Page 34 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

"Okay. But... could my father trust you?" I lean forward. "I can picture him putting tracking devices on the cars, bugging phones, reading mail." The truth about our reality still feels like acid burning through the fairy tale I once believed. "The father I knew turned out to be a villain, not a hero. He put me up for auction, for crying out loud. Not exactly Father of the Year." I take a sharp breath, forcing down the rage that threatens to overflow. "Who does my father really trust? If he thought your mother was leaving... if he had been reading the letters we exchanged, he knew I was starting to ask questions..."

"You?" Antonio raises an eyebrow, disbelief etched in every line of his face.

"Why do you think I feel so guilty about what happened?" I snap, the words scraping my throat raw. "You may recall me mentioning I didn't know who my father really was."

"You didn't want to see," Antonio doesn't mutter. There's a river of blame running under his words, threatening to drown me.

"Sure. Whatever. Potato. Potahto." I cross my arms, armor against the accusations I've been hurling at myself for years.

Dean glances from me to Antonio like he's watching a tennis match, but one where the players might pull out knives at any second. Not many people go toe-to-toe with the Beast of Naples, but then again, most people don't share our particular brand of toxic history. I refuse to shrink under Antonio's glare. I've spent enough time cowering in that forgotten wing.

"The point is," I say, my voice steadier than my pulse, "I was asking your mother questions about my own mom. I wrote to her like she was the only friend I could confide in." I lift a shoulder in that casual shrug I perfected during treatments, the one that says 'this doesn't hurt as much as it does.' "Back then, I didn't think Naomi knew anything about the underbelly of our world."

I pause, gathering fragments of memories that feel like holding broken glass. "Your mom never wrote 'your father is a mafia boss' in a letter, but she guided me, asking questions about my childhood, my memories." I wince, feeling the familiar tightness in my throat. "She asked about my mother. If I remembered her favorite song, her favorite book..." My voice threatens to crack. "Her favorite flower."

Suddenly I'm eight years old again, watching Mom arrange peonies and roses in our sun-drenched living room. The scent of lavender and her vanilla perfume mingles in the air as Chopin plays softly in the background. "Mom, mom. Dance with me," I'd called, and after watching me for a moment, she joined, both of us twirling faster and faster until we collapsed onto the polished hardwood floor, laughing until we snorted. I can still feel her hand in mine: soft, secure, loving.

It's been forever since I've let myself remember that. It used to feel like ripping open a wound that would never heal, but now? Now the memory makes me want to cry and smile simultaneously. Like I told Elena, my mother lives on in me. She lives in how I care for others, even in the flowers she planted outside our Chicago home.

Dean tilts his head now, like he's tuning into a frequency only he can hear. "Simona had me looking into florists about three months before she died. She used to order peonies."

"Those were my mom's favorites," I murmur, something cold sliding down my spine. "Where did she put them? I never saw any in the house."

"I'm not sure. Your father's office, maybe. And in the bedrooms." Dean shifts his weight, discomfort etched into the lines around his eyes. "And a month before that, there had been a big argument." He gives me a careful look. "The auction and tournament wasn't a new idea."

His words float in the air between us, and I don't want to catch them. Don't want to understand. I remember how my father presented the auction, as my duty, my way to be useful after disappointing him with my illness. I remember how he made me feel guilty for my treatments, for not being the ballerina princess he once showcased, for what he saw as my failure to be the perfect Moretti daughter.

"What do you mean?" Antonio's voice isn't calm anymore. It's thunder before lightning strikes.

"He told Simona he was planning to organize it as soon as Isabella turned eighteen," Dean says slowly. "And he wanted Henrik to win."

A dull numbness washes over me like the moment before they inject the contrast dye for PET scans, that moment when you know something unpleasant is about to happen but you can't stop it. This can't be true. It just can't.

"He said..." Dean hesitates, and I strain to hear, the world narrowing to just his voice. "He said a virgin like her could rack in millions and influence."

"He said what?" The words scrape out of my throat like they're made of broken glass. Antonio roars something, slamming his fist onto the table, and Dean murmurs something apologetic,but it's all muffled by the static in my head and the hollow pit forming in my stomach. My lungs forget how to function and my heart plummets along with any fragile hope I'd been clinging to, that somewhere, deep down, my father had loved me. Even a little.

I blink rapidly, determined not to cry, but my throat constricts like there's invisible hands squeezing it. The truth hits me with the force of a truck: not only does Antonio hate me, but my father never loved me. Never cared for me. I was never his princess ballerina, just another asset to be traded when the time was right.

As the realization sinks in, emptiness spreads through my chest like cancer once did. Everything's always been a lie.

Has there been any truth in my life at all?

Chapter eighteen

Antonio

That'swhymymotherwanted her gone. That's why she planned the escape.

There was a fucking deadline.

It wasn't just about me. It was about Isabella too. The realization hits like Henrik's blade, twisting deeper than any physical wound could reach.

Rage coils in my gut like a viper ready to strike. Dean was there for all of it. He saw everything, knew everything. Of course, the bastard only cares about his own skin, his own place in our world, but how could he let that happen to the daughter of the woman her father claimed to love?

Love.

Is he even capable of it?

---