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“Please not now,” I said softly, hands falling to the soft fabric. For a moment it was quiet, but a loud quiet, a quiet filled with questions and demands and needs. I could hear him breathing. I prayed that he wouldn’t press, because I didn’t think I could fight him off. Not physically, but mentally.
God, I want to reach up and grab him again.
“Please,” I said again, even quieter. He removed his hand from me and I turned back. I thought he was listening, that he was going to leave me alone. Then he brought his hand to my cheek.
I flinched.
I was worried that the earlier animalism I’d seen was going to turn on me. His face darkened and in seconds he pinned me flat. I was sure he was going to hurt me; the fire in his eyes was so intense it scorched me. It burned. I closed my eyes to get away from him but I could feel him by the way the bed dipped on either side.
His lips were next to my ear and his voice was hoarse, cruel.
“You still think I’m going to hurt you?” he asked. My breath hitched. “You have no idea what I’m risking to keep you safe.” I kept my eyes closed until I felt the bed give on either side, until the door slammed shut. Even then, I kept my eyes pressed tight.
Eight
The previous night had been an enigma. Anteros had gone to the bedroom with every intent to throw Frankie back in her room and forget the night ever happened but something about the way she sat on his bed, curled up in the tatters of what had been a striking dress, struck him.
At first Frankie had clung to him. It was as if she’d sensed how badly he needed her after seeing Arlo try to despoil her. Then she’d dropped her hold on him, she’d flinched, because Frankie saw him as a monster and would never see him as anything else.
Anteros shook his shoulders out. Fuck it. Frankie had been fucking up his life since day one, and he was going to fix that. Right now. Standing outside the same door he’d kicked down only a week ago, Anteros knocked. Before Frankie, he wouldn’t have given a shit about what someone thought about him. He was the Beast.
The most ruthless.
A monster above all the rest.
Naturally she’d flinched, because that was the reputation he’d built. Anteros knocked again, his fist growing furious as thoughts of last night flooded his mind. Sending Gabriella to Frankie had severely broken protocol, but when he’d watched her on the video monitor, knees to her chest, that forlorn look on her face, it had done something to him. He’d felt something inexplicable and he’d had to do something, so he’d called Giovani and demanded he send over his wife.
Anteros figured he was
already lying to his Wolves, already fucking up the system, so a few more cracks in the foundation were fine.
Anteros knocked again. When there was no answer still, he looked to the rusty car in the driveway and at the window to the left. A light was on. If Antonio Notte wanted to appear like he was not home, he was doing a pretty poor job. Anteros sighed and knocked a final time, though he was already preparing to pick the lock.
He reached into his coat, bringing out the lock picking supplies. He could have knocked the door down, but he didn’t want to scare Notte, not this time. He was there to return something he’d taken before she completely ruined his life—if it was also before she got irrevocably ruined herself, that was just a coincidence.
Anteros stuck the small silver piece in the lock and jimmied, waiting until he heard the click. When it sounded, he pushed the door open. He put the tools back in his pocket, peering inside. The living room was empty but as he put his foot over the threshold, he heard a door slam.
Typical.
Anteros slid his hand back in his pocket, feeling for the lock-picking tools. “Notte,” he called out. No reply. He walked through the house. It looked exactly the same, maybe even worse. More peeling wallpaper. Trash on the ground. He raised a brow at a used condom, trying to picture the woman who would sleep with a man like Antonio Notte.
Anteros arrived at a closed door, making quick work of unlocking it. Notte cowered in the corner of a closet—but wait, was it a bedroom? Small and under the staircase, it appeared to be a closet, but there was a bed jammed inside. Why the fuck was there a bed in a closet? Though the house was small, Anteros had counted two bedrooms. Did Notte have more children than Anteros knew about?
“B-Beast—” Notte stuttered. Anteros threw up a hand, silencing him. He walked farther into the tiny room. One step had him all the way in and he had to duck. The walls were papered with pictures, floor to ceiling. He squinted, making them out. They were obviously cut out of magazines. He reached out touching a wrinkly photo of Times Square during New Years.
“This was her room…” He turned to Notte fiercely. “You stuck her in a closet?” Anteros grabbed Notte by the collar and threw him out of the tiny space. He landed on his back and proceeded to crawl away. Anteros looked from Notte to the crinkly destinations taped to the plaster.
She deserved so much better, but Anteros knew firsthand that there was no choosing your parents.
Anteros bent down, squatting so he was eye to eye with Notte, who still hadn’t stood. “I am going to return Frankie to you.”
“What?” Notte’s eyes widened.
Running a hand through his thick, dark locks, Anteros repeated himself. “And no Pavoni will bother you again. You have my word.”
“No.”
“No?” Anteros looked into the man, wondering what game he was playing. Was he going to try to negotiate for money?
