Chapter 12
DOVE
“Oh my God, this place is adorable!”
I smile at Evelina's reaction to my place.
I sometimes hesitate to call the dancers I hang out with at ballet “friends”. At the risk of sounding cliched: it’s not them, it’s me. But Lyra, Naomi, Milena, Evelina, Brooklyn, and even Val—though I don’t usually do so well making guy friends—are great, and have become good friends.
They’ve also been great during the jarring madness of my reality over the past week, even if it’s just been by not asking about it, or adding their two cents.
Honestly, that’s priceless right now.
I don’t tend to have anyone over. Let me rephrase: none of them has ever visited, except for Brooklyn a couple of times.
I’ve never really shared anything about my background with her, but I know hers was pretty rocky.
Maybe that’s why she and I click so well, and why I’ve felt fine bringing her into what the leaders of group therapy back at Il Refugio would call my “safe space”.
But tonight, after rehearsal, when I found myself in the changing room with just Brooklyn and Evie, I decided to say fuck it and invite them both over.
…It might partly have something to do with the other night.
With Bane.
I feel a heated throb in my core as my mind replays everything that happened. How it started while I was asleep. How rough and dark he was. How insidiously alluring the vicious things he said to me were.
I’ve reminded myself since then how badly the deck is stacked. Bane’s gone through my computer. He knows all the dark, fucked-up stuff, sexually, that I'm into.
Somno, aka sleep sex. Dubcon and noncon. Pain mixed with pleasure.
Not that whatever the fuck is unfolding between us is a game. But if it is, it’s a one-sided, rigged one.
He’s read my playbook. He’s peeked through the blinds and seen me without my armor.
And all of that might be partly why I’ve asked Brooklyn and Evelina over. It might also be why I’m asking them in a second if they feel like sleeping over.
It’s not that I’m scared of him coming back.
I’m scared that I want him to.
“Dove!” Evie beams, her face lit up as she turns to me. “Seriously! This place is adorable!”
Evie is basically a Disney princess. Like, if you were to install a hidden camera and it caught her singing to woodland creatures while they danced on her arms and brought her bon-bons?
It would not surprise me.
Another way to sum her up in a single word is “pink”. Not the punk, fuck-you pink I wear. Evie’s is pure princess pink. Tutu pink. Tea-party, picnic-in-the-park-while-reading-Jane-Austen pink.
Like right now, for instance. She’s all in pink: leggings, skirt, fluffy mohair sweater, even the ribbon tying up her long blonde hair.
Still, you gotta love her. It doesn’t hurt that she also might be one of the sweetest, most genuine, earnest humans I’ve ever met.
“Thanks.” I smile and spread my arms. “Welcome to my madness.”
Brooklyn’s jaw drops open as she briskly walks past me toward a work-in-progress I’ve had sitting on an easel for the last month.
“Damn, girl,” she whistles, her eyes tracing over the oversized canvas.
“It’s…an ongoing thing,” I shrug. Right now, it’s just a wash of reds and purples sliced by violent black lines. “It’s not done, but I’m not sure what comes next.”
“Okay, I knew you painted,” Evie murmurs as she walks up next to Brooklyn and stares wide-eyed at the canvas. “But I thought it was, like, landscapes.”
Yeah, psychotic landscapes from the hellish recesses of my nightmares.
She turns to me. “You’re really good.”
I grin. “Thanks, Evie.” I drop my dance bag behind the sofa and walk into the kitchen area. “You guys want anything? I’ve got soda, sparkling water, juice…”
“I’m good,” Brooklyn calls back to me. “I actually can’t stay that long. Kir and I have plans tonight.”
Shit.
There goes half the forces for Operation Sleepover.
“I’ll take a diet soda if you have it!” Evie says.
I walk back over to them with some lemony sparkling water for me and a Diet Coke for Evie.
She cracks it open and grins at Brooklyn. “So, what are these plans with Kir?”
Kir as in Kir Nikolayev, the head of the Nikolayev Bratva, also known as Brooklyn’s much older boyfriend. Also-also known for bonus points as the guy who owns the Mercury Theater and finances the Zakharova Ballet.
Brooklyn grins at Evie. “I’ll tell Dove. You’ll have to cover your ears.”
I giggle when Evie’s jaw drops.
“What! Why??” she pouts.
Brooklyn laughs. “Babe, have you met you?”
That’s another Evelina thing: in addition to being one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, she’s also frighteningly innocent. Like, to the point that it would keep me up at night but for the fact that her brother, Roman, who runs the Nikitin Bratva now, has guards following her all the time.
Literally. They followed us here and they’re parked across the street.
Evie makes a face. “Well that’s crap.”
Oh, and she doesn’t swear.
Evie pokes Brooklyn with a finger. “Come on! What’s the huge secret!?”
Brooklyn rolls her eyes. “Okay! Fine. If you must know…”
Evie grins, leaning close for the big reveal.
“Our big plans involve Kir bending me over the kitchen table and railing the shit out of me.”
I snort, laughing uproariously as poor Evie’s face turns crimson. Her jaw drops, eyes bulging wide as Brooklyn tosses her head back and howls with laughter.
“I said you didn’t want to know!” she giggles, throwing her arms around Evelina. “Sorry, Evie. I didn’t mean to scar you for life.”
Evie’s face is still bright red as she pulls back and tries to…well, I think it’s meant to be a nonchalant shrug, but it looks like she’s trying to stop herself from having a seizure.
“You didn’t scar me.” She does another super-awkward “casual” shrug as she turns back to the painting. “Just…caught me off-guard.”
Brooklyn glances at me and rolls her eyes.
The three of us spend the next fifteen minutes or so hanging out, talking about ballet and listening to music. Then I find myself clearing my throat as the intrusive thoughts in my head win and the question I’ve been trying not to ask tumbles out.
“Hey, so, uh…” I glance at Brooklyn. “Kir sits at the Iron Table, right?”
She nods, her brows knitting. “Yeah?”
The Iron Table is a collective of some of the most powerful bratva families in the world. I’ve heard it described as like the United Nations of the Russian mafia.
Kir sits on it.
…And I know Bane’s father does, too.
“Does he…I mean, do you both…ever hang out socially with the other table members and their families?”
Brooklyn smirks. “Like the Antonovs?” she says dryly. “For example?”
My face heats. “Sure.”
Brooklyn smiles at me. “Look, I don’t know the full situation with you and Bane. If there’s stuff you want to talk about—”
“Nope,” I blurt, a little too quickly. “I’m good. I’m just…” I frown and look down. “Do you know much about him?”
Because I don’t. Not really. My recollections of him are blurry and vague at best. I sort of remember him being Lark’s moody boyfriend. I’m sure he came to the house on a semi-frequent basis. Beyond that, my memories of the man I’m marrying begin at Lark’s funeral.
With him walking up to me, leveling a vicious, cold stare right into my soul, and saying, “This is your fault. You did this.”
Brooklyn smiles wryly. “Not a lot, honestly. But I’ve spent some time with him, and…” She trails off, shaking her head. “Look, I don’t know your relationship with him. But Bane’s a good guy. Quiet, a little broody, but one of the good ones.”
“He’s one of Roman’s best friends,” Evie chimes in.
“I wouldn’t say I know him that well…I don’t know if many people do—okay, maybe Roman.
But I agree. He can be quiet, and he’s kind of intense.
But he’s a good guy. I mean, Roman’s had him drive me home alone plenty of times, and you know how overprotective my big brother is.
He’d never let Bane do that if he didn’t trust him completely. ”
It would be a more ringing endorsement if my mind wasn’t actively replaying the memory of that “good guy” pinning me down in my sleep the other night and roughly finger-fucking me to a screaming orgasm—my first—while telling me my slutty hole was making a mess of his fingers.
I mean…Jesus fuck.
Eventually, Brooklyn has to go.
Wouldn’t want to be late for the kitchen table railing, I suppose. Although, I have eyes and I've met Kir…so I can’t really say I blame her.
When she’s gone, Evie turns to me. “If you’ve got stuff to do, I can—”
“Wanna stay over?” I blurt.
Evie blinks, looking stunned.
“I mean, if you’re busy, don’t even worry about—”
“I’d love to!” she blurts back, beaming. “Totally!”
Sweet.
“He really is a good guy.”
Two hours later, Donnie Darko—which I’m not really that shocked to learn Evie hasn’t seen before—is finishing, and the sushi we had delivered has mostly disappeared from the plastic trays in front of us.
Next to me on the couch, Evelina rolls her head to the side to look at me.
“Honestly,” she says. “He might come off as grumpy or antisocial, but that’s just him.” She giggles. “Maybe it’s a guy version of resting bitch face.”
I laugh as she reaches over and pops another piece of sashimi into her mouth.
“Something…” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”
I frown. “What?”
“No, I don’t want to share rumors.”
“Evie, please?” I plead. “I’m marrying the guy.”
She gives me a sympathetic look. “Fair. Okay, it’s probably nothing, I just…” She pokes at her pickled ginger. “I don’t know what, but Roman has mentioned that something happened to Bane. Like, when he was a kid.”
My brows knit. “What?”
“Dunno,” she shrugs. “But I think Roman said it was maybe the reason, or one of the reasons, Bane is the way he is.”
Hmm.
Interesting.
I offer to sleep on the couch and give her the bed up in the loft, but Evie insists on staying downstairs. Then the two of us are back to gabbing again.
Honestly, I have no idea why I haven’t hung out with her one on one before. She’s awesome.