“Oh,” I gasped. One half of Tweedledee and Tweedledum blocked my exit—Arlo, maybe. It definitely wasn’t Tough Tino, who was big enough to lift a house.
Arlo leaned against the frame. He wasn’t as big as Tough Tino, or even the Beast, but he was still something to run from. With his arms folded, he sneered at me.
“Going so soon?” Arlo asked. I shook my head, unsure of his intent. I was going back to the Beast, nothing more, but the way the man leered at me made me think there was something more behind his words. I averted my gaze and tried to walk past him, but he shoved me back into the bathroom.
I was so exhausted. Seriously, so exhausted. My body ached with all the fight it had gone through. All I wanted was for someone who loved me to hold me and tell me everything would be okay. As I stared at this leering, predatory man, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I traded in hugs and kisses for bruises and cuts. At least I could fight this man, though. At least my family wouldn’t suffer if I give this man a few bites and punches.
I reached for the first thing I could get my hands on—a porcelain tissue dispenser—and threw it at his head. He dodged and it shattered against the door. It nicked his temple a bit, but other than that, he was unscathed. He lunged for me and pinned me against the window.
Oh, memories.
I kneed him in the groin and he doubled over. I pushed him aside and ran for the door—the bastard had locked it! Why is it always so hard to unlock something when you’re high on adrenaline? I fussed with the lock but by the time I had it opened, he was pulling me back by the hair.
He threw me to the ground and my head banged against the toilet then landed with a thud on the tile. A thwack of pain shot through me, splintering through my body and then settling to a dull throb between my eyes. I was dizzy. I may have moaned. I tried to move and stand, to keep fighting, but he stood on my thigh. With my head hurting so badly, I heard and felt more than saw the next moment of torture.
I heard him undo his belt. I heard him pull down his pants. Then he was on top of me. He pawed at my gown, looking for openings. When none could be found, he tore it down.
My beautiful blue fairytale dress was ripped apart by his meaty hands. I cried out when his palm grasped my breast, so hard and ruthless. Tears burned my lids. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to shed any more tears for this reality.
I’d put on lingerie, but I may as well have worn nothing. It was basically a spider web with the support and coverage it provided. The white silk and lace offered no protection from him. His rubbery head probed me. His sweaty palms pawed me. Just as I resigned myself to being violated—really violated—the door burst open. Broken pieces of wood flew everywhere. I opened my eyes, looking beyond the sweaty man on top of me to the one in the doorway.
If I thought I’d made the Beast angry before, I was wrong. He looked completely undone as he stood in the doorway. His bluegreen eyes were blacker than onyx and every vein in his body bulged. His fists were clenched, knuckles white. I was afraid, and I hadn’t even done anything.
Arlo let go of my hair and I immediately scrambled away. I didn’t want to go near the hulking Beast, nor did I want to stay near the man who had just tried to rape me, so I took refuge behind the toilet. The Beast, paying me no attention, advanced toward the man. My vision was slightly obscured as I grasped the porcelain base.
“Look I was only…she’s just a slave…” Arlo tried to plead. It wasn’t working. The Beast towered over the man, whose pleas came out in various high-pitched squeaks. “Please! Boss, it won’t happen again.”
The Beast reached down, grabbing Arlo’s neck. I stared in horrified awe as he lifted Arlo up by his throat, my own eyes widening when Arlo clawed desperately at the Beast’s hands, gasping for air. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen. On the one hand, Arlo could go fall in a pit of lava for all I cared. On the other, I’d never seen anyone murdered…never thought I would have to.
From beyond my internal musings, I heard a sickening crunch. I peeked to see the man hanging from the Beast’s hands, his arm like limp spaghetti. He was alive. Barely. It was a good thing I was near a toilet.
“Come,” the Beast said when I was finished unloading all of my earlier crudités and canapés. He picked me up by the arm and dragged me past the body. I almost vomited again.
The Beast dropped me off in his room. There was something comforting about the dark gray and gold room now. Stockholm syndrome, I thought bitterly. I shouldn’t have been comforted by the black sheets and gray walls, but I was. I was glad he’d dropped me off here instead of my room.
He’d left to go “deal with some things.” Probably the body clinging to life outside the bathroom. Arlo. Distantly, like headlights through fog about to run me down, I wondered if I wanted him to live.
No.
I’d looked at his body breathing shallowly as Beast carried me past. I remembered being angry at the rise and fall of his chest. Never in a million years would I imagine myself in this situation, though—praying for someone to die.
I held my knees up to my chest. Nothing made sense anymore. I’d fancied myself noble when I traded my life for my papa’s but now that all felt like a lifetime ago. I wondered if he’d moved on. Maybe he was watching reality TV and eating takeout like I was never even there.
Probably.
I still wore the periwinkle fairytale dress, but it was impossibly ripped. I grasped the tatters to my nearly exposed breasts, lace flowers hanging off my body in shreds. One leg peeked out of the rags, and I noticed the red scrapes decorating the smooth skin. I probably got it trying to run from him, scraped my leg on the ground or against him. It was as if little fairies were clawing their way up my leg.
I sighed. What a wonderfully rotten life. I wondered if this was how princesses really lived.
“Hey.”
I snapped my head up at the voice, so fast I nearly got whiplash. A girl stood in the doorway. She was dressed impeccably in a buttery winter coat and white trousers, a colorful Hermès bag on her arm. The scarf on her neck was probably Hermès too. She had beach-blonde hair that shone even in the dark, freckles on her golden skin, and a smile.
A fucking smile.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
She walked over to me. “I’ve been sent to tend to your wounds.”
“I’m fine.” I raised a hand, gesturing to the door that she’d come through, and put my chin back on my knees.
The girl raised a dark brow. “Sure?”
I raised my own in return. I desperately wanted to tell her to fuck off, but I wasn’t sure of her role. Maybe she was close to Beast. Maybe if I told her where to stick her head, I would get something stuck in me. I ground my teeth, letting my eyes do the talking as the shining girl continued to advance.
She glanced over at a painting that hung across from the bed, looked at me, and frowned. She walked to a corner in the room. I looked at the painting as well, but all I saw was what I had been seeing: abstract lines. Maybe she was really into realism. Frowning, I focused on her.
“What? What is it you want?” I asked. My fear was like blood. Try as I might to stymy it, it flowed freely from me.
From the corner in the room, the girl raised her shirt, revealing a set of dark purple bruises. Some of them were turning a garish yellow color, but most were deep indigo, even black. I frowned, then looked up at her. She didn’t even flinch, but it must hurt. It had to hurt.
Before I could respond, the girl lowered her shirt. “We women have to stick together,” she said.
Hours later I sat on the bed, staring at the spot where the girl had been, seeing her bruises in my mind. Her name was Gabby and she’d only stayed for thirty minutes, but it felt like we’d talked for hours. At first Gabby seemed like a superhero to me the way she carried her bruises, someone to come and save me, but after talking with her, I knew otherwise.
She was only eighteen and she’d been married for four years.
My knees were still to my
chest when I heard the door open and close, the same door Gabby had walked through. I didn’t bother looking up; I knew who it was, and I doubted he would be as kind as she had been.
The weight of the bed shifted when he sat down next to me and I hugged my knees tighter. Seconds later his callused hands captured my chin, pulling my gaze to his. There was a softness in his features that I’d never seen before. In the brief glimpses of tenderness before this moment, hardness had always remained, like a turtle in a shell. Here, though, he was almost exposed.
Almost.
My eyes widened, trying to drink in this rare moment.
Don’t get me wrong—this wasn’t the moment where everything changed. The Beast didn’t suddenly become a prince with a name and normal human emotions. He didn’t apologize and let me go back to my family. The softness was just the closest I got to a sorry.
A normal person would say sorry. The Beast wasn’t a normal person, though. This wasn’t a normal situation. The Beast looked at me softly and tenderly, and I stared back. My eyes were watery but I hadn’t cried. Even when the girl had shown me kindness, I hadn’t cried. My blood might flow, but dammit, I would stop the tears. Eventually I tore my eyes away and with a subtle caress of my jaw, he dropped his hand from my chin.
I guessed his actions were his way of saying only he could have me, which, if I have to live in his world, was somewhat comforting. At least I only had to take abuse from him. Little by little, I was understanding the Beast. I didn’t always like what I learned, but at least I knew. I’d rather belong to one psychopath than an entire club of them.
When I glanced back, Beast’s gaze was on me, hard like a punch to the gut. I sucked in my breath and wet my lips. I knew I should look away but I couldn’t; his bluegreen gaze was hypnotic. He was done playing games, done apologizing in his own way. He was ready for what was his. Any other person would recognize that someone who had nearly been raped needed time to rest, but not the Beast. There was no off switch for the Beast. He could kill a person and then fuck someone right after without blinking an eye.
But it felt like more than that—it was animalistic, like marking territory. I could feel the need coming off of him in waves, and I at least begrudged him the restraint he was showing me. He was so wired, so tense, the need to mark what was his obvious by the veins on his neck, the need to make it indisputable that I belonged to him clear by the way his viscera coiled and throbbed. I was sure that should have terrified me, or at least pissed me off.
But as I focused on him, on the hunger in his deep bluegreen eyes, I felt it too—the hunger, the carnal need. It was so deep, I knew it would never leave me. It had somehow rooted itself so deep inside me, to remove it would mean death. It was petrifying but also exhilarating.
Suddenly the Beast shifted. With even, calculated movements, he turned next to me. My mind screamed at me. I was losing some kind of important battle. There was no coming back from this. Still, I didn’t care. All I saw was how he sat next to me and gently placed a hand on my shoulder, lifting up the tatters of my dress. All I felt was him peeling the strips of cloth off me, one by one. I studied him, fascinated. He was kind of gentle. It was like watching those YouTube videos of bears playing with humans. I kept waiting for the bottom to fall out, for the bear to rip the human apart.
He never did.
He peeled the tatters of my fairytale off one by one, the only sound between us our breaths—his even, mine increasingly erratic. When he was finished, I was in my sparkly, barely-there silver lingerie. I put my knees back to my chest, but he grasped one. I sucked in my breath, waiting for him to force my legs down. Instead, he caressed my knee. Wide-eyed, I stared at his thumb rubbing over my bare skin.
Gently, he pushed at my knee, and I let them fall open. Instead of looking down, I looked up, looked at him. With his eyes never leaving mine, he placed his palm on me, over the lace lingerie that guarded me. I gasped at the contact. It somehow felt more intimate this way, more invading. I don’t know why. I don’t know why this way, with fabric separating us, it was more intimate.
I waited, waited for him to rip the silver lace away or push me back against the bed. The lingering expectation became excruciating. His hand moved. Mine grasped the fabric of the bed. Breath left my body in a silent plea as he slowly stroked up and down.
I had a faint thought that I should say something, tell him to go away, but instead I arched up for him, my body asking what my words couldn’t. His stroking didn’t get harder or faster, just that same torturously slow, delicate rhythm. It was as if he knew I would have to press myself against him, move against him, writhe against him.
Puffs of air left my body faster and faster. My chocolate hair fell in front of my face and I felt mercy that I didn’t have to watch. Maybe if I didn’t see it, I could pretend it never happened.
That warm, melted caramel feeling swam and curled through me. My toes curled and uncurled. My head fell back as I let out a small sigh and wetness pooled between my thighs. Briefly, I wondered about how I’d promised I would never would cry again and how I was already breaking my promise. He climbed on top of me, bluegreen eyes shadowed under a demanding brow. I reached for him, held him as if the moment would shatter the minute I let go.
Because it would.
I knew that if I kept looking at him I would get sucked under, I would give myself up—so I turned away and released him.
“Please not now,” I said softly, hands falling to the soft fabric. For a moment it was quiet, but a loud quiet, a quiet filled with questions and demands and needs. I could hear him breathing. I prayed that he wouldn’t press, because I didn’t think I could fight him off. Not physically, but mentally.
God, I want to reach up and grab him again.
“Please,” I said again, even quieter. He removed his hand from me and I turned back. I thought he was listening, that he was going to leave me alone. Then he brought his hand to my cheek.
I flinched.
I was worried that the earlier animalism I’d seen was going to turn on me. His face darkened and in seconds he pinned me flat. I was sure he was going to hurt me; the fire in his eyes was so intense it scorched me. It burned. I closed my eyes to get away from him but I could feel him by the way the bed dipped on either side.
His lips were next to my ear and his voice was hoarse, cruel.
“You still think I’m going to hurt you?” he asked. My breath hitched. “You have no idea what I’m risking to keep you safe.” I kept my eyes closed until I felt the bed give on either side, until the door slammed shut. Even then, I kept my eyes pressed tight.
Eight
The previous night had been an enigma. Anteros had gone to the bedroom with every intent to throw Frankie back in her room and forget the night ever happened but something about the way she sat on his bed, curled up in the tatters of what had been a striking dress, struck him.
At first Frankie had clung to him. It was as if she’d sensed how badly he needed her after seeing Arlo try to despoil her. Then she’d dropped her hold on him, she’d flinched, because Frankie saw him as a monster and would never see him as anything else.
Anteros shook his shoulders out. Fuck it. Frankie had been fucking up his life since day one, and he was going to fix that. Right now. Standing outside the same door he’d kicked down only a week ago, Anteros knocked. Before Frankie, he wouldn’t have given a shit about what someone thought about him. He was the Beast.
The most ruthless.
A monster above all the rest.
Naturally she’d flinched, because that was the reputation he’d built. Anteros knocked again, his fist growing furious as thoughts of last night flooded his mind. Sending Gabriella to Frankie had severely broken protocol, but when he’d watched her on the video monitor, knees to her chest, that forlorn look on her face, it had done something to him. He’d felt something inexplicable and he’d had to do something, so he’d called Giovani and demanded he send over his wife.
Anteros figured he was
already lying to his Wolves, already fucking up the system, so a few more cracks in the foundation were fine.
Anteros knocked again. When there was no answer still, he looked to the rusty car in the driveway and at the window to the left. A light was on. If Antonio Notte wanted to appear like he was not home, he was doing a pretty poor job. Anteros sighed and knocked a final time, though he was already preparing to pick the lock.
He reached into his coat, bringing out the lock picking supplies. He could have knocked the door down, but he didn’t want to scare Notte, not this time. He was there to return something he’d taken before she completely ruined his life—if it was also before she got irrevocably ruined herself, that was just a coincidence.
Anteros stuck the small silver piece in the lock and jimmied, waiting until he heard the click. When it sounded, he pushed the door open. He put the tools back in his pocket, peering inside. The living room was empty but as he put his foot over the threshold, he heard a door slam.
Typical.
Anteros slid his hand back in his pocket, feeling for the lock-picking tools. “Notte,” he called out. No reply. He walked through the house. It looked exactly the same, maybe even worse. More peeling wallpaper. Trash on the ground. He raised a brow at a used condom, trying to picture the woman who would sleep with a man like Antonio Notte.
Anteros arrived at a closed door, making quick work of unlocking it. Notte cowered in the corner of a closet—but wait, was it a bedroom? Small and under the staircase, it appeared to be a closet, but there was a bed jammed inside. Why the fuck was there a bed in a closet? Though the house was small, Anteros had counted two bedrooms. Did Notte have more children than Anteros knew about?
“B-Beast—” Notte stuttered. Anteros threw up a hand, silencing him. He walked farther into the tiny room. One step had him all the way in and he had to duck. The walls were papered with pictures, floor to ceiling. He squinted, making them out. They were obviously cut out of magazines. He reached out touching a wrinkly photo of Times Square during New Years.
Beast: A Hate Story, The Beginning Page 14