Chapter 6 Ghosts Dancing
Chapter six
Ghosts Dancing
Maksim
I can't sleep.
I haven't slept properly since Sonya arrived three days ago.
Her presence in my space is destroying fifteen years of carefully maintained control.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her in that hallway—caught between wings, staring at me in that towel.
See her dark eyes watching me across the dinner table.
Hear her voice, her laugh, the way she moves through my mansion like she belongs here.
Like she's waking up a house that's been dead for fifteen years.
At 2:30 AM, I give up on sleep entirely. Pull on sweatpants, consider vodka, reject it. Alcohol won't help. Nothing helps except—
Music.
I freeze in my bedroom doorway, listening.
Music is playing. Classical. Russian. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
Coming from the east wing.
That's impossible. That door is locked. Nobody touches Elena's space.
I move through the dark mansion on instinct, following the sound. Down the hallway. Past the guest wing where Sonya should be sleeping. To the east wing.
The door stands open.
I stare at it, trying to remember. Did I unlock this? I must have. The key is on the chain around my neck like always, but there are fresh scratches on the brass lock.
When? How? I don't remember coming here, don't remember turning the key—
But I must have. Sometime in the last three days, while Sonya's been in my house destroying my control, I must have stood in this hallway and unlocked Elena's studio.
Without going inside. Without consciously deciding.
My hands making choices my mind refused.
I step inside and stop breathing.
The studio stretches before me, exactly as I left it fifteen years ago. Professional flooring, barres along the walls, floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflecting the moonlight streaming through the windows. The sound system plays Swan Lake at low volume.
And in the center, surrounded by Elena's ghost and my grief, is Sonya.
She's wearing a thin nightgown—the same one I caught a glimpse of Tuesday night when she was heading to bed.
White silk that reaches mid-thigh, nearly transparent in the moonlight.
Her hair is down, loose around her shoulders.
And on her feet, those bloody pointe shoes I've seen in the security footage.
She's dancing.
Not the careful, controlled movements I saw in her videos.
This is raw. Desperate. She's working through something—repeating the same sequence over and over.
A partnered lift. Rising on pointe, extending into arabesque, preparing for the throw that would send her spinning through the air into her partner's arms.
Except there's no partner.
She imagines the throw. Launches herself. Falls.
Hits the floor hard, crying out. The sound echoes through the studio, through my chest.
She gets up. Limps back to position. Does it again.
Throw. Fall. Impact. Cry out.
Up. Again.
I watch, transfixed, as she repeats her trauma. Reliving the moment Anton destroyed her, over and over, trying to rewrite the ending through sheer force of will.
Blood seeps through her pointe shoes. Fresh blood mixing with old stains.
She knows I'm here. I can see it in the way her spine straightens slightly, the way her shoulders tense. But she doesn't stop. Doesn't acknowledge me. Just keeps dancing, keeps falling, keeps trying to fix what can't be fixed.
After the tenth fall—maybe the twentieth, I've lost count—she finally stops. Stands in the center of the studio, breathing hard, swaying slightly.
"You should lock your doors if you don't want visitors," she says, not turning around. Her voice is rough, breathless.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm always bleeding." The words carry weight beyond the physical. "At least this blood is mine by choice."
She attempts another lift. Her ankle gives out completely. She goes down hard.
I'm across the studio before I think, catching her before she hits the floor a second time. She's lighter than she should be, all muscle and bone and stubborn will.
"Enough," I say.
She doesn't fight when I carry her to the barre, set her down gently. "I have to keep trying. Have to prove I can still—"
"You're destroying yourself."
"So are you." She looks up at me, those dark eyes seeing too much. "At least I'm doing it actively instead of hiding in a shrine for fifteen years."
The words should anger me. But I made peace with the truth a long time ago..
I crouch in front of her, examining her ankle. Swollen, bleeding through the pointe shoe. I untie the ribbons with practiced hands—muscle memory from fifteen years ago, when I did this for Elena after every practice.
"She danced in this studio every day," Sonya says quietly, looking around. It's not a question.
"Yes. I had it built for Elena when we married—she couldn't go more than a day without dancing, even pregnant.
Spent every morning in there, sometimes afternoons too.
Said it kept her sane in a new country." I pause, sliding the bloody shoe off her foot.
"The day she died, she'd been in here that morning.
Left her shoes by the barre like always, planning to go back after lunch.
She never did. And I locked the door that night and haven't opened it since. "
My hands work automatically, wrapping her ankle with the supplies I keep in the studio cabinet. The same cabinet Elena used. The same technique I learned watching physical therapists work on her feet, her ankles, the small injuries that came with dancing at that level.
"Tell me about her," Sonya says quietly. "About what happened."
I should refuse. Should lock this all away like I've been doing for fifteen years.
Instead, I tell her everything.
"Elena was everything I wasn't. Light where I was dark.
Soft where I was hard. She danced like breathing—effortless, essential, beautiful.
" I trace Sonya's name on the mirror again without thinking.
"I saw her perform here, visiting from the Bolshoi.
One night, one performance, and I knew I'd do anything to make her mine.
Spent six months convincing her. Flying to Moscow, sending flowers, promises I barely understood myself. She finally said yes."
My hands finish wrapping her ankle, but I don't move. Just stay kneeling in front of her.
I close my eyes. "When she got pregnant, we were happy.
Seven months along, talking about names, about the future.
I was downstairs in my office that afternoon, working on something that doesn't matter anymore.
Heard a sound from upstairs. Found her in our bedroom, bleeding.
Someone had stabbed her. Multiple times.
Stomach, chest—" The words stick. "She was still alive when I got to her.
Barely. Tried to tell me something but couldn't get the words out. "
Sonya's hand finds mine. Holds it.
"My phone rang while she was dying in my arms. Unknown number. Young voice, Russian accent." I close my eyes, hearing it again. Always hearing it. "He said ballerinas are meant to fall. That Elena was art and I'd turned her into possession. Then he laughed and hung up."
"Anton," she breathes.
"I didn't know that for fifteen years. Had nothing except that voice, those words.
" My hands are fists now. "Elena died three minutes later, along with our daughter.
Seven months—viable, could have survived if we'd gotten to a hospital in time.
But I couldn't save them. Couldn't protect them. Failed them both."
"Anton kills because he's broken, not because of what his victims do."
I look up at her. "Before she died, Elena whispered one thing.
I couldn't understand most of it, but I heard two words clearly: 'Stay strong.
' She died wanting me to be strong, to not soften, to protect our world the old way.
" I trace her name on the mirror again. "So I did.
For fifteen years, I opposed reform. Blocked Alexei's legitimacy movement.
Fought every change, every softness. Because I promised her with her last breath that I would stay traditional, stay hard, stay Steel. "
"And the tracing?" Sonya's voice is gentle.
"Started that night. Couldn't stop thinking about her, so I started writing it. On every surface when I'm thinking, planning, grieving. It became my promise to never forget." I look at the mirror where her name is traced now. "Until you."
"She wouldn't want you frozen for fifteen years," Sonya says.
"How do you know what she wanted?" The question comes out rougher than intended.
"Because I understand what it's like to be broken.
To have someone steal your future." She meets my eyes.
"Anton stole hers, and he stole mine too, even if he didn’t kill me.
But she got to dance until the end. Her last moments were in this studio, doing what she loved.
My last performance was falling on stage while he smiled.
Being destroyed in front of two thousand people who thought it was an accident. "
The parallel devastates me.
Two ballerinas. Two broken futures. One killer.
And I'm kneeling at the feet of the one who survived, in the studio of the one who didn't.
Something breaks.
I kiss her ankle. The one I just wrapped. Then her calf, working up.
She gasps. "Maksim—"
I kiss her knee. Her thigh. Working higher, pushing the nightgown up.
She pulls me up by my hair, desperate, and kisses me.
It's different from the gallery kiss. Slower, deeper, more certain. Like we both know where this is going and we're choosing it anyway.
I recognize her inexperience immediately. The way she kisses is passionate but uncertain. The way her hands move on my body—eager but unsure where to touch, how much pressure, what I want.
I pull back slightly, studying her face. "You've never—"
"No." She says it plainly, no shame. "After what Anton did, I couldn't trust anyone enough. Couldn't let anyone that close."