Chapter 6
KIR
“I haven’t seen you in here in a while.”
I look up from where I’m sitting at Magda’s desk and smile as she steps into…well… her office.
I own the Mercury theater, and as of recently, when I took over the other shareholders’ positions, the Zakharova ballet company itself. But this office is still, unequivocally, Magda’s space.
“I apologize,” I clear my throat as I stand. “I should have called?—”
“Please, Kir.” She smirks and rolls her eyes, like she sees right through my charm.
I mean, she does.
“What do you need, Kir? Maybe I can help.”
She adjusts her long black shawl with the silk fringe along the edges, the fifteen or so silver rings on her fingers glinting in the light.
Everyone, and I do mean everyone , has a “front” they present to the world. With some—me, for example—that “front” isn’t so much a mask as it is a veneer to cover the rawness, perhaps a touch of monstrousness beneath.
Private school and Oxford taught me the importance of that.
Others wear masks to hide insecurities, fears, or other traits they wish to obscure from the world.
But then there are a few who just…decide to adopt a role and stick to it.
Magda Kuzmina is the poster child for that third one.
Similar to that second group I mentioned, there are parts of her—specifically her past, who her family was, and her journey to get to where she is today—that she has no intention of sharing with anyone.
Anyone .
The only reason I know is I was there for some of that journey, and involved with her family and her past, to a certain extent.
Magda’s older brother, Gavriil, was a classmate of mine at Oxford, and—well, it’s a long, bitter story.
But the other “front” Magda presents to the world is that of the “brutal ballet director with a heart of ice, cloaked in black shawls, rings, and mystery”. It creates a shield between the Magda I met many years and tragedies ago and anyone who might try to find that version of her today.
It works . The dancers at the Zakharova are mostly terrified of her. And I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind would try and fuck with her.
If they did, of course, I’d find out, and I’d cut them in half.
But it’s never been an issue. It doesn’t hurt that she goes out of her way to make herself invisible to men: shapeless black dresses, cloaks, the perennial shawls.
Heavy black makeup around her eyes but none on her lips or cheeks.
There’s an air of mystique around her—but less a beguiling woman you want to unravel, and more a Roma fortune teller who might curse your cock to fall off.
It also gives her the appearance of being much older than the thirty-four she really is. I’d bet most of her dancers wouldn’t guess that she’s under forty.
For a second, I’m tempted to lie about what’s brought me to her office above the theater today.
Instead, I give the truth without the reason behind it.
“I was looking for your personnel files.”
A dark brow arches inquisitively. “On my dancers?”
I nod.
She considers me a moment before she drifts past me. Sitting at the desk which I’ve just vacated, she opens the lower drawer and pulls out a laptop, opens it, types in a password, clicks on a folder, and turns the screen to me before stepping aside.
“Anyone in particular?”
Magda is far too shrewd to be lied to. And she knows me too well for me to try.
“Brooklyn Ellis.”
A faint smile curls the corners of her lips as she glances back at the screen and clicks on one of the subfolders, opening a document.
“I suppose this means you’ve heard from Ivan.”
My brow furrows. “Ivan…?”
Magda gives me a piercing look. “Yelchin.”
Confusion grabs my brain in its fist.
“What does Ivan have to do with Brooklyn?”
Ivan is an old friend of mine from boarding school, a fellow Russian castaway who went on to have an illustrious dance career and is now the Artistic Director of the Imperiya Korona in Moscow—AKA, the man I’ll be calling in a favor with to get Inessa Moskovic into the company.
Magda gives me a curious look. “You didn’t know?”
She sighs, shaking her head as she pushes me aside and scrolls down through Brooklyn’s file.
“She auditioned for the Imperiya Korona 's ballet mistress, Liliya Rostova, a month ago, when Liliya was visiting New York.”
My brows knit. “Did she now.”
Magda smiles wryly. “She did. And unfortunately for us, Liliya liked her and put her on the short list for the one apprenticeship available this year.”
Something rancorous and bitter slams into me, my jaw clenching as I read the note in Brooklyn’s file.
Holy fuck.
I’ve seen her dance, of course, though not with a particularly analytical eye. She’s very good, and extremely disciplined. But I wouldn’t have guessed that she was aiming as high as the Imperiya fucking Korona.
I turn to look at Magda. “What are your thoughts on that?”
She scowls. “She’s…quite good. Incredible, actually, though she has a way of blending into the background and never quite putting herself out there.
I would say she’s easily up there with Naomi Kim or Dove Marchetti…
No, I’ll be blunt. She’s the best dancer in the Zakharova. Losing her will hurt us.”
I frown. “So you think she’ll get the apprenticeship?”
Magda snorts, curling and uncurling her fingers, making the rings on them glitter in the light.
“I’m quite sure she will. I’ve seen the short list. It’s between her and three other girls—Lin Xiuya from China’s Zhūjiāng Bālěiwǔtuán, the Teatro dell’Aurora in Florence’s Allegra Vitale and Camille Blanchet, of L’Académie de Paris. ”
She turns and walks across the office to an electric kettle by the window and switches it on.
“Tea, Kir?”
“No thank you.”
She nods and pulls a mug and small wooden tea caddy from a drawer, then scoops some loose leaves into a small cotton drawstring bag.
“They’re all quite talented. But…” She shakes her head.
“I say this as an impartial teacher of ballet, not as Brooklyn’s teacher…
she’s the best. It’s not even close. They would be fools not to take her.
” Magda sighs. “She’s hungry for it, too,” she adds.
“Brooklyn, I mean. She’s got both the talent and the desire to be there. ”
Interesting.
Interesting and tragic. For Brooklyn, that is. Because that one apprenticeship is already going to someone else.
And I’m the asshole who’s going to make sure that happens.
While Magda’s water boils, I scroll up through Brooklyn’s file. Just as I suspected, her address doesn’t match the one where I dropped her off last night. I make a note of the real one as the kettle starts to whistle.
“Why did you stop, Kir?”
I glance over at Magda as she pours the boiling water over the tea leaves, then dunks the bag a few times.
“Stop what?”
She smirks. “ Dancing .” She brings her mug to her lips, breathing in the steam. “You were quite good, as I remember.”
I chuckle, smiling wryly. “That’s generous of you.”
“Kir.” She rolls her eyes. “If you’re fishing for more compliments, don’t bother. I’m done. But I’m serious, and you know it. You were excellent . And then you just…stopped.”
“I’m not sure it’s compatible with my current line of work,” I say dryly.
“Fuck conventions, Kir.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “Indeed.”
Fuck conventions. And fuck me , because soon, I’m going to have to crush Brooklyn Ellis’s dream under my heel.
And I’m strangely unwilling to do that.
When Magda goes downstairs to sow terror among her dancers, I stay in the office to watch for a bit. Magda’s office is perched above the lighting booth at the rear of the theater, up in the balcony, with two windows that give a clear view of the stage.
Everyone in the Zakharova—and I say this as modestly as I can, given that it’s my company now, ever since I bought out the other investors—is beyond talented.
The obvious standouts, as Magda correctly identified, are people like Naomi and Dove.
But Lyra Ostrova, Milena Kalishnik, and Evelina Nikitin are also phenomenal , and as obnoxious as I find his fuck-boy antics most of the time, there’s no denying that Val Bancroft is an exceptional dancer, too.
But today, I find myself watching one dancer in particular, and ignoring the rest.
Not just because the image of her lying in my guest room bed in just a pair of thong panties is permanently etched into my brain.
…Although I’d be lying if I said that particular visual didn’t dance through my head as I watch her dance across the stage.
And as I watch her, I do so through the lens of what Magda just told me.
Fuck me. She’s right.
I’ve never really noticed it before, because as Magda correctly pointed out, Brooklyn has a way of hiding her talent. Holding back. Not quite letting herself put the gas pedal all the way down.
But fucking hell, she’s astonishing.
I know firsthand the grueling, rigid discipline that ballet demands. I lived that life for years .
Ballet was part of the demanding physical regime—along with gymnastics and hand-to-hand combat—hammered into the boys at the boarding school I was sent to after my time in the gulag in Siberia.
Not with a view to a career or anything; I think they liked the incredible self-discipline it instils in you.
As a teacher once said to me, “I can tell you to use that muscle all I like. You’re the only one who can actually do it. ”
I kept dancing when I went to Oxford. But Magda is right: after that, I just…stopped. Boxing became more my thing. Still, I’ve never forgotten the discipline of those days in the studio, pounding out the movements and drilling the positions over and over again, until they were a part of you.
It’s with that mindset that I watch Brooklyn as she dances across the stage below.
She is good. Beyond good: she’s phenomenal. But as I watch, my brow furrows with curiosity as I notice something Magda didn’t mention, which makes me wonder if she has noticed it herself.