Page 157 of Dance of Ruin

It’s slightly blurry, but the picture is of the same man I just watched having a conversation about the Black Court with Omar.

It’s fuckingVaughn.

34

VAUGHN

The lights dazzleme as the bag is yanked off my head.

For a moment, that’s all I can see: harsh, blinding lights, lasering into my eyes as I blink and try to focus.

My head swims as I replay the scene outside the theater maybe…what, an hour ago? Kuzmina was running the swans through a forced death march at her gulag.

…That is to say, holding a grueling extra rehearsal for the women that I’m guessing might well still be going on. Somebody’s leg could fall off and she would probably tell them to stay in sync.

She’s a sadist like that.

Honestly, it’s one of the things I like about her.

Butwhilesaid Russian death-march was going on, I snuck out into the alley behind the theater to grab a cigarette.

Yes, I know. They’re bad for you.

But I didn’t really think that health hazard would extend to having a fist slammed into my jaw and a bag yanked over my head before I was brought to my knees and thrown into the trunk of a car.

I mean, you expect cancer. Youdon’texpect assault and kidnapping.

I blink again, and my pupils begin to adjust.

The steel beams of a warehouse space loom overhead, and there’s rocky rubble on a concrete floor beneath my feet.

Oh, and I’m tied to a chair.

Not my first timefor that. But the kidnapping is new.

“You know, Nico, this isn’t how I pictured our first date. If I knew you werethiskinky, I mean…take a number, Naomi?—”

I grunt, my head snapping to the side and blood spurting from my lip as his fist comes out of nowhere.

“You don’t get to say her name,” his voice snarls from the darkness. I hear his footsteps crunch on the rubble as he circles me like a predator.

“Slightlymore aggressive than I usually go for,” I grunt, turning and spitting blood onto the floor. “But, I mean, warm me up first, baby, and I’ll play as rough as you?—”

He hits me again.

Okay,that onewas expected.

But now I’m fucking pissed.

“What’s the matter, fucker?” I hiss, blood dripping from my lips. “Worried about facing me man-to-man after our last tussle? Decided to increase your odds this time by tying me to a fucking chair?” I spit another mouthful of blood onto the floor and glare through the lights at his shadow looming behind them. “Pussy.”

His hits have made my head fucking throb, though. I wince, trying to shake off the ringing sensation in my ears as my vision swims again from the lights.

For a second—just a flickering second—it comes, like it does every now and then. A flash of a memory, maybe.

Lights swinging overhead.

A different warehouse.

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