Page 122 of Violent Pawn

How can I anticipate and dread an event so fucking much?

“Now I’d like to invite the wedding party to the floor.”

Fuck me and my life.

Anastasia stands and brushes her dress before coming around the other side, hesitating by the edge of the dance floor. I meet her there and offer my hand to swing her into a hold reminiscent of when we danced in her studio.

Our walk down the aisle didn’t count as touching like this. For the first time in months, my soul takes a deep breath. My insides rupture, breaking the barrier covering every locked-down emotion. Every drink I had in preparation for this moment. Every punch to my wall. All broken down by the feel of her palm and her body against mine.

The silence between us is stifling. Soon, the DJ invites other people to join, but she doesn’t yank away when the dance floor fills up, and we’re no longer the focus. She’s staying, and seeing it as my opportunity, I step into her, my hand on her hip sliding deeper into her skin, bruising her in the same manner she bruised me eleven years ago.

“You’re not drinking. Tonight or last night.”

She’s talking to me. More so, she’s noticed. The pressure in my head explodes, and my nerves tighten as if I’m a pre-teen boy speaking to his crush for the first time.

“No. I don’t drink anymore.”

She leans slightly back to look me in the face. A flash of pride mingled with confusion has her whispering, “Since when?”

“Almost a month now.”

For a moment, just a brief second, there’s a flicker of the Ana who was once in my bed. Compassion melts her eyes until her next blink. She positions herself a respectable distance away again but remains in my arms.

“Good,” she remarks in a chilling voice. She stares over my shoulder, all those signs of my ballerina, my angel…gone. “Your conscience is cleared. Months of murdering Elite so you can end your pain. I’m glad.”

Except she doesn’t sound glad. She’s empty—flat. Reciting facts.

“You read my explanation.”

“You know I did.”

“The message being marked as read doesn’t mean you actually did.” My tone becomes argumentative, which won’t help my case, so I inhale, using the scent of her perfume to calm my mood. “I hope my explanation brought you some peace. Sorry for showing up in Moscow the other day.”

This is so fucking formal and sickening. Knives digging into my spine would be gentler.

“It helped me understand. Sorry for how Poland went. It was unfortunate.”

That’s what she got out of my messages?

Hand to her back, I drag her nearer until our noses brush. An intimate hold to the many observers but one I couldn’t care less about, so long as she doesn’t break her gaze. That she listens to me.

“I’m not sorry for any of it. Not for Giovanni’s death, nor for saving you. Because the day I saved the enthralling ballerina from a worse fate, she danced right into my very fucking soul and saved me in return.”

Her lips part. I long to kiss them, to show her all the ways I’ve missed her. “How did I save your soul?”

“By being. I arrived in Poland intending to kidnap an innocent girl, but ended up not blackening my soul because of everything you were. No matter what’s happened recently, you made me a better man.”

Emotion swims, splashing the edges of her consciousness. “You made yourself a better man, Nero. You made the choice not to kidnap me.”

I’ve made many choices I regret, but nothing more than hurting you.

“Like the choice you made coming to Moscow, ready to turn yourself in,” she continues. “You shouldn’t have risked it.”

“Z said the same, but it wasn’t a risk in my opinion. I’d do anything to keep you safe, Petrov. Prison is the least worrisome on that list.”

“Why would you?”

“I think you know why.”