My hand crushes the bed rail. Metal groans under the pressure. Sonya's eyes go wide, her hand tightening on mine.
"You poisoned her," I say, my voice deadly calm.
"I tested her," Anton corrects. "To see if she was still pure. Still my untouched masterpiece. Tell me, Maksim—is she? Or have you ruined once again what I spent years perfecting?"
"She was never yours."
"She was. She still is." His voice drops to an intimate whisper. "Five years I kept her broken and perfect. Untouched. Sacred in her suffering."
Sonya makes a small sound. Horror dawning on her face.
"I destroyed her ankle," Anton continues, "and in doing so, I created a masterpiece. A living sculpture of beautiful suffering. Broken. Alone. Waiting. Exactly as I designed."
The realization hits Sonya like a physical blow. Her five years of isolation—her inability to trust, to let anyone close, to do anything except survive—wasn't just a trauma response. It was his intended outcome. His whole choreography.
"And you, Maksim," Anton says warmly, "I made you too. I took your pregnant wife fifteen years ago. I gave you just enough to haunt you. To forge you into steel."
His laugh is delighted. "You should thank me. We're artists, you and I. We create through destruction."
"You create nothing." My voice is nuclear winter. "You're a parasite who mistakes these insane acts for art."
"Then come see my greatest work," Anton says. "Lincoln Center. Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Halloween night—October 31st. I'll be performing Giselle. The ballet Sonya never got to finish. Act II—the Wilis, those vengeful ghost women who dance men to death. Poetic, no?"
He pauses for effect. "Front row seats reserved for the Pakhan and his broken ballerina. Don't be late. And Maksim?"
"What."
"Make sure she comes willingly. I want her to choose to walk into my theater." His voice drops. "After all, she's my Giselle. Always has been. You're just borrowing her until I take my final bow."
The line goes dead.
Silence fills the hospital room. Heavy. Suffocating.
Sonya is shaking. I can feel it through our joined hands.
"Listen to me." I turn to face her fully. "You survived him. You built a galleryThat's not his—that's yours."
"He wants me there." Her voice strengthens.
"You're not going."
"He'll just come for me anyway. At least there, we choose the ground. We know when, where, what he's planning."
"He wants you there to kill you. To complete his 'performance.'"
Her eyes are hard now, the broken ballerina gone, replaced by something fierce. "He thinks I'm still his masterpiece. Still broken and isolated and waiting. Let him think that. Let him believe his choreography worked. Then we destroy him on his own stage."
Before I can argue, Sergei enters. He's been monitoring the call remotely—I can tell by his expression.
"He's been living in Juilliard's underground spaces," Sergei reports. "Building something. We have eyes on three entrances, but there are at least a dozen maintenance access points. Three weeks gives us time to map everything, position teams, plan the operation."
He pauses. "But it also gives him three weeks to finish building whatever trap he's designed."
"Then we use the time to prepare," Sonya says. She's sitting up now, despite the IV, despite the weakness. "He thinks I'm broken. That I can't fight back. Let's show him what I learned."
I should argue. Should tell her absolutely not, she's staying in Philadelphia under armed guard, she's never going near Lincoln Center.
Instead, I hear myself say: "What do you need?"
