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.

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 their 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.