Deranged Vows (Lethal Vows #4)

1. Aleksandr

CHAPTER 1

Aleksandr

T hree months ago…

Her hand slips from my gloved ones as she looks at me. I’ve been chasing her for what seems like years when, in reality, it’s only been six months. My pretty ballerina. My little Russian beauty. I first met her when I was five, then reunited with her just over two years ago. She always smiled. I hated her smile as much as I loved it. But just like me, she had her own demons. And she wasn’t willing to chase them away, whereas I became the demon.

The buildup of my feelings for her was gradual. Some would say I loved her, but I think I was fascinated with her. I have only ever truly loved one person, and that’s my sister.

So why did I chase her?

Why do I feel the need to protect her? She clearly never asked for it or wanted it.

But chase her I did.

And I would do it again in this life and the next, without a doubt.

“Alek,” she whispers my name, and I have a feeling it will be the last time I see her. Just when I finally found her.

Don’t ask me how I know. I just do.

“You need to stop. Just stop. Promise me you’ll stop,” she begs. Cinita has a thing for dangerous men. I should have known better the first time she danced for me.

I didn’t.

I was sucked in by her, by all that she was. It’s how she got around in life. Her attraction to dangerous men led her to a precarious lifestyle, constantly chasing a high.

“I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t need protecting from them.” The lie falls from her lips so easily.

And that’s exactly what it is—a lie.

Cinita dances for all types of men. Being a ballet dancer has sent her all over the world and introduced her to all the wrong people—by her choice. I tried to pull her out of that scene, to right her path in a way that wouldn’t lead to her demise.

“You want me to leave?” I ask, and she nods. Her hands clasp my gloved ones again.

“I don’t need you to protect me anymore. You found me, and you did good. Thank you for protecting me. I’m not really sure where I would be without you, but I’m good now. The Bratva don’t want you around, and I work for them. This is my life, Alek, and while I wish you were going to be in it, you can’t be.”

“They’ll kill you,” I inform her matter-of-factly.

She flicks her pin-straight black hair over her shoulder.

“No, they just wanted to watch me dance.” They do, I have no doubt. But it’s everything else they offer her that’s worse for her. She was in a bed somewhere in Russia with a needle in her arm and on the verge of death.

As I said, she likes to mix with the wrong people.

Why the fuck did I chase her in the first place?

Cinita is a dangerous beauty with her long, raven-colored hair and perfect dancer’s body. The way she smiles as if she’s doing it for just you. And the way she moves? Fuck, can she move. It’s a mesmerizing combination, a carefully woven spell as she comes to life on stage. But she’s nothing more than a broken doll.

When I reunited with her two years ago, she was at one of our auctions, accompanying someone else. I remembered her from our orphanage when we were five years old. And as an adult, I was stunned by her beauty. I didn’t speak to her. I’m not one for talking. I simply watched her from a distance until she approached me. I flinched when her hand landed on my shoulder because I hate being touched. It makes me feel like I’m drowning in a grotesque pool. I can’t breathe, and so many voices come to the surface. Filth. Disgust. Pain. It’s easier to avoid contact. I also hate doing the touching. I’ve hated it all my life. But then she touched me again. I didn’t move away, and she smiled that big, beautiful smile at me.

I’ve only ever made a few exceptions as to those who can touch me. A handful of people who I try to fight against the feeling and voices for. She had been one of them.

We stayed in contact. Well, she stayed in contact. Somehow, she’d gotten my number and would send me flirty messages when she was here.

I never replied.

Until a few months later, when she came back to another one of our auctions. The man who accompanied her had a hold on her arm so tight I could see the bruising. She was smaller than the last time I saw her—and she was already a tiny little thing, all legs and arms, and I guess that’s how she moved so effortlessly around the stage.

“She will dance,” I’d said.

“What?” Anya, my sister, had asked, confused.

“For payment, she will dance. For her to dance, she charges upward of a hundred thousand. She will dance for your men tonight.”

Cinita’s silver eyes found mine as if knowing I was speaking about her. And right then and there was the moment I knew I would kill for her.

The look in her eyes was so sad, and I fundamentally understood sad. I thrived in its misery. But fuck. They were empty too. Soulless. Devoid of any other emotion. All her messages over the past few months were cute and bubbly, and it’s why I never replied.

And there she stood, being controlled by another man.

“Do you own her?” Anya had asked.

“She is owned by many, slutty ballerina that she is.” And Cinita’s silver gaze dropped away from mine.

“Fine, take her to the stage.” Anya waved off the current performer. I’m sure not even my sister took much note of the ballerina. Of what kind of hold she already had over me.

I stepped toward Cinita and held out my elbow to her. The man she’d come with wouldn’t dare argue with me taking her, considering it was my auction and event. With a smile, she threaded her arm through mine and accepted my offer, and a silent agreement passed between us. I would protect her.

I took her to the stage, played the music, and she danced. To say I couldn’t take my eyes off her was an understatement.

It was impossible not to watch her.

Later that night, she was gone. Leaving one simple message.

Find me.

And I did. I found her. But as she stands in front of me now, telling me to leave, I wonder why I did.

Was it those silver eyes and that raven-black hair that did me in? Or was it the loss of her touch?

“Don’t find me this time. Promise me?” She steps up to me, her hands going to my shoulders. Her lips are inches from mine.

“You asked me to find you,” I remind her.

“And I may ask you again, but don’t, okay?”

I should be angry. She wasted my time, but I can’t be angry with her. I would do it all again.

“Why?” I ask.

She takes another step closer.

“I’ll probably end up in the same situation, no denying that.” She pauses, and I can feel her breath on my face. “But I need to get myself out of it. Otherwise…”

“You want me to let you die?” I ask incredulously.

She leans forward now, her lips touching mine in a whisper of a kiss.

“I think, if we’d met again under different circumstances…”

“You’d still be the same,” I say, and she shrugs.

“You’re probably right.” She once told me it was the high she was chasing; the dance, the feeling of having all those powerful men watching her, wanting her. And once she was in, she couldn’t escape.

She was stuck.

I tried to save her. But she wouldn’t allow me to.

“Kiss me, Alek.” I don’t move a muscle. She’s asking for a goodbye kiss, but it’s not something I’m willing to give.

“I could kill them all,” I tell her. She lifts her hand and rubs it over my shaved head. It’s spiky now, longer than usual .

“I have no doubt that you are the most dangerous of them all, Alek.” She leans in again and gives me another kiss. She tastes like cherries, and it takes everything in me not to pull her into me and take her.

I won’t do that, though. I will not use her as others have used her her entire life.

She drops her hands and steps back.

“Don’t find me,” she orders softly.

I clench my jaw but say nothing as I turn and walk away.

I’d flown from New York to Russia to find her. I left my sister in a lurch, leaving her to run our business and auctions alone, all for a woman.

Yet I’ll return empty-handed.