“For what?”
“Grounding me when I get scared,” she says.
We manage to get through the rest of the morning without either of us mentally combusting. I make us coffee for me, tea for her, and eggs for us both, because apparently that’s my love language. She moves around the kitchen with me, quieter than usual, but close. Brushing my arm when she passes behind me. Letting her fingers linger a second longer when she hands me a plate.
She leaves for rehearsal around nine, hair up, ballet bag over her shoulder, shoulders squared like she’s heading into battle.
At the door, I catch her wrist and tug her gently back.
“Hey,” I say. When she looks up, I kiss her forehead. “We’ve got this.”
Her hand flattens briefly over my heart, like she’s testing the beat.
“I hope so,” she whispers.
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
I stand there for a moment, staring at the wood, at the empty space she leaves behind when she walks out of a room.
I rub a hand over my face and blow out a breath.
Now that the panic has ebbed and the apartment is quiet again, the one thought I can’t shake is this:
She asked me to be her first.
She chose me.
And as much as I meant what I said about not taking her virginity out of fear, there’s a selfish part of me that’s already decided:
If she asks me again, and it’s not because of her father, or her grandmother, or a visa, but because she wants us…
I won’t say no this time. Though if Luka finds out… he might kill me.
Chapter Twenty
Katerina
The studio is warm with bodies and music; half the company stretches before afternoon rehearsal.
I’m folded over my leg, breathing through the burn in my hamstring, when I feel a prick of something.
A ripple moves through the dancers nearest the door.
Not fear… but utter confusion of someone standing in the door.
I look up, and my heart stops.
A man I don’t recognize steps in first. Broad shoulders. Thick neck. Suit stretched across a body that looked military-trained. His hands are clasped in front of him, but only barely. As if he’s one command away from grabbing someone by the throat.
And behind him—my grandmother.
My breath stutters out of me in one sharp, cold exhale.
Maxim was right. She’s here.
“Kat?” one girl murmurs beside me. “Do you… know them?”
“Yes,” I whisper, pushing to my feet so fast my vision sparks black around the edges. “I know them.”
