Page 1 of Twisted Cage

PROLOGUE

NIKOLETTA

A ruthless man made me.

Powerful men shrouded me.

I grew up in a gilded cage inside a cruel world bathed in blood.

Shielded by my very own warrior. My godfather.

My every breath belonged to brutal gatekeepers who guarded me like the rarest spun glass. Maksim Ivanovich Romanoff’s only daughter born from his forbidden paramour, I thought my father’s weakness for my birth mother could sway him. The way he coveted her could make him more human, more understanding.

But I never quite understood the cold, stark truth. A man like him, a man who’d been hollowed out by his own parents and formed in a cruel world, could ultimately only cherish me for one reason… my value to his empire.

Nurtured, indulged, and refined until I could prove useful, he never intended for me to be anything more than a commodity between superpowers.

An isolated life and guarded from sins of the flesh meant to preserve my worth, with my virginity up for sale to the family offering the most advantageous combination of money and power.

However, they never considered my isolation in their cage left endless time to study everything beyond the steel bars of my confinement. The more they bound me, the more I could see.

Even men motivated by money, by the threat of death are fallible. They falter.

Leaving slivers of opportunity.

They should have clipped my wings.

Because the first time those cold bars failed to click shut—I soared.

1

NIKOLETTA

Goosebumps bloom on my skin as I glide the cool satin along my forearm and over my elbow. The cuff of the fitted glove settles along the bottom edge of my biceps with a firm tug. I wiggle my fingers until the seams of the fingertips settle along my long nails.

Curling my fist, I let out a calming breath and study myself. Warm lights framing the dressing room mirror bathe my dark hair in a shimmering glow, twisting and turning with every wave rolling over my shoulders and down my back.

Dancers in varied states of undress breathlessly flit back and forth behind me, snatching makeup and costume pieces from one another as they prep for their sets. Despite their flurried movements, I catch the occasional narrowed side-eye they aim my way.

Because I’m the new girl, with no experience on the pole, and I’ve convinced the owner to highlight me on a crucial night where he’s fully booked with Manhattan’s powerful elite. When I did, I put an immediate target on my back.

Secrets rumble discreetly from dangerous men over the din of ice tumbling in crystal glasses, their indistinguishable echoes weaving through tendrils of smoke in the air. Politicians, power players in secret societies, the mafia, they all converge here, at Illusions Cabaret.

Concealed in shadows, they’re almost impossible to recognize. Their calculated perusal captured only by the occasional muted glow of a strategically placed sconce. Their interest will be impossible to gauge from the vantage point.

Armed with my intuition and my years of dance on much different stages, I have one shot.

One product to sell.

My virginity.

I have to make it count.

And then when it’s gone, it’s one less bargaining chip for my father.

“Rich bitch cunt.”

The whispered barb snakes through the air over my shoulder in the wake of three dancers clustered together, sailing past me. A flash of temper streaks through my blood, lighting my veins on fire. Female or not, the Romanoff need for vengeance pumps heavily through me. Years of watching my family rule with an iron fist, instilling respect through brutal power, fear, and a promise of retribution lives deep within despite the circumstance of my gender.

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