Anteros.
I was speechless as he emerged from the shadows, and so were the men—for about two seconds. Then Lee dropped Leanna’s wrist and lifted his gun with a shaky hand. If Anteros was worried, he didn’t let on. Anteros grabbed Tucker off the crates just as Lee fired, using him as a shield. Bullets penetrated Tucker’s chest, one, two, three—so many I couldn’t keep track. They ripped the man’s chest apart until he was shreds of meat. When Lee had to reload, Anteros tossed the useless, bloody Tucker to the ground and went for Lee. Before Lee could get his ammo ready, Anteros slammed his weapon against his nose. Blood spurted in all directions as Lee wailed.
A gun bulged against Anteros’s shirt and knowing him, I was certain he had a knife. He used none of those items. He tore into Lee, fists colliding with his jaw, his nose, his eyes. He absolutely ripped Lee apart. All the women covered their eyes, but I was mesmerized. When he finished, Anteros was covered in red up to his elbows, as if he’d dipped his arms into a bucket of paint.
An icy winter wind blew through the air, whipping Anteros’s shiny black locks in all directions. His eyes gleamed murder. I’d thought I’d seen Anteros angry, but he was transformed—a devil delivering retribution.
He hadn’t looked at me the entire time and when he finally did, his bluegreen gaze was filled with madness. Blood splattered across his body, the spots gleaming like rubies under the fiery light. The last time I’d seen him, I told him never to find me again. I told him to stay away, to either let me go or kill me. I wondered if he’d decided to end me after all.
He stalked toward me, eyes on fire. One arm gripped my waist, the other swung under my legs, and he lifted me with a purpose I didn’t dare defy. I opened my mouth to say something as he carried me away. What would happen to the other girls? We couldn’t just leave them.
Yet I knew there was no way to escape him. I was a fool for thinking I ever could.
I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. I’d thought I knew him as the Beast. I’d thought I knew what the word meant in regard to him, but he was completely transformed. Fingers painful in their grip, jaw so clenched the muscles on his neck corded, everything rigid to the point of snapping—he was no longer man, but completely animal.
His hair was messy and he hadn’t bothered to push it out of his eyes. In a trance, I gently brushed the strands away. His eyes flashed to mine—hot, filled with a blaze of hell. I paused midair. What the fuck am I doing? Still, I pushed his hair behind his ear, needing to soothe some of his tension, feeling it as my own. My hand slid to caress the side of his face down to his beard and his stare returned forward. When I pulled my fingers back, the tips were stained red.
We wove in and out of giant shipping containers as he avoided Lucia’s men deftly, darkness our friend. He held me like I would disappear at any moment. I should have been terrified—Lucia’s men crawled around the docks like beetles—but Anteros was so sure of himself. I trusted that, at least. I trusted him to save me. In this world, he’d always done that.
We came to the warehouse—the warehouse where he’d first saved me from his Wolves and tethered me in the darkness. We didn’t enter through the front door because soldiers guarded it. They were lazy, though. One was asleep and the other was smoking a cigarette, playing on his phone.
He kicked the back door open and it ricocheted against the wall, echoing in the silence. Unintentionally, I gripped his forearm, scared that soldiers were going to come running, but nothing happened. It appeared abandoned.
I couldn’t see a thing, the dark was so dense, inky shadows licking our skin like a lover. He set me down slowly, still gripping my waist when my feet hit the floor. I could only feel him in the darkness—still so hard, so rigid.
I’d been nervous before, dreading the punishment for leaving. Now I wished we could go back to that agonizing walk. This stillness was so much worse.
It was certain.
It was tense.
I didn’t want to go back to how it had been. I didn’t want to go back to the lies between us, but I knew now I couldn’t escape him. My heart cried for him. Beating, bruised, or broken—it would always find him.
But, God, why did we always have to hurt each other?
“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse and shredded. “I’m sorry, mio cuore.”
I didn’t know what to say. Anteros had only apologized to me one other time, and then he’d been shitfaced. I still couldn’t see him, but I could feel the heat of his breath against my lips, could smell the spicy, infuriatingly tempting scent of it, could hear his heavy, ragged, breathing.
Then he was gone.
The shick of a flame being lit sounded, and I could see him. It hurt, seeing him. It actually hurt. My chest ached. He didn’t walk back to me immediately, just stood next to the candle so that the flame rippled over him. In jeans, combat boots, a bloodied tank, and a black jacket, he was unequivocally lethal, but also beautiful. His wavy black hair was all messed up, his sharp jaw made even sharper by his defined yet wild beard. His eyes, though, they absolutely floored me. I didn’t know how I’d ever thought I could live without this man.
But that was the biggest lie of all.
Slowly he walked toward me until I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. Our shadows flickered with the uneven dance of the flame. I folded my arms, needing to shield my heart. He placed a hand on my shoulder, lightly caressing the curve of it.
“I was protecting you,” he said after a few moments.
“I don’t need you protecting me,” I snapped. I wasn’t even angry at him, just upset by how little control I had when I was near him. It drained from my body like quicksand.
He raised an incredulous brow. “Clearly.” I wasn’t sure if he was referring to what had just happened or everything else. I wasn’t sure if it mattered.
My mind was a jumbled mess of hazy red emotion. I turned my back to him and focused on my surroundings, trying to regain whatever control I could. Anteros had his mainstream club here, but it had been closed since the war started. It was still beautiful, though. Even just with candlelight, I could remember the way women had spun from the ceiling.
“This only ends one way, Frankie,” he said to my back.
“You’re right,” I whispered after a few moments. I put my forehead to the wall. He was right, and I hated him even more for it. A hot, angry tear came to my eye. The awful truth was that he could hurt me, could tear me apart, and I would always come back to him. I would offer him all the pieces and beg him to rip them apart again and again.
“Is that what you want to hear?” I turned and faced him. “You have me. To use. To abuse. Forever.” I turned back, placing my palm on the wall with a jagged sigh. “I just wish you wouldn’t.” I felt him before I heard him—his arms around me, his heat at my back, his lips brushing my neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his kiss searing my flesh. “I’m sorry.” He kept saying it over and over again through the hot kisses he planted on my skin. My body and mind melted with the touch. He spun me around, and I wrapped my arms around him.
His tongue was hot in my mouth, the antidote to the poison he pushed. His teeth dragged my lower lip, biting and sucking. His hands came to either side of my face, seizing me.
“Frankie,” he said, grip tight. “Look at me.” His hands were still wet with blood, getting my face red and damp, but I didn’t care. I was still dirty with it from Gabby, from the guy at the gas station. We were dirty, fucked up—but somehow still the purest thing I’d ever known. I blinked away his kisses, focusing on him.
“Stop running away from me.” Glare fierce, he demanded it of my soul more than with words, and I couldn’t have said no even if I’d wanted to. When I nodded, he kissed me. Devoured me. Attacked me. His mouth merged with mine so ferociously I fell back against the wall painfully.
“You drive me crazy,” he said between kisses. “You’re beautiful. You’re maddening. Fuck, I’m addicted to you.” He broke to put his lips on my neck. �
�Do you realize what you do to me?” He didn’t give me a chance to respond, putting his lips back on mine.
I whimpered when he balled up the fabric of my ripped dress in one hand and palmed me with the other. He was wet with another man’s blood.
The idea thrilled me.
Disgusted me.
I couldn’t make up my mind, but I still wrapped my hands around his neck, still stuck my tongue wildly into his mouth.
“This cunt,” Anteros groaned. “Don’t you ever fucking take this away from me again.”
“Never,” I gasped.
“No more lies,” he growled. “I promise you.” He sucked my neck, deliriously working his lips and tongue on the skin, but his words stilled me. No more lies—I had to fucking tell him about my sickness. With all the strength I could muster, I pushed him off me.
I needed to get it out quickly, but I was still so scared. After everything we’d gone through, it was stupid to be afraid, but I fiddled with my dress all the same. My entire life people had left me for being sick. I didn’t want to add Anteros to the list.
“Anteros I have to tell you—” I stopped. He waited patiently, eyes drawn in that concerned, narrow way unique to him. Shadow and flame hardened and softened him all at once. He was so breathtaking and unfair in his beauty. I looked down, focusing on the silver fabric of my dress juxtaposed against my dirty, bloody fingers.
With a deep sigh, I met his stare. “I’m sick, I’m still sick. I’ll always be sick.”
The crease in his eyebrow deepened. “What are you telling me?”
“I’ll always be sick,” I whispered. “I just spent yesterday unable to leave my bed. Sometimes it’s longer. It happens occasionally and there’s no fixing it. I’m not going to die or anything, but I’ll be sick for the rest of my life.” With a sound low in his throat, he pushed me hard against the wall. His eyes were raging, bluegreen pits of undecipherable emotion.
I fucking knew it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you. I know this changes things.” I tried to disentangle myself, but he pinned me, flattening his palms on the wall on either side of my face.
“Foolish girl,” he said, planting his lips on mine for a harsh kiss. “Still thinking that anything you do or say could affect how I feel about you. If only you would stay the fuck still and let me love you.” He pressed his body deep into mine, heating up all the cold parts of me.
“What?” My breath hitched when he put his face into my neck.
“You were alone. Alone,” he growled against the curve where my neck and shoulder met. “No one was there to help you. Stop running from me and let me take care of you.”
“I—”
“Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” he interrupted.
“Don’t you ever fucking lie to me again,” I countered. Our eyes locked. I wouldn’t back down from this, no matter how furious he was.
He exhaled. “Never.”
“I can’t go through that again,” I whispered.
“You won’t have to,” he said. When I didn’t lessen my glare, his eyes narrowed and he asked, “Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered truthfully. “I don’t know how I can trust you again.” Anteros gripped my skull, turquoise depths swirling as he searched my eyes. They were hard like stone, but beneath the guard he put up, he was raw. With another exhale, Anteros pushed off me and turned away, running a hand through his dark hair.
“There is only one thing you don’t know about me,” he said. “And then there will be no secrets left between us.”
Nineteen
There was only one skeleton Anteros hadn’t revealed to Frankie. With Crazy A dead, he could have kept it buried, but Anteros wanted Frankie to trust him completely. He wanted to be so bared that their souls became tangled nerves. Live. Open. Unable to mask pain or passion.
“This is something no one knows.” He turned to Frankie. “Not the Wolves, not Lucio. With Crazy A dead, I thought I would take it to my grave.” Frankie straightened, eyes wide as the candlelight flickered across her glowing honey skin. Grasping her hand, he brought her to a barstool and made her take a seat. Frankie had said she would always be sick and Anteros was determined to take care of her, starting in this warehouse. She shifted on the leather stool until her legs dangled through the shredded bottom of her dress. When Anteros was sure she was comfortable, he walked away, needing space to tell the story.
“Crazy A was the last in our group to get a nickname,” Anteros began. “Unlike the rest of us, Crazy A came from a good family. He was born Alcide Scarsi, but every male in his family had become a De Luca by marriage. Alcide was betrothed to a high-ranking De Luca woman from birth, his father hoping to make his son the councilman he’d never been.”
“Wow,” Frankie said. “I never would have imagined him as a De Luca. He was so…” Frankie didn’t need to finish the sentence; Anteros knew what she was thinking, but Crazy A hadn’t always been the way he was, and that was what Anteros was going to tell her.
How he’d been the one to make him crazy.
“The Pavonis love to exploit anything and anyone that falls outside the umbrella of the law,” he explained. “Back when homosexuality was illegal, they operated some of the only openly gay clubs at the time.”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” Frankie said. “I mean, for the mafia.”
“The Pavoni Family is horribly homophobic. They have no religion besides the worship of their business and Boss, but that didn’t stop the thorny vine of prejudice and hate that weaves itself into all other religions. If you were in the Family, you couldn’t even think about dating someone of the same sex. It was one thing to make money off them, another thing entirely to accept it. This thought process persisted well past the day homosexuality was made legal.”
“That’s terrible,” she murmured. If she thought that was terrible, Anteros could guess what she would think about the rest of the story. Still, he’d promised her the truth, so he continued.
“Alcide had been betrothed to a De Luca since birth, but that De Luca was a she. When I first met Alcide, I discovered an affair. I blackmailed him like all the Wolves, but Alcide didn’t stop the affair like I thought when we agreed to work together.” Anteros stopped talking as the memory washed over him. Frankie’s shadow twirled along the wall, dancing in the yellow-orange light. He focused on it, reminding himself why he was cutting open the past and bleeding the ugly truth.
“If this comes out, it will ruin everything,” Anteros said. “End it.”
“You knew this about me. You already knew,” Alcide responded. “You wouldn’t have worked with me if you weren’t okay with it.”
“I don’t give a shit who you want to fuck,” Anteros said. “I give a shit when it fucks with business. End it.”
“I’d never given a shit who the Wolves fucked,” Anteros explained. “Never intervened until that day.” If they hadn’t been trying to climb the ranks and if Alcide hadn’t lived in their world, Anteros wouldn’t have cared.
But they were trying to climb the ranks.
And he did live in their world.
Alcide folded his arms. “I never took you for a homophobe.”
“It’s not about what I want,” Anteros replied. “We don’t get to live in this world unless we live by their rules.”
Frankie hopped off the stool and put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. He’d finished the conversation, assuming Crazy A would follow orders. Crazy A had never before questioned or disobeyed him, so he hadn’t thought to question it, didn’t notice the way Crazy A looked that day, or the days following.
“I should have paid attention,” Anteros said, walking away from Frankie. “Years after that day, the Wolves had been established. I was second in command, and we were close to having everything we had ever wanted. We were respected, feared. I assumed the affair was long behind us, didn’t think about it anymore. I was wrong.” Anteros paused as the next part of the stor
y churned in his mind.
Eventually Frankie spoke up. “And then what?”
“I found Alcide kissing the same man.” Frankie took her seat again and he heard the leather squeak as she adjusted, could see her distorted shadow on the wall.
“It was a rainy day, but I saw it clearly,” Anteros continued. “Back then you probably wouldn’t have recognized him. Crazy A wasn’t so thin, he had muscles on his wiry frame. People even thought he was handsome.” Anteros stopped again as the memory took over, and this time Frankie waited silently for him to come out of it. The vision of Crazy A underneath a building awning was blazing. He’d smiled as it rained, the man he was with cupping his cheek. Even back then, Crazy A never smiled.
“I waited a few weeks,” Anteros continued, “watched them to be sure it wasn’t a one-time thing. I didn’t blackmail Alcide that time. I gave him a choice, a choice that would eventually destroy everything.”
Anteros placed a hand on the wall, recalling the events that came next. He focused on the way the shadow flickered, voice robotic.
“We’re this close to having everything. Do you realize what this could do if it gets out?” Anteros asked. Alcide folded his arms and looked away, breathing through his nose.
“Maybe I don’t want the same things anymore.”
“And?” Frankie asked, and Anteros realized he’d been lost in the memory. He wasn’t sure if he should continue. He didn’t want Frankie to see him differently. He hadn’t realized how reliant, how fucking dependent, he’d grown to the way she looked at him.
As if she knew what he was thinking, she added, “You don’t have to.”
“I went into another room and dragged his lover out.” Frankie gasped, but he pressed on. “I threw him on the ground.” The man’s fearful gaze had shot from Anteros to Crazy A before locking with Crazy A, the Wolf’s jaw clenched so hard it looked like he might break his teeth.
“Alcide, baby, what is going on?” the man asked.
Beauty, a Hate Story the End Page 29