His Ballerina Read online

  His Ballerina

  Madison is trying her best to escape a life of poverty. Young, innocent, and guarded. She’s finally getting ahead when she witnesses a murder outside the dance studio and finds herself in deep with a dark and dangerous criminal.

  Archer is smitten by Madison from the moment they meet. The protocol says to leave no witnesses behind, but he can’t imagine hurting her. Against his best judgment, he lets her go, but he can’t seem to get her out of his head. Like a stalker, he follows her, making certain she doesn’t spill about what she’s seen.

  Then one night, he watches her through the window of the studio as she dances. She’s so beautiful and angelic. Archer decides then that no matter the cost or blood spilled, she will be his… his ballerina.

  Contents

  1. Madison

  2. Archer

  3. Madison

  4. Archer

  5. Madison

  6. Archer

  7. Madison

  8. Archer

  9. Madison

  10. Archer

  11. Madison

  12. Archer

  Epilogue

  Their Ballerina

  About the Author

  Also by Darcy Rose

  1

  Madison

  You would think the sort of people who go to the gym regularly would care as much about their surroundings as they do about the condition of their bodies. You’d think they would, if not go out of their way to clean up after themselves, at least be bothered to toss their empty water bottles into the trashcan rather than letting them sit on the floor by the equipment.

  Though considering some of the messes I sometimes find in the bathrooms, a few stray water bottles are nothing. It’s shocking what people will do in a bathroom they know they don’t have to clean.

  I pick up the litter before emptying the last can, tying up the end of the bag and lifting it out with a grunt. “You want to take care of your body? Try cleaning up the gym after hours.” Who am I talking to? Myself, since the last gym member left half an hour ago along with the owner.

  Is it the best idea to be all alone in the gym after hours? Probably not, all things considered. It’s not in the best neighborhood, though, compared to the block where my apartment sits, it’s perfectly safe. But that’s how it is when comparing any other place to the embarrassment where I live, the only apartment in town that I can actually afford.

  I’ve never been even a little bit afraid, though. Does that make me naïve? I don’t think so. I know how things go. I know what I’m risking staying here so late, by myself.

  What other choice do I have? It’s the only chance I get to do the one thing I love more than anything else in life. A girl makes sacrifices when the stakes are that high.

  And what’s at stake now is whether or not I get to dance. I can’t clean this gym up fast enough, every second being one less second that I get to spend doing what I love.

  Which is why it’s such a relief when the last can is empty. I’ve wiped down and mopped up the bathrooms, tossed the soiled towels into the wash before replacing them with fresh stacks, wiped down all the equipment, swept the floors, and taken out the trash. The fridge at the front desk is stocked with protein shakes and water for tomorrow’s early clients. There’s nothing else to do.

  It’s part of the agreement I reached with the gym’s owner when I started working here. Joe can’t afford to pay me very much—this isn’t exactly a high-end facility—but I get free use of the space in the back, where fitness classes are held throughout the week. It’s empty in here now, of course, without the blaring of some nameless, upbeat song to keep students moving.

  I change into my leotard before sitting on the floor to lace up my baby pink pointe shoes. Sure, they’re from Goodwill, and it would be better to have a pair of my own that I can break in to my liking, but I’ll take what I can get. Brand-new pointe shoes cost a hell of a lot more than I can afford right now, more than I’ve ever been able to afford.

  Once the music is playing, none of that matters, and I warm up my muscles and allow myself to fly. That’s how it feels when I’m dancing, the way it’s always felt, ever since I was a little girl watching an old recording of the Nutcracker until I knew every movement, every gesture. I found the tape in one of my foster homes and watched it every chance I got. When I found out I’d be going to a new home, that tape was the first thing I ever stole, and the last.

  I didn’t think of it as theft. That recording, that ballet was my lifeline. It was the door to a whole new world full of beauty and glory I could never have imagined on my own.

  And it was all I had to tie me to the world of ballet since I sure as heck wasn’t taking lessons while bouncing from one foster home to another. I couldn’t even stay in one school long enough to make friends, much less find a ballet program. And then would come the fees, the costumes, the shoes…

  Impossible, in other words. That was for other girls, girls who had a permanent home and at least one parent who gave a crap about them. Girls whose moms and dads made enough money to pay for lessons, to send them on trips to New York and Chicago and Philadelphia to watch the ballet companies perform.

  Girls like me, well, we had to make do with what was available—just like I still do.

  No one would ever mistake me for a trained ballerina, but I found a way to keep dancing. I’ve spent hours studying videos breaking down technique, training tips, even how to eat properly, so my body is at its peak. So I can soar.

  It feels like I am, moving back and forth across the room, working on my traveling pirouettes with one eye in the mirror to check out my form. I would like to be able to afford a phone with a decent camera so I can record myself and then look at the footage afterward to see where I need to improve, but that’s not happening anytime soon. Still, it’s something to aspire for.

  As usual, it’s not until my feet hurt that I realize how late it is. A check of the time tells me it’s past midnight—and I have the early shift tomorrow at the grocery store where I work as a stocker. I need to be at the store by six, which doesn’t leave me much time to get home, get a decent night’s sleep, and be out the door again.

  Still, even with the sore feet, I hate having to turn off the music and call it a night. My cooldown takes fifteen minutes or so, and I’m in a hurry by the time I slide into my sneakers and pack up the shoes. As always, it stings a little to turn out the lights and turn my back on my dream until tomorrow.

  I’m being an idiot, and I know it. I can even laugh at myself a little while turning out the rest of the lights in the building. My footsteps echo alarmingly in the otherwise empty space and send a shiver up my spine. This is when I inevitably regret being here so late, alone. Having to walk home by myself in a sketchy neighborhood.

  What’s the alternative? Not being able to dance? No chance. It’s worth having my heart pound the whole way home. A day without dancing would be like a day without oxygen.

  As usual, I cut out through the back, taking a shortcut through a series of alleys. They’re usually empty except for maybe one or two homeless people who make up beds behind hole-in-the-wall takeout restaurants and dry cleaners. Sometimes, if I have an extra bottle of water or a snack, I’ll leave it for them as I’m passing.

  Most people would avert their eyes, shake their heads and click their tongues before hurrying past. Not me. I can’t ignore these people. I mean, I could easily be one of them. I know how close I’ve come to poverty—how close I always am, really—to ignore people who’ve had a run of bad luck.

  I don’t have water or snacks tonight. Just sore feet to go along with the fatigue spreading to the rest of my body. But it’s a good kind of fatigue, the kind that comes after a hard workout. Sometimes I won
der why the people who come to the gym workout so hard and look so miserable while they’re doing it, or like they’re struggling through something terrible. I look forward to working out. Maybe they haven’t found something they enjoy yet.

  My feet crunch on broken glass, and what sounds like a whisper on the evening breeze reminds me of where I am and how dangerous this part of town happens to be. There are a lot of desperate people around here, people in worse positions than me, and desperate people do desperate, violent things.

  I need to get home—fast. Now I’m thinking it was probably stupid of me to hang around as long as I did—and even stupider considering I’m not carrying so much as a can of Mace to defend myself with.

  It stinks back here, in these alleys, with overflowing dumpsters creating a nauseating stench even on a cool night like this. In the summer, it’s brutal enough to turn my stomach, and those are the nights when I choose to walk on the sidewalk rather than taking a shortcut.

  I wonder as I walk with my head down and my shoulders up around my ears whether there will ever be a time when I finally make it. Will I ever be comfortable? Will I ever be able to fall asleep without worrying where this month’s rent is coming from? It seems like an eighteen-year-old shouldn’t have this much stress. I should be starting college, making new friends in the dorm, meeting guys. Not working three jobs, living in an apartment where my only roommates are roaches.

  It’s the roaches I’m thinking about as I turn the corner, planning to cut down one last alley before taking the remaining three blocks on the sidewalk.

  And what I find stops me in my tracks.

  There’s a man up ahead—no, two men. One of them is wearing a tracksuit, kneeling on the ground, his hands in the air. He’s babbling, weeping. I’m not close enough to hear what he’s saying, but I can hear the cadence of his voice, the desperation as he begs.

  Begs for what? Mercy? Did his gambling debts get to be too much? Maybe he robbed the wrong person, and it’s coming back to bite him. Either way, looking at him, it’s clear he regrets whatever he did.

  It doesn’t take long before I figure out what he’s begging for—his life.

  Because in the next instant, the man standing in front of him pulls a gun from his waistband. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, wearing black pants and a leather jacket. And he is absolutely not screwing around as he takes aim, positioning the gun’s muzzle between the crying man’s eyes.

  My stomach clenches and my blood goes cold. I open my mouth, prepared to scream, to beg him to stop. Anything. But nothing comes out. I can’t even draw breath. I might as well not be here, might as well be a ghost witnessing this.

  If I don’t get out of here, I might end up being a ghost before long. I know this, and my instincts are screaming, begging me to run. My skin feels itchy, my muscles are jumping. Run, you idiot, get out of here! Something tells me a man willing to blow another man’s brains out in an alley isn’t beyond pulling the trigger on an innocent bystander.

  Still, I can’t move. I’m in shock, with part of me trying to believe this is just a dream. A nightmare. Things like this don’t happen in real life.

  Only when a shot rings out, and the man falls on his side do I know this is very, very real.

  And when I gasp, finally able to make a sound, the dark eyes of a cold-blooded killer land on me.

  2

  Archer

  Fuck. Fuck a million times over.

  This was supposed to be easy. Uncomplicated, at least. The kind of thing I’ve done more times than I can count.

  Tonight, something’s different.

  There’s a witness.

  Fuck again. But I knew I shouldn’t have done this out in the open, didn’t I? I knew it before I ever suggested the weak, whimpering, and now dead man in front of me join me outside for a little discussion; just a talk, a way to straighten a few things out.

  People will believe anything when they’re desperate enough. I’ve seen it time and again. They have that fear in their eyes, that stone-cold terror that comes from knowing their time on Earth is about to come to an end. It’s when the memory of every stupid thing they’ve ever done comes rushing back—every poor decision.

  Including the fatal decision to stab a member of my family in the back.

  You’d think they’d know better by now. Who do they think they’re trying to kid, these morons who believe they’ve found a way to get around us, to steal from us, to pull the wool over our eyes? We might be young, my brothers and me, but we learned while sitting at the feet of none other than Paul Valentino. A man who once held this entire city by the balls.

  Our father. Late father.

  These assholes think that just because he’s dead, his sons will let bygones be bygones while the so-called tenuous hold we have over the city’s underworld commands all of our attention. Like we can’t multitask. Like we can’t clean house while solidifying control over the family’s interests, no matter what the media likes to report.

  So sure, when I walked into the bar and found this tracksuit-wearing, sniveling little piece of shit, Trent wanted to believe there was nothing to it but a quick chat away from prying eyes and ears. People will believe anything when their life is at stake, and they don’t want to come to terms with it.

  Well, I didn’t put it at stake. I didn’t double-cross us. He did. I only settled the score.

  But now there’s this girl standing not thirty feet away, and I know she saw the whole damn thing. Why didn’t I notice her? Or at least hear her come up on us? I’m better than this. I’m smarter than this.

  Obviously not, dumbass, or else you wouldn’t be staring at a witness to the murder you just fucking committed.

  “Don’t move.” It’s a bark, a command, and nobody who’s ever heard that tone in my voice has ever dared disobey. She’s no different. Frozen solid, not even shaking, though her eyes are bulging out and her face is about as pale as milk.

  A nice face. Angelic, even. The glow of an overhead lamp adds to that effect, I guess, making a halo around her golden hair. It’s pulled back in a messy ponytail, but I can tell it would be soft to the touch, flowing around her face like a cloud, framing those delicate features and those big, shining blue eyes.

  Snap out of it, you dumb shit. I’m fast, but she’s small and toned, and she has the benefit of adrenaline on her side. The second she snaps out of whatever shock she’s going through, she’ll take off like a rabbit in her beat-up sneakers. I won’t stand a chance.

  I’ve gotta get through to her. Or else I’ll have to kill her.

  My entire body stiffens at the thought, but what other option is there? She’s a fucking witness, and I can’t leave fucking witnesses behind. She’s gotten a good, long look at me, too. No way she wouldn’t be able to identify me.

  Focus. One thing at a time. I can practically hear my father’s voice in my ear. You can’t look at the entire problem at once, or else it’ll overwhelm you, and you’ll end up making stupid mistakes. Look at one thing at a time.

  Okay. First thing, getting her away from the scene while being in control.

  I take a step toward her, then another, careful to conceal the gun in my right hand. While sliding it into my waistband, I hold my left hand up, palm facing out. “I’m not gonna shoot you. Okay?” Even though I should. “Stay put. Don’t move a muscle.”

  She lets out a little whimper. Pitiful, the sound, and something inside me hurts when I hear it. What’s that about?

  “I’m not gonna hurt you. I swear.” With the gun tucked away, I approach with both hands up. “Just take it easy. Okay?”

  Her eyes shift away from my face, over my shoulder. I take a step to the left to block the view of the dead man. “Don’t worry about him. He got what he had coming to him. So long as you play by the rules and do as I say, the same thing won’t happen to you. Got it?”

  Her head bobs up and down. “Cat got your tongue?” I ask. Now that I’m standing closer, the stench of the alley is replaced with something swe
eter. Her shampoo, I guess, though, there’s something else coming from her skin in waves, sweat. It’s not even that bad. In fact, it makes me wonder what she’d smell like once I got her good and heated up.

  She shakes her head. “No.” Her voice is soft. Sweet. Just the way I would’ve imagined it. Nobody as angelic and fragile-looking as the girl in front of me would have a harsh, raspy voice. It wouldn’t fit.

  “So, you understand what I’m saying? Tell me, you understand.”

  “I understand. Only please, please, don’t—”

  “Spare me.” I’ve heard it enough to make me sick. Please, don’t hurt me. Please, I’ll do anything. I have a wife and kids. My mom needs me. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, I swear. Please, don’t make me pay for my stupid choices.

  Her eyes go a fraction wider. “It’s just that I didn’t see anything. You know? Nothing at all, I’ll just go home and forget this ever happened.”

  Right. Like that would be possible. I stop short of rolling my eyes at her, but just barely, before yanking the backpack from her shoulder before she has the chance to stop me. Not like she could if she tried, considering the size of her. “What’s your name, huh?” I make it a point to sound as menacing as I can because this girl needs to be afraid. Very afraid. It’s the only thing that’ll shut her up.

  “M—Madison.” She wraps her arms around herself and trembles. So it looks like her body is finally waking up to what she witnessed. She’s starting to understand the trouble she’s in.

  “Madison, huh?” Sure enough, the wallet I pull out of the front pocket of the bag confirms this. Madison Miller, age eighteen. She lives a few blocks from here.