Counts of Eight (The Four Families Book 1)

by Brynn Ford

  My gut rolls, churning a warning for me to run far and fast from the enemy who wishes to turn playful batting into painful clawing and tearing.

  But the warnings are a waste of energy.

  I can’t run.

  “I won’t ruin your makeup with a kiss. You look quite stunning as you are.”

  I nod. I have nothing to say to him. I’d really like him to leave so that I can focus and prepare to dance for my life.

  For Ezra’s life.

  Ezra.

  “Break a leg,” he says, and though it’s a common colloquialism among performers, the way he says it always sends an ice-cold breeze across my arms.

  What would happen to me if I broke a leg?

  Would he take me outside and shoot me?

  Put the poor, useless animal out of her misery because she can no longer dance?

  I’ve been lucky to have remained relatively uninjured in Nikolai’s captivity thus far. I hate that he’s just brought me such sharp awareness of the fact that I might only be one serious injury away from being completely useless to him. Another thing added to the millions I worry myself sick over, and all of that brought on by a simple phrase meant to wish performers good luck.

  I’m thankful when he’s gone, when I’m finally able to exhale.

  Though I still have a healthy dose of fear running through my veins, the truth is that the thrill of dancing for an audience excites me. It’s an excitement I’ve been grateful to have even in my captivity. It’s something I can hold onto, some small feeling of normalcy in this nightmare.

  And I don’t want it ruined by Nikolai.

  In this dressing room, I can fall away into my mind. I can pretend that I’m preparing to dance on stage as a soloist ballerina in New York. I can make myself believe that everyone in the audience has come here to watch me perform tonight, not because it’s a tradition of sadistic slave owners, but because they yearn for the emotion of sheer artistry.

  I sit at the vanity and watch myself in the mirror, keeping my eyes focused on my reflection as I turn my head slowly to the left and right. I inspect my makeup and hair for imperfections from every angle. When I’m satisfied that I look the best that I possibly can, I sigh and meet my own shrewd blue eyes in the mirror.

  I wonder what Ezra sees when he looks at me.

  The thought comes from nowhere, yet it seems like such an important question to ask. He looks at me differently than any other boy…

  No.

  Man.

  He looks at me differently than any other man ever has. The thought of it sends my heart into a flurry, racing fast and fluttering. I put my hand over my chest and I can feel the thump, thump, thump against my palm.

  If he’s taken from me tonight, I don’t know what I’ll—

  Stop.

  Just stop.

  I can’t think about it. I narrow my eyes at my reflection, watching the ice freeze over my blue irises with a glassy sheen.

  I’m hard as ice.

  A glacier as thickly layered as a mountain.

  Impenetrable.

  At least, that’s what I try to convince myself. No one has chiseled away at my icy shell so effectively as Ezra.

  I close my eyes and breathe deeply, in and out, slowly, over and over. I have to focus and center myself. I have to allow myself one brief shining moment of anticipation for the thrill of performing for an audience again. I need all my attention on the dance.

  Ultimately, the dance is what will decide Ezra’s fate for reasons I’ll never comprehend. For the sake of tradition, I suppose. For him, I will forget the rest and put everything I am and all that I have into this performance. With my eyes still shut, I review the steps in my mind, going through each count of eight in my imagination with precision.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

  When I finish outlining the routine in my mind, prepared for the steps that serve as the skeleton for the performance, I open my eyes. I remember how Ezra taught me what I was missing in my steps, the flesh that fattens the skeleton and makes it into something real and powerful.

  Heart.

  Emotion.

  I need to bring that reckless abandon to the surface, but I’m afraid of losing control. I know Ezra would tell me that losing control is exactly what I need to do, but I’m afraid to do that alone. I’m not sure I can let go on my own. Perhaps it’s something I can only do with Ezra.

  I need him.

  I need to see him, touch him, find the missing piece in him.

  I stand and open the door to exit my dressing room. As if I’ve summoned him with my mind, he’s there on the other side of the door, ready in his tan slacks that fit him like skinny jeans, barefoot, his perfect upper body exposed, shirtless.

  Ezra.

  He’s standing, waiting there for me.

  The whole world stills for a beat as I try to decide whether to crumble in sudden panic or let my heart take flight on the wings of the butterflies in my stomach.

  I don’t decide.

  I just let the butterflies take control.

  He alone is my missing piece.

  He opens his arms and I step forward to hug him close.

  “You look incredible,” he tells me softly against my ear.

  He pulls back, holding me by both shoulders and looks me square in the eye. “You ready?”

  I can’t help but to smile at him. His presence gives me peace. I’m suddenly so overcome with the pleasant anticipation of performing for an audience again, that I’ve all but forgotten about the onrushing imminent doom.

  How does he do that?

  How does he make me feel this way?

  I let myself forget the fear for the moment because I’ll be forcefully reminded of it again too soon.

  Ezra and I walk hand in hand from the dressing room beneath the dance hall, up the black staircase, and to the wings of the stage. Ezra gathers the coarse brown rope that’s already coiled in a heap on the floor, waiting and ready to be used. He lifts it from the floor, shaking out the twists and turns, and begins to wrap me with it in the same way we’ve rehearsed over and over.

  Every brush of his fingers over my barely-there leotard is electric, a static spark with every movement. He feels it, too. I know he does. I know the way he twitches with the anticipation, the way he responds to the adrenaline that spiked for the both of us the moment our feet touch the stage.

  He’s a performer, just as I am.

  This is our happiness, however brief.

  I spin around to face him as soon as the rope is tied, and bounce through my feet, hopping up and down, warming my muscles and shaking out some of the excess energy.

  He smiles at me, brightly and beautifully. Ezra holds up his hands, palms facing me, and I put my hands against his.

  I still.

  So does he.

  He captures me with the intensity of his eyes and my heart stops.

  “I’ve got you,” he says and I sigh.

  “I know you do.”

  “We’ve got this.”

  “We’ve got this,” I repeat.

  He bends, laying his forehead against mine. We both take a deep breath in perfect sync. His touch centers me, realigns the shifting pieces of my broken soul, and with a final deep look into his emerald eyes, I’m ready to dance.

  The curtain is drawn shut. The long end of the rope that binds me is draped over the pulley at center stage. Kostya raises its slowly from the wings, up, up, up above our heads. Ezra holds steady at the free end of the rope that dangles from the pulley. The other end comes out from the knot at the middle of my lower back.

  Ezra pulls and I rise from the floor.

  I pose in my starting position, one arm reaching behind me to grip the length of ro
pe that suspends me as if I’m trying to pull it down, my limbs posed in a way that suggests a fight, a struggle for freedom is about to take place.

  In so many ways, it is.

  I nod at Ezra, who then nods at Kostya who takes the signal to pull the curtain, revealing us to the audience. As it slowly rises, Ezra pulls hard, ensuring the rope is taut, creating a striking visual angle with he and I at the ends and the pulley at the vertex, far above us, out of sight.

  My pulse thrums with the exhilaration of an audience, even if it is filled with such vile creatures as the four families. I’ve never done a routine like this before, one that is so raw and reckless.

  As the haunting melody plays, we begin with theatrics. Ezra has taught me some aerial basics, nothing that would have me starring in any circus shows, but enough to work with the concept of our dance. I struggle, I twist and turn, I climb the rope and spin to a dramatic fall, never for a second doubting that Ezra will hold steady and strong.

  The more I struggle and fight against the binds that hold me, the weaker my suppressor becomes. The closer I come to reaching the floor, the weaker he becomes. It’s a slow, dramatic fight until finally, my toes touch the stage.

  That’s when he drops the rope.

  I grab it from the floor, dragging it toward me with swiftness, hand over hand, as he reaches and chases after it. When it’s all bunched between my hands, he reaches me and stops. There’s a beat where his solid frame looms above me, threatening to take back control. This is the beat where I finally break a sweat, though it’s not because of the athletic movement—it’s from the commitment in his eyes. The rawness that resembles a captor fighting his captive for ultimate power. It’s so real, I can feel it in my bones. It fuels me, inspires me for our performance.

  This is how we dance.

  Push and pull.

  Run and chase.

  Fight and struggle.

  Win and lose.

  Ezra and I argued a lot in choreographing and practicing this dance, but there was one thing we both agreed upon without question.

  I win.

  Ezra’s hands are on me for most of the routine. We’ve made it look as though I’m fighting to break free from his hold, though really his hands hold me steady, keep me balanced as I spin and twirl around him.

  When I finally break free from his grip, I run to the corner of the stage, pausing through a dramatic beat to prepare for the next sequence of intricate lifts and turns. I’m about to run after him, on the attack, leap into his arms.

  It’s a true leap of faith.

  If he doesn’t do his part, I’ll fall.

  But I know that he will do his part. I trust in that.

  I trust in him.

  I stealthily ensure that the long, dangling end of the rope falls down between my legs and then I run for him. If I don’t curl around the rope just right, his arms could tangle in it and restrict him from finishing the lifts. Either one of us could get injured, though worse than that would be the failure of our performance.

  His arms spread wide, open to catch me as I run and when I hit my mark, I leap, forward and up, spinning through two quick, vertical rotations in mid-air before his arms close around me. He snatches me into the safety of his embrace just as gravity tugs me back down. The rope has curled perfectly around my leg.

  Two counts later, I’m spinning, my head dropping toward the floor as he turns me like the hands of a clock. The moment I’m upside-down, I reach for the floor and roll my body down to meet it, chest, to stomach, to hips, then legs slithering down to the stage. I flip to my back and Ezra reaches underneath me, locking the bend of his elbows beneath my armpits. He drags me backward several steps as I let the pull lift my body from the stage, his steps picking up speed enough to raise me from the floor and he spins both of us.

  I arch my back, tightening my torso to position myself properly and as one of his large hands shifts to grip the flesh of my ass, he pushes me upward. I flip as he guides me, throwing my legs backward over my head, rotating my body until I’m perched on his shoulder. I pose there, held gracefully with my hips against his shoulder, arms raised above me before twisting and rolling my body down the front of him, falling perpendicular to the floor.

  He catches me just before the stage rises up to meet me, exactly the way we rehearsed. Now that we’ve nailed the lift, I feel the rush of emotion overwhelm me that we’ve done it.

  There’s more to our dance, and we continue spectacularly, but with that one sequence complete, I know we’ve just defied gravity together.

  Even though the routine ends with me on the floor and Ezra reaching one last time for the dangling end of the rope, I’m crawling away, clawing my way out, fighting until the very last, ending how we began, with theatrics.

  The music fades into silence.

  Deafening silence.

  It’s just heat and sweat and the sound of our heavy breathing.

  What happens now?

  My mind swirls with the question, my heavy heartbeat pounding it into my brain with a steady rhythm.

  What happens now?

  Out of the terror of silence erupts applause. A short breath of relief and I’m brought to life again.

  Not only has the familiar, beautiful sound of applause burst from the audience, but I turn my head and see that there’s a standing ovation, too.

  The four families are giving us a standing ovation.

  The four families.

  I forget how to breathe.

  The four families are here.

  The elation of a perfect performance doesn’t fade, it falls, drops off a cliff into deep, dark depths.

  Ezra is bending, holding out a hand to me to help me rise. I take it and stand slowly. As he leads me toward front and center stage, the applause echoes in my ears until it’s completely overwhelming my senses.

  I feel like I’m falling.

  I squeeze Ezra’s hand tighter as my free hand lifts to press over my erratic heart, feeling the thump, thump, thump through my fingertips.

  We bow together and stand in waiting.

  I feel Ezra look at me. I turn to look at him and that’s when I feel it crack inside me, the glacier that protects my heart and soul.

  It’s breaking.

  It’s melting.

  It’s falling into a sea of emotions and it threatens to wash me away in a tidal wave of fear.

  I rush for Ezra, crashing into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, holding him with all my might. I’m so aware that I’m still being watched. The curtain won’t fall. Nikolai will remain seated, in the same spot he always sits, until every last person leaves the theater. He’ll come up on stage and he’ll take Ezra away from me.

  Oh, God.

  He can’t take him.

  Not Ezra.

  I press my cheek to Ezra’s chest as I squeeze him tighter. “I can’t let him take you, I can’t. Ezra, I can’t. I can’t. Don’t let him take you.”

  I hear how frantic I sound, and I don’t know where it’s coming from. I’ve always been so strong, I’ve always been able to keep my dignity, but Ezra’s changing me.

  He has changed me.

  His arms cradle me closely. He kisses my hair, then I feel his chin rest on the top of my head.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  He always says that and I know, if it were up to him, it would be true. He would have me.

  I turn my head to look out into the audience. Our guests, dressed in their finest black-tie worthy attire, are exiting the theater, making their way back to the grand entrance for the reception. The side conversations and quiet chatter appears so normal from the outside.

  Nothing about them is normal.

  They are the wealthy elite.

  Powerful.

  Influential.

  Buye
rs and sellers of human lives.

  Kings and queens of the underworld.

  The forty or so guests drift out from the half-full theater, but, as always, Nikolai remains in his seat, almost as if he’s guarding the place where he sits. A dog marking his territory. It’s not even the best seat in the house and I’ve never understood it.

  There he sits, regarding the both of us with a look of consideration, a look that says he hasn’t made up his mind yet. I tense as I get caught in Nikolai’s stare and now we are connected, though I don’t want to be. I feel like I have no choice but to keep my eyes steadily on his as everything and everyone else moves around us, but we three remain still.

  Finally, the theater clears, and Nikolai rises to his feet. He buttons his jacket and tugs at his sleeves, adjusting his cufflinks. He looks severe in his sharp black suit. I’m sure any normal woman would find his appearance attractive tonight.

  They say the Devil can charm, after all.

  Nikolai runs a hand down his front to smooth out the lapels and steps out into the aisleway. Then he walks, step by careful step, over the red carpet. Coming to the end of the aisle, he turns and walks the curve along the front of the stage. My heart is ready to burst out of my chest.

  It hurts.

  He walks up the five steps on the side of the stage and I spin around to face him, putting my back to Ezra, putting myself between the man I’m falling for and the man who might take him from me.

  Every one of Nikolai’s steps resonate within me, vibrating through my muscles, aching in my bones. When Nikolai comes to a stop just in front of us, looking like the Devil himself and playing God with our lives and freedom, I hold my breath.

  He exhales, tilts his head, regards us again with consideration.

  Then, a nod. A simple nod.

  “That performance was nothing like I expected it to be.”

  What does that mean?

  “It was so much more.” He claps once and grins. “Brilliant! Both of you.”

  Both of my hands come up to cover my mouth from the shock of his words.

  I don’t know what this means.

  I didn’t expect this reaction from him. The unexpected is nearly more panic inducing than the expected horrors I’ve grown accustomed to.