Vik curls her lip and draws Mila closer to her. “You are disgusting.”
“Stay away from us,” I tell Andrei. “I don’t think Mikhail will appreciate you talking to us.”
Andrei smirks and looks me up and down. “You think you have a hold on Mikhail, but you don’t. No one does.” He sighs. “Listen, I wanted to apologize. What I did, I took too far.”
I don’t respond.
“Well, have a good night, ladies.” He walks away with a leisurely gait.
“I hate that man,” Vik grumbles.
Mila shudders. “He scares me.”
I catch Vik looking at someone across the room and quickly look away before glancing back. I follow her gaze and see a man who was at the last party. He’s handsome, incredibly handsome. But I have no idea who he is.
“Do you know him?” I ask Vik.
She scowls and looks away from the man. “He was here the other night. Aleksander, I think.” She shrugs. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. None of these men are good enough for me.”
Mikhail walks to the center of the room and claps his hands together, drawing everyone’s eyes onto him. “This party is for my wife’s sisters. They’ll be leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to send them off in grand style. If you don’t know, my wife and her sisters are ballet dancers. Very well-known in New York.” He looks at the three of us. “So, I wanted to ask you three for a dance. A way to commiserate your leaving. I know it’s not easy on any of you. Why not share a dance together one last time?”
I inhale deeply. Vik was right. Mikhail is trying to punish my sisters for leaving and having me go with them.
All the eyes in the room are on us. I catch Irina’s gaze and watch her slowly smirk. Every fiber of my being hates to see her look at me like that.
I raise my head high. “We would love to.”
Vik whips her head toward me. “Sofiya, I’m still wearing a cast. I can’t dance ballet.”
“You’re going to have to try,” I whisper. “Mikhail wants us to dance, so we’ll dance.” I grab Mila’s hand and tug her toward Mikhail. Vik follows behind with her head raised. Even though Vik doesn’t want to dance right now, she would never show it.
Mikhail steps out of the way and motions for us to take to the floor. Music starts playing—something classical I’ve never heard before.
Each of us takes off our shoes.
“We’ll modify,” I tell Vik. She nods and inhales slowly.
I ignore the men and women around us and begin to dance. Mila follows in, and finally, Vik joins. It’s one of the easier dances Celine choreographed for us. It’s a story about three sisters finding a magical realm and venturing into it.
I can’t dance very well in my tight dress, so I modify my movements. Not kicking as high, not spinning as fast. And jumps are out of the equation. Mila does well in her dress since it’s more flowy. She masters a pirouette, and our audience claps.
That only makes Vik look more annoyed. Out of the three of us, she’s struggling with her moves the most. In her defense, her ankle is still healing. She can’t do any jumps or spins. She can barely balance on her good ankle since it’s hard for her to lift her other leg with the cast on it.
But Vik tries because she’s determined.
And, right in front of everybody, she slips on the hardwood and lands on her hands and knees.
Mila and I stop and rush to her side.
“I’m fine,” Vik mutters, pushing herself back up.
“Should we continue?” Mila asks.
I glance at Mikhail, and he nods. “We should.” We pick up where we left off, but the energy is off. We’re not on a stage, and we’re not in our costumes, and Vik is hurt.
She stumbles again, and this time, she lands on her butt. She tries to hide her wince, but even Vik isn’t that perfect. A couple of people laugh. When I look up, I see Irina has a large smile on her face. The people in this crowd are enjoying Vik’s humiliation. This is what Mikhal wanted to do—he wanted Vik to feel bad for convincing me to leave.
Well, this ends now. Mikhail can punish me all he wants, but I refuse to let him do the same to my sisters.
I offer Vik my hand, and this time, she takes it, letting me pull her up. I bow and subtly motion for my sisters to join me. They do.
When I look up at Mikhail, I see the disapproval on his face. He doesn’t like that I made the choice to end the dance without his say. But he doesn’t need to know that that wasn’t the end of the dance.
Vik smiles tightly as she bows to the audience.
“I hope you enjoyed it,” I say.
Mikhail steps forward. “We did. That was lovely. Now, we should give these women a break. Dancing isn’t easy.”
“No, it’s not,” a familiar man’s voice says. “But if anyone can make it look easy, it’s the Morozova sisters.”
I turn toward the voice, and the face I see sends an icy shard over my body.
It’s Boris. He’s here in Russia. He’s here in Mikhail’s house. In my house.
And he’s making a beeline for Mila.
“What’s he doing here?” I ask Mikhail. “Did you invite him?”
