Except in Beast’s job, he could make a hell of a lot more money.
“So, what you’ve been saying for the past five months then,” Beast said curtly. “Thank you for the thrilling update, but this is not worth my time.” Beast moved to get back into his car, shoving Emilio out of the way and causing him to stumble.
“There is one way,” Rhys remarked, drawing Beast’s eyes back. Rhys placed one hand on the roof, his Patek Philippe watch glinting in the gray winter light, and leaned inside. Jaw tight, Beast waited for him. Swallowing, Rhys gripped the hood of the car.
“Fucking spit it out,” Beast said.
“I hear you have a girl in your possession,” Rhys replied.
“And?”
“And Ekwensi is willing to sell us oil-rich land if we trade. The idea of an American wife appeals to him.”
“Unacceptable.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he knew it. Unacceptable? No, it was a perfectly acceptable idea. In fact, it would solve the problem he and Rhys had been working on for the past five fucking months. It was a great idea.
Coughing, Beast looked down to the asphalt, then looked back to Rhys just in time to see him quirk a brow. Quickly he added, “What I mean is call The Institute. Get one of their women and trade her to him if an American is all he wants. The woman in my possession has already been sold.” The lie came quickly and with purpose. Frankie hadn’t been sold; in fact, because Beast had despoiled her she was pretty much worthless to them. He’d wasted her value and thrown them into debt. He didn’t bother thinking about what it meant to lie, though. He waved a hand flippantly, gesturing that the conversation was over.
Rhys still hadn’t moved. His hand gripped the hood of the car.
“What?” Annoyance singed Beast’s tongue like hot peppers, or maybe that was the fire starting inside of him.
“He wants a royal,” Rhys explained.
“Did you inform him that America doesn’t have any fucking royalty? Maybe you should point him in the direction of your motherland.” He hardly ever spoke to Rhys—or anyone—this way. His voice was edged and impulsive. There were many things the Beast was known for—cruelty, a callousness so severe it bordered on evil—but all of those things were begat from dispassion and apathy. He barely recognized the stirring in his gut, let alone knew what to do with it.
“Someone important,” Rhys continued, narrowing his eyes a bit. “A concubine of the Family might work. Even then, it’s a long shot. We’d have a better chance sending an actual Pavoni woman.” Rhys’s tone was even, collected and Beast wondered distantly why his own voice didn’t match. He was always calm and collected, always cool.
“I’ll think about it,” Beast said. He then looked pointedly from Rhys to Emilio, signaling their meeting was over. He didn’t usually end meetings early; he worked into his sleep. There was something happening inside him, though, something that made him fuck up business over a slave. He had to figure out what it was and destroy it. A fractured leader is no leader at all.
Rhys lifted his hands, dropping the subject and backed away. Emilio jumped up, suddenly interested.
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Emilio sputtered. “But what about the governor? And the Wolves?” At the question, long, curling brown hair and crystal blue eyes flashed into Beast’s mind. Just as quickly, the image vanished and Beast looked back up at the warehouse, staring at the worn wooden front. He exhaled.
Fuck.
He was to meet his Wolves that night. He looked back up to the warehouse, thinking about the men waiting inside for him. The car kept running, its exhaust sending puffs of hot smoke into the cold air.
At last, Beast said, “Both can wait a day.”
“But—” Emilio started but Beast slammed the door shut. Emilio jumped back, a stunned look on his face. Beast afforded Emilio certain luxuries he didn’t with others, like probing, annoying questions. He needed Emilio happy and compliant until he was in place, but there were limits.
The car pulled away from the docks and the water shrunk in the distance. The sun was setting in a deep tangerine, the only color there’d been all day against the whitewashed winter day. It lit an orange streak of fire across the iron blue Hudson.
Beast sat back against the leather of the car, trying to quash Rhys’s words. The Pavonis might treat their women like shit, but they had a code: only they got to break the pottery. It wasn’t so much about chivalry as it was about property, a fact easily attested by the bruises ghosting beneath a veil of foundation on all Family women’s skin. Beast most certainly couldn’t take one of the other men’s wives or daughters and still expect to stay in charge. There were already those who viewed him as a usurper.
Selling Frankie was the best idea, Beast knew that. It would greatly improve his earnings and might actually allow him to step on the skulls of the assholes nipping at his heels. This was the second time he’d been given the opportunity to sell her and the second time he’d fucked it up.
When Beast got home, Nikolai stood in the hallway, eyes ever unflinching. In the boy’s hands was the Beast’s nightly dinner: a black coffee and an apple, complete with a knife for slicing. Beast shed his coat for him.
“I gave her breakfast,” Nikolai started with austere soldier-like reporting, as if noting what he saw on the battlefield, not in a bedroom. Nikolai took the Beast’s coat and he traded the item for his dinner. “And lunch as directed, Boss, but uh…” As Beast was walking away, Nikolai’s tone made him pause. He turned around to see what could possibly choke Nikolai up.
“But?” he asked.
“It ended up on the floor,” Nikolai replied swiftly.
“Did it?” he asked, but the question was rhetorical. “Maybe that’s where you should put the food from now on.”
“Yes, Boss.”
On his way back to the office, Beast passed by Frankie's room. Formerly a guest bedroom, he’d redecorated in the hours it had taken to acquire Frankie. He’d had a few options for where to house her before sending her to The Institute and while they’d been making the trek from New Jersey to New York, he’d considered them all. The most obvious was to place her with all the other women waiting in the storage boxes by the river, but that hadn’t sat right for some reason he didn’t wish to investigate.
He’d contemplated putting her in a hotel, and even booked a few, but still, he found himself hiring a decorator and getting the bedroom redone quickly and efficiently.
He paused, staring at the white wooden door. He should have sent her to the river, should have shut her in a box and then she would be at The Institute, out of his hair and not complicating his fucking life. He blinked then continued farther down until he passed his own door. He was nearly up the stairs and at his office, when he redoubled back. This time he found himself staring at his own door, because just beyond two inches of painted wood, Frankie slept in his bed.
“Francesca,” she mumbled, folding her arms. Still she wouldn’t look at him. She looked anywhere but him. Her deep cornflower eyes examined the stitching in the leather, the ice in the plane’s bar, anything but him.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“Francesca,” she repeated, raising her voice. She looked up, catching his stare for the first time since they’d left New Jersey. “Only my friends call me Frankie.” He clenched his jaw. Soon she would learn.
Beast pushed the door open, walking inside. Frankie sat up in the bed, covers pulled up to her chin, gasping when she saw him. He paused a moment, staring at the way she looked beneath his covers, the way her little fingers grasped his sheets, the way her bright eyes looked out at him. He wondered if she’d stayed in his bed all day. If the sheets now smelled like that light but somehow heady aroma that he’d gotten a taste of last night.
He’d never brought a woman into his bedroom, not even his penthouse. For security purposes, he used hotels.
But she was just a slave.
Shaking his head, he walked over to the bed and sat on the edge without saying a word
. Slowly he removed one black shoe from his foot, untying the laces with careful consideration. Then he turned to the other foot, doing the same thing with the same amount of consideration. He took his socks off next, folding them neatly.
Next he unbuttoned his black silk shirt.
When all was said and done, he was still on the edge of the bed, wearing only his trousers. The shadow of his profile in the sheen of the apple caught his eye. He took the knife and sliced the red skin. The knife cut beneath the waxy skin until juice slid down his thumb.
He turned to Frankie, offering her a slice. She pulled the covers up to her nose.
“You haven’t eaten.” The Beast turned back, placing the slice in his own mouth. He cut another slice, repeating the same motion with her. Each time she refused. He offered until the apple was at its core then stood up and held the core out to her.
When she refused, he said, “In time you’ll wish you’d taken this from my hand.”
Three
At first I didn’t know why they called him the Beast—he was that beautiful. With black hair that fell in waves down his neck and across his calculating bluegreen eyes, he didn’t look monstrous; he looked refined, like something out of an oil painting. His hard, square jaw was shadowed by stubble, but even that looked cultivated. The only beastly thing about him was his height; he must have been about seven feet tall and all lean muscle.
But then he’d taken me against the window, and slowly—not quickly, like in all the books and movies—I felt myself disappear. Inside, all the things that made me Frankie, all the things that differentiated me from the others of the world, were gone. It no longer mattered that I liked Gilmore Girls and Firefly. It didn’t matter that I could read a book in two hours. My favorite flavor of ice cream was tasteless.
Because I could still feel him inside me.
That was the only thing that mattered.
God, when he’d said to mourn my life on the plane, when he’d said to prepare, how could I? What type of thing could ever prepare a person for that?
I hadn’t moved an inch since he’d unceremoniously dropped me in bed afterward. Some time passed. I’d watched the moon rise high in the sky and fall beneath the sun. It was not the same room I’d been shown to when we’d arrived. It was the antithesis of the first room. Where that room was white and feminine, this was dark and utterly masculine, everything done in rich grays and blacks with only a hint of gold.
I remembered thinking how big the first room was—it had a freaking balcony, a walk-in closet, and adjoining bathroom—but this room was enormous. The size somehow made it that much more foreboding. The windows were massive, stretching taller in the shadows. I could see beyond to a sitting area and I was sure there was an en-suite bathroom that I couldn’t see.
The entire room felt like the living embodiment of chiaroscuro. Shadows clung in corners and to the floor. Light refracted from the windows, casting gaunt lines. The mood was dark and dangerous, and I was stuck in the middle of it. I lay in the bed, sheets up to my chin, since he’d carried my limp and fight-less body there after taking me against the window.
After the fact, I was shocked, totally distraught and unable to comprehend anything. Now I was still shocked, still distraught, but I could comprehend. I knew now what I had gotten myself into, and I wasn’t going to give myself over to degradation so easily.
I was glad it wasn’t the same room he’d shown me to when I’d arrived. I hated that room. I hated the closet with its pretty clothes. Hated the plush carpet and the beautiful accouterments. Hated that for a moment, I’d been hopeful. Hopeful that the tingling in my belly meant that maybe he was something special. Maybe he would be something more than a Beast. In the darkest corners of myself, where hate transforms into self-loathing, I thought maybe I’d asked for it. Because as I lied in bed, goose bumps whispered against the flesh of my soul that I loved every minute.
But that was over now.
That hope had been obliterated.
The asshole had ruined vintage Dior, too; there’s a special place in hell for people who do that. The dress was now getting wrinkled underneath the blankets, wrapped up around my legs and tangled in the sheets—sheets stained with tears, and probably with the blood from my thighs.
But I wasn’t thinking about that.
I was trying not to think about anything. I was embracing the warm numbness that coddled my brain like a deathly blanket. He’d said he wouldn’t kill me, but maybe if I never got out of bed again, I would waste away. Who knew death would be my salvation? In one-thousand-thread-count sheets up in a penthouse in Tribeca, it would be like dying a princess.
There was a faint knock and I pulled the sheets up to my chin, eyes darting to the door. He’d only left just a bit ago; I couldn’t believe he was back already. I needed more time to prepare…more time to fade away.
The door pushed open slightly but no creak was heard. I filed that knowledge away in my brain. Of course the door didn’t creak. The floorboards probably didn’t creak much either. The entire penthouse was sparkling and new. I was so used to a house having groans and sighs, but this one was silent. Deadly.
“Excuse me, mistress?” A young man with yellow-gold hair peered around the door. “I’ve brought you breakfast.” He stepped in the rest of the way, presenting a wooden tray topped with food, a cup of some kind of beverage, and even a little vase with a black rose. I nearly laughed. Was this a fucking joke? What kind of twisted bed and breakfast was the Beast running? I glared at the man who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. He would have been beautiful, gorgeous even, if not for the jagged scar running down his forehead to his chin. I had half a mind to tell him where to shove his eggs, but deflated.
When I said nothing, the young man put the eggs and toast on the night table to my left and exited. I stared at them for a moment then whipped my hand out, feeling sublime satisfaction when they hit the floor with a crash.
The young man came back and with him so did lunch. Noticing the eggs and toast on the floor, he got to the ground and tacitly cleaned. Pulling out a small rag from his back pocket, he mopped up the orange liquid that had spilled from the broken glass flute. I wondered if I should feel bad as he piled tiny pieces of the porcelain plate onto the tray.
When he left, I knocked the tray of lunch to the floor again, hoping he’d get my point. He came back an hour later and went through the same motions. I did feel a little bad then, making him clean up after me, but that thought soured quickly.
He was the enemy.
Then I waited, watching the shadows move across the walls and floor with the time of day. Soon the entire room was swathed in them when the sun dropped. My gaze locked on the door, waiting for golden curls to make an appearance.
Six pm turned to seven and then seven to eight, and I couldn’t help but feel a small victory. Maybe the scarred boy had taken the hint and would stop bringing me meals, but that victory was soon shattered. The door opened slowly. I sat up a bit, gathering the courage to just tell the curly-haired boy to shove it.
The door opened all the way and I froze. Though everything in my brain screamed to disappear back into the sheets, I couldn’t. I was trapped, couldn’t breathe, my body petrified wood. My voice disappeared down my throat in a rocky gulp.
Leaning casually in the doorway like the snake from the Bible was Beast. He held a red apple in one hand, observing me. A small knife in his other hand caught the light.
I unfroze, senses coming whooshing back at top speed. It all happened in less than a second. My heart beat against my chest, my breathing ricocheting against my ribcage. Motor control returned and my limbs were tingling and prickly, like when I forgot a coat during a blizzard and had to warm up by the fire.
I scrambled back beneath the sheets, pulling them up higher. I thought I would be stronger, you know? I’d spent the entire day fuming, thinking about his violation, thinking about how much of a fucking asshole he was.
But then he stood there.
&nbs
p; Casually.
Holding an apple as dark locks fell carelessly over one deep, turquoise eye. My fingers gripped the blanket, the only shield I had. I wanted to scream at him, to hurl insults that would transform into curses that could kill. Instead I watched, waited, and died a little more inside.
I noted every small movement, the way he pushed off the frame and the way his suit twisted with the movement, as if captivated by his muscles just as much as my eyes were. My breathing got lost somewhere inside me and I didn’t know if I’d ever find it. When he sat on the bed, just millimeters from my foot, I thought maybe I really had suffocated.
He started to undress.
Oh, there’s my breathing.
Fast. Choppy. Coming like a train about to go off the rails. So quick that I got lightheaded. He folded his jacket carefully, so carefully and I hated him all the more for it. Where was that consideration with me? I was focused so hard on that stupid, folded dark fabric, that when he turned to me, I wasn’t ready.
Again.
He was shirtless, only in his black suit pants, a feral glare pinned to me.
I pulled the fabric up past my lips.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said. His lips moved, dark red and full, like the apple he was offering me. I glared. I stared at the naked plains of chest. I never thought I’d ask for it again—sex with him. Not after last night. Never imagined it would be a thought in my head, let alone a plea.
But this anticipation was torture.
The way he offered his slices.
The way he licked the knife when I refused.
The theatre, the dance—I wanted it over with.
Just over with.
Each time he offered a slice to me, I gripped the plush, velvety-feeling comforter tighter, so tight my nails might really tear through. He sliced and sliced until eventually there was only one slice left to offer. He leaned over on the bed, holding it out to me, waiting.
Beast: A Hate Story, The Beginning Page 5