Chapter 1
Goosebumps bloomon my skin as I glide the cool satin along my forearm and over my elbow. The cuff of the fitted glove settles along the bottom edge of my biceps with a firm tug. I wiggle my fingers until the seams of the fingertips settle along my long nails.
Curling my fist, I let out a calming breath and study myself. Warm lights framing the dressing room mirror bathe my dark hair in a shimmering glow, twisting and turning with every wave rolling over my shoulders and down my back.
Dancers in varied states of undress breathlessly flit back and forth behind me, snatching makeup and costume pieces from one another as they prep for their sets. Despite their flurried movements, I catch the occasional narrowed side-eye they aim my way.
Because I’m the new girl, with no experience on the pole, and I’ve convinced the owner to highlight me on a crucial night where he’s fully booked with Manhattan’s powerful elite. When I did, I put an immediate target on my back.
Secrets rumble discreetly from dangerous men over the din of ice tumbling in crystal glasses, their indistinguishable echoes weaving through tendrils of smoke in the air. Politicians, power players in secret societies, the mafia, they all converge here, at Illusions Cabaret.
Concealed in shadows, they’re almost impossible to recognize. Their calculated perusal captured only by the occasional muted glow of a strategically placed sconce. Their interest will be impossible to gauge from the vantage point.
Armed with my intuition and my years of dance on much different stages, I have one shot.
One product to sell.
My virginity.
I have to make it count.
And then when it’s gone, it’s one less bargaining chip for my father.
“Rich bitch cunt.”
The whispered barb snakes through the air over my shoulder in the wake of three dancers clustered together, sailing past me. A flash of temper streaks through my blood, lighting my veins on fire. Female or not, the Romanoff need for vengeance pumps heavily through me. Years of watching my family rule with an iron fist, instilling respect through brutal power, fear, and a promise of retribution lives deep within despite the circumstance of my gender.
There will come a day when everyone will pay. But to attain that future, I have to be smart and in control now. Like my brother Nikolaj as he builds an army in the war against our brother Vlad.
Vlad—my tormentor. The one who haunts the darkness to this day, despite being thousands of miles away.
Bile bubbles to my throat when I think about what he—no. No. If I let those memories in, I won’t be able to do what I need to do.
I’ve convinced the owner, Silas, to give me one night to do this my way. One night to earn the price I set on my innocence.
Half a million dollars.
He laughed. Not just a chuckle. The smug bastard practically split a gut wheezing like a fucking hyena on crack.
Resolve fills the space where shame should be. I will show him. Half a million for one night, then get gone before the buyer realizes just who they have in their clutches. Success is the only option. If the buyer figures out he sullied Maksim Romanoff’s Bratva princess while I’m still in his grasp, I’ll never get away. Because possessing me is the ultimate in leverage with one of the biggest power players in the game.
My father.
How hard can it be in a place like this where bottle service starts at ten grand? Increments of a hundred don’t exist here. Four figures and up only. The tamest of lap dances starts at two thousand. Private dances ten thousand. A room for the night with one of Silas’s elite girls, be ready with twenty-five grand minimum.
And the elite menu? A night of indulgence, priced by kink or—in my case—virgin, begins at fifty thousand.
Patrons frequent this place with a private army of men in tow just to carry the cash they spend here between the price tags and the hefty damage deposit. That’s right… Silas likes to protect what’s his. Not that the money down does anything to shield his women. It only guarantees Silas will have an unexpected windfall to help lessen the blow to his supply while his dancer is out of commission waiting for the bruises to heal.
A shudder rocks through me. I’ve tried to ignore that part. I’ve tried to forget that while there are powerful men out there who just want to add the claiming of one’s virginity to their list of conquests, there are others for whom that’s only the beginning.
Men like Vlad.
Claiming a virgin’s innocence only feeds a dark power within. A frenzy is born for more power, more control, and to make sure that virgin never forgets who destroyed them.
I run my fingers over my upper thigh, missing the safety of the knife I usually keep strapped there. I’ll be defenseless the minute I leave that stage and wind my way through the patrons, doing my best to sell them a high-priced fantasy.
Silas appears behind me, silent as the brilliant snake he is, slithering through his jungle. His hands settle on my shoulders, and I fight the urge to shake him off. In another time, another place, he’d pay for touching me… my Konstantin would take his hands and wear his blood as a badge of honor for protecting his goddaughter.
“You’re up next, Nikoletta.” His eyes look almost friendly, but then he bends down, stopping with his mouth just an inch from my ear, his serious gaze locking on mine in the mirror. His fingers bite into my shoulders with silent warning. “Do not make me regret this. Understood?”
I don’t blink. Determination swells within me until a slow smile forms on my crimson lips. “I’ll make the sale.”
He tilts his nose into my hair and sucks in a long, deep breath. His eyes drift shut and his body shifts closer, his growing erection pressing against me. “You better.” He strums my throat with his thumb, and I barely resist giving him the pleasure of feeling me swallow hard. “Because if you don’t, I won’t hesitate to put you on clearance.”
My smile slips as his grows.
Failure is not an option.
He disappears with the same eerie silence, and I blow out a trembling breath.
A three-song mashup over the course of six minutes. That’s all I have to sell my innocence. I wobble slightly on my stilettos as I make my way to my fate. Hovering in the darkness, I watch as Silas takes the microphone and addresses his treasured patrons. He schmoozes with banter designed to make every customer feel like he’s talking to them, and only them.
I close my eyes and clear my mind. It’s a performance. Nothing more, nothing less. The consequences—well, I’ll deal with those later.
All too soon, he’s wrapping up his calculated flattery and sliding into my intro.
“Tonight we have a rare treat for you… a precious gem, the single most exquisite virgin in the history of Illusions. She’s cultured, educated, and a stunning masterpiece among young women. But most importantly, she’s certified, and for a cool half million she can be yours… and only yours.”
For one night only, you bastard.
“Without further ado… gentlemen, meet our most-prized jewel, Bee.”
The spotlight bathes the stage and the single pole dead-center in a dizzying glow.
With my shoulders pulled back, I put one foot in front of the other and saunter out of the shadows and onto the empty stage, my every step in tune with the heavy sultry beat.
It’s just a performance. I’m conveying a feeling, evoking emotion with the music, with my movements. It’s like every other dance performance I’ve done. Jazz, lyrical, tap—performing is a part of me. This is no different.
Conveying innocence and shyness, I eye the pole curiously. Between the glow from the wall behind me framed with retro bulbs and the spotlight on the pole, the audience is swallowed by almost complete darkness. They’re nothing more than flickering tea lights in the inky depths of the crowd.
I’m all careful movements as I sell the tantalizing image of a sheltered young woman in a risqué place, drawn to scandalous things. I use the picture of naivety to tap into their primal urges, their ego, and taste for control.
Curling my fingers around the cool metal, I tug as though I’m testing its durability in this new playground I’ve stumbled upon. I carefully swing in a circle, letting a discreet giggle break free when I come to a stop with my back to the crowd. My curtain of waves swish over my shoulder to settle to one side, over my breast. Peeking over my bare shoulder, I dart my tongue over my bottom lip, tug it into my mouth carefully, and let it slowly slide back out.
These women think selling sex is how much skin you show. How dirty you’re willing to get. They’re in your face and brash in a cutthroat world where everyone wants their due, with only so much to go around. Brazenness to the point of recklessness is a short game with high stakes.
It’s not where the promise of monumental reward is found.
Whetting their appetite and tapping into their hidden desires starts with deliberate, accentuated moves. My body merging with the sultry beat until they’re one. A virgin discovering her power to entice.
Someone covers their grunt with a cough and that’s when I know I’m on the right track.
One finger at a time, I tug at my gloves, slash them through the air, and snap them down along my hip before letting them drop to my stilettoed feet. I let my mind slip away into another time, another life, to a forbidden fantasy—of him. The only man who has ever evoked lustful cravings inside me.
No crushes.
No other desires.
All I wanted then, all I want now, is him.
What if this was all for him? What if it were just the two of us here and every fantasy I scrawled in my journal late at night had the chance to come to life? If I could just tell him here and now with every movement of my body?
I drop low and swing my bent knees out, leaving me wide open. I sensually roll my hips, giving the crowd a seductive glimpse of my legs as the slits of my dress give way and reveal skin clean to the tops of my thighs.
Still rolling my hips, I rise slowly, dragging my hands along my every curve, dipping into the narrow fabric nipping at my waist, and to the swell of my breasts barely covered by the thin black bodice held by nothing more than delicate strings tied in a bow at the nape of my neck.
I’ll have to show them skin. That’s how this works, but first, I’ll make them helpless to do anything but take in my every dip and valley, one excruciating part of me at a time.
What if he was the one in the crowd, unable to escape, desperately trying to mask his forbidden reaction to me? I’d make him burn with the agony of wanting me. Giving him scandalous glimpses of the parts of me he’s forbidden to see.
Every time I close my eyes at night, I will myself to slip back into the fantasy, the only place I have him now. Because to get near him again means surrendering to my father, and I’ll die before I let that happen. But in my dreams… he’s there and I’m free to touch, taste, and savor every last part of him.
And there, in that faraway part of my mind I escape to in order to rewrite my reality, he lets me.