Beauty, a Hate Story the End

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  Anteros had been up on the crate for a few hours and had seen no hint of Frankie or any other women, only soldiers with automatics strapped to their back. They laughed. They pushed each other. It was just another night to them.

  A large freighter was docked to the pier Anteros had shot his Wolves off of. That wasn’t good. Freighters only docked when they were getting ready to ship the women.

  At night, the docks were flame and shadow, the only light from tangerine lamps that reflected on the water like fire nymphs. The freighter was a massive, towering shadow over the inky black water, a reminder that he had to work faster.

  It was impossible to tell which crate they were keeping Frankie in. As much as Anteros wanted to storm the docks and rip each one apart, he studied and waited. He wasn’t praying for a miracle. Anteros never prayed, never relied on faith, especially not for something as important as Frankie.

  Faith was for fools; it got people killed.

  Instead Anteros studied the soldiers’ actions and movements. Usually there were two crates holding multiple women, but they were always grouped together. Which crate did the soldiers stand by most? Which routes did they circle? That would give him the information that would lead him to Frankie. The salty, muddy smell of the Hudson drifted into his nose while he clocked the soldiers’ movements. Anteros was adjusting himself to get a better look when he saw someone out of the corner of his eye—but not the person he’d hoped.

  From his vantage point, Anteros couldn’t hear a thing Nikolai was saying, but the boy was obvious. The asshole’s blond head was like a beacon in the night. Dressed in a three-piece suit eerily similar to the ones Anteros used to wear, Nikolai slowly snaked his way closer, until he was just below Anteros.

  Anteros knew he’d come for one reason: Frankie. Seeing Nikolai so close, though, stirred up a fury of emotion. Anteros didn’t even think he’d have been so fucking twisted up if his Wolves had betrayed him. Somehow he’d grown goddamn attached.

  Anteros tried to push past the urge to jump down and slam Nikolai’s head into the ground, but just before the boy would have been out of reach, Anteros quietly dropped to the ground with a soft thud, landing face to face with Nikolai.

  “Anteros,” Nikolai said, folding his arms. “Come to claim your property?” Anteros glowered when Nikolai called him by his name, but a second later was surprised. Without his Wolves to tell the tale, Nikolai should think Anteros dead, yet Nikolai wasn’t surprised. In fact, it was like he’d expected him.

  Anteros removed his Glock from his holster and put it to Nikolai’s skull. “Come to kill a traitor.”

  Nikolai laughed, unperturbed by the deadly metal to his temple. “That’s rich, coming from you—but then, you failed at your coup. When I’m done with the Pavonis, there won’t be a person left to remember them.”

  Anteros kept his face stoic. He didn’t remove the gun, but he didn’t fire it either. Nikolai wanted to talk, wanted his plan to be heard. Anteros had never been one to need attention—the satisfaction of a job well done was all he fucking needed—but he appreciated men who needed attention because they were usually ones who gave him information.

  Nikolai continued. “It was so easy—plant a few flyers and you assholes went ape shit. You killed each other. I didn’t have to do shit, and you didn’t even think to look in my direction.”

  “You planted those flyers?” Anteros asked, but he was already putting the pieces together. He was sure it had been Nikolai’s intention to get them to kill Emilio, and it had probably been his intention to have them kill Frankie as well. While they were all running around like fucking idiots, he was orchestrating a coup. Like Anteros thought, the flyers were a fucking red herring to keep the people distracted.

  He just didn’t fucking think it was distracting them from themselves.

  “You are so weak with your code, thinking it unites you when really it tears you apart. The Bratva didn’t have a code and—”

  “And all they have left is one, weaselly heir,” Anteros finished for him. Even he had his limits for how much he could stomach.

  “It will be more than you have in the end,” he sniped. Anteros shoved his Glock back into his holster and grabbed Nikolai by his new, expensive lapels, hurling him against the hard metal crate. It made a sound, but barely.

  “I’m sure this isn’t what you planned when you took me that day,” Nikolai laughed. Anteros nearly reeled. Those were almost the exact words he’d thought when Lucio had been on his deathbed.

  The long, raised, jagged line that ran from Nikolai’s eye to his jaw was pronounced, even in the shadow, and Anteros realized he’d always been soft with Nikolai. He’d seen himself in the boy, but he hadn’t looked hard enough, hadn’t seen that Nikolai would never have been satisfied, not until he’d taken everything. But unlike Lucio, Anteros wasn’t going to sit back and die.

  Anteros tightened his fists, fabric curling between his fingertips.

  This ended now.

  As if Nikolai could read his mind, he said calmly, “You kill me now and you’ll never find her.” Nikolai’s gaze shifted to where the two crates opened to the docks. Keeping his grip tight, Anteros followed the line of sight. Women were marching single file and that only meant one thing: they were getting ready to be loaded onto the freighter.

  “You better hurry.” Nikolai’s amused, cocksure tone brought Anteros back. An infuriating smirk twisted the jagged scar on his face.

  Fuck.

  He’d almost gotten distracted. Anteros wanted to end it right fucking then, but instead he shoved Nikolai against the corrugated metal and ran out to find Frankie.

  The women marched in a line behind a soldier while another held their back with a semi-automatic.

  Frankie wasn’t among them.

  All at once, relief and disappointment flooded him. If she wasn’t there then she was safe from The Institute a little while longer, but if she wasn’t there, he still had to find her.

  The women were dirty from head to toe—clothes ripped, skin covered in splotches of blood and mud, hair tangled. Anteros felt that weird feeling again, that odd lump in his gut, as he thought about how he’d been doing this to women for years. The women had always just been numbers on pages, a bottom line. Here though, watching their bare feet get cut on the frozen asphalt, the numbers took life. They bled on the page the same way their feet did.

  Anteros refocused, crouching deeper into the shadows behind a metal container. Their bloody feet left a trail and an idea struck him—he could follow that back to where they’d come from. He waited an agonizingly long time for the women to be loaded into the crate then followed the red droplets until they ended before an open container.

  Next to the open crate was a closed one. That was her crate; he fucking knew it. It was idiotic to be standing out in the middle like he was, the orange light broadcasting his location.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  He just stared.

  She was right inside. Probably in pain, probably confused, scared. Anteros took a step toward it, jaw clenched.

  “Lee, all I’m askin’ is haven’t you ever wanted to sample the fruit?” Anteros quickly flattened himself beside the crate opposite Frankie’s as two soldiers appeared.

  “Yeah, but that’s not our job, Tucker,” the other one, or Lee, replied.

  “Who gives a…shit! I forgot the key.” Tucker rifled through his pockets then pulled them both out, chagrined.

  “Are you fucking me right now?” Lee snapped. “We’re gonna be late. The other bitches are already loaded.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Tucker asked, equally pissed off. “You want me to run back and get it or do you wanna keep hounding me?” In response, Lee motioned angrily toward the way they’d come and Tucker ran off in that direction.

  Lee leaned against the crate and pulled out his phone, the blue light making his beady eyes glow. Anteros cracked his knuckles. Frankie was the fruit they wanted to sample.

  He would rip the
ir goddamn throats out.

  Anteros wasn’t going to pretend he’d been benevolent. It wasn’t until Frankie that he really thought outside himself, but the men under his employ never “sampled the fruit”. It wasn’t because he’d cared about the women; it had always been about the bottom line, and a bruised peach sold for less.

  All he wanted to do was slam Lee’s worthless head against the ground, open the crate, and get Frankie, but he still didn’t have the key. If Tucker got back and found Lee dead, he would sound the alarm.

  Anteros would save her, but he would wait for the right moment. In this dirty underground world where you were either predator or prey, Anteros would always be her predator. He would be there in the shadows, even if she didn’t want him.

  Eighteen

  Pounding. Throbbing. Oh fuck, that’s my head.

  I sat up slowly and rubbed my eyes, disoriented and expecting to see, but it was pitch-black. It smelled musty and dank like being too close to water, and there was also something strong like body odor—like really, really bad body odor. The floor was hard like metal and had big corrugations. Was I in some kind of giant metal box?

  Something swished, like shuffling against the floor, and I knew I wasn’t alone. Fear crawled through my body, spindly legs tapping on my veins, creeping along my bones like an unwanted bug. I froze, not wanting whoever was in here to know I was awake.

  “I’m Leanna.” I jumped at the feminine voice.

  “Shut up, Leanna,” another said. “Don’t draw attention to us.”

  “No one is coming for us,” Leanna snapped. “They don’t even come to let us piss. They barely even feed us.” That was what the strong smell was—excrement. Oh God, where am I?

  “Hi.” I looked around. “Do you know where we are?” Someone cried at my question, a third girl.

  “We’re on our way to slavery, honey,” Leanna said, so easily that I had to blink a few times, had to take a few breaths, because I couldn’t quite believe it. Her tone was too gentle, too sweet, like she was saying we were on our way to church camp.

  Another few minutes passed in silence, eyes never adjusting to the darkness. There was no way for them to do so—there wasn’t even a sliver of light. Finally I asked, “But do you know where we are?”

  “No.”

  I sat back, letting that sink in. Gabby had been right when she said the men were coming to take me to The Institute. For all I knew, I was on the opposite side of the world.

  Eventually my eyes adjusted as much as they could, but everything was still fuzzy and gray. I couldn’t make out features. Hair color, eye color, skin color, that was impossible to see. I could only see shapes, stop bumping into people. Quiet whispers started up, some in a different language, but no one talked to me. I was alone with my thoughts, alone to think about Anteros.

  About Gabby.

  Anteros and I existed in a world of our own. It was dark and dangerous and dirty and fucked up, and when we were together, no one else existed but us. Except people did exist, and now Gabby was dead because of me.

  A few minutes later, I talked to Leanna. Some people preferred their own corner. Some people preferred silence. Some people preferred to cry. It was how they coped, and that was fine. Me, I really liked talking to her. It took my mind off how I was about to be shipped across the sea to some ambiguous place called The Institute and sold, my identity taken from me.

  I went into massive debt to save you. Hundreds of millions of dollars to keep you out of the paws of slavers. I fucked up my entire goddamn life for you.

  As I sat in this smelly, black box, Anteros’s words played on a loop in my mind. I couldn’t help but think what a fool I’d been.

  So yeah, talking helped.

  “I actually grew up in Ohio,” Leanna said. “I came to New York for a fresh start. I had big dreams, you know?” She sighed as if remembering.

  “I do,” I said.

  “What’s your story?” she asked.

  “It’s…” I struggled with where to start. “It’s long.” I thought again about what Anteros had said to me about The Institute, about my contract. I hadn’t wanted to believe him. I hadn’t wanted to believe it could be worse than when I’d sold myself to him, but he’d said there were men who took pleasure in pain, men who would keep me in a cage—a literal cage.

  The smell of shit and piss filled my nostrils as the steady sound of crying echoed in the box. I opened my mouth to tell Leanna what was going to happen, but closed it. I was certain the reason these women were crying was because they were mourning the life they’d had, not the one they would have. I didn’t want to burst that bubble.

  “I get it,” she said. “I was in love…” Her whisper became nonexistent for a beat. “At least, I thought I was. And now I’m here. Because of him.”

  “Leanna…” I wasn’t sure what to say. It sounded eerily similar to my situation.

  “Isn’t it fucked up that I still love him? At least, I still hurt for him. I can’t really separate the two. It always hurt with him, and I thought that was love.”

  “Someone who loves you won’t put you here,” some other girl shouted from the opposite side. She was the same girl who’d told Leanna to shut up, but I still didn’t know her name. “That’s not fucking love, Leanna. Get that through your thick fucking skull.” Angry, furious arguing erupted. Every girl in the box started yelling. It was a small, contained space and the voices echoed. It was too loud, and it gave me a headache. Even as everyone argued, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had started it.

  Someone who loves you won’t put you here.

  I sighed and put my head between my knees. Anteros never put me here. He’d destroyed his career to keep me from The Institute. Destroyed his life. But in the process, he destroyed me. I understood what Leanna said; I got it. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t love, because I hurt for Anteros in a way so pure and agonizing that I was marked forever by it. Any other love attempted on my heart would feel like hollow echoes in comparison.

  The yelling echoed until a harsh crank—the crate door grinding against the metal bottom—silenced everyone. Yellow light oozed inside. I’d become so used to the dark that even the feeble parking lot lights hurt my eyes.

  A man stood in the opening, his figure nothing but a shadow. I thought he might be there to help, give us food, let us piss outside the crate. Something like that.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he yelled.

  “Not so loud now, huh?” the man who’d opened the container called over his shoulder.

  I hated him.

  We filed single file behind him and he occasionally yelled threats, names like cunt or whore. He probably thought it made him powerful, but there wasn’t any power in threatening women who had nothing, who were scared, who’d been tormented.

  I recognized where we were now—the docks, just a few blocks down from Anteros’s warehouse, and where the Wolves had met their demise. I furrowed my brow trying to piece it all together. I’d actually gotten a glimpse of someone briefly and recognized him from The Catacombs, so I knew we’d been taken by Lucia’s men, but we were outside of Anteros’s warehouse. It didn’t make sense.

  There was one other man with us, and he used the barrel of his gun to poke into our backs, to keep us moving. He was awful too, sneering and rude.

  It was freezing outside, and they didn’t give us any new clothes. Loose gravel crunched painfully beneath my feet. That mixed with the light snowfall meant my feet were red and burning badly. I was still covered in Gabby and the man from the gas station’s blood, and I desperately needed a shower. The other women were like me—hair a ratted mess and smelling awful.

  “Have you done this before?” I asked Leanna when we stopped a few yards away from a big freight boat loaded with containers. Shadows stuttered across our path, broken only by fiery orange lights.

  “No,” Leanna whispered. “No, this is new.” I had to crane my neck as far as it would go to see the top of the huge vessel. This wasn’t goin
g to end well. No sooner had I thought that then one of the men grabbed a girl and dragged her away by her blonde hair.

  “No, please,” she said, reaching for her ratty tresses, and I realized it was the same girl who’d yelled at Leanna.

  “Tucker,” warned the man who’d opened the container.

  “They’re gonna be whores anyway,” Tucker, sneered. When he spoke, his lip curved in a smile that made my stomach curl. His lips were dry, cracking and bleeding. “May as well sample the product before it gets spoiled.” I was frozen, wanting to do something as they argued with each other about whether or not to rape us.

  “The boat’s not even ready to leave,” Tucker argued. “C’mon Lee, stop being such a fuckin’ pussy. You could get yourself a virgin, they’d never know.” Lee’s, eyes traveled to Leann, growing calculating, predatory.

  She backed into me and I gripped her forearms to steady her. Lee reached out to Leanna but his arm froze midair, a sound stopping him.

  “What was that?” Lee asked, whipping his thin neck around.

  “I didn’t hear shit,” Tucker snapped. Jeans at his ankles, he bent the blonde girl over a stack of wood pallets. We all had to watch. Silent. Afraid that if we said nothing we were letting it happen, but afraid they would turn to us if we spoke. Tears cleared a fresh path down her dirty cheeks, but she made no sound. I couldn’t look away. It was different than the time the men exited the velvet curtain. This time I felt if I looked away, it would be saying what they did to her was okay.

  Lee turned from Tucker to us, clearly debating what Tucker had said. Suddenly he snatched Leanna from the line and pulled her toward the darker part of the docks, where the conflagration of lamps ended. I reached for her wrist.

  She was being sucked into shadow, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

  The blonde girl screamed and I looked in horror to find Tucker had wound his hands around her neck. Just as he was about to do something irreparable to her, he was pulled off and thrown to a stack of crates. I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped me.