Dance of Defiance (The Darkest Dance #5)

Chapter 1

ROMAN

I’ve always found power in strength. In sheer will. In maintaining complete control over everything around me.

Tough it out. Be brutal. Be unmerciful.

Be a man.

Some people say “brute strength doesn’t solve everything” or “brains are better than brawn”. But not one of those people ever had their back against the wall with a gun to their head. When you’re looking annihilation in the eye, there’s no time to “think things through” or “weigh the options”.

At that point, it’s sink or swim. Do or do not.

Live or die.

Brute strength has served me well for most of my years. It's part of the way of life that’s been hammered into me, being brought up in the Bratva.

Not just brought up in it, either. Brought up to lead it, as the crown prince to the Nikitin throne—heir to Pavel Nikitin himself.

In this world—my world—control, strength, brutality, and the will to crush your enemies is the difference between life and death.

Tough it out. Be brutal. Be unmerciful.

Be a fucking man.

Tonight, that brute strength allowed me to knock out the guard who wandered too far from the others, drag him into a storage closet, tie and gag him, and steal his mask and uniform.

I glance down at myself. Fuck. I deliberately chose a guard who looked roughly my size. But the all-black suit I’ve just changed into is maybe half a size too small. And the mask…

Shit.

Apparently, the guy I just took down is a smoker, and the inside of his mask reeks like an ashtray.

“You know those things’ll kill you, right?” I grunt at the unconscious guard. I drop to my haunches and double check his binds and gag.

The chloroform I gave him should keep him out for the next thirty minutes. And then when he wakes up he’ll be too weak to do anything but grunt and maybe writhe around on the floor for another half hour after that.

Fingers crossed, I’ll be long gone by then.

I straighten my foul-smelling mask and my too-tight suit, then step out of the storage closet and into one of the opulent hallways of the cliffside mansion. A quick glance to either side, then I slip the metal flask out of my pocket and take a small swig.

Absolute control. Sheer will. Power in strength. Booze doesn't hurt, either.

The vodka burns my throat as I slip the flask into my breast pocket. Then I turn and make my way down the hallway, fitting the earpiece I lifted from my new knocked-out friend into my ear. The security channel crackles to life.

“Perimeter, check in. The Marquis and his guest will enter the main hall momentarily. Coms clear, go.”

I listen as various gruff male voices start to echo back: “perimeter one, all clear”, “perimeter two, all clear”. When there’s a pause after six that stretches a little too long, I clear my throat.

“Perimeter seven, all clear”, I mutter quietly.

Eight through ten check in as I continue down the hallway. I freeze as another man in a featureless mask dressed in an all-black suit—both exactly like mine—walks by. He nods wordlessly. I nod back.

If there’s a secret, unspoken code with any of this, I’m fucked.

Actually, there are about a hundred different ways this could go sideways that would result in me being utterly and royally screwed.

Luckily, the other guard just keeps making his rounds through the sprawling mansion-slash-lodge as I head down the hall to the main attraction of the evening.

Or, rather, what will be the main attraction.

Blackbriar Hall sits perched high on the edge of a cliff in the Adirondack Mountains, six hours north of New York City. It was originally built by the Vanderbilts, or the Carnegies, or some other gazillionaire family from the turn of the century. They used it as a “weekend getaway camp”.

Personally, I’m not sure words like “camp” or “hall” really suit a place that’s one hundred and two thousand fucking square feet. But whatever. I’m not here to assess the real estate.

The fact that I’m here at all, thought, is maybe a…questionable decision.

Okay, it’s definitely a questionable decision.

Actually, no—let's just go ahead and upgrade “questionable” to “fucking terrible”. Pretty much any one of my father’s men would have gladly taken this mission tonight and would have been more than capable of doing it.

Plus, if they got caught infiltrating the place, they could easily deny any ties to the Nikitin Bratva.

If Pavel Nikitin’s only son gets caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar? That’s another story.

Well. The easy solution to that potentially nuclear issue is don't get caught.

Up ahead, at the end of the darkened corridor, low lights gleam from the main hall. I pause, disappearing into the shadows and tugging the flask out of my pocket once more to wet my throat.

Bonus, the vodka on my breath is at least somewhat neutralizing the cigarette stench of my mask. I exhale slowly after I swallow, rolling my shoulders as the comforting, familiar heat pools in my stomach.

Absolute control. Sheer will. Power in strength.

Again, almost any of my father’s men could have done this tonight. But a strong Bratva leader doesn’t issue decrees and orders from a cushioned throne. He gets his hands dirty. He does the heavy lifting.

That is why I decided it was me myself that was going to do this tonight.

Bullshit. You’re overcompensating for your sickness. For the corruption in your blood. For the thing you need to cut out of yourself…

My jaw tightens and I swallow heavily.

Shut the fuck up.

I yank the flask out of my pocket again and take another deep drink. This is what keeps me sane.

Or at least, keeps me from drowning in the darkness.

The end of the hallway opens out onto a grand mezzanine that rims the second-floor perimeter of the three-story main banquet hall of the sprawling estate.

Huge chandeliers hang from the glass, vaulted ceiling above, with flickering gaslight sending a warm glow over the main hall and the guests seated below, as if this was the main dining hall at Hogwarts.

But, you know, villains and loaded guns, instead of brooms and owls.

Keeping my shoulders back, I slowly make my way around the mezzanine until I find a quiet corner with a nice marble pillar to slink behind.

I adjust the ring on my finger as I rest my hand on the marble railing, angling my knuckles in the direction of the crowd below.

I thumb the underside of the metal band, triggering the tiny digital camera built into the carved bull’s head set into the silver.

Fuck, this James Bond shit always gets my pulse thudding and my muscles tightening. A rush of adrenaline courses through my veins as the hum of the vodka tingles at the edges of my perception, keeping me in that sweet spot where I operate so well.

“Look alive, gentlemen.” The voice crackling in my stolen earpiece pulls my attention. “The Marquis and Signor Sangrini are entering the main hall via the front left door momentarily.”

My pulse jumps despite the alcohol, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I sink a little deeper into the shadows behind the marble pillar.

Bravado, alcohol, and sheer arrogance have gotten me this far, pretty much without issue, but I’m suddenly viciously aware how bad it would be if I were to be found out.

I swallow, looking down at the exquisitely set banquet tables with elegantly dressed guests from all manner of sordid underworld circles: various American Mafia, Bratva, the Italian Camorra, one or two Chinese Triads, the Columbian Cartel, even some Yakuza clans out of Japan.

There are representatives from families even older and more powerful than all those, too: criminal empires so vast, wealthy, powerful, and deeply entrenched that you see them and their political influence every day but don’t even realize it.

Because when a meeting between the leader of the Obsidian Syndicate and the head of the oldest, most powerful underworld banking institution on the planet goes down?

Everyone puts on their Sunday best and comes out to pay their respects.

The assembled guests stop their various conversations, stand from their seats, and fall silent when the tall, broad-shouldered man in black materializes from the shadows and steps into the flickering light.

I angle my ring toward him as he walks across the slightly raised dais at the head of the grand banquet hall which holds the table of honor, then comes to a stop in front of his captive audience.

This would be “the Marquis”, otherwise known as Vaughn Bancroft.

We’ve never met face to face. In a weird way, though, it almost feels like we have.

My sister, Evie, dances professionally in the Zakharova Ballet with Vaughn’s younger brother, Val.

And while the two men aren't twins, they’re close in age, and the resemblance between them is freakishly uncanny sometimes.

Same eyes. Same sharp, chiseled features and facial structure that give them a look that blends aristocrat and ruffian.

Vaughn even has similar tattoos in similar places as his brother, like the faint but ornate ink you can see peeking out the top of his collar.

The similarities stop there, though: Vaughn's forearms are bare, while his younger brother’s tattoos continue down his arms and over the backs of his hands, like mine.

“Welcome, all.”

Vaughn hasn’t raised his voice. But there’s a flinty, dark power in it that sends it booming through the cavernous hall. The gaslight flickers, as if just the raw surge of his voice has shifted the very air.

Part of me wants to roll my eyes at the theatrics: the Gilded Age forest estate, the low, flickering light, the featureless masks of the guards…even using an overblown title like “the Marquis”, for fuck's sake.

But I don’t; roll my eyes, that is. First, it would be the height of hypocrisy to begrudge Vaughn his masks and theatrics, given my own fondness for using both in a certain secret society that I belong to.