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Against the wall, I watched Anteros get to work. It always mesmerized me watching him, bloodthirsty but calculated, a level fury. I pitied anyone who got in his way.
Anteros took his time with Nikolai, and I got lost watching him. Bloody hands, sweaty hair clinging to his forehead—this was the Anteros I’d come to know as we’d built our empire. I rubbed the back of my neck as my tongue darted out to lick my lips. I hadn’t thought it was possible to love him or need him more, but then I’d watched him kill and we’d killed together.
And I realized there was no end to how much my soul would tear for him.
“I never told you the story of your parents, Nikolai.” Anteros took a seat, wiping his bloody hands on a rag. Nikolai was a mess, barely alive, but he was conscious and cognizant. There was no terror in his eyes, but there was a brokenness to him. All the time I’d known Nikolai, this was the first I’d finally seen him fightless.
“Your mother cried,” Anteros continued. “Your father tried to save everyone, but he was the easiest to take down.” Anteros stood up and walked closer to Nikolai. He was so close, his words so low, I almost didn’t hear what he said next. “Men like us, we know there are fates worse than death. You never should have run, Nikolai. You could have died that day with Lucia and Crazy A and been spared the truth.” A flicker of fear flashed across Nikolai’s face. “The truth is, I never killed your baby sister.”
Nikolai started screaming and moaning. It sounded like he was trying to say words, but Anteros had removed his tongue. The sound was inhuman, blood
-curdling.
“She’s alive. It’s been…” Anteros pretended to count on his fingers. “Eleven years. She’s almost a teenager. Little Nadia is nearly ready for The Institute.” Nikolai’s eyes grew even wider in horror, his unintelligible words more frantic.
I watched the exchange, arms folded, betraying nothing. I knew Anteros was lying. Finally, after everything Anteros and I had endured, there were no lies between us. Our souls were so naked it hurt at times, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Anteros was just using Nikolai’s deepest pain against him, so his death would be as agonizing as possible. After what Lucia had done to me, after what I’d seen and learned in that box and at Lucia’s “club”, I couldn’t willingly work with sex slavers. We weren’t perfect people—we weren’t even good people—but I wasn’t going to do that. Some days I even still thought about Leanna and what may have happened to her, but it was one thing to cancel a contract with The Institute, another entirely to go against them.
I would never have to see Dr. Wyatt again. Good thing, too, because if I ever saw his aging, date rape, frat boy face again, I’d put a bullet in it.
With a final pat on the shoulder, Anteros stood up and walked away from Nikolai. The screams grew louder, but we ignored him as we shut the door behind us. He would scream until he died, his punishment knowing that he was going to die and couldn’t do a thing to help the sister he thought was still alive.
Anteros and I walked out onto the balcony, his arms the only barrier I needed against the bitter wind. It was only two minutes from the New Year and the excitement from the crowd was a buzz in the air.
“Do you really believe that?” I asked, putting my chin to his chest. “That the truth is worse than death?”
“No.” He put a hand to the small of my back, pulling me closer. “But a lie can be, and I just told Nikolai a lie that will destroy him more than any weapon could.” I twisted into the embrace, his words touching my marrow. Lies had destroyed Anteros and me more times than I cared to count.
Lies about our past, lies about our present, lies about who we were and what we wanted to be—so many lies that we turned our very souls into liars. It wasn’t until I met Anteros that I realized just how much I’d been lying to myself.
I looked up, but he was already looking at me. His eyes said he was thinking the same thing.
“What would you like to do with him, mio cuore?” Anteros caressed my hair, scalp to lower back.
“I know what he means to you—you decide.”
“We’re in this together,” he responded simply. I thought about it, really thought about it. Over the past year, Anteros and I had grown the business. We weren’t Pavonis, we weren’t Sokolovs, we were just us, growing our kingdom in the underworld together.
That meant there were a lot of people trying to vie for top dog, nipping at our heels.
“I think we should cut him up and send the pieces to all the people who’ve tried to rise past us.”
He grinned wickedly then dipped his head to rumble against my ear, “I think that’s a brilliant idea, mio cuore.” Slowly he lifted his lips from my ear, his deep, rumbling voice vibrating in my blood. Our eyes locked and I gripped his shirt, lifting myself to kiss him just as the sound of thousands of people counting down drifted up. Mouths separated by a heated breath, I turned to watch the ball’s descent, marking the start of another new year.
Once upon a time, Nikolai had said I would have to rebirth myself. In the very beginning, Anteros told me Frankie Notte was dead. At the time, both of those realities were horrifying, but that was because I hadn’t understood that Frankie Notte was already dead and if I hadn’t met Anteros, I would have lived in my coffin forever.
The ball dropped, confetti fell, and I looked back at my Beast, the animal that tore me apart so I could see who I really was. As the cheering grew to a deafening roar, we closed the thread of space between us, lips fusing for another mind-bending kiss. Our beginning was bloody and ruinous, and at the time I hadn’t understood how love could be so hateful. Now it was loud and clear as the cheering in my ears.
We’d destroyed each other, so together we could rise from the ashes.
* * *
THE END.
