Thief (Boston Underworld #5)(7)
“What is she doing?” Mara scrunches her face in bewilderment when she spies my new toy stretching her leg on the padded floor.
“Who knows.” I zip up my pants and toss Mara her skirt. “But I have business to take care of.”
Tanaka dutifully ignores the spectacle as Mara dresses unabashedly. When it’s time for her to go, I do not give false assurances of another reunion, and she doesn’t ask. I retrieve some cash from my wallet, not for sex, but because she’s used to men taking care of her. She thanks me in Russian and leaves.
I should go too, but I find myself rooted in place, eyes on Tanaka. For two weeks, we have carried on this routine. There are no words exchanged between us. I spend my days with Vory business, and she spends hers chasing impossible dreams in this gym.
She came here without a fight, but with each day that passes, her resolve glows brighter. Ballet has been her life until now, and she has not yet come to accept that her old life is dead.
I lean against the doorframe and flick the lid of my lighter between my fingers. “Why don’t you find a new hobby?”
Her golden eyes flash with fury, and to my own irritation, it stirs my dick back to life.
“Find a new hobby?” she clips.
“Yes.”
“Are you truly that oblivious to the amount of my life I have dedicated to this ‘hobby’?”
I make a flippant gesture to her useless ankle. “Does it matter now? I think it’s time to stop beating a dead horse.”
Her nipples are hard again. Almost as hard as her jaw when she’s nettled. My eyes carve a path up the curve of her neck to the spot where her pulse thrums in staccato. She catches me staring and makes an unconscious effort to remain modest, tugging her skirt lower and the straps on her shoulders higher. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips, and she lays into me with a voice like a whip.
“From the age of six, I have trained as a dancer. You think your mafia is exclusive? Try the ballet, Mr. Kozlov. I attended summer intensive programs that most could only ever dream about. The corps de ballet offered me a contract before I even finished high school. While other children played outside and experienced all that childhood had to offer, I was in the studio. I have ascended the ranks of this hierarchy in spite of significant odds, and if we were to compare our worlds, then you and I would be equals. My entire life, I have bled for this dream, and you believe it is your right to casually suggest I find another hobby?”
A forceful exhale concludes her rant, but it seems to have stolen her precious energy along with it. Perhaps it is the recovery, but regardless of her fiery temper, she appears almost lifeless after the smallest exertion. Her present state is at odds with her mind, considering the girl is anything but weak.
From the moment she laid eyes on me, she believed herself superior. But the reality is that she is a spoiled little bitch who has been locked away in her castle too long. This girl who compares her ballet to my mafiya is completely ignorant of the world and how much power I hold over her fate. I expected as much of her.
What I did not anticipate was that she would be so lovely to look at. When Manuel offered up his prized daughter as collateral for a debt, I had decidedly painted her as a gargoyle in his image. But in truth, she looks nothing like him.
A waifish girl, she is too thin for my tastes. Her body is the testament of a struggle between femininity and girlishness. Caught in the clutches of both, it’s undecided of which she wants or needs. But there is no denying the unnatural grace she carries. Whether it’s the subtle flip of her hand or the curve of her leg, she is almost inhumanly beautiful. She is elegant, manicured, and well groomed. In short, she is everything I am not. Yet when I first saw her, I was admittedly captivated to the soft-spoken beauty in a way that was unfamiliar to me. She is nothing like the Russian girls I am accustomed to. She is nothing like any girl I am accustomed to.
She is undoubtedly intelligent, but the level of her naivety gives me whiplash. There is an innocence about her that provokes doubts in me. Doubts that are at odds with every value I stand for. The longer I endure her presence, the clearer it becomes. I would do well to stay away from her because she is of no importance to me. And as shameful as it may be to see something so lovely destroyed, it might come to that in the end. I must remember this. Whatever fate befell my mother, so too will Tanaka’s be.
There is no such thing as pain. There is only discipline.
My leg comes off the floor, only to collapse again a moment later. The defunct limb has failed me, just as the heartless Russian so rashly observed. Even the slightest movement produces a backlash of agony throughout my ankle. The muscles I have painstakingly forged over the years are dying. After a lifetime of abuse, the reckoning has finally come, and in turn, the dark cloud above looms larger.
Illogically, my deepest fear takes root in my gut. A vision of me crippled, unable to move or walk at all. I may as well be, if I can never dance again. My eyes burn with repressed emotion, but I don’t give into it. Tears are a weakness I seldom indulge, and I’m not about to start now.
“Tashechka.”
Nonna is in the doorway, hands tucked into the sides of her plain gray dress. Nikolai’s housekeeper is a modest, quiet woman who favors simplistic dresses and headscarves to perform her duties. Since my arrival here, I have come to understand that those duties also apparently include me.
“Your lunch is waiting for you in your room.” Her Russian accent is thick, but discernable.