I’ll dance for her.
I’ll dance for the baby.
I’ll dance for our future so that today’s pas de trois with my girl and our boy won’t be the last.
Chapter 22
Anya
It’s happening tonight.
Oh, God.
It’s happening tonight.
The escape plan is simple, and I can’t help but worry that it almost seems too simple to work.
Our plan is to sneak out of Nobility Hall after Ezra’s performance as my talent slave, just after the four families have moved back over to the grand entrance of Mikhailov Manor through the connected hallway. The reception will start without us, as it usually does—that’s always been the case with Heads of House and their talent slaves after a performance. The guests will socialize, drink, and eat and generally be too distracted to notice when too much time has passed beyond our reasonably late arrival.
We will already have met Kostya just outside Nobility Hall where he has a car waiting for us. We’ll already be driving off the manor grounds, heading for the helipad. And if we’re truly lucky, we’ll be on the helicopter with the pilot that Kostya has paid handsomely to arrive at the pre-arranged time before the four families realize we’ve gone.
The helicopter will take us all to the nearest public airport and then we’ll part ways with Kostya. We’ve all decided it’s best that neither of us know the other’s plans from there.
Ezra and I have cash, fake passports for the both of us and for the baby, and a credit card in Kostya’s name. It will be traceable, but it’s the only option we have—we can’t book a flight without it. Our only hope is that we’ll gain enough lead time on the four families to fly back to the States, maybe bribe someone into using their credit card to rent us a car in exchange for cash, and drive until we can’t drive anymore.
A simple plan, but still so much room for error and complications. There has been one unforeseen complication that has us all on edge because nature is unforgivably unpredictable.
I’m still pregnant.
It’s a full week past my due date—and I’m in denial. I deny the true nature of the cramps that started early this morning. I deny that they’ve been coming more frequently, increasing in their intensity, and quickly reaching a point where I can no longer ignore them.
Somehow, I’ve managed to greet my guests and welcome them. And now I sit in Nobility Hall waiting for Ezra’s performance to begin.
Nikolai has cursed me.
I can’t think differently when my labor comes a week past due and on the very night we’ve planned our escape.
Why is this happening now?
Maybe his secrets have cursed this seat, too.
Nikolai always sat right here during my annual performances—the same seat every damn time while I was his talent slave. I always thought it was strange for him to be so fond of this particular spot as it wasn’t even the best seat in the house, though I’d never given it much thought before.
But it all made sense the night he died. He’d kept a box of secrets beneath this very seat, a box of secrets that brought me to be sitting here now as the woman who was not just his slave, but his unknowing wife.
Even though he’s been dead and gone for months, I can still feel his presence here now. If there were such things as ghosts and Nikolai were one now, I believe he would haunt this place. There’s an undeniable thickness in the air tonight and it’s oppressive, overwhelming—just the way his living presence had been.
The four families have settled into their seats and it’s time to begin. It’s not just time to begin the performance, but time to begin our mental preparation for our risky escape from this life.
I wring my sweaty palms together, then place them on my huge belly as Ezra’s music begins in Nobility Hall. My stomach feels stretched and tight and it makes me horribly uncomfortable to sit here.
I force my focus to Ezra as he comes out onto the stage, strong and masculine and the perfect specimen of a true performer. I could sit and watch him dance all day, every day, which I intend to make happen in our new reality.
This escape will work.
It has to.
Ezra’s costume isn’t really a costume at all. He’s shirtless, which I’m not ashamed to admit is because of my encouragement, and he’s wearing a pair of simple, black slacks that fit him loosely, like jogging pants.
Watching him perform feels like nothing short of a miracle. Ezra is power and grace, strength and agility, a mighty force that’s perfectly balanced. My hand finds my heart as he dances, and I feel how it beats wildly beneath my palm. It beats for him, the same way he tells me his heart beats for me.
Shit.
Another one already.
I can’t ignore the pain that creeps in from the lowest part of my stomach, radiating out across my taut skin, a pain that feels like stretching, pulling, kneading, punching. A muffled groan escapes me when it goes on for…
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Seven full counts of eight.
No.
That contraction was longer and it came sooner than the last two. It was immeasurably more painful, and I don’t know how no one around me seems to notice what’s happening to me.
This can’t be happening.
Not now, not now, not now!
I gasp for air when the pain recedes and grants me a break from the relentless ache and suddenly, Ezra’s performance is over.
I didn’t even see it because the pain was too great for me to focus. There’s a standing ovation for him and I realize I’m the only one still sitting. I’m sure anyone could argue that it’s because I’m so massively pregnant, but the last thing I want to do right now is draw attention to myself. Pushing through my hands on the armrests, I get to my feet and I feel a sudden trickle of fluid flow down the inside of my thigh.
What is that?
Am I bleeding?
What the fuck is happening?
Before the fluid reaches my knee, I side-step out of my end seat onto the red carpeted aisle, hoping that if I’m dripping blood—or whatever the hell this is—it will blend with the carpet and I can hide it with my long gown. I can’t risk having the O’Sheas step in it and slip on the hardwood floor beneath the seats as they step out of the row after me.
No one can know.
No one can know what’s happening right now.
I just have to wait for them all to leave, just like Nikolai always did to protect his secrets.
Everything will be okay.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.