Frankie’s words pierced his skin like needles, dragging poison to his blood, pumping death into his heart. I hate you, she’d said, but it was different than the many times before. This time it wasn’t to hide her love, it was to shield her heart. The one he’d broken. He dragged her to him as if he could stop the thing between them from falling to the ground and shattering.

The day Anteros had found Frankie perusing his stack of books, he was ready to destroy the letter the minute he was alone. When he got downstairs, though, it was missing. For the nearly two days Frankie had been asleep, he’d searched constantly for it. He’d retraced his steps over and over again, but it was like it had vanished.

It had been in between the goddamn floorboards the entire time.

What fucking irony.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, attempting to yank herself out of his grip. “I don’t. You’re just saying this to cover up what’s really in the letter. You’re fucking lying. You made up this disgusting lie.”

She wouldn’t look at him, but Anteros pinned his gaze on her.

Fuck, just look at me.

The silence was too much. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her everything would be okay—shit people did when they loved the person—but she was closing off to him. With a frustrated growl, Anteros pushed her off and walked to the stack of books the letter fell from, feet making harsh echoes in the silent room.

Once he found it, he walked back and handed her Sofia’s journal entry. “Unfortunately everything you need to know is in a journal I can no longer locate, but this will give you an idea. I imagine if you could ask Lucia herself, her face would tell you all you need to know. This was one secret she could never hide.”

Warily, Frankie took the journal entry from his grasp. Her eyes were slits as she took it, glancing away from him in short spurts. Then they froze.

“You knew about Sofia’s journal?” Surprise laced her tongue.

“I had it in my possession for many years,” he responded, then stopped, recognition hitting him with what she’d said. “You knew about her journal?”

“It was the only thing that got me through living with you,” she spat, venom in her voice. So that was what had happened to it. He thought about what she’d said. The journal had been the only thing that got him through his early years with Lucio.

Frankie briefly looked at the entry before saying, “You know what? I don’t need to read this. Go fuck yourself and your gross theories—oh, and PS, if you’re going to try to rattle me, get ideas somewhere other than Game of Thrones.”

Her reference went over his head so Anteros said, “I don’t understand.”

“You had leather-bound editions.”

“I told you some of my books were gifted,” Anteros explained.

She dragged a hand down her face. “Never mind.”

Anteros exhaled. “Just read it.” Nostrils flared and grip harsh on the book, Frankie didn’t remove her glare from him, fingers trembling like she wanted to throw the paper at him. Finally, after a minute or so of strained silence, she looked at the page.

Frankie read it furiously until horror slowly transformed her face.

“This still doesn’t mean anything.” She grasped it with white fingers. “This could be any child. It doesn’t mean it’s me.”

“I was there for your birth,” he said lowly. “I know for certain you are the child Sofia speaks of in the letter.”

“Are you even trying?” she asked. “I was born in Jersey.” She was at least looking at him again, her face growing the bright rose of anger he remembered. Good. He wanted her angry, wanted her mad—it was better than nothing.

“Now you’re deluding yourself, mio cuore,” Anteros responded gently.

“Don’t ever call me that again.” For a split second, their stare was charged. Anger transformed into lust, her lids drooped, and she licked her lips. Anteros thought the situation was salvageable, but then sadness and emptiness, replaced her furious features.

He wanted to scream until his lungs bled.

Wanted to break things until his bones broke like the way she looked at him.

But mostly, he wanted to go back to earlier, when she was opening to him, shedding her mask, and letting him see all of her.

Frankie let the page fall and ran from the room, pale soles disappearing around the entryway. Anteros had her before she’d barely turned the corner.

“Let me go,” she hissed as he pinned her to the wall.

“I won’t.” Ever again.

“Then kill me,” she said evenly, “because I won’t stay here willingly.” Her stare was black. Relentless. Dead. Anteros ground the hands at either side of her face into the cobblestone, getting so close that his nose flattened hers.

Smelling her.

Feeling her sweet breath on his face.

But she wouldn’t give in, and he wasn’t going to take her captive again. If she wanted to leave, he couldn’t stop her.

“Fuck!” He punched the wall above her head, small stones falling like heavy rain.

* * *

Frankie slowly shimmied under his arm until she was free, Anteros eyeing her the entire time. Blood pounded in his skull, too loud, too fast. She tiptoed backward to the front door, watching him as if he were a bull about to charge. Then before he could blink, she ran, opened it, and slammed it shut.

Fuck.

Frankie had gone into the wilderness in nothing but a dress. The forest went on for miles in either direction—she would die out there. He ground his knuckles into the wall until the skin broke then pushed off and went after her.

Her back faced him and from the angle, the stain wasn’t so visible. The dress had been so fucking sexy—teasing, like her. When they’d danced he’d gotten peeks of her. There was probably some kind of matching underwear, but he wouldn’t want any on her.

It wasn’t about dressing Frankie up, it wasn’t about looking the part. It was about solidifying the moment when they agreed to be together.

And then it went to fucking shit.

Frankie jumped when he opened the door, turning around, eyebrows caving. “Please, don’t—”

“If you’re leaving,” Anteros cut her off, voice raw. “You need to take a car.” She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms and looked back into the forest as if hoping a path would appear; there were none. only trees. He swallowed the groan. He wanted her with him, where he could protect her.

How the fuck had this happened? Only hours before he’d been inside her, and now he was offering her a goddamn car.

“Um…” She rubbed her arms harder, not turning around. “Thank you.” He grunted and left to go find the car keys. He noted her feet were bare, fucking bare. Where did she think she was going to go with bare feet?

“Where are your shoes?” he growled when he came back out.

“I don’t have any.” She looked at her bare feet. “I came here after you stripped me naked in the parking lot, remember?”

He immediately took his off and handed them to her. She held the shoes away from her body, as if they were an animal that would bite. That infuriated him. Whatever lies he’d told had only been to protect her. No one had taught him how to love—he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He did his goddamn best. But everything from the moment they’d met was always to protect her.

“You have huge feet,” she explained. “It would be impossible to walk in these. Don’t you have some old conquest’s stilettos or something?”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever brought here.” And the only person I ever will.

“Oh.” Silence fell again. He tossed the keys at her to allay the biting awkwardness. She struggled to catch them while holding the shoes and ended up pressing them to her chest.

“Come,” he barked. At first he thought she would argue, but her shadow followed him through the house and to the garage. Each step was a razor blade to his heart. One hallway before the garage, he stopped and turned to her. His blood screamed to stop, but the words came out anyway. Robotic. Cold.

“At its core it’s a McLaren P1, but it’s bespoke so you’re going to need to know how to handle the extra torque.” At her glassy-eyed expression, he asked, “Can you drive it?” She looked at the palm with the key inside, closed it, and then nodded at him.

“I guess I’ll be going.” She walked down the rest of the corridor. He followed her like a phantom, staying close enough to feel the air currents shift with her movements, close enough to smell her, to realize what he was losing. Her hand curled on the knob for the garage, and his blood stopped. This was it. He was losing her. She was leaving.

Without thought, he reached for her, grabbed her waist, pulled her against him, and pressed his nose to her neck. Uniquely Frankie, somehow both burning his nostrils and calming his mind. His hands roamed her waist, her stomach, her breasts. When her head fell back to his shoulder, he groaned, kissing the crook of her neck, her earlobe, her chin—anything he could find. She rubbed against him mindlessly.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, I can’t lose you.” That broke the trance and she froze.

“Get off me,” she yelled, pushing him away. Anteros backed off and shoved a hand through his hair. His dick was punching through his pants, but all he cared about was Frankie watching him with loathing.

“Don’t you understand? You can’t fix this with sex.” She reeled around and slammed him into the wall. He could have easily withstood the blow, but he took it. “You can’t fix us with kisses and touching. We’re beyond repair. The very root of us is rotted. This”—she gestured between them—“this never should have happened. I traded myself to you and you—you—” She broke off, turning away, getting choked up.

Anteros got angry, fury boiling like a pot left on the stove. What was she implying? That he had done it all? That he’d somehow forced this love on her? No fucking way. It had been forced upon him just as much, if not more so.

Kicking off the wall, Anteros grabbed her by both arms and shook her. “What did you think would happen when you traded yourself to me?” His words were furious. “What did you think Frankie?” She gasped but before she could answer, he chuckled low, dark. He thrust her from him, and she stumbled back. “You are dangerously naive.”

“So everything that’s happened is my fault because I traded myself to you?” she yelled. At least she was looking at him again. At least she wasn’t walking away.

“If I hadn’t taken you, you’d have been sold to men much worse than me.” He walked to her until there was only the thinnest strip of air separating them. “Men who like to see pretty girls like you bleed. Men who take pleasure in pain. Men who’d take your cries for mercy as foreplay. Every day until you died or took your own life. If I hadn’t taken you, Frankie, you would be God only knows where, a true slave, kept in a cage, only brought out to please your master—and that is if you were lucky.” Her brows furrowed at his horrifying depiction.

“I don’t understand why I wasn’t simply killed.” She said the words on a long, sorrowful sigh, one that took up all the space in his chest. Fury filled his veins again like rat poison. He could never kill her—didn’t she fucking see that? It was the reason they were in this fucking mess. Did she really wish she were dead? Did she really prefer that to him? He curled and uncurled his fingers, focusing on the skin stretching over his bones, anything to gain control.

“A beauty like you?” He laughed, but it was mirthless and cutting. “Your contract was negotiated before we set foot in the car.”

“So you could have un-negotiated it.”

The scream stuck inside his chest raged louder. He closed the distance and slid his hand around her waist, settling on the small of her back. He pressed himself into her, so his next words were a hush against her ear: “There you go again with your naiveté.”

“Fuck you.” She shoved him, but this time he stayed firmly still.

“Fuck me?” Anteros laughed, a bitter, raw sound. “Yeah, fuck 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.”

“I never asked you to do that,” she snapped.

“That’s the point—you’d never have to ask because I fucking love you.”

“After what you did to me—all you’ve proven you are—how could you ever think I would believe you were capable of loving me?” she asked. “I know you aren’t.” She ended the last words on a whisper and looked down, eyelashes shadowing her cheeks in an infuriatingly demure way.

“You make me feel something real.”

“That’s indigestion from all the shit you eat,” she hissed, eyes darting back to his. A spark of hope lit in his chest. Furious Frankie, the woman who could go toe-to-toe with him, was back. He could work his way back from that. Dejected and broken Frankie, he didn’t know what to do with her.

He reached out, index finger trailing across the skin of her cheek. “You love me, Frankie, but you grew up dreaming of a brick townhouse in the Village.” She stilled. “A nice businessman and two well-behaved kids, but now you’ve lived something so raw and real that the books you used to read are dull by comparison. You’re like me, and that scares you. You’re looking for any way out.” Anteros attempted to cup her cheek but she swatted him away.

“There is no happily ever after for us!” she shouted.

“This isn’t a fairytale, Frankie. Stop looking for a fucking happily ever after.” His words were low, feverish, demanding and angry. Her eyes were like a puddle of rainwater shocked by a frayed wire. Electric. Dangerous. Another second passed, and then they exploded.

Anteros gripped her waist, picked her up, and spun her around, slamming her against the wall. In the same instant, Frankie pulled him close, embrace furious and visceral, tearing into his neck. She ravaged his mouth and he returned her kiss ferociously until her head was flat against the wall and she was gasping for air between kisses.

“You think this will make me love you again?” Her words were barely more than pants.

“I don’t give a shit,” he lied, bunching up the fabric of her dress until he exposed her. Dirty and fast, he undid his fly, sliding inside her within seconds.

Perfect. Fucking perfect.

She groaned and dragged nails across his cheek, down to his bicep, watching the lines it made in his skin. He put a steadying hand on the wall and started a fast, ruthless rhythm. It wasn’t going to be easy—he would remind her of what she was losing. Anteros fucked her deep until she cried out in a mixture of agony and ecstasy.

“You won’t leave,” he said with a low laugh. “You’re so goddamn weak for me.” But as Anteros spoke, he knew the words weren’t meant for her. The air stilled and Frankie’s mouth parted, still wet from his kiss. Then she broke the calm with a harsh slap, the collision making a crack against his cheek. Anteros growled, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth, and Frankie wrapped her legs tighter around his waist, yanking at his shirt.

The pictures on the wall rattled as he fucked her. He upped his rhythm, fast and hard, until her breathing turned into sighs. She glared at him the entire time, as if pissed that he was forcing her pleasure.

“I fucking hate you,” she said, but her voice faltered. Anteros laughed and plunged deeper, making her cry out. He drank her reactions like a junkie shooting up for the first time. The way her mouth opened, the way her eyelids fluttered—it all went directly to his bloodstream. It was too fucking poignant because with each moan, he was all too aware of what he was losing.

Frankie’s head fell to his shoulder, biting his neck until air licked at the wet blood. She came with a final cry and Anteros spilled inside her seconds later, hand pushing deep into the wall. His head fell to her neck and he inhaled her, inhaled the moment—the brief, perfect moment. Her fingers gently held the back of his neck and she breathed easily, hot on his skin. He couldn’t help but hope things were repaired. It curled in his chest like a deadly snake, biting him almost instantly.

With a violent thrust, Frankie pushed him off and dropped to the floor.

They separated like atoms, leaving a nuclear combustion in their wake.

“You…” She hastily pulled her stained dress down, tugging it past her thighs. Anger dissipated to reveal the hurt inside her, and he felt the raw wound. She looked away as a tear fell to her cheek. Anteros zipped up his fly, fighting the urge to punch the wall.

“I’m leaving,” Frankie said, voice hoarse. “Don’t try and stop me.” Frankie turned toward the garage and Anteros felt wild. He needed to run and grab her. Throw her over his shoulder. Take her back and put her in a room until she loved him again.

Only minutes before she’d been in his arms, sighing for him, crying out for him. He was probably still spilling down her thighs—but now she was fucking leaving again. What the fuck was happening?

“I could just keep you,” Anteros said to her back. “I don’t fucking need your permission. I don’t have to let you leave.” She spun around, fury on her face.

“You think you own everything,” she spat. “My body. My mind. My life. The power to do whatever the fuck you want with the all of the above.” She folded her arms, pulled her lip between her teeth.

“I don’t think,” Anteros growled, pulling Frankie to him with such severity she had no choice but to grasp his shirt to keep from falling. “I know.” She was so close to his lips and her breath was so sweet against his mouth, all he wanted to do was devour her.

“If you keep me here, I will kill myself,” she said against his lips. “I won’t be captive ever again.”

“What happened to taking them down?” Anteros shoved her back and she stumbled, nearly falling. “To ruling together?”

“You happened,” she retorted and spun away, bare honey shoulders backlit in the pale moonlight. Fuck. He wanted to reach out and smooth his finger down the notches in her spine, feel the flesh rise at his touch.

“You’re right,” Frankie said lowly. “If you want to keep me against my will, you can. I will be your slave, but you’ll be no different than the men who keep women in cages.”

No.

The scream in his chest raged.

He didn’t want her against her will, didn’t want it to be like before. He wanted her—Frankie, the woman he’d been getting to know. He was trapped, destroyed by a lie.

Fuck.

He had no idea what to do. This was what he’d been trying to avoid.

Fuck.

“Go,” he gritted. Before I change my mind. Frankie quickly walked the short distance left to the garage, opened the door, and went down the steps. Each time her foot hit the cement, it made an indent on his heart. As she got closer to the car, more pieces of him tore away. He could practically see the small bits of his soul floating like tissue paper.

When Frankie had her hand on the car door, it was like he could see his world crumbling, collapsing—the earthquake shaking everything, leaving nothing but raze and ruination.

“We’re irrevocable, Frankie.” The words fell from his mouth and she paused, hand still on the car. “You’ve felt the hollowness inside you,” he continued, words a rockslide, dangerous and fast. “You’ve walked around with it, not realizing what it was. You thought it was you, thought it was how you were and that’s how life was—dull, colorless, muted. You resigned yourself to it, to a life of almost and just enough because you didn’t realize you should reach for more—didn’t realize you could reach for more. But that’s not life. That’s the emptiness talking.”

She still hadn’t moved so Anteros went to her, pulling her ass flat against his groin. The stars outside were their only light, illuminating the place into different degrees of shadow. She kept her hand on the door handle.

“I felt it too,” he said, lips brushing the base of her neck. “But when we’re together, it’s not empty. We’re filled. We’re fire. The world isn’t just color, we set the colors on fire—and you know it.” For a brief second she rocked into him, her sigh the loudest sound in the garage—but just as quickly she tore from him, opened the door, and slammed it in his face.

This time Anteros couldn’t watch. He felt dead as he ascended the steps back to the cabin. Faintly, he wondered if he had died. He had no doubt in his mind that he would go to hell—he’d done plenty of terrible things. When the engine faded behind him, he was certain.

He hadn’t reigned in hell.

He’d fallen and been destroyed.

The scream that had been bubbling in his chest finally tore free. A few minutes later he turned and sat on the cement steps, staring out through the open garage, thinking she would drive back. One minute turned into minutes, one hour into hours, and Frankie was gone.

Anteros breathed in the smell of gasoline and night. He should have been angry at Frankie. Anteros should have been at the top already, but she’d thrown a wrench in his plans. Instead, he was angry at himself.

Furious.

He’d lost the one thing he’d never known he’d wanted but now knew was irreplaceable. When Frankie showed up, she boiled his blood and reminded him who he was. The real Beast, not the one he’d been pretending to be when they met. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been the Beast—the real Beast—from the beginning if he ever would have lost her.

* * *

Anteros rolled over, head throbbing, and reached for Frankie, but only grasped fur. He opened his eyes to see empty bottles of alcohol instead of her bare skin. The memory of the previous night washed over him.

The lie.

How she’d left—how he’d made her leave—came back in a rush. Fury at himself, at fucking up the best thing that had ever happened to him, coursed through his veins, overwhelming his hangover. Standing up, he kicked aside bottles. They knocked together, making a hollow echo.

Anteros had never been broken before. Men had tried, his parents had fucking tried—the scars on his body the testimony. Now he wasn’t sure how he was still standing. Bottles surrounded him, and he barely remembered what had happened after she left, but her leaving, that was there. A stain on his soul.

Anteros went to his bedroom and the shirt she’d worn to sleep was on the floor. He picked it up, pressing it to his face as he slid into a chair. It still smelled like her, just fucking Frankie.

At first he wasn’t planning on following her, just had to know she was safe. The car he’d given her had a GPS tracker installed, and he wanted to be assured she’d made it to her destination. As he opened up the application, though, he realized he wasn’t sure where she would go. She wouldn’t return to Lucia’s—she didn’t have anywhere to go. The application said she was at some gas station on the outskirts of New York, and it was then he remembered he hadn’t given her any money either.

Anteros sat in the chair, staring at the unmoving dot for an hour. Either Frankie had run out of gas, or she was in trouble. Either scenario didn’t bode well for her.

“God fucking dammit,” Anteros said to himself. Fuck her love. He should have kept her in a cage. He’d been so worried about losing her, he hadn’t realized setting her free may have cemented her death. He stared at the motionless dot for another two minutes then stood up without thinking twice. Throwing on a pair of jeans, he went to the garage.

After Frankie took the car, that only left the BMW he always kept in the garage for emergencies. He grabbed a black jacket, threw on some leather gloves, hopped on the bike, and pulled out of the garage. It took him a little over an hour to reach where the app had pinned her. It was a shit hole, the only gas station for miles but the actual station was boarded up, the pumps automatic. Anteros steeled himself for the worst—stations like these were abandoned for a reason.

His car was parked next to the side of the building. Pulling off his helmet, he went to inspect. Blood stained the asphalt, a fucked up breadcrumb trail as he made his way to the McLaren. Red smeared the windows, completely obscuring his view. It was a horror show. He gripped the metal roof, stomach roiling. What had happened to her?

Then he heard a groan.

A male groan.

Looking more closely into the car, he saw the source: missing an eye, barely alive, and looking like a complete waste of life. Anteros grabbed him by the collar and tugged him out.

“What have you done with the girl driving this car?” The man only groaned in response. His eye was a garish, oozing mess—disgusting to see, almost more disgusting to smell. “What have you done with her?” Anteros gripped his collar tighter, shoving him against the car.

“That bitch took my eye,” he mumbled. “Fucking cunt.” Frankie had a darkness inside her, but she wasn’t like him. She didn’t kill without reason…yet. She wouldn’t have taken this man’s eye unless she’d been provoked. Keeping his grip on the hideous man’s collar, he examined him, imagined what could have gone down to provoke Frankie to take an eye. Nothing good came to mind.

“What did you do?” Anteros grated.

“Fucking cunt,” the man responded, groggy. He was out of it, in too much pain. Good. Anteros dropped him to the asphalt. A deep part of Anteros wanted to put a bullet through another eye, but the man was in a delirious amount of pain, and that was an even worse punishment. At this abandoned gas station where probably no one would visit, he would slowly waste away.

Still, as Anteros walked back to his car, he stepped on the man’s neck.

* * *

Without a GPS to track, Anteros was completely in the blind. Frankie hadn’t wanted to be followed. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be free. From him.

Fuck. That.

Anteros planned his next move as he watched the one-eyed asshole roll around on the ground in agony. Frankie had no money, meaning she couldn’t get a plane ticket. No money also meant no hotel. She wouldn’t go back to Lucia’s. There was really only one place Frankie could go.

Anteros put his helmet back on, straddled the bike, and pulled onto the freeway, headed toward Jersey. He wove in and out of the few cars on the road, going so fast the air cut into the skin at his neck, and arrived at Antonio Notte’s home quickly. When Anteros arrived, he could see the door ajar from the street. It just got worse as he walked up the cracked, sloping steps.

Fresh drops of blood pelted them like raindrops.

When Anteros stepped inside the house, it was hard not to remember the day that had started everything, when that defiant, beautiful girl had given herself to him—but shit, the place was an absolute mess. Bloody footprints covered the floor, too many to count. Pillows were ripped open, their feathery guts blowing with an unseen breeze. Lamps were smashed, glass shattered in all directions. Anteros immediately headed to Frankie’s room. Her pictures had been torn from the wall, ripped into shreds—but the room was free of blood, at least.

He gripped the frame.

What the fuck had happened?

He heard a creaking behind him and expected—no, hoped—it was Frankie. He turned around, hope shattering.

“Levi Luchessi,” Anteros replied. “I didn’t expect to find you here.” Anteros wasn’t sure what Levi had planned for him and really wasn’t in the mood for this shit; he didn’t have fucking time with Frankie possibly injured.

“We found the bodies of the Wolves in the Hudson.” Levi rolled his shoulders, crisp suit wrinkling, and came closer. “I was worried you’d met the same fate. I’ve been searching high and low for you.” Thanks to Frankie, Anteros knew the truth of Levi, but the man clearly had no idea. Anteros folded his arms, listening, learning.

“I’m fine,” Anteros responded. “As you can see.”

“Yes,” Levi said. “I can.” Strained silence fell between them. Neither said anything about the fact that they were both in Frankie’s house, surrounded by chaos and blood. Neither asked why. They just stared into each other’s eyes—Levi’s narrowed, Anteros’s open and betraying nothing. Anteros never gave away what he knew, he wasn’t about to start now.

“Business is good,” Levi said at last, breaking the silence. “I’ve made a new deal with The Institute that they were more than eager to accept.”

“Good,” Anteros clipped. Anteros didn’t have patience for a chess match. He’d come to Antonio’s for a reason. Pushing past Levi, he continued his exploration.

Every room looked like a tornado had touched down. It had never been a nice place, each time Anteros had visited had been marked with piles of trash and the smell of rot. It had never been this bad, though.

Was Frankie hurt? His chest constricted at the thought. It was so much blood, someone had to have died, but he couldn’t find a body. Levi sidled up next to him.

“Mind if I ask why you’re here?” As much as he wanted to pound Levi’s treacherous face into the dirt until it became muddy, he gave Levi a strained look and continued through the house.

“Research,” Anteros responded, walking into the kitchen. Then he stopped short so quickly Levi slammed into his back. The body of Gabriella De Luca was on the floor. Footprints led from the pool of blood, explaining why there’d been so many. It still didn’t explain what had happened to Frankie, which was all Anteros cared about.

The previously cold tension turned hot. Levi ran into the room, a pained scream erupting from his mouth. He fell to the floor, pulling Gabriella to his chest.

* * *

“Gabby,” Levi said, pulling her closer so blood stained his white dress shirt red. Frankie had said they were together, but now he saw there had been love between them. Deep love.

“I’m so sorry.” Levi tucked her lifeless, lobbing head under his chin. “I should have listened.” He cradled her there, rocking back and forth, knees sinking in a puddle of her blood. Tugging his bottom lip between two fingers, Anteros scanned the rest of the room. No sign of Frankie.

The fuck had gone down?

“You,” Levi growled, voice barely human. “You took everything from me.” Anteros’s head whipped back to Levi.

“Me?”

“My mother. Gabby. You took it all.”

“I didn’t do shit to your mother. I don’t know who the fuck she is,” Anteros said. “And I didn’t do this. I got here minutes before you.” But it was fresh, Anteros thought, noting the blood still pouring out of Gabby. Whatever had happened had gone down just minutes before Anteros arrived. If Frankie had been here, she wasn’t far.

“Tala. Tala was my mother,” Levi raged, holding Gabby to his chest like a doll. “She was taken and sent to The Institute to repay my father’s debt ten years ago.” Anteros paused for a split second after Levi’s explanation then laughed. Levi’s face grew crimson with anger.

“That wasn’t me,” Anteros said, chuckling. “I didn’t have the power to do that ten years ago. I was still climbing my way up from slave. Your beef isn’t with me, Luchessi. You want the Pavonis.” Anteros smirked, remembering what Frankie had said about who Luchessi was working with. “I hear you’re working for one.” He had to give it to Lucia, she was masterful at twisting people. The woman was an absolute architect at manipulation.

Levi screamed, dropping Gabby and lunging for him. Levi swung at him, a few punches actually landing on Anteros’s jaw. He might have been a formidable opponent once, but now he was filled with rage and sorrow. It blinded him, made him sloppy. He expended all his energy on uncalculated throws.

Anteros knew Levi’s life had been tragic, having lost his mother and then been consumed by the world that took her, but Anteros wasn’t sorry, and he wouldn’t show him mercy. Levi made his own decisions and a man had to acknowledge the consequences of his decisions or they’d do it for him. After Frankie left, Anteros finally fucking learned that.

When Levi was heaving and panting, Anteros swung. His fist collided with Levi’s cheek, both Anteros’s knuckles and Levi’s jaw crunching with the impact. Levi stumbled back and Anteros swung again, then again, and again until Levi’s face was a bloody, crumpled mess. He had Levi on the floor, about to punch him into silence and death, when Levi spoke.

“The princess will be a whore soon,” Levi rasped. “Just like my mother.”

“What did you say?” Anteros paused, arm raised and poised to strike.

“Why do you think this house is empty? Why do you think I’m here? Do you really think I could make a deal with The Institute?” Levi laughed through broken, bloody teeth. Eyes swollen shut, he laughed and laughed, like a broken Jack in a Box. “Gabby tried to warn her but Frankie signed her ticket the day she left Lucia. She’s probably on her way there now.” Levi laughed again but ended up choking on his blood. It was a disgusting, gurgling wet noise. Ice filled Anteros’s veins and he looked around the house as if Frankie would pop up any minute.

On her way.

To The Institute.

What he’d been trying to save her from since the very fucking beginning.

Fury, hopelessness, and powerlessness poisoned Anteros’s blood. He gripped Levi by the shirt, lifted his head, then slammed it into the tile. He did this over and over until brain matter spilled out, then Anteros dropped him. Levi’s head fell with a thud next to Gabriella’s, their blood mingling together on the kitchen floor.

Anteros stood back up, shaking out his bruised, bloody fist.

He would find Frankie. The Institute would not be her fate.