“Too late!” Inessa trills, her grin is almost manic. “Our special guest is here!”
The door opens and a male stripper dressed in a business suit and shirt open to his navel undulates in. He’s got a solid build, muscles carefully sculpted in a way that tells you he earned them with endless gym time and steroids. He purses his lips at me, highlighting his cheekbones and trying to look sexy.
“Okay, that’s it-”
She pulls me out of the chair. “Oh no. Nikander here is going to make you a very happy woman.” Pulling me quickly to the other side of the room, she opens another door I hadn’t seen. She pushes me a few steps into the room and when I turn to leave, Nikander the stripper is blocking me. Inessa claps her hands, and the other girls join in, looking a little confused.
“This is just for Lucya,” she explains with an unhinged smile. “She’s been wanting a one-on-one session.”
Everyone looks a little shocked. Bratva princesses don’t get strippers. They definitely don’t get strippers the night before their wedding day.
Inessa pulls the door shut. It’s a much smaller room, just a couch and a table holding an ice bucket with champagne and two glasses, arranged like I’m really going to have a celebratory drink with this guy. There’s speakers, turned on high and I wince as a relentless techno beat blasts through the room, galvanizing Nikander to start writhing in front of me, dramatically ripping off his shirt and jacket, then his pants, leaving him in a purple G-string. He backs me into a chair and pushes me to sit.
I don’t see how this night could get worse, but I am wrong.
“Look, just-” I turn my face when he tries to push his crotch at me. “I’ll make sure you’re paid but I’m leaving, Nikander, isn’t it? This isn’t happening.”
“You can call me Nikky,” he says huskily, trying to grab one of my hands.He’s got an alarmingly strong grip.
I’ve worked in a nightclub for too long to not know when things are going south. “I’m not calling you anything,” I snap. “You’re getting your money, but I am not interested. Move back, please. I’m getting up.”
“Oh, no you’re not,” he chuckles, his tone darkening. “I know what you like.” To my disgust, he holds up pink fuzzy handcuffs. “Let me make this easy. You can’t say no.” He licks his lips. “So just relax and enjoy it.”
“Listen to me! This is not happening, you’re making a mistake.” He’s trying to grab my wrists and I get my foot between us, shoving him away. “I don’twant this.This isn’t a game. You do not want to piss off the Turgenev Bratva. Did they tell you I’m marrying Dmitri Turgenev tomorrow? Can you imagine what he’s going to do to you?” I feel nauseous with shame using Dmitri as a shield, but it’s all I’ve got.
Nikander is listening to me with a puzzled frown. “Less chatting, baby. Give me your wrists, you’re going to have to lay back and enjoy-” Thrashing and shrieking at the top of my lungs, I roll off the chair while he grabs at my ankles. He chuckles, “You really do like it rough, yeah?”
I want to kill him. I want to stab him in the face. My shoulder hits the table, knocking over the bucket holding the champagne and showering us in ice. Grabbing the bottle by the neck, I can feel the chilly booze run down my arm as I slam it down on his shoulder. His eyes narrow, “You’re going to regret that.”
He's army-crawling up my body, trying to hold me down by sheer bulk so he can tie me up. I’ve still got a grip on the champagne bottle; this is my last chance. The thought of this bastard hurting me, worse, maybe hurting the baby makes me scream with fury. I swing the bottle up behind him, nailing him hard in the back of the head.
“Shhhiiiit!” he screams, rolling away, clutching his skull. “You crazy bitch!”
“Believe me, I could have hit you a lot harder!” I get to my feet, unsteady in my high heels. I’m shaking with fury. Fear. Grief. I don’t know. “When a woman says no, shemeansit, asshole!”
He looks genuinely confused, “But she said-”
The door slams open and Inessa charges in, eyeing the fallen stripper and broken glass. “What the hell is going on? I heard screaming.”
“The screaming was from him,” I say viciously, shoving past her. “I’m going home.”
Inessa looks over her shoulder. Her friends are still in the other room, looking confused and drunk. I can tell by their frowns that even these idiots are beginning to question what’s going on. Shesteps to the side and lets our Dubrovina guards take me home. They have to stop twice to let me stumble out of the car and throw up in the street. I know they think I’m drunk, and that’s fine.
“Where have you been?”Mat'confronts me at the front door. “I’ve been worried sick!”
Laughing bitterly, I push my hair back. It came loose from the fancy updo when I had to beat the shit out of the stripper. “Inessa told me that she was taking me out for dinner. Just us sisters.”
My mother’s brows draw together. She already knows this is a terrible idea and she wasn’t even there. “Why would she? Never mind. Are you all right?”
“She ambushed me, took me to a nightclub with her precious friends and they thought they were giving me a bachelorette party.”
“Oh, my god sweetheart!”Mat'is horrified. “Why did you say yes in the first place? Your sister… Inessa is not quite herself right now.”
Laughing bitterly, I start up the stairs. “Because there’s always been this pathetic little part of me that wanted her to love me. And it was so very hard to kill. But tonight took care of that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be loved, my sweet girl,” she says sadly. “I should have been watching her more closely.”
Putting her arm around me, she walks up the stairs, helping me into my room. There’s a dress hanging on a hook by the bathroom and I stop dead.
