If we’re going back, if the four families are coming after us seeking vengeance and blood, I will make damn fucking sure that the blood they spill isn’t my blue-eyed girl’s.
Chapter 1
Anya
My head is swirling with too many emotions, the range and depth of which brings aching confusion.
Nikolai spills a trail of blood along the black pavement as Ezra and the pilot carry him across the airstrip from the helicopter to the private jet. I’ve never seen so much blood as I have tonight—I’m still covered in the splatter from Vigo.
I drag myself up the airstair steps onto Nikolai’s jet, stepping carefully with my legs wide, straddling the red trail up the staircase to avoid stepping in Nikolai’s blood with my bare feet. I step onboard the luxury plane just in time to watch Ezra and the pilot lay Nikolai on the couch—he just barely fits on it.
I watch him as he lays on his back, bleeding, with one arm on his chest while the other flops off the side of the couch. I can’t help but think how frail and weak he looks—two words I would have never thought to call him before.
He took a bullet for me.
Did he save my life?
The pilot rushes off to the cockpit with Ezra’s insistence that we hurry. In mere minutes, the plane takes off, carrying us into the night, away from one master’s homeland to another’s.
The cabin is silent as the plane reaches its cruising altitude and levels out—silent, except for Nikolai’s heavy breaths. He was shot in the stomach nearly an hour ago. He’s bled a lot, and I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. I don’t know if he’ll live or die. My mind splinters as it tries to grapple with the strange mix of emotions that simple fact inspires.
Nikolai may die.
There’s relief in that possibility, but there’s fear, too. Nikolai stole me back from Vigo. He was angry for Vigo’s treatment of me, which is odd to think about, but clearly, it’s true. I don’t know how to feel about any of this. And the fact that Nikolai first tried to buy me back at a sum of ten million—I know my worth as a slave and it’s nowhere near that sum. If the families dealt in rubles instead of euros, that would’ve been reasonable. But they all deal in euros, even the Leblancs.
It was an outrageous offer.
Ten million.
Then again, I suppose the worth of anything can only be determined by the amount someone is willing to pay for it. Tonight, Nikolai had determined that I was worth ten million.
I don’t know whether to feel good or bad about that.
So, while I could—and probably should—stay in my seat, close my eyes, and rest up for the battles to come, I can’t think of doing anything other than getting answers from him.
I unbuckle and rise, stepping around Ezra in the seat beside me to move into the aisleway. I cross the small space to Nikolai where he lays helpless on the couch. His eyes are open, looking above him, but they turn my way as I approach.
I stand still at his side. I’m not entirely sure what I want to ask him, what I want to tell him, what I want to do to him. But I just have to stand still for a moment as it happens—as the power that he always held over me pours from him with each breath, mingling with the air between us.
With each uneven breath I take, some of his power seeps into my lungs, swirling like a storm and punching my heart with lightning bursts that fortify me, strengthen me, embolden me. Our eyes remain locked as I willingly and gratefully take that power from him. “Why?”
“Why…what?”
Why did you choose me when I was eleven?
Why did you bring me partners you hated?
Why did you choose Ezra?
Why did you sell me?
Why did you risk everything to steal me back?
I take a step closer, knowing that he can hardly move, knowing that he can’t hurt me right now. “Why me? Why did you choose me to live this life of torment?”
I feel Ezra approach before I see him appear at my side. I hold up my hand to stop him because I need this exchange with Nikolai without interference, without the distracting pulse of Ezra’s pure goodness.
Nikolai lets a smirk curl up the corner of his lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
I scoff, “I’ve become fairly open-minded to nonsense over the years, Nikolai.” I feel a rush when I say his name rather than call him master. “I’m a talent slave serving the four families with dance. An entirely unbelievable and unnecessary tradition of four slave trafficking families, spread across the globe, who descended from murderers. So, please, indulge me with the truth you think I won’t believe.”
I feel Ezra take a step back and I see him cross his arms over his chest from the corner of my eye. I don’t tear my eyes away from Nikolai, but I sense the look on Ezra’s face shows something resembling pride and encouragement.
Nikolai’s eyes turn to the ceiling again. “I struggled to select a beneficiary before I found you.” He sounds breathless and weary. “I was twenty-six and I knew what I wanted. I wanted to find a boy. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell my father. He judged me rather harshly for my…ambivalence. I selected your studio at random, showed up that day on a whim. I took one look into the studio and I saw you dancing.” He shifts and flinches and I’m glad for his pain. “Anya,” his eyes fall on me again, “I felt something deep for you. I was drawn to you. Instantly obsessed. I thought it felt like falling in love.”
Oh, fuck no.
“Don’t feed me lies,” I hiss. “Tell me the truth.”
“That’s the truth.”
“I was a child. You don’t fall in love with a child!” I step closer, looming above him in the way he always loomed over me.
“It wasn’t like that. Not then. I saw…” his breath stutters, “I saw another little girl who kept bumping into you. You gave her that fierce look of yours and when your teacher wasn’t looking, you marched over to her, waved your finger in her face, and told her something that made her cheeks go white. She moved as far away from you as she could, and you took center stage. But you were obedient, too, and you followed your dance teacher’s instructions perfectly. There was no one else in that room worth looking at. I fell in love with your spirit. I knew someday you’d make the perfect slave.”
I reach down and I slap him. “You’re disgusting. Lusting after a child.”
His face contorts in pain. “Lust came later.” He closes his eyes. “But I always cared deeply for you, Anya. If I didn’t, you would have died a hundred deaths at my hands by now. I made you stronger.”