Page 16 of The Beast

A leather sofa in charcoal gray. A bar cart stocked with top-shelf liquor. Floor-to-ceiling screens on one wall, currently dark. Everything sleek and modern and completely lacking in personality.

Home, he’d said? The hell with that. This isn’t the home of the man I’d loved.

Gabriel’s apartment in Manhattan had been a glorious disaster—canvases stacked against every wall, paint-splattered drop cloths covering the furniture only when he remembered, half-finished sketches papering every available surface. The smell of turpentine and linseed oil. The sound of classical music or brutal hard rock playing while he worked. The feeling that here was a space where creativity and passion came to party.

This place has no passion. No creativity. No life at all.

It’s a bunker. Hell, it’s a lair.

There’s no art on the walls. No books, no plants. Not even a magazine or a grocery bag. Absolutely no evidence that anyone actually lives here.

Except—

There’s one photograph, taped to the wall near the dark screens. The paper is crumpled—like someone balled it up, then changed their mind. From where I stand, I can’t tell what it is because the image is hidden by the shadows cast by the crinkles. Still, there’s something about it that feels familiar. I glance toward Gabe, and when he stays perfectly still and silent, I walk toward the wall, curiosity pushing me forward.

It only takes two steps before the shadows shift.

That’s when I see it.

My body tightens, and I suck in a stuttering breath.

Me. David.

Our kiss for the cameras only hours ago.

My stomach twists— I know why the paper’s creased. He crumpled it. Twisted it. Treated it like trash.

And then he taped it to the wall.

I turn toward him, part of me wanting to cry. Part of me wanting to race out of here.

All of me wanting answers.

I thrust a finger at him like an accusation. “You were there. And you just stood in a corner and watched.”

“I wasn’t in the mood to greet old friends.”

A shiver cuts through me. He’d been there. Right there. But he’d never said a word to me.

I want to go to him. To shake him. To ask him to please, please tell me what is wrong with him. Why aren’t I in his arms right now? Hell, why aren’t I in his bed?

Why is he being this way?

But I ask nothing. I’m too scared of the answers.

Instead, I whisper, “You bastard.”

He stays silent, but takes one single step toward me. As he moves, the overhead light catches that scar on his cheek like a warning.

“Now, sweetheart,” he says, and his voice is so cold it makes me shiver. “I think it’s time for you to explain—in excruciating detail—exactly why the fuck you tried to kill me.”