Page 46 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

My blood is on the floor between us now, a stark reminder of the violence that lives in my veins. I search her eyes, looking for aglimmer of what we were before flames and betrayal rewrote our story, knowing I deserve nothing but her scorn.

She doesn't move away when I reach for her, my bloodied hand hovering near her face without touching. The heat between us has nothing to do with the fire crackling in the hearth and everything to do with the spark that's never died, no matter how hard I tried to drown it in hatred.

"This is my burden to bear," I tell her, each word carved from the darkness I've embraced. "To live with what I've done to the one person I would have burned the world to protect."

I let my hand drop, forcing my walls back into place. The Beast doesn't get redemption. The Beast doesn't get second chances.

But maybe, he can still save her.

Even if it means sacrificing whatever's left of his soul.

Chapter twenty-five

Isabella

Mythoughts,mystomach,my heart? they're all tangled like headphone wires left in a pocket too long. Jumbled. Knotted. Completely and utterly screwed.

Because what do you say when your jailer suddenly becomes human? What do you do when the Beast shows you the boy he once was? This was supposed to be another insufferable practice dinner before meeting the Greeks—not... whatever this confession has become.

My throat tightens as Antonio's words replay in my mind: his brother's murder, his desperate need for protection, and underneath it all, that guilty pulse that has its own heartbeat. I'm not sure he can hear it, but it's deafening to me—like those hospital monitors that beep faster before something goes terribly wrong.

I trace the rim of my wine glass, muscle memory from ballet making the movement precise despite my inner chaos. The coolglass grounds me when nothing else can. I force myself to look at him—really look at the man who tore me apart and somehow still makes my skin remember his touch.

His hair is slightly disheveled, like he's been dragging his fingers through it—that nervous habit he's had since before the fire carved his fate into his face. Those scars catch the candlelight, turning silver then shadow as he shifts. My fingers twitch with the phantom urge to trace them, to learn their texture the way I once mapped his unmarked skin.

His jaw is tight enough to crack teeth, muscles working beneath olive skin that I once tasted—honeyed and salt-sweet. The tension radiates from his shoulders like heat from pavement in August. Every line of his body tells a story of restraint, of leashed power barely contained.

But it's his eyes that hold me prisoner. They're focused on me with an intensity that makes my pulse skip-stutter in that dangerous way my cardiologist warned about. He's willing me to understand, to believe him, to give him what he's never earned: my trust.

And yet...

I exhale slowly, steadying myself against the tide of whatever this is.

A sharp voice in the back of my mind—the one that kept me alive through chemo, through heartbreak, through betrayal—reminds me exactly who he is. The man who touched my scars like they were beautiful, then locked me away in darkness. The Beast who claimed my body with reverent hands, then shattered my heart with calculated cruelty.

What if this story is just another layer of manipulation? Another way to ensure I play my part with the Greeks? What if they could help me escape this gilded nightmare? Help Naomi? Help me find a way back to something resembling freedom?

The bitter taste of betrayal coats my tongue like those metallic chemo drugs. The memories rise unbidden—how I spent ninety-four days counting stone cracks on a ceiling while he went on with his life. How I learned to sleep with one eye open and a shard under my mattress. How foolish I was to believe, even for one night, that he saw me as anything but a pawn.

Something must show on my face because a shadow crosses his expression, darkening those eyes to midnight.

"You don't believe me." He lifts a shoulder in that way that still makes my stomach flip despite everything. "I deserve that. But it's true." His voice drops lower, sliding under my skin like the bass line of a song you can't forget. "This is why I wanted to believe your father when he talked about building me up, about protection, about making sure nothing—and I say nothing—happens to my family ever again."

The cracks in his controlled voice mirror the fissures in the fortress walls—visible only if you know where to look, but no less real for their subtlety. "I lost my mother, myself... and I lost you."

Those last three words hit like a sucker punch, stealing my breath. I lost you. As if he ever had me. As if I was ever his to lose. As if he hadn't thrown me away himself.

The door swings open before I can respond, and Franco strides in, his eyes jumping between us like he's watching a particularly tense tennis match. He freezes mid-step, clearly reading the electricity crackling in the air.

"You told her?" His surprise sounds genuine, like Antonio sharing anything real is rarer than remission after stage four.

"I did," Antonio replies, his eyes still burning into mine like he's trying to sear his truth onto my soul.

"I think it was important," Franco adds, his words slicing through the tension.

I study his face, searching for the tells that would expose this as another choreographed performance. Franco knew about Antonio's plans for me before. He helped execute my exile. Trust is a luxury I can't afford anymore—not with anyone except Naomi, Elena, and the reflection staring back at me in mirror shards.

Cerberus chooses this exact moment to burst through the door, racing toward me like I'm a steak dinner after a month-long fast. His enthusiastic greeting is the only uncomplicated thing in this room. This dog doesn't manipulate or calculate. He just loves without condition. Unlike his master.

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