag him down with me. It was one thing to give up my own career, I’d done it before and lived through it, but to cost him his theater… to cost those who depended on him and Yuri… there was no way I could do that. I could be selfish when it came to me, but not Alek. I had fallen for him, cared about him. I couldn’t drag him into hell with me. This wasn’t his fight. It wasn’t Yuri’s or anyone else’s but mine.

  I needed to stand alone.

  I really didn’t want to have to think about giving up Alek, but there was no way he’d want me if I went to Nikolai. Even if he could forgive the sex as being meaningless to me, as a price I had to pay to keep Nikolai away from my babushka, Alek could never forgive me for reneging on my promise not to walk away from the company.

  He’d put his faith in me, drawn me into the theater, and I was about to chance losing everything. I knew that, yet I still couldn’t stop myself. I needed to do this, and there was nothing strong enough to keep me from making this choice. But I couldn’t… wouldn’t be the cause of another being hurt.

  Without Alek, I was nothing. Without him, I would completely fall apart. There wouldn’t be any foundation for
me to exist upon. Over and over, I tried to justify my actions. Repeating the same thoughts desperate that somehow I’d make this all right. But it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. But I still had no other choice.

  Perhaps if I was careful, I could find some way to leave without destroying the man I loved with every fiber of my being. Maybe I could keep it all a secret. Consider the penance as just that… an act that could be accomplished and forgotten.

  My mind made up, I slammed the car door closed and, with a spin of rubber against concrete, I reversed out of the drive and tore back the way I’d come.

  “Mr. Kos… Kosloff is… is expec…ting me.” Even as fit as I was, stress and the run I’d been forced to make due to a timeline I was terrified of missing had me gasping for breath and holding a hand pressed against my side where a stitch was throbbing.

  The receptionist raked her eyes up and down my frame, her frown of disapproval belying her words. “Certainly, Miss…”

  “Simyoneva,” I supplied, dragging in deep breaths in an attempt to slow my heart rate. “Clara Simyoneva.”

  Nodding, she toggled some unseen switch and spoke softly. “Mr. Kosloff, this is Kristin at the front desk…”

  I watched as a flush ran up her neck to pool into pink spots of color on her cheeks.

  “Thank you, sir. Um… oh, yes, I’m calling to announce your… guest has arrived. A Miss Simyoneva? Shall I send her up?”

  After a moment, her head bobbed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the woman was aware she wasn’t actually standing before Nikolai, but, then again, from the way the woman’s hand lifted to tuck a stray tress behind an ear and her smile, perhaps he was on some video screen out of my view.

  “Certainly, sir. I’ll take care of that as well. Thank you, Mr. Kosloff. If there is anything else I can do for you, it would be my pleasure. Please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Why couldn’t Nikolai simply take this woman up on her offer? Women were always throwing themselves at his feet, either ignorant of the man behind the mask as I’d been or totally willing to pay whatever price was required to be seen on the arm of a man who oozed power. What did I have that they didn’t?

  The courage to leave…

  I bit back a laugh. Courage was the one thing I suddenly felt extremely short of as I stepped onto an elevator and the operator gave me a nod. I was a bit surprised to see him push a button for the fifth floor, having expected him to push the last button at the top of the hotel. However, I remained quiet as what difference did it make? A room was a room, whichever floor it was on.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly as the doors opened and he gave me another nod.

  I had to wonder if he was truly as stoic as he appeared or if he knew of secrets he’d take to his grave. If only walls could talk, I thought as I realized the fifth floor housed the Presidential Suite. I was about to knock when the door opened.

  “Well, well, well,” the member of his security said as he sneered at me, his eyes raking up and down my body. “If it isn’t the high and mighty Prima come crawling back. The boss has been expecting you.”

  I recognized the man as one of those who’d witnessed my degradation at Nikolai’s hands that night.

  “Take a picture. It will last longer,” I snapped

  He gave me a smirk. “I think I’ll wait till there’s a little less blocking my view. For now, put your arms up.”

  “Seriously?”

  I didn’t receive an answer, at least not a verbal one. Instead, I was yanked forward then shoved up against the door, held in place by one hand as his other roved over my body. All pretense of frisking me for a possible weapon was discarded as his fingers pinched and squeezed my breasts painfully. Gritting my teeth, I didn’t allow so much as a hint of a whimper or the slightest wince to give him any satisfaction, I simply waited until he was satisfied or, more likely, bored with my lack of reaction.

  He removed his hand from where he’d shoved it between my thighs and nodded. “He’s waiting.”

  There was no need to ask who he meant. As far as this man or any of the others I saw in the room were concerned, there was only one he in their world. Again, I remained silent, stepping around his bulk and moving forward into the suite.

  It wasn’t just a room; this place could easily hold two of my house and still have plenty of room to walk about. Halls led to other rooms, walls of a soft white and pillows and fabrics of gold and cream made the room seem bright and inviting… when it should be colors associated with pain and evil.

  “Right on time.”

  The words had me looking over to find Nikolai standing in a doorway, his jacket discarded, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He might be evil personified, but I couldn’t honestly state he was ugly in appearance. While he wasn’t as tall as Alek, or as leanly muscled, Nikolai carried his forty-plus years quite well. It wasn’t all that hard to understand why Kristin had practically been drooling when speaking to him on the phone. His looks, his air of power, his unlimited supply of both authority and money made a combination few could ignore. I hadn’t, and look what that had gotten me.

  My eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and my brain gave me a hundred logical reasons of why I should turn and run. But there was one reason to carry on, and that reason was strong enough to have me open my eyes. One could say I was selling my soul to the devil. But I feared my soul was already long gone.

  “I told you I’d come,” I said as calmly as I could. Walking slowly toward him, I smiled. “I really appreciate you understanding about yesterday… it was kind of you.”

  He chuckled and grabbed my arm the moment I was close enough. Dropping his hand to my ass, he pulled me against his body, grinding his crotch against me. How I kept the smile on my face, I’d never know, but I managed… until he moved his hand from my ass to my shoulder and visions of the last time he’d done the same flooded through me.

  “I don’t really give a shit about kind,” he said, the menace in his voice clear.

  He tightened his fingers on my collarbone and began to walk me backward across the room, my feet tangling together and causing me to reach for him in order not to fall. I could feel the muscles bunched in his arms, knew the power this man had was not only that of his title of bratva boss. Nikolai was a fanatic at keeping himself fit.

  I shuddered remembering the words he’d said when we’d seen a short documentary on the famous actor, Marlon Brando, who played Vito Corleone after we’d binge-watched The Godfather saga.

  The only good thing about a mafia don letting himself turn into a blob of blubber is that it gives all that lead pumped inside him time to bounce about doing massive damage because the fucking bullets can’t find their way out.

  I hadn’t bothered to point out that Brando’s character didn’t die from being shot but had passed away from a heart attack while playing in the garden with his grandson. Such facts were irrelevant in Nikolai’s world.

  “You know what kind gets you, Clara? What being good does?”

  His question and the feel of something hard pressing against my back brought me out of my memories. I couldn’t speak, the past threatening to overwhelm me despite my plan to do anything necessary to appease Nikolai.

  He bent forward and I felt my stomach roil at the thought of him kissing me. But a kiss wasn’t what he wanted… at least not yet. Instead, he moved his lips to my ear. Dropping his voice, he whispered, “Lara learned the hard way when she allowed me to fix her a drink that night and then refused to be a good girl and step aside and let you take her place. When I lifted her up and held her over the railing, believe me, she was begging to swap places with you when I was kind enough to submit to her wishes and let her go.”

  He ran the tip of his tongue along the shell of my ear, but it wasn’t that sensation that had my heart beat stuttering, it was the pure pleasure I heard in his voice and the realization of what he was saying.

  “Ask Maxim Volkov what being a good comrade did for him when he was caught listening to my uncle’s pla
ns to move a huge cocaine shipment. Spying on the all-powerful Grigori Petrov was not a wise idea. All it earned him was a beating to within an inch of his life… his face so fucking bloody he looked like he’d dunked his head in a can of red paint, and my hands…”

  He paused, and I watched as Nikolai’s eyes changed, the look in them seeming to see something from his past, his voice shifting from a tone of amusement to one that almost sounded regretful, but I should have known better. Nikolai proved he didn’t know the definition of the word as he shook his head and fixed me with the same glare as before.

  “When I was going to be kind enough to let him go with just a beating, I had to listen to my cousin, Luka, accusing me of being a pizda. A pizda! I had to shoot my own flesh and blood and made my very own family pay as well for the insult.”

  Going to be kind. His wording had my heart threatening to stop. “And Maxim?” I asked in horror, almost sure I knew the answer.

  “What the fuck do you think? Eavesdropping got him beaten – witnessing a murder, well, there’s only one solution for that little problem,” he said without an ounce of remorse.

  His chuckle sent a wave of hot air against my ear, causing me to swallow down the bile that rose in my throat.

  “Come to think of it, accidents seem to follow those in your trade. Being married to the most famous ballerina in all of Russia with a reputation of being as good and kind offstage as she was beautiful on it, didn’t keep Maxim from being turned into a speed bump on some fucking road in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Nikolai continued, his voice growing harder with the telling of this last story. “Doing what is necessary earns you the position of boss while kind gets you killed, Clara, and if you ever so much as attempt to deny me again, I promise you I won’t be anywhere near as kind or understanding as I was the last time you dared to question me. I promise you that your sweet little babushka will feel anything but good when I make you watch as I teach her the lesson you simply refuse to learn. Is that clear?”