Dance of Ruin: Chapter 22

My phone is vibrating.

Like, aggressively so.

I fumble for it blindly, dragging it from under Nico’s pillow. My eyes barely open before the screen lights up, nearly blinding me.

Fuck.

I have thirty-seven unread messages on my “Ballet Bitches” group chat with Milena, Brooklyn, Evelina, Bianca, and Lyra.

I blink the sleep out of my eyes, try to sit up, and immediately regret it.

My thighs ache. My hips are sore. My neck feels like it’s been kissed, bitten, and marked within an inch of its life—which, to be fair, it has.

And my pussy is…

Jesus.

Fucking ouch.

Even as I wince, another sensation ripples through me, deliciously achy, as I relive the night before: first at the club, partially in the car on the way back here, and then, after Nico carried me inside, against the front door of his loft, on the floor, then finally here.

I glance toward the other side of the bed, frowning when I find it empty.

Meanwhile my phone keeps pinging, so I sigh, rub my eyes, and open the messages.

I scramble out of bed, throwing on shorts and a hoodie as my phone continues to blow up. This time, it’s a non-group text from Vaughn.

He sends me a link to the New York Globe, and when the headline fills my screen, my hand clamps over my mouth and my stomach drops.

Holy fucking shit.

The headline is bad enough. The photos beneath it are ten times worse.

Nico and I, pressed against the brick wall in the alley next to Doomsday last night, his mouth on mine and my thigh pulled up to his hip.

Another of him leading me to his car, his hand on my lower back. The next of us making out in the car. The ones after that are him carrying me into his building, my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck.

Suddenly, I flick back to the group text and scroll up, scanning the messages in a panic.

Bianca’s not replying.

My heart is still slamming in my chest as I jump out of the Uber literally before it comes to a stop outside Bianca and Kratos’ East Village brownstone.

Fuck. She’s going to hate me.

That’s a cardinal friend rule, right? No hooking up with your friends’ siblings?

It’s absolutely a rule, and I stomped all over it.

Lyra getting together with Carmine was different. Sort of. Carmine needed a wife in order to take over the throne from Vito and become don of the Barone family. Lyra needed money, so she crashed the “audition” that Carmine was holding to find someone that he’d pay to be said wife.

I’ve spent the cab ride over here trying to convince myself that’s way worse than my situation with Nico. That was outright bamboozlement, and Bianca’s only worry was for Lyra, since Carmine is…well, Carmine.

I.e., a fucking psychopath.

Nico and I aren’t like that. Sure, there are some…darker elements to it: the blackmail. The video. All of it.

Crap.

That opens up so many other cans of worms, and I quite honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell anyone about them all.

But without those mitigating circumstances, this is just me sneaking around with Bianca’s fucking brother behind her back.

Which officially makes me the worst friend on the planet.

I’m halfway up the steps to the brownstone’s front entrance when it opens.

Kratos fills the doorway as he stands there, barefoot in dark jeans and a gray henley shirt, smirking as I stumble to a breathless stop in front of him.

“Naomi,” he says, like he’s been expecting me.

“I—” I stammer. “I didn’t mean to—God, I didn’t even know—the pictures⁠—”

He holds up a hand.

“Relax,” he says. “She’s not upset.”

I blink. “She’s not?”

He chuckles—actually chuckles—and leans against the doorframe.

“I think she just has some…questions.”

He gives me a pointed look.

“I do, too. But talk to Bianca first.”

He steps aside, nodding toward the stairs.

“She’s upstairs on her mandated bed rest. Try not to give her a heart attack.”

My mouth opens. Then closes. I give him a weak nod and head for the stairs on shaky legs with a heart that won’t slow down.

I knock lightly on the door to Bianca and Kratos’ room as I step inside, feeling like I’ve done something wrong.

Which is stupid. We’re not in high school. I didn’t get caught sneaking in past curfew. I’m not sleeping with her boyfriend.

Just her brother.

Her dangerous, morally unstable, mafia prince brother.

Bianca’s propped up in bed, surrounded by vases of flowers, an insane number of pillows, and an aggressive number of romance paperbacks. Her long dark hair is braided and hanging over one shoulder, and she’s reading one of said paperbacks with her mouth open in a shocked “O”.

She glances up when I walk in, her face turning red.

“Shit, you scared me.” She holds up the book with a guilty grin. “Fuckin’ Booktok got to me. The spice…holy shit,” she giggles, tossing the book aside.

I smile weakly as she arches a brow.

“I saw the pictures,” she says, tilting her head. “You wanna start, or should I?”

Well, so much for easing into the conversation

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just—” I wave my hands uselessly. “It just did. And I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to make things weird, and⁠—”

“Naomi,” she cuts in gently. “I’m not mad.” She laughs lightly. “Why does everyone think I’d be mad if my friends dated my brothers?”

I make a face. “Because you’re not supposed to hook up with your friend’s brother. It’s a rule.”

She frowns. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

She grins. “I think that’s just in romcoms, and it’s only guys. Like, you don’t bang your buddy’s sister. You know?”

I point to one of the books lying on her comforter. “You’re literally reading a book that has ‘best friend’s brother’ and ‘forbidden’ on the cover.”

She rolls her eyes. “Dude, it’s fiction. Welcome to the real world.” She shakes her head. “I’m not mad, Naomi.”

I blink.

“You’re not?”

She exhales. “Well… I wasn’t thrilled to find out via thetabloids. But…no.”

I sink onto the edge of her bed, twisting my hands in my lap. “I just… I didn’t know how to tell you. And Nico and I aren’t even⁠—”

“Naomi?”

I pause, my lip pulling between my teeth as I look up at her.

“Without going into details that trust me, you do not want to hear…” She blushes. “Believe me when I say that I get unconventional when it comes to relationships.” Then she gives me a sharp look. “But I do want to know he’s treating you right.”

I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out.

How do I explain that this started with blackmail? That it still is, technically?

I mean, he still has the footage.

And yet… It doesn’t feel like I’m trapped anymore.

It feels like I’m being kept.

Like I’m being taken care of in a way that’s impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived in that space between power and surrender. Between fear and want.

When he touches me, when he looks at me the way he does…

I don’t feel owned.

I feel cherished.

And, God help me, I like it.

Bianca leans back against the headboard, automatically resting a hand on the still barely-there curve of her belly.

We sit in silence for a moment, letting the sound of the city outside fill the room.

“I didn’t mean to hide it from you, truly. I just…didn’t know what it was. And now it’s out there and I feel like I can’t take a full breath.”

She tilts her head, sympathetic. “Because it’s real now?”

“Because it’s messy,” I murmur. “And… Maybe I like it more than I should.”

“You can always come to me,” she says with a small smile. “Whatever Nico is to you, I mean, c’mon, I already think of you as family.”

I don’t trust myself to speak.

Bianca shifts a little, adjusting the pillows around her. “You can tell me anything,” she says gently. “Anytime. You know that, right?”

The words hit harder than I expect and something in me cracks open.

I’ve been telling myself forever that nothing changed after Mom died. But it did.

My dad turned away, burying himself in handshakes and campaign slogans. I threw myself into dancing, letting it consume me. I pushed my body past its limits every day, hoping I could outrun the ache I didn’t want to name.

I’ve always said I’m lucky to have friends like Bianca, Milena, Lyra, Evelina and Brooklyn, but I’ve never let myself need them.

Never acknowledged that they’re not just friends, they’re my family.

I nod, trying to blink back the sudden sting in my eyes.

Then it comes rushing back—like floodwaters breaking through a dam.

The photoshoot. The coldness and the raw, naked fear as darkness pulled me from my body. The sickening feeling of waking up with no memory and…cum on my skin.

It all claws back to the surface, dragging me under.

“Naomi?”

I flinch, jolting a little as I snap back to reality, my eyes flicking to Bianca’s.

Her brow furrows. “Is everything okay? I mean…” She grins. “Aside from the thing with my brother.”

“I—”

Her concern deepens as she takes my hands. “Hey, talk to me. Whatever it is⁠—”

“Bianca, I⁠—”

My phone rings.

Fuck.

The moment passes as I glance down, and when I see the name flashing on the screen, my heart drops.

It’s my dad.

Dad, who hasn’t called me back, or even texted once in the weeks I’ve been trying to get a hold of him. Which means I’m pretty sure the timing of this call, given the tabloid story published this morning, is anything but coincidence.

I hit the decline button and drag my eyes back to Bianca.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I⁠—”

Shit.

My momentary courage to tell her what happened, my ability to face that shame and darkness again, has evaporated.

I shake my head, forcing a smile. “So… Any more heartbeats I can listen to?”

Bianca lets a curious look linger on me. Then she shakes it away—either because she’s really shaking it off, or because she can tell I want her to shake it off.

Probably door number two.

“Yeah!” she beams, opening her phone. “They gave me another ultrasound yesterday. All good, super strong heartbeat. Kratos is convinced this kid is going to be a pro athlete.”

“Not a Spartan warrior?”

She rolls her eyes, grinning. “We’ll see.”

My phone buzzes in my lap.

I glance down.

A cold shiver rips up my spine. I shove it away, forcing a smile to my face, leaning closer to Naomi’s phone to listen to the sound file of the baby’s heartbeat.

My phone buzzes again.

Dad: NOW, Naomi.

Shit.