Chapter six
Ghosts Dancing
Maksim
I can't sleep.
I haven't slept properly since Sonya arrived three days ago. Her presence in my space is destroying fifteen years of carefully maintained control. Every time I close my eyes, I see her in that hallway—caught between wings, staring at me in that towel. See her dark eyes watching me across the dinner table. Hear her voice, her laugh, the way she moves through my mansion like she belongs here.
Like she's waking up a house that's been dead for fifteen years.
At 2:30 AM, I give up on sleep entirely. Pull on sweatpants, consider vodka, reject it. Alcohol won't help. Nothing helps except—
Music.
I freeze in my bedroom doorway, listening.
Music is playing. Classical. Russian. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
Coming from the east wing.
That's impossible. That door is locked. Nobody touches Elena's space.
I move through the dark mansion on instinct, following the sound. Down the hallway. Past the guest wing where Sonya should be sleeping. To the east wing.
The door stands open.
I stare at it, trying to remember. Did I unlock this? I must have. The key is on the chain around my neck like always, but there are fresh scratches on the brass lock.
When? How? I don't remember coming here, don't remember turning the key—
But I must have. Sometime in the last three days, while Sonya's been in my house destroying my control, I must have stood in this hallway and unlocked Elena's studio.
Without going inside. Without consciously deciding.
My hands making choices my mind refused.
I step inside and stop breathing.
The studio stretches before me, exactly as I left it fifteen years ago. Professional flooring, barres along the walls, floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflecting the moonlight streaming through the windows. The sound system plays Swan Lake at low volume.
And in the center, surrounded by Elena's ghost and my grief, is Sonya.
She's wearing a thin nightgown—the same one I caught a glimpse of Tuesday night when she was heading to bed. White silk that reaches mid-thigh, nearly transparent in the moonlight. Her hair is down, loose around her shoulders. And on her feet, those bloody pointe shoes I've seen in the security footage.
She's dancing.
Not the careful, controlled movements I saw in her videos. This is raw. Desperate. She's working through something—repeating the same sequence over and over. A partnered lift. Rising onpointe, extending into arabesque, preparing for the throw that would send her spinning through the air into her partner's arms.
Except there's no partner.
She imagines the throw. Launches herself. Falls.
Hits the floor hard, crying out. The sound echoes through the studio, through my chest.
She gets up. Limps back to position. Does it again.
Throw. Fall. Impact. Cry out.
