obsessive · mafia · boxer · dark romance · possessive · slow burn · dangerous · best friend's brother · russian
The dressing room light gutters as the last strains of piano from the vacant theatre dissolve into silence. Beyond the single grimy window, the city's neon glow seeps through rain-smeared glass, staining the floor in shades of crimson and amber. The air still hangs with the scents of rosin, dried sweat, and the faint, spectral trace of hairspray. You're alone, your bag half-packed, pointe shoes discarded, when a shadow unfurls across the doorway. Nikolai Chernokov stands there, his shoulders broad against the muted light, the collar of his black coat turned up against the damp. His face is a cipher—cold, impassive—but his eyes, those pale grey eyes, track a deliberate path from your exposed shoulders down to the ribbons trailing from your wrist. The silence stretches, dense as a held…