When had I become this person? Filled to bursting with secrets and bad deeds.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. Anything was an admission of fault, and I’d been living in this nice little world where if people didn’t know, then I was still me. A person who didn’t kill, a person who hadn’t fallen to the darkness.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I eventually said. She gave me a raised brow, indicating she found my answer as lacking as I did. I was losing this. Papa was going to die. I bit and chewed at my inner cheek, watching and feeling helpless.
“Don’t you see what’s happening, Frankie?” Papa screamed. She lifted the gun away from Papa’s heart, and for a moment I was hopeful she’d changed her mind. Then utter horror stripped my mind blank and replaced it with screaming when she turned back. She pointed the gun at Papa’s head instead and I could do absolutely nothing. I made a break for her, but the ogre wrapped his hands around my waist.
Papa made one final appeal: “Frankie! She doesn’t want you to know—” but his words were cut off as I was dragged around the bend, down the velvet-curtained hallway, and up the stairs. I wasn’t sure if I screamed; I knew I kicked, but it didn’t matter.
The door to the basement slammed shut in my face. The brute let me go but only because his job was done. I pulled on the doorknob—it wouldn’t budge.
“Wait!” I screamed. “Stop!” I pounded furiously on the wood. She couldn’t kill Papa. Papa couldn’t die. He had been about to tell me something real, but he was also my papa. He was the only father I’d ever known. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t. It couldn’t end this way. I couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t be lost in this world. I slammed harder, the wood splintering beneath my fist just as I heard the gun fire.
“No,” I whispered, fist turning into an open palm on the wood. I stared at my hand on the door, unsure what to feel. Icy knives tore through my body. Suddenly I was sluggish, soul feeling drowned in swamp water. I put my head against the door. “No…”
“What are you doing?” I didn’t need to turn; I knew whose voice it was—Nikolai.
“She won’t let me inside!” I made another fist, slamming so hard my skin bloodied. Nikolai pulled me away from the door and I grabbed for the handle, but he was surprisingly strong for his small frame. “Let me go,” I yelled. My bloody grip slipped from the metal knob and I redirected my ire, slapping him with my newly freed hand. Nikolai touched his cheek, bloody from my hand, and glared.
“I’m trying to help you,” he hissed. “You’re drawing attention.” Some club goers had stopped indulging themselves to watch me, the one-woman implosion show. Fuck them.
“Snake,” I spat. “You’ve never helped anyone but yourself.” I shoved him with both hands. I was pretty sure the only reason he fell was because he wasn’t expecting it, but he fell backward, knocking over a bunch of suits and glittering dresses. They all hit the dangling mirrors with a crash.
Just then the door opened behind me. Lucia stood in the entryway, calm and collected in her ivory suit with gold buttons. Upon seeing her, everyone who’d been staring at me instantaneously went back to debauchery. Even the people on the floor acted like everything was fine. I had half a second to register the blood on the buttons, the only thing betraying her stoic countenance.
I pushed past her, knocking her off balance, and flew down the stairs. I ran so fast the curtains swayed. When I reached Papa, he was slumped on the ground. I moaned and pulled his lifeless body into my arms. I expected them to follow me, so I lifted my head, ready to shoot daggers into Lucia, but the room was empty. Not even Nikolai was there.
I’d never expected to feel this way, this hollow emptiness, at his death. I’d spent the time he was here feeling such anger at his abandonment, thinking of all the ways he’d hurt me in the past, of his flagrant abuse. I’d spent the past month punishing him, never really talking to him.
But he was my father, even if he wasn’t my real one, he was the only one I’d ever had. He’d tethered me to my old life and now that tether was gone.
Fury at my situation, at Lucia, was so white hot it boiled my blood and singed my skin. With one final hug, I dropped him and ran after her.
When I got out of the basement, the club had been emptied. Not even one straggling drunk dude or hollow princess remained. An empty club meant bad shit, but I couldn’t process that.
On a sateen couch surrounded by dangling mirrors, Lucia read a fucking magazine. With her nude heels crossed elegantly over one leg as she licked a finger to flip the page, she reminded me of someone at a luncheon, not someone who’d just committed murder. She hadn’t even changed her fucking blazer. I could still see the blood on her buttons.
I ran up to her and tore the magazine from her grasp, throwing it to the floor. She slowly uncrossed her legs, a fucking smile on her face.
“Hello, Frankie,” she said. “Something on your mind?” My eyes bulged from their sockets and I grabbed her shoulder, ripping her from the couch. She stumbled, one foot falling out of a shoe, red backside exposed. When she turned to me, her easy countenance was gone, now uneven and angry.
Good.
“That man down there was not your father, you foolish, impetuous child!” Her voice raised a notch higher than the usual chilly, melodic tone. She was undone, eyes no longer stone, suddenly twitching. One finger tapped in quick succession on her wrist.
“He might not have been biological, but he was real to me.” There were tears in my eyes and I felt so fucking icky. I’d never thought I would be defending Papa. He hadn’t been a good person. He’d beat me, abused me, abandoned me, but somehow I found myself on team Papa. I hated that.
“Don’t forget whose side you’re on,” she hissed.
“I won’t.” I wanted a fight. I wanted to hit her and for us to tumble on the ground, but that wasn’t her style, and I should have realized that. I was so woefully unprepared for what was coming for me. Lucia took a breath, regained her composure, and smiled.
Her eyes flicked to my shirt. In all the commotion, I’d forgotten I was still wearing the bloody tank. With no hesitation, her hands came to the collar and ripped apart the thin fabric. Her knuckles whitened as she tore it open, fabric stretching under red fingernails until my chest was bare, A visible.
I wasn’t wearing a bra, so I was naked. Maybe I should have been embarrassed, I definitely should have been afraid, but I wasn’t either. I was invigorated. This was the most real exchange Lucia and I’d had since she’d picked me up in that silver town car. I waited for her to do something—slap me, hit me, something.
Instead her eyes flicked to the necklace I still wore. I had half a second to register her movement before her long, elegant fingers clasped it and ripped it from my neck.
That necklace had become as essential as veins. Through the distance, through the war, it kept me tied. I hadn’t realized it was my lifeline to Anteros until she tore it from my neck and held it in her hand, taunting me. Tears clogged my throat.
My eyes flitted around the room, searching for anything to tether me, to give me hope. Instead I spotted Nikolai in the corner, watching—of course he was watching. I turned back to Lucia. The necklace dangled from her palm, glittering in the light. She raised a brow, daring me to try to take it back. I sucked my lips between my mouth, holding back tears.
I wanted to tear it back—my heart ached for it—but soldiers had gathered, hands on their holsters. I held up the stretched fabric of my shirt and headed to the door I’d come through less than an hour before.
“If you leave this time, you won’t be welcomed back,” she said to my back. “Once you walk out, consider yourself an enemy, Francesca. Any hope you had for family will be eviscerated.”
I kept walking.
I rammed the door open with my shoulder and ran into the street. My eyes were blurry with tears and after being in the club, outside was too bright and yellow, like putting a flashlight up to your eyelids. I didn’t see Gabby was in my path a
nd we collided, both of us almost falling to the ground.
“Frankie?” Gabby placed two steadying hands on me. In all the chaos, I’d forgotten her. I couldn’t leave her, couldn’t let her go back into the viper’s pit.
“Gabby, come with me,” I beseeched. “I’m leaving Lucia. Come with me.” Even though I had no idea what I was planning, it was better than being with Lucia—I knew that much.
“I can’t do that,” she said, dropping her hands from my arms. I didn’t have much time before Lucia and her men came after me, but I had to convince Gabby. With one hand, I pressed my stretched shirt to my chest so it didn’t fall down; with the other, I grasped her shoulder.
“Gabby, everything she says is a lie,” I said. “You can’t stay with her. Your mother wasn’t responsible for the death of the Pavoni brothers, your father was. He told Alessio about Emilio raping your mother, hoping to incite violence.” Except for the biting wind that nearly ripped away layers of my flesh, you could almost forget it was winter—the sun was that bright. I had to squint my eyes to see Gabby.
Her face twisted and she knocked my hand off, backing farther away from me. “Stop, Frankie. You know Lucia apologized for trying to keep me from Levi? She promoted him. She’s working to try to find his mother.”
“His mother is dead!” I threw my hands in the air and my shirt fell, so I quickly grasped it again. My fingers were red and growing numb, so I fumbled with the material. “This is not just about me anymore. It involves you too, Gabby. How could you exist if you believe the story they tell you? How?”
“That’s not important.” It was my turn to back away as I took Gabby in. She was wearing a fucking cream pantsuit. The only thing that hinted at Gabby still being Gabby was the pink streak in her hair.
“Take your head out of the fucking sand. There’s something wrong with all of this.” I waved my hand up, gesturing at the building we stood in front of. “They’ve spun a giant lie made of mirrors around our lives, hoping we didn’t stop to look past our reflections. It’s finally starting to shatter.”
She scrunched her face and said, “Frankie, we finally have a home. Why are you trying to ruin it?” I was speechless. A home? If this was a home, then the witch from Hansel and Gretel should sue for libel. Gabby gave me a sad, practically pitying look and walked toward the club.
“She wasn’t even your mother!” I screamed at her back. I was desperate; it was like she was slipping away before my eyes. She slowly turned around to look at me.
“You need to stop,” Gabby said through slow, even breaths, like she was trying to contain herself. “What you’re saying is blasphemy.” I staggered, but then I remembered what Sofia had said about those who believed the Family as religion. I dropped my shoulders in defeat.
I couldn’t win.
“You’re going to die out there, Frankie,” Gabby said as I turned to leave.
I looked at the black door to the club. “You’re going to die in there.”
I ran to the church. After I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe anymore, I grabbed the phone and sat in the pews, debating if I should text Anteros. I remembered how I’d given him the letter, and I prayed he still had it. It was my only hope for truth with Papa gone.
I didn’t even miss Papa. The emotions I had for him, the grief, was all begot from the guilt I had over knowing I should feel something. Instead I stared at the text I wanted to send, Lucia’s last words playing over and over on a loop.
Consider yourself an enemy. Any hope you had for family will be eviscerated.
Warm tears spilled past my lids, carving fresh trails over the drying ones. The months with Lucia had been an absolute nightmare and now I’d lost everything. My tether to Frankie Notte. My tether to Francesca Pavoni. I stared at the only tether I had left.
We’d never been the type to share emotions, to talk, as he’d said. Even the night before when he’d shared with me, I’d fucking lied, but now I needed him desperately. Needed to be held and told it was going to be okay. With a sigh, I sat back in the pews and stared at the sky peeking through the slats in the roof.
The sky was a clear, brilliant blue so rare in the winter. The tops of skyscrapers crisscrossed like iron clouds. Air whispered on my fresh cut as I stared up at the sky long enough for wisps of real clouds to curl between the buildings like snakes.
My head pounded with a headache from crying, but something else as well—a portent. I sat forward, elbows on my knees, and rubbed my temples, trying to ease the pain and stop worrying about how I was now going to be sick without a bed to be sick in.
Taking a deep breath, I focused once more on the text. It was either send it and hope what Anteros and I had was more than lust and lies, or sit in an empty church God had long since left.
I need you right now. Please come back to our place.
I sent the words, feeling all at once empowered and terrified. Maybe if Anteros arrived, we could read the letter and discover the truth of me together. The doors behind me burst open only seconds later and my first thought was, Damn that was fast, but of course it was too fast—unless Anteros was secretly The Flash or something.
He wasn’t.
In fact, it was the last person I wanted to see. I would have preferred the zombie reincarnation of Arlo.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snapped, not bothering to stand up. I was still so tired, aching everywhere. I hadn’t really slept the night with Anteros, and to go from that to Lucia fucking murdering Papa, well, my body needed a break. It appeared I wasn’t going to get one.
Nikolai slowly walked up the pews and I wanted to yell at him that this was my and Anteros’s secret place. It was not for him to desecrate.
Nikolai had started dressing differently the past week, wearing the type of suits Anteros had shed, but oilier. The fabric clung to him, a slate gray jacket and trousers with white shirt and blue tie. His wasn’t a three-piece suit; it was double-breasted. On Anteros, suits had been sexy, powerful, intimidating. On Nikolai, it made me want to check for my wallet.
“You need to go back to Lucia’s,” he said when he reached me. He placed his hand on the wooden pew and the watch I’d caught a glimpse of in the pantry practically jumped out at me. I didn’t know the brand, but it shined like money.
“You need to go fuck yourself,” I mumbled. A tick quirked his jaw as his hand curled over the pew, menace dripping like sweat.
“Just because you’ve gone off the deep end and left Lucia, doesn’t mean our deal is off.”
“It was never a deal, it was you blackmailing me,” I corrected, and then it was my turn to glare.
He stood up and adjusted his suit, regaining composure. “Either way, you wouldn’t want Anteros to discover what you’ve been doing, how you tried to kill him, how you masterminded everything.” I was so furious, I didn’t bother correcting him. He knew he was lying. “You accepted my help once,” he pointed out, folding his arms. “We could work well together if you stopped being so stubborn.”
“I was naive,” I counterpointed. “I had no idea what I was doing.” You still don’t, my brain threw in.
“So I’m the bad guy because I didn’t want to stay a slave my entire life?” he yelled. I nearly jumped. I’d never seen Nikolai yell. His control broke, hands falling to his sides in fists, green eyes alight with fire like a field set ablaze. “He murdered my entire family, you stupid bitch. Slaughtered my siblings.” I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. It took me a moment to regain my footing.
“You’re the bad guy because you think you’re better than him,” I said at last. “You’re the bad guy because you act like being a slave makes you righteous. You don’t just want your freedom, you want power, and you don’t care who or what you destroy to get it.”
He laughed. “You’ve just described the man you so desperately love.” I was actually stunned speechless, but Nikolai didn’t notice. He powered on. “If you examined the truth, you’d see the only reason I’m the bad guy is because I’m o
n the opposite side of your lover.”
“Fuck. You.”
He laughed again. “There are no bad guys in this world, Frankie, only winners.”
I stood up, getting angry. “I don’t give a shit anymore. I’m telling him everything.”
“You act like the needle is all you’ve done. You’ve been helping me take down Beast since you arrived at the penthouse, and now that you’re with Lucia, I was able to plant a bomb in his car, was able to trap them at The Catacombs.” There’s a difference between being a pawn and actively taking someone down, but in the end, he was right. I hadn’t told Anteros about the leak, and when he’d specifically asked me, I’d lied. Somehow I’d crossed the line beyond blackmail and had started actively betraying him.
I wanted to scream at Nikolai that I’d already planned to tell Anteros everything, even if it meant he hated me forever, but I didn’t know Nikolai’s endgame. A gun bulged against his jacket, and I knew he could easily kill me.
I ground my teeth and asked, “What’s your point?”
“I have no choice but to give you all the credit. I was stuck in that penthouse hellhole for years looking for a way to break him. Then one day you showed up and everything fell into place like serendipity. You really are the reason for everything, and thanks to you carving your fucking initial into his chest, he trusts me more than anyone.” I was about to argue. That at least, I was going to argue. That brand was for us and I wasn’t going to let Nikolai worm his way into it, but I was interrupted.
I was too busy focusing on Nikolai.
Too busy trying to argue because with each word Nikolai spoke, I knew he was right. I should have just told Anteros. My stupid fear of losing him had not just jeopardized us more, but had hurt him. While I was busy arguing to save my world, I didn’t realize it had already collapsed.
“Well…” All the breath left my body at the voice. I spun around, turning to see Anteros standing in the middle of the aisle. “This is interesting.”
Beauty, a Hate Story the End Page 16