Page 61 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

"Stay back," I growl at Isabella, whose eyes mirror the same fear I refuse to acknowledge in myself. When she doesn't move away from the door fast enough, I lower my voice to somethingdarker. "You need to stay back. I can't worry about you both at once."

Her eyes widen slightly, but she doesn't argue. Doesn't scurry away like she should. That stubborn spine of hers stays straight as a blade.

"If there's danger waiting for us," I continue, "get Elena and run. Run to Franco. Don't go back to the Greeks. Not right now."

She nods, a silent agreement that sends something unfamiliar rippling through my chest. Trust? Impossible. But here we are, standing together before whatever waits on the other side of this door.

I kick it open, wood splintering under my boot. Elena's piercing scream cuts through me sharper than Henrik's poisoned blade ever could. The hairs on my neck rise as my eyes adjust to the darkness, the faint glow of the night lamp casting shadows that turn everything sinister.

Where the hell is Cerberus? Is that him whining, or just the blood rushing in my ears?

My heart doesn't just stop—it lodges in my fucking throat, choking me with a fear I haven't allowed myself to feel since flames remade my face. Because there she is—my little girl—launching herself off the bed and sprinting toward us like she's being chased by demons I know all too well.

"Papa!" she cries, her little arms wrapping around my legs.

I should move. Should check the room, secure the perimeter, do what I've been trained to do. But I'm frozen, my body betraying me as something unfamiliar crashes through my defenses. It's not the strength of her hug that knocks the wind out of me. It's her trust in me. Her absolute certainty that I can make this—whatever this is—better.

She reaches for Isabella with her other hand, clinging to us both like we're her lifeline in a storm. "Papa!" she sobs, words spilling out in a jumbled mess of Italian and English. Somethingabout monsters coming to steal us away. About us disappearing like her mama did.

Cerberus appears from beneath the bed, padding over with his tail between his legs, whimpering like he's failed his only job. Like he knows exactly what haunts my daughter's dreams.

Isabella doesn't hesitate. She sinks to the floor right there, her formal dress pooling around her like she doesn't give a damn about the thousands it cost. Like nothing matters except the child trembling between us. She gestures for me to do the same, her eyes holding a challenge I'm not sure I can meet.

The Beast doesn't kneel. The Beast doesn't comfort. The Beast destroys threats. It doesn't soothe fears away with gentle hands.

But for Elena, I find myself lowering to the floor, my muscles protesting after the strain of today's events.

Isabella leans in, her honeysuckle scent hitting me like a drug I've been fighting to quit. "Tell her in Italian that sometimes nightmares can feel so scary," she whispers. "You need to show her you understand."

I almost laugh at that—a harsh, bitter sound that tastes like ash in my mouth. "Oh, I understand," I rasp out, voice rough with an emotion I refuse to name. Because I've got my own brand of nightmares. The kind that feature my mother's blood on marble floors, Isabella's face as she watched me burn, Elena taken from me like everything else I've ever dared to care about.

But none of that helps my daughter right now.

"Amore mio," I murmur, the words feeling foreign on my tongue. When was the last time I called anyone that? "Papa è qui. Bella è qui. Siamo qui con te."

I tell her that I know nightmares are terrifying. That being scared doesn't make her weak. The words come out stilted at first, then smoother, like a rusty machine remembering how to function.

Isabella's hand finds mine where it rests on Elena's back. Her fingers slide between mine, warm and steady, a silent promise that we're in this together. My first instinct is to pull away—to reject this unexpected alliance—but Elena's sobs have quieted, her breathing evening out as she looks between us.

"It's okay, Elena," Isabella soothes, her voice carrying a gentleness I forgot could exist in our world. "You're safe right now. We're here, and it's okay to be scared, but know that this was just a nightmare."

She doesn't tell her the truth: that this world—our world—is dangerous. That there's a reason security surrounds this fortress like a second skin. I've let people go. Trackers who worked for me to craft new identities, to disappear entirely. But for us, there's no escaping what we are. What I am. The Beast can't simply walk away from the kingdom he's built from ashes and blood.

Elena's sobs gradually subside, her little body relaxing between us. She looks up with those trusting eyes—my mother's eyes—and something inside me shifts. Not dramatically, not all at once, but like tectonic plates beneath the surface, realigning slowly yet inexorably. Because this right here...

This matters. In a way the empire, the revenge, the blood feud…none of it compares.

For a moment, I allow myself to imagine a different life. One where I'm not the Beast, where Isabella isn't my prisoner-wife, where we're just a family comforting our child after a nightmare.

The fantasy burns like acid, because it can never be. Not with the blood on my hands. Not with the hatred I've cultivated like a precious vine. Not with the truths still buried between us.

But as Elena's breathing deepens into sleep, her small hand still clutching Isabella's, I make a silent vow. I will be better than the monsters in her nightmares. Better than her grandfather, who sacrificed his own daughter on the altar of power. Betterthan I've been these past months, consumed by vengeance at the cost of everything else.

"She's asleep," Isabella whispers, her voice cutting through my thoughts. She doesn't move away, doesn't try to extract her hand from mine. Instead, she meets my gaze with a question I'm not ready to answer.

"I'll carry her to our room," I say, the words escaping before I can analyze them.Ourroom. Like we share more than walls and broken promises. "She shouldn't be alone tonight."

Isabella's eyes widen slightly, but she nods. "I'll bring Cerberus."

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