Dance for the Devil

"Please me."

The words dropped from Cassian Thorne’s mouth with the heavy, undeniable weight of a judge passing down a death sentence. I forced my spine to remain rigid. I commanded my lungs to draw in air as I stared at the man dominating the center of the lavish penthouse suite. Cassian sat at the edge of the sprawling king-sized bed, a picture of lethal, predatory grace. One long leg rested casually over the other. His broad chest rose and fell in a slow, hypnotic rhythm beneath his tailored charcoal shirt. His arms were crossed, biceps straining against the dark, expensive fabric.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

My voice betrayed me, trembling just enough to reveal the frantic hammering of my heart. His dark, calculating gaze dragged down the length of my body. A phantom heat trailed wherever his eyes lingered, leaving my skin prickling with a raw, anxious energy.

"Show me how good you are." He tilted his head, a dark, amused expression clouding his sharp features. "I am paying you one million dollars. You have to earn it."

Right. He was paying me a million dollars based on my performance tonight. If I failed to do exactly as he commanded, if I showed even a fraction of hesitation, all of this would be for nothing. My sister would die, and I would be left with nothing but the ashes of my failures.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked. I dug my fingernails into my palms to anchor myself to reality.

Cassian arched his dark brows at my question. He gestured lazily toward the center of the suite. "Let us start with that little pole dance of yours."

A bitter taste flooded my mouth. How desperate was I to sleep with someone for money? And it was not just anyone. This was Cassian Thorne. He was the phantom of the American underworld, a man who ruled the criminal syndicates with an iron fist and a trail of bodies. I wanted to run. I wanted to turn on my heel, walk out of this suffocating hotel room, and never look back. But my sister was sick. She possessed a failing, weak heart. She needed urgent, life-saving surgery that cost far more than a lifetime of minimum wage could ever cover.

I had taken on a job as a stripper at an underground VIP club in New York City the moment I found out about her declining health. But the harder I worked, the faster her fragile heart deteriorated. Time was a luxury we no longer possessed.

"Her condition has worsened. You must do something about it before it is too late."

The grim words of my sister's cardiologist echoed in my skull, a relentless drumbeat pushing me forward. On paper, I had everything a normal person could ever wish for. I had an influential surname attached to my identity. People assumed I lived a peaceful, luxurious life shielded by a perfect family. It was all a grand, sickening illusion. The surname was not mine. My life was a perpetual warzone. And my family was a twisted nightmare.

Nadia Russo.

Whenever people heard that name, they assumed I was untouchable. My adopted father, Vito Russo, was the ruthless second-in-command to Nikolai Ivanov, one of the most feared and bloodthirsty Mafia lords in the entire country. Vito swam in dirty money. By all logic, I should have been able to afford my sister's surgery without a second thought. That would have been true if he were my biological father, or if he possessed a shred of human decency.

Vito adopted me eight years ago when I was twelve. I never understood the reasoning behind his sudden charity. I had severe amnesia. I possessed no memory of who my real parents were. My sister had been far too little to comprehend anything. I did not even know my real, birth-given name. I simply woke up in a sterile hospital room one dreary afternoon to the sight of Vito Russo standing over my bed. He claimed he was a close friend of my parents. He claimed they had vanished without a trace, leaving him responsible for our wellbeing. I was a child with a blank mind and a terrified little sister clinging to my hand. I had no choice but to follow the strange, imposing man home.

The Russo estate became our personal hell. Vito’s biological wife and children despised our very existence. They made sure my sister and I experienced hell on earth every single day. We were starved. We were beaten for the slightest infractions. We were locked away in the freezing, damp basement on a regular basis. The suffocating pitch-blackness of that underground room left me with a crippling phobia of the dark. Even now, the dim lighting of Cassian’s suite made my chest tighten. Sometimes, the beatings from Vito's wife were so severe I had to coat my skin in thick layers of cheap concealer just to avoid the prying questions of curious outsiders.

When the doctors diagnosed my sister with a failing heart, I knew I had to drag us out of that nightmare. But I barely survived high school. I lacked a college degree. To make my reality even bleaker, legitimate business owners refused to hire me the second they saw the name Russo on my application. No one with half a brain wanted anything to do with Vito’s criminal enterprise, directly or indirectly.

Then came a brief, fleeting sliver of hope. Nikolai Ivanov, the apex predator of our world, had noticed me at a lavish banquet I was forced to attend with the Russos. He took an immediate interest. He bypassed Vito’s daughters and initiated marriage negotiations directly for me. I had been ecstatic. Becoming Nadia Ivanov was a monumental upgrade from being the Russo family punching bag. Marrying the boss meant I would possess the power to shield my sister from Vito’s vicious wife. It meant I could finally afford the expensive heart surgery. Nikolai was a brutal, merciless criminal, but I did not care. Becoming his wife offered a bulletproof shield.

Then, reality struck again. Nikolai called off the engagement just a few days ago. He needed to forge a political alliance, opting to marry the daughter of a corrupt senator to solidify his grip on the underworld. I was discarded like a broken toy. I was back to square one, trapped in a corner with a dying sister and no way out.

That was why I was here. When my club boss told me Cassian Thorne wanted to buy me for a single night, offering a staggering sum of one million dollars, refusing was never an option. One million dollars would pay for the surgery. It would buy us new identities. It would buy us a quiet, safe life far away from the Russian mob.

"What?" Cassian’s deep, rough voice shattered my internal spiral. He leaned forward, his dark eyes stripping away my defenses. "Is it too much for you?"

I shook my head, swallowing past the dry lump in my throat. "No."

"Get to work, then."

***

*A few hours earlier...*

"Nadia, you are going on stage in ten."

Silas, my boss, poked his balding head through the slightly opened door of the cramped dressing room. The harsh fluorescent lights flickered above, casting grim shadows across his face.

I gave him a stiff nod and turned back to the cracked vanity mirror to assess my appearance. I was clad in a flimsy, degrading excuse for a dress. It was a red sequin mini-gown that clung to my curves like a second skin, barely long enough to cover the curve of my ass. My long, raven-black hair fell in loose, heavy curls down to my waist. The stage makeup was excessive, painting me into a striking, seductive fantasy, but beneath the thick eyeliner and bold red lipstick, my eyes looked dead.

I despised my job. I loathed being a stripper. Every night, I was forced to feed the ravenous, lustful eyes of powerful men. I danced for the scum of the underworld, swallowing my pride and ignoring the sick feeling churning in my gut. But pride could not pay hospital bills. This was the only way to keep my sister breathing.

A sharp knock sounded on the wooden door. My cue.

I exhaled a shaky breath, smoothing down the non-existent fabric of my dress, and walked out into the dim hallway. Silas was pacing near the entrance to the main floor. His face was flushed, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead.

"Remember," he whispered, grabbing my upper arm. "Get them hooked. Be as seductive as you can, and they will always come back. That is how we make money."

I pulled my arm free. "I always remember that, Silas."

He recited the same degrading pep talk into my ears every single shift.

Silas wiped his brow, his eyes darting toward the heavy velvet curtains separating us from the club. "I know. But someone really important is here today. Someone. Really. Important." He stressed every syllable, his voice dropping an octave.

I adjusted a stray curl over my shoulder. "I get it, Silas."

This was a VIP club catering exclusively to the elite. Everyone out there was important. Drug lords, corrupt politicians, and cartel bosses frequented this place just to watch me sway on a metal pole. I had their greedy faces memorized. Silas was right about one thing; they always came back. It was as if these violent men had nothing better to do than watch a trapped woman dance. Thankfully, Silas upheld a strict rule. My services began and ended on the stage. That thin boundary was the only thing keeping me sane.

I pushed past the velvet curtains and stepped onto the stage.

The ambient lights in the sprawling club dimmed. A heavy, expectant silence settled over the smoke-filled atmosphere as a harsh spotlight slammed down on me. I hated the heat of it. I hated the immediate, suffocating weight of a hundred lustful eyes pinning me in place.

The music started. It was a slow, heavy, sensual beat that reverberated through the soles of my towering heels.

I closed my eyes. I told myself to relax. *I am doing this for her. I have to get her treated.* Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I grabbed the cold metal pole. I arched my back and began to sway my body in fluid accordance with the rhythm, pushing away the reality of the hungry stares tracking my every move.

Midway through a spin, a sudden, freezing chill swept over my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Someone was watching me. I was accustomed to the intrusive gazes of every criminal in this room, but this felt different. This felt like a predator locking onto its prey.

*Someone really important is here today.*

I opened my eyes, scanning the dark perimeter. And then I saw him.

He sat in the most secluded, elevated area of the club. It was the VIP spot within a VIP club, a velvet-roped booth shrouded in shadows. I had worked here for months and had never seen a single soul occupy that specific booth until tonight.

He sat there like a king observing his court. His legs were crossed regally. A crystal glass of amber liquor rested in his large hand. His eyes were fixed dead on me, cold, piercing, and terrifyingly calculating.

My throat closed up. Why the hell was Cassian Thorne sitting in this club?

I had only ever seen blurry surveillance photos and hushed newspaper clippings of him, but the reality of the man was paralyzing. He looked sickeningly good. He exuded an oppressive, dark aura, as if the very shadows of the room bent to accommodate him. A tangible iciness rolled off him in waves. In just one glance, I understood exactly why he was the most feared Mafia lord in North America.

His reputation was soaked in blood. He was a ghost who sent violent chills down the spines of hardened killers with his mere presence. He possessed a notorious habit of putting bullets between the eyes of anyone who mildly inconvenienced him. Yet, despite the terror he commanded, women still threw themselves at his feet. Seeing the sharp cut of his jaw, the broad expanse of his shoulders in that custom suit, and the dangerous gleam in his dark eyes, I could see why. It had to be a federal crime to look that magnificent while being that deadly.

And he was here. Looking directly at me.

My legs went weak. The towering heels felt unstable beneath my sudden trembling. It took every ounce of my willpower to maintain my sensual composure under the crushing weight of Cassian’s stare. I dragged my gaze away from his booth and forced myself to focus on the routine. It was agonizing. I felt his dark eyes burning into my skin for the entire duration of the set.

The moment the music finally faded into silence, I practically fled. I got off the stage, my shaky legs carrying me backstage as fast as humanly possible.

I burst into the dressing room and slammed the door shut. Silas was already inside, pacing a hole into the cheap carpet.

"You saw him," Silas stated, stopping in his tracks when he registered my pale face.

I braced my hands on the vanity counter, trying to catch my breath. "What is he doing here?"

Silas bit his lower lip, looking nervous. "He owns this club, Nadia. But I was just as surprised to see him walk through the front doors. He has always been far too busy running his empire to visit a strip joint."

My stomach dropped. Cassian Thorne owned this club. I was technically working for the devil himself.

I grabbed a folding chair and sank into it, pressing a hand over my racing heart. "My heart almost gave out on that stage."

"He wants you."

The room went dead silent. The harsh buzzing of the fluorescent light above was the only sound. It took a long, painful moment for Silas’s sentence to penetrate the thick fog in my brain. I stared at him. He raked a shaking hand through his thinning hair and refused to meet my eyes.

"What did you say?" I whispered.

Silas swallowed hard. "Cassian Thorne wants you."

He delivered the words with a grim, flat tone. He was not joking.

"You must have caught his attention up there," Silas continued, rushing his words. "I know I promised you. I swore to never make you do anything except dance on that stage. But my hands are tied here. We are talking about Cassian Thorne. I cannot tell him no. He is offering you a million dollars, Nadia. One million. And it is just for tonight."

I stopped breathing. "Hold on. He is offering me a million dollars?"

Silas finally looked at me, his expression grave. "Yes. A million dollars for one night."

My mind raced, doing the frantic math. One million dollars. That covered the heart surgeon. That covered the post-op care. That covered two plane tickets to the other side of the country and a decent house where Vito Russo could never find us.

"This is an opportunity for you, Nadia," Silas pushed softly. "You can take the money. You can finally leave your horrible family and start over."

I frowned, my guard snapping up. "How do you know about my family?"

Silas pursed his lips, debating his next words. "Did you really think Cassian Thorne would employ just anyone to manage his properties? I know everything I need to know about the local Mafia families. Besides, you are not as clever as you think. You show up here covered in fresh bruises every other day. You are not secretive enough with that cheap concealer. And what about the days you just disappear and fail to show up for work with zero explanation?"

He knew. He knew about the days I spent locked in the pitch-black basement, starving and shivering on the concrete floor after Vito's wife decided to use me as a punching bag.

Silas flashed me a small, sad smile.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I looked at the heavy makeup, the fake smile, the degrading red dress. I thought of the beeping heart monitor keeping my sister alive.

The choice was not a choice at all.

"I will do it," I said, my voice eerily calm.

Silas raised a brow. "Are you sure?"

I gave him a resolute nod. "I will sleep with Cassian Thorne."

***

Now, standing in the center of his penthouse suite, the reality of that decision crashed down on my shoulders. I was alone with a monster. I was trading my body for my sister's life.

I met Cassian’s dark, commanding eyes. I locked away the fear, the disgust, and the trembling instinct to run. I reached for the side zipper of my sequin dress, preparing to give the devil exactly what he paid for.