Warnings: Mob Boss!Victor, stripper!Yuri, Russian mafia, drugs, alcohol, violence, explicit language, blood, torture, abusive relationships, gang violence, rape/non-con elements, human trafficking, unhealthy relationships, minor character deaths

The first time Yuuri sees him, he's in the middle of his most popular routines.

It's the typical weekend crowd with plenty of regulars and new faces alike, but there's one in the background who isn't so typical-looking, who stands out from the crowd despite being the quietest one. The man is beautiful in a way that makes Yuuri's heart race and face flush, with high aristocratic cheekbones and pale, fresh-snow skin and sharp eyes like diamonds.

He feels those eyes on him from even across the room, so different than the leers and unfocused stares of the other men around the stage that he stumbles for the first time since working at the club full-time.

He saves it, thankfully, and the panic from nearly falling off the stage makes him refocus on the rest of the song with even more flourish than usual. He finishes with the hot spotlights pounding down on him, chest heaving beneath the sheer black mesh and thighs tight around the pole as he bends backwards, nearly in half, with his hair brushing the glitter-covered stage. The regulars cheer and whistle and the new faces throw money in bands right to his feet, stick them in the tight black thigh-highs that are apart of his outfit, and he doesn't let himself think about the mysterious man with steel colored hair and piercing gaze until he's off stage.

He winces when he makes it to the backroom where everyone's costumes are, more than happy to take off the black heels and sit in silence as the others go out to entertain the guests or do their own routines. He'd wanted to wish Phichit good luck before going on tonight since their crowd is bigger than usual, but Phichit was scheduled right after him.

"Twenty-four thousand...twenty-five thousand…twenty-six thousand..." he counts under his breath. He squeezes his eyes shut and resists the urge to scream when he finds he's only made twenty-eight thousand rubles. He clutches the money tightly with his arms crossed over his stomach, bending over until his forehead touched his knees.

It's not enough, he thinks desperately, tears threatening to fall. It's okay, it's okay, I have four more days before the next bill is overdue...four more days, I can do this, I have to do this.

A knock startles him out of his spiraling thoughts.

He sits up and stashes his money, blinking back tears and wondering who could be at the door. The owner and the manager are usually on the floor pandering to their VIP customers and none of the performers knock since it's a shared dressing room. He pulls on a robe quickly and goes to the door, blinking up at an intimidating looking man in a black suit.

"Ah, hello...can I help you?" He asks in broken Russian.

He's sure he doesn't know the man even though he's seen his type often enough. The bodyguards that skulk in the shadows of the club, watching their clients with hawk-like gazes and quietly threatening demeanors. They don't usually talk though, and they never approach a dancer of their own accord.

"Are you Eros?" The mans voice is deep and lacks emotion.

Yuuri can only jerkily nod.

"You have an audience with my client. Follow me." His tone leaves no room for argument.

Yuuri colors and clutches his robes tighter. "Wait-" he starts, but the man is already walking away. Even after a year of living here, he doesn't know enough Russian to tell the man he doesn't do private performances, and the manager isn't here to translate for him, but he knows saying 'no' outright will get him into trouble. Maybe he can reason with the man's client?

He slips on a pair of black boots and hurries after the other man, feet stinging the entire way.

The room he's escorted to is situated in the far back where Yuuri knows the other dancers take their clients for extra things and his already rapid heartbeat kicks up a few paces.

"In here," the bodyguard says, nodding to one of the master suites.

Yuuri swallows thickly, aware of what's inside, and steps through the door on shaking legs.

The room is beautiful and tasteful, designed like the living room of an extravagant apartment with modern, minimalist decor and doorways leading to a bedroom, bathroom, and special play room. There's soft music playing in the background, classical and sad with just piano, but what catches his attention immediately is the man standing in front of the fireplace.

"Um, excuse me?" He tentatively calls, stepping further into the main room.

The man turns to face him and his breath catches in his throat when he recognizes who it is.

The man smiles and it doesn't reach his eyes, flickering ominously in the firelight. "Hello there," he greets, gesturing to one of the couches. He says something else, Russian smooth and rolling off his tongue with beautiful ease, and Yuuri understands none of it.

He gets the gist though.

He walks over with more confidence than he actually feels and settles on the couch across from where the other man has decided to sit with his legs elegantly crossed, curls his hands into the fabric of his ridiculously short robe to keep them from clenching and unclenching with restless, nervous energy.

The man says something else in Russian, expression still deceptively kind, but it's beyond Yuuri's comprehension.

"Ah, um, I can't-" he stutters.

The man blinks once before switching to English. "You don't speak very much Russian, do you?"

Thankfully, Yuuri's English is enough for him to understand all of that and respond, flushing, "No, I don't."

The man's mouth curls into a smile again but it doesn't fit as strangely as the first one did. It's not as forcefully polite, but Yuuri's pulse jumps anyways. "I asked your name."

Yui blinks in surprise. No one asks for names around here. Names are dangerous. Names hold power. But it's not like he has much power in the first place, or much to take power over. So he responds, "Yuuri."

"Yuuri," the man repeats, tongue curling around his name attractively. "My name is Victor. It's nice to meet you."

He sounds like he means it and Yuuri's receding flush comes back full force. "N-Nice to meet you to, V-Victor."

Victor's head tilts, silky hair catching the light. "Do you know why I asked you here?"

He shifts uncomfortably despite the softness of the cushions, still very aware that he's in nothing but a thin robe and his costume with a probably very powerful man who more than likely wants something from him he's not willing to give. "I'm sorry but I don't do private shows or...requests."

"Oh?" Victor sounds intrigued instead of angry. He leans forward and the firelight does nothing to warm his face or his voice. "So if I offered you thirty-thousand rubles to get down on your pretty knees for me right now, you would say no?"

Heat flashes through Yuuri like an earthquake, shakes him from his feet up. His faces colors for a completely different reason now as lust, indignation, and hope wage war in his chest. He doesn't think of his sister, doesn't think of his looming debt, and settles for disgust as he schools his features into something much more like his persona, expression settling into cool disinterest with just a touch of condescension. "No, I would ask if you understood English first, and then I would say no."

Victor looks vaguely amused now, the corners of his lips twitching as if he wants to laugh but he doesn't quite know how. "Hm, is that so?" He stands in one fluid movement, hands sliding into his pockets with a raised silver eyebrow. "Not even for a hundred-thousand? Two-hundred? What's your price?"

Anger is a volatile anchor but it's one Yuuri clings to now. "So desperate for a whore's mouth?"

In a flash, Victor is leaning over him, one hand clutching the back of the couch and the other grabbing his jaw in a tight but not quite painful grip. Victor looks down at him like a scientist studying an insect, but his eyes catch on his lips. "Perhaps I want more than just your mouth. How much would it take for you to give me your body?"

Yuuri tries to turn his face away, but Victor's fingers bite into his skin. "I don't want your money."

Victor's knee slides onto the couch between his thighs and he looms ever closer, eyes suddenly dark and intent and it makes the blood pounding through his ears roar. "Everyone wants my money, and everyone has a price. I can give you whatever you want."

He was wrong about likening Victor's eyes to diamonds. Diamonds have cut, clarity, color - Victor's eyes have none of that. It's like staring at a frozen lake and trying not to drown in the unforgivingly cold waters.

Abruptly, Victor is no longer hovering over him. He's by the fireplace again and watching the wood burn, just like when Yuuri walked in, and Yuuri wonders if the other man could read his thoughts and is trying to thaw out his own heart. He doesn't know and he doesn't care. He stands on trembling legs and heads for the door at the clear dismissal, but he can't help but throw over his shoulder, "How can a man who doesn't know what he wants possibly know what I want?"

The door clicks behind him, shutting him away from Victor that that awful, haunting music.

Yuuri doesn't see Victor for the rest of the week, and he doesn't expect to.

He squashes the little bit of something like heartbreak that threatens to distract him from his upcoming show.

He knows men like that, powerful men with money to throw around who spout promises in the same breath they make break them. Men who make subtle threats as easily as they whisper compliments. He shouldn't feel a twinge of disappointment when he glances in the back where he first saw Victor only to see a different man in his place.

He can't be distracted, not tonight. He has to do well enough to make forty-thousand rubles or else he's going to be fined again for a late payment, and he can't afford that. Just one more unpaid fine to pile on top of interest and debt and-

"Uh, Eros?"

Yuuri's head shoots up and is surprised to see his friend Phichit sticking his head into the dressing room. "Phich-ah, King, what is it?"

His friends brows are furrowed. "There's a guy here who says you have a meeting with his client? The manager said to switch our time slots so you have an hour to...meet with him, I guess."

A wicked feeling of deja vu overcomes Yuuri for a moment before he forces a smile on his face. "Ah, it's alright. Sorry for the trouble! It shouldn't take too long." Phichit still looks unconvinced but leaves soon enough. Yuuri takes a deep breath before leaving the dressing room only to encounter the same bodyguard from before, and he kind of wants to vomit all over the mans shoes.

I'm going to die, he thinks, stunned and on the edge of hysterical.

If Victor is as rich and powerful as he implied, then even the upscale nature of the club he works at wouldn't protect him from the mans wrath.

He's brought to a secret exit out the back of the building and led to a sleek black limo, and Yuuri feels his hands trembling.

He almost doesn't go in, but the bodyguard doesn't leave and Yuuri has less than zero chances of escaping. Maybe he can talk his way out of it? He can't die. Not now, not for a while, not until his sister-

The car door opens for him and his body moves as if it's on autopilot.

The low light of the car is different from the light of a fire and there's no eerie piano chiming in the background. There's just Victor, sitting by the window on the opposite bench in a different suit, just as striking and compelling as before.

"Yuuri, it's good to see you again," Victor says pleasantly, and Yuuri can pick up on how false it is.

"Victor," Yuuri replies, voice small.

Victor turns back to look out the window and they don't say anything as the car starts to move, and it all just makes the bile in Yuuri's stomach churn with dread and icy fear. He's going to die. He's going to die, and no one will no. No one will be able to identify the poor Japanese boy found on the side of the street on the outskirts of Moscow, so far from home, and it will be a sad story that takes two inches of the local newspaper before he disappears into obscurity like so many others.

Before Yuuri can speak, Victor says, "I know what you want, Yuuri."

Yuuri's eyes follow the easy lines of the mans body, relaxed on the plush leather seats and at home in a thousand dollar suit. Victor doesn't look back, even when he asks, "Do you?"

Victor's gloved hand rises from his lap to rest by the window, finger tapping once, twice, three times, expression not changing even once since Yuuri got in the car. "Yuuri Katsuki. Or, Katsuki Yuuri, as it's said in your home country."

Yuuri feels all the color drain from his face, feels his heart sink to his stomach and the trembling in his hands worsen until his whole body is practically shaking.

Victor continues as if he hasn't just turned Yuuri's world on it's head. "Dead parents who left no money to their children from gambling debts, raised by your older sister who is now sick and dying in a hospital bed in the center of Moscow, Russia because it is the only place that would accept your application to their experimental treatment so long as you paid your dues. Decided you would use your skills as a budding ice skater and dance at one of the nicer gentlemen's clubs to pay for those bills."

Victor finally turns to look at him and his smile is as cutting as his words.

"You see, Yuuri. It's not hard to guess what someone wants when you know their life story." His legs uncross and he leans forward, gloved hand resting gently on Yuuri's knee and Yuuri wants more than anything to push it off, but he's frozen in place. "You are just like everyone else, Yuuri. Perhaps you don't want my money, exactly, but you need it for your darling older sister. You want her to get better and not leave you all alone. I can do that for you."

Yuuri's lashes flutter, tears threatening to fall. His chest is tight, so tight, filling with despair because he thinks he knows where this is going. He's seen this destination in the broken gaits of acquaintances who entertain their guests and walk back with fuller pockets and emptier eyes, in the glasses of whiskey women and men drink til their heads tilt back and the sizzling tablet sitting at the bottom slides down, down, down until they don't get back up again.

"You told me I could only know what you want if I knew what I wanted. I know what I want now, Yuuri." The hand on his knee tightens. "Ask me."

Desperation and resignation are minor feelings in the chaos of his mind but they still live in the shortness of his breath and the coldness of his fingers. He knows how this game is played and he dances reluctantly to the silver Pied Piper's tune. "And what do you want, Victor?"

Those long, slender fingers leave bruises in their wake as Victor smiles. "You."

Author's Note: hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review and let me know what you thought!