Page 60 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

Myfingerhoversoverthe play button, and I wish I'd had the courage to grab the phone and tell them I need to listen to this alone. But my voice would have cracked, and there's no way I'm shattering in front of them. Not after everything. Naomi shoots me that look—the one that carried me through chemo and midnight fevers—and Antonio's hand rests on my thigh like a brand, his fingers digging into my skin with an urgency that makes it hard to breathe.

I inhale deeply, his scent both grounding me and threatening to drown me in memories. Memories of a time when I thought I knew who I was, when I believed in fairy tales with dark princes and happy endings.

Static crackles, and then—God, there she is.

My mother.

My chest tightens like during those SVT episodes, my pulse performing its own dangerous choreography. Her face—thinnerthan I remember, ashen where it once glowed—fills the screen. But she's smiling through tears, and her eyes mirror mine in a way that makes my throat close.

"Hi my love," she says, and it's like being transported back to those ballet shoes she bought me, to her hands braiding my hair before recitals. "I'm so happy you're no longer in the hospital and you're in remission. I'm so happy we may find each other again. It's been so hard to be away from you."

I have to pause, my finger trembling against the screen. The sob building in my chest threatens to break free, but I swallow it down like those pills that were too big, that scraped my throat raw. I count beats like my cardio nurse taught me—inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Control. I need control.

Because I know what she's about to say. I know she couldn't reach me. These people…these shadows who claim to know what's best—kept her in another kind of prison while I danced alone.

I start the video again, bracing myself and inhaling deeply..

"I thought about kidnapping you in the night," my mother continues, her voice barely above a whisper. It sounds like ballerina slippers against hardwood, like memories I've tried to preserve in the vault of my mind during endless hospital stays.

"I thought about sending you messages," she says. "When Antonio's mother arrived in the mansion..."

Antonio's grip loosens for a heartbeat before tightening again, his fingers claiming territory on my thigh. I can feel his gaze burning into the screen, waiting with the same desperate intensity that's clawing beneath my ribs.

"I thought... I thought maybe now we would have found a way. But we didn't. She didn't realize the full extent of your father's hatred for me." My mother's words dissolve into coughing—harsh, rattling sounds that make me want to reach through thescreen and steady her, hold her like she once held me after failed arabesques.

Someone asks if she's okay, their voice distant and muffled. Is it Alexandros? Who's watching over her? This doesn't look like a hospital room. If they'd taken her to a real doctor—one like mine, who fought for every inch of my life—would they have different answers? Would she have a chance?

"Your father hated me since I fell in love with...." Her voice trails off, and she can't seem to force out the name.

Naomi's breath catches beside me, a sharp sound in the stillness. She leans back like she's bracing for impact, like another revelation might bring the walls crashing down around us.

"He kept him next to him—he never knew your father found out about us. He was waiting for the moment to strike back. I heard he did. And I'm sorry." She dissolves into another coughing fit, worse than before, and my lungs forget how to work. I'm back in that hospital bed, monitors screaming as my heart raced out of control, nurses with paddles standing by "just in case."

Panic wraps around my throat like barbed wire. What if she's already gone? What if I've been dancing through stone hallways while she slipped away? What if I'm too late to tell her everything I've been carrying through cancer and captivity and this twisted marriage?

"I know you have questions. And maybe I'm being selfish by asking this of Alexandros, Stefanos and Nikos as my last wish. But seeing you would make me go in peace. I love you, my ballerina love."

My throat burns like chemo, hot and caustic, as my lip quivers like a dancer's leg after too many fouettés. I'm back on stage at Juilliard auditions, trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline, waiting for the music to fade.

Suddenly, a high-pitched scream tears through the air—"Papa!!! Papa...!!"

Antonio and I leap to our feet in perfect synchronization, our hands reaching for each other like during that moment before his men burst into the church at our wedding. For a heartbeat, our fingers intertwine—his palm warm and solid against mine—before I drop his hand like it's the shard I once pressed against his throat.

We move together toward Elena's voice, our steps falling into a rhythm we shouldn't remember after everything that's burned between us. Behind us, chairs scrape against hardwood as everyone stands, their faces etched with the same fear that's coiled in my stomach.

The memories of gunshots and red roses linger like ghosts, haunting every rapid breath.

I don't know if it's a nightmare gripping Elena or something darker, something deadlier. But the uncertainty is worse than any diagnosis I've ever faced, because this time, it's not just my life hanging in the balance.

Chapter thirty-six

Antonio

Mymindisafucking whirlwind of worst-case scenarios, each one more brutal than the last. The Beast paces beneath my skin, ready to tear apart anyone who might have touched my daughter. Because if some bastard even dared to lay a finger on Elena, to make her feel a shred of fear...

I'd make their death last for days.

With each step, possibilities slam into me like bullets. Images I've seen firsthand in our world, now with Elena's face superimposed. I've checked and double-checked security, assigned my most loyal men, implemented protocols that should be fucking ironclad. But Moretti got to us once before, on my wedding day. He's capable of reaching through any wall I build.

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