Beauty, a Hate Story the End

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  Awesome.

  I had to see the bruises on my skin from Anteros kissing me and holding me too hard. Before those marks had driven me crazy, but now they caused deep grief in my soul, like someone had used a shovel to unearth all the pain. Before when I’d been trapped in bed, I had my thoughts and pictures to distract me; now they were a prison.

  I thought about Gabby and how I’d betrayed her, and I wondered what Anteros was doing. It wasn’t even the afternoon yet, but he was always efficient. I wondered if he would go back to being Boss like nothing ever happened. Probably. That wasn’t good news for Levi, which meant it definitely wasn’t good news for Gabby.

  I was an asshole.

  Mostly I was an asshole because instead of being sorry for Gabby, for how I’d ripped her happiness away, I was sorry that I’d destroyed my only other friend. I had nowhere to go and was stuck in this fucking closet, thinking about what an inbred freak I was.

  That made me a double asshole.

  Sitting up, I swung my legs off the side so I could attempt to get some food. I was starting to get stronger. Only a few more hours of this and I would be back to normal, or at least what normal meant for me. That was how it worked: feel like you’re dying for a few hours and then bam, it’s like nothing ever happened. Just my body’s way of mindfucking me and reminding me that even though the doctors say I’m fine, I’m not.

  It took me a while to get to the kitchen because I had to stop every few feet to breathe. When I got there, I stumbled on the table and knocked over floor cleaner Papa had left out—probably to get high, as he never fucking cleaned. It was clear and slippery, but I was too tired to mop it up.

  I opened the freezer, praying for a TV dinner, when a sound caught my attention. I had never gotten the chance to lock the door, so I stared down the hallway, wondering if someone was coming to rob me. I didn’t have anything of value to steal, and once they figured that out, they would get angry and come for me. Footsteps got closer and as I was figuring my theory to be correct, the person appeared in the doorway.

  “Gabby!” My grip on the freezer slipped, eyes widening.

  “They’re coming for you,” she said. “They’re going to send you to The Institute.”

  A million questions ran through my mind. Why is Gabby here? How did she know where to find me? I went with the most pressing one. Taking a deep breath, I asked her what she was talking about.

  “I overheard Lucia talking and she knows you’re here and she’s been searching for you ever since you ran away and she’s pissed you ran and she wants to punish you.” Gabby said everything in one long sentence. When she finished, she rested on her knees, out of breath. I gave her a minute but when she stood up, I questioned her.

  “How did she find me?” I closed the freezer and propped myself on the door—improvement. A few hours before, I couldn’t even do that.

  Gabby shrugged. “I don’t know. She has cops on patrol, maybe she’s had them watching the traffic cameras, but that’s not important. We need to go.” She looked over her shoulder again, then at me. That’s when she paused. She raked her gaze over me, slowly taking everything in—the gorgeous dress, ripped and covered in blood.

  “Frankie…” Her eyebrows caved. “What happened?”

  I fiddled with the stained fabric. “I—” I didn’t know where to begin. With a truth, or a lie? I was so tired of lies. Gabby beat me to it, though.

  “Frankie, she told me everything.” Her eyes crinkled with pity. “I just didn’t believe her.”

  “What are you talking about?” I placed a hair behind my ear as if the nonchalant action would discount the blood in it.

  “I was hoping it wasn’t true, but, it is. Isn’t it?” Gabby looked so much like Lucia, it was frightening. She was wearing a cream pantsuit, elegant heels, and the pink streak in her hair was gone. The transformation I’d witnessed happening just before I left was complete. I wasn’t sure what to say because I felt like I would be saying it to Lucia.

  “You’re still sleeping with him, aren’t you? She said you love him. How could you Frankie? Is it Stockholm syndrome? Did something happen back when you were captive?” I stood up from the fridge slowly, hoping she wouldn’t notice how I wobbled. At least I could stand—again, improvement.

  The significance of discussing this in the kitchen where I’d traded myself to Anteros wasn’t lost on me. I didn’t think it was Stockholm syndrome. If I hadn’t been taken, I wouldn’t have discovered my true self. It was just happenstance, a magical, dark happenstance. After a few minutes of silence, Gabby spoke again.

  “Levi is going to kill him,” she said, voice quiet.

  “I…” I dug my nails into my palm, focusing on the pain to keep my face still. I shouldn’t have cared. I shouldn’t. Rationally, I knew that. I’d left Anteros. He’d betrayed me. Still my gut twisted, my mouth dried. “I heard he died,” I finished. Why am I still protecting him?

  Her brow crinkled. “Lucia doesn’t think so.”

  “Why?” I released my fingers from my palm, leaving crescent-shaped marks in the flesh, and redirected my attention to the peeling countertop. I pulled up the rough edge, focusing on the scratchy brown underside.

  “I’m so sorry, Frankie,” she said instead of answering me. “I had no idea you loved him.” Anger welled inside my chest—at Gabby for not telling me what the fuck was going on, then at myself because I’d done worse to her. “I’m sorry—”

  “Gabby, stop,” I said, cutting her off. “Why doesn’t she think that? What is she planning?” I stopped picking at the linoleum and flattened my palms on the counter. With a deep breath, I finally dared to meet her warm brown eyes.

  “You can’t stop it, Frankie,” she said. “Levi is going to use his position as his right hand. Beast will never see it coming.” She hesitated after she spoke, watching to see my reaction like she was worried I would hate her.

  “Oh, Gabby…” My voice broke. It wasn’t my love in danger, it was hers.

  “Beast has been missing for a few days, but once Levi finds him, it’s over.” Gabby couldn’t look at me as she walked over. It was clear she felt terrible, but I was the terrible one. How did I tell Gabby what was really going to happen?

  She grasped my hands in hers. “I’m so sorry Frankie. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but we really need to go.” Nausea built up inside me again.

  “Gabby…” I couldn’t finish. She held my hands and I focused on her tiny, red manicured fingernails, wishing I didn’t have to say the next words. “He knows.”

  “We need to g—what?” She stopped in the middle of her sentence, head whipping to mine.

  “He knows about Levi,” I clarified.

  “How?” Her brows drew tight, fear and concern dripping from her pores. Though her hands still held mine, they were no longer gentle, clenching until the flesh turned white.

  “I told him.”

  Gabby opened and closed her mouth, small sounds escaping but no words coming out. Eventually she gave up trying. It must have been minutes before she spoke again, silence like an ocean wave forcing me under and stinging my eyes and throat. She still held my hands and when she realized, she dropped them like I had the plague.

  “If Levi finds Anteros, Anteros will kill him,” I said.

  “Anteros?” she screamed, stepping back so fast she almost knocked over the chair behind her. “Who are you?”

  “There’s still time,” I continued. “Go find Levi, go live happily ever after.” If anyone should have it, it was Gabby. She may have been born into the life, but she never deserved it. That night she watched movies with Levi in comfy clothes had been the highlight of her life. Gabby was the kind of girl who should have been doing simple things.

  Not this.

  Not talking murder.

  “How could you?” Gabby spun away, her heels clicking furiously against the linoleum. “Lucia was right—you’re a traitor.” I couldn’t disagree. I was a traitor. A liar. A terrible friend. She walked perilo
usly close to the spill and I almost yelled at her to watch out, but she turned back around.

  “Tell me where he is,” she demanded.

  “I—” I hesitated. I knew where he was, but I just couldn’t. “I can’t.” Gabby expelled a frustrated breath through her nostrils and walked back to the counter, facing the window and the yellow-dotted linoleum countertop. Once upon a time, way back when my mother was still alive, we’d lived in a house with curtains on the window. Now it was bare, just like everything else in the house.

  “I’ve changed my mind.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m not going to help you.” For a second it looked like she might walk away, but then I spoke, and I said the wrong thing.

  “I understand. You can still find Levi.”

  “You don’t get it, you fucking—” She broke off, choked with rage. “You don’t get it. It’s too late.” Her eyes reddened with tears until they escaped, falling down her cheeks silently. “Are you even sorry?”

  “Yes.” I was.

  “With him, I wasn’t Gabriella de Luca, daughter of a whore, destined to be a whore, to live the life of my mother, good for only one thing. With him, I was Gabby.” She spoke like she was stuck in a nice memory, trailing her fingers over the linoleum countertop until they reached the knife block.

  “You were never those things to begin with,” I hedged, watching her movements. It was like being with a bomb about to go off. “Your mom wasn’t a whore—

  Gabriella De Luca is not the daughter of Sofia De Luca. She was born years later to some random whore Cuck had been fucking.

  The memory assaulted me and I nearly lost my train of thought. I didn’t think it was a big deal if Gabby’s mother was a prostitute, didn’t think it was a big deal to be a prostitute period, but Gabby wouldn’t see it that way. It didn’t matter, anyway. I’d tried telling Gabby she had a different mother, but she wouldn’t listen. Gabby had been born to another woman, but she was defined by Sofia De Luca. I pressed on.

  “Your mom wasn’t a whore,” I repeated. “I read her diary. Sofia was in love and the history you were told was a lie, Gabby. It was your father—”

  “Don’t tell me about my mom,” she snapped, voice hoarse with anger. “I know about my mom. I lived this life. I know about my mom. You’ve been here for a few months and you read a few pieces of paper and you think you know things.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I felt I knew quite a few things, but maybe that made me arrogant. She was right—I hadn’t been in this world very long.

  When she spoke again, her voice was back to the quiet, wistful tone, but this memory was ugly. It was stained. “You don’t know what it’s like to be the daughter of the woman who ruined the Family line.”

  “It wasn’t your mother who did that!” I beseeched. “Your father told Alessio about Emilio so they would kill each other. The story is all wrong. Your mother died in the arms of Alessio.” I wanted so desperately for Gabby to learn the truth. She’d been force-fed a false narrative her entire life. I knew a little bit about that, about having someone tell you lies about your family, but Gabby just wouldn’t have it.

  “You don’t know anything,” she hissed. “You don’t know what it’s like to be given to an ugly, evil man because of your mother’s past.” Gabby hovered over the knife handles. She wouldn’t look at me.

  A beat of silence passed before I responded. “You’re right.”

  “I thought you were different.” She yanked a knife from its hold and spun to me. “I thought you were hope.” The knife in her hand reflected the overhead lights and I couldn’t help but stare at it. What was she going to do? I was all but out of energy. If she came at me, I wasn’t sure I could take her.

  “Gabby.” I tried to figure out how to phrase my next words. She had always put all of her hopes and dreams on the Pavoni Princess, but I wasn’t the princess. I was dark, twisty, and fucked up, but I was still just Frankie.

  “Gabby, I’m not who you think I am,” I finally said. Who you need me to be.

  “I know that now.” Her glare darted to me, venomous. I was reminded that Gabby had killed before—her husband. I gripped the counter, eyeing the knife in her hand. As if she could sense what I was thinking, she glowered, but then her brown eyes softened.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” she said quietly. “I’m not like you. Anyway, you’ll wish you were dead soon enough.”

  I propped myself up on the counter and put my head on one arm, trying to breathe. I felt like I had the flu. I wanted to go lie down. I hadn’t intended to stay out of bed for this long. I’d just wanted to get a glass of water and see if there was anything left to eat in the kitchen.

  “This knife is for my protection,” she emphasized. “Now Levi is never going to learn anything about his mother, you realize that, right? It will all have been for nothing. You of all people should understand what it’s like to want to know your family.” I did know, but sometimes when you go looking for something, you don’t like what you find.

  “Who’s coming for me?” I deflected.

  “I’m not going to wait with you anymore.” Pushing up off the counter, she walked toward the center of the kitchen. “You think you’re a sweet girl,” she continued. “You think you’re the good guy in this. You think you’re the victim—you’re not. You’re the bad guy.”

  There are no bad guys. There are only winners.

  Nikolai’s words distracted me until I noticed Gabby was walking—no, practically running—right toward the spill. With a knife. In heels.

  “Gabby wait—” She’d hit it dead on at the rate she was going.

  “He makes you forget who you are,” Gabby seethed. “He’s chloroform to your soul.” I stopped completely, feeling slapped. I’d begun a journey with Anteros, and without him I was a boat without an anchor, drifting in a dark, black ocean. So I wondered if the journey had been a lie, if the entire time I’d simply been drowning.

  And she fucking poked at the insecurity, dragged thorns across it until it bled.

  But I shook it off, because I had to. She didn’t realize the danger she was in.

  “Gabby you have to stop!” I stumbled over to her, reaching for her just as crashing sounded near the front of the house—the people Gabby had said were coming for me. I should have run, but Gabby was still heading toward the liquid, knife in hand, pointed stilettos seconds away from impact.

  “Do you hear that?” Gabby asked, waving the knife around perilously. “They’re coming for you.”

  “Gabby shut up and listen to me!” It was like I was watching it all in slow motion. Gabby running toward the spill, my arms stretching to reach her before she did so. Everything was so poignant, so perilous. Her heels, the knife. Bright, oily spill. I reached my hand out.

  “No you shut up—” Her right foot made contact with the invisible liquid and she fell forward. I fell with her, trying to grasp her wrist, but it was too late. She hit the floor just as the knife went straight into her gut.

  “Gabby!” My knees hit the ground with brutal impact. “Oh God, Gabby.” The sharp, stinging scent of chemical laced with whatever lemony aroma they tried to hide it in singed my nostrils. Cool liquid tickled the skin at my knees. At first I thought it was the cleaner, but then with horror, I realized it was her blood.

  I rolled her over to see the damage. The knife had gone straight into her abdomen, right above her bellybutton. I didn’t know what to do. My hands hovered over her. I heard people barreling into the house—people coming for me, Gabby had said.

  I didn’t care.

  I couldn’t care.

  “They’re here.” She laughed, but it transformed into a cough as blood sputtered out her mouth. I put my palm next to the knife in Gabby’s stomach, trying to stop the blood. Gabby’s chin was red, both from hitting the floor and from spurting blood. It was like an oil painting dripping red paint, just too much blood.

  Like Big O…like the man at the gas station.

  But this shouldn’t have ha
ppened.

  Gabby should be alive. I should have gotten up and run, but I couldn’t. My hands were frozen to her body, trying to keep the blood inside. I couldn’t have her die like this. Hating me. Being right in her hatred.

  I kept whispering apologies. I kept trying to explain, even though the explanation was worse than saying nothing at all. It couldn’t end this way. When I’d betrayed her, I’d been with Anteros. I was tethered in the darkness. Then he’d betrayed me again. Now she was dying and my goodness was dying with her forever. There was no Anteros to tether me in the darkness. I would be alone.

  The footsteps got closer, a steady beat, a violent thrum like my heartbeat tattooing this moment forever. Suddenly there was an intense, blinding pain at the back of my skull. The last thing I remembered was the color of her blood. Like cherries.

  Then my vision was gone.

  I was alone in the darkness.

  Seventeen

  Darkness had fallen by the time Anteros arrived at the docks. There was only one port in New York that The Institute operated from, so Anteros knew immediately where they’d taken Frankie. For years Anteros and his Wolves had controlled the docks and the port along with it. With the Wolves gone and Anteros MIA, Lucia had crept in immediately.

  After Anteros killed Levi, it wouldn’t take long for Lucia to realize he wasn’t dead. He used to care about giving up the strategic advantage. Now all he cared about was Frankie.

  Flattened on the roof of a shipping crate, blending among the shadows, Anteros watched. The docks were teeming with soldiers. Some he recognized as his and some he didn’t, but clearly, they all worked for Lucia. Anteros ground his jaw, gripping the corrugated metal tighter. The Institute had been playing both sides from the beginning; that didn’t bother him. What pissed him the fuck off was seeing traitors only a few feet away and not being able to do a thing about it.