Page 114 of Dance of Deception

“You’re a monster,” I repeat, louder, the words feeling like broken glass on my tongue.

Arkadi grins, flashing his teeth like a wolf. "So what does that makeyou?"

The blood at my feet grows deeper, creeping up my legs like it’s going to drown me.

Then—the dream shifts.

The room is the same, but Arkadi is gone.

And standing in front of me is Vera.

Her lipstick is smudged, her eyes sharp and cold. There’s blood all over her hands.

She exhales smoke, flicking her cigarette into the knee-deep blood on the flood. "You put your own father away."

My pulse roars in my ears.

She tilts her head, studying me. "How do you live with yourself?"

Back in my bed, I ball my fists up and rub my eyes, trying to eradicate the lingering tremors and shudders of that nightmare.

I exhale slowly, trying to breathe it out and away from me as I let consciousness drag me into the day.

It’s been two days since the wedding.

Since Carmine chased me through the house like a wild beast pursuing prey.

Since I lost my virginity in a way that should have broken me, but instead left something tangled and burning deep inside my chest.

My things from my apartment arrived yesterday, neatly packed and then unpacked by unseen hands. My life has been folded into this house.Hishouse. It doesn’t feel like mine.

I haven’t hung up most of my clothes. The closet in the guest room I’ve claimed is half-empty, suitcases still ranged along the wall like I’m waiting…hoping…for someone to tell me I can leave.

Carmine himself has been a ghost.

I barely see or hear him. He’s here in the house, I know that. But it’s like he’s deliberately avoiding me; like his absence is so complete that it feels planned. From so hot it burned me to ice cold. From one thousand miles an hour with a jet engine strapped to my back to a complete, dead stop. It's strange.

And the worst part is, itbothersme.

I should be relieved. I should be grateful for the space, for the break from his suffocating presence, the way he gets under my skin and past my defenses.

For some respite from his consuming, toxic, predatory grasp.

I’m not.

I can’t shake the feeling that the withdrawal is too precise, too calculated—like he’s watching from the shadows, waiting. Testing me.

I tell myself not to care. That it doesn’t matter.

But the more I tell myself that, the more it feels like a lie.

“So doesthat mean you’re not a virgin anymore?”

I freeze, my face heating.

For the million-and-first time, I find myself supremely regretting the night I gotwaytoo drunk and let it slip—toVaughn, of all fucking people—that I was still a virgin at twenty-one.

Until two nights ago…

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