Page 92 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

Then I meet Isabella's eyes. I see the shock there, the sudden intake of breath. And I'm transported back to the first time I saw Isabella dance. The way her body moved, telling stories without words. The look of pure joy on her face as she pirouetted across the stage. That was the moment I knew I was fucked, that this girl would be my salvation or my downfall.

"Ti amo, ballerina mia," I say the words I've kept locked away for what feels like lifetimes. My voice breaks on "amo," the syllable catching like it's being torn from somewhere deep in my chest. The confession makes my skin burn hot then cold, sweat beading at my hairline despite the cool air. These are words I've been waiting to say, words I couldn't utter with the Greeks lurking around every corner. But now, in this private moment, they finally escape. I watch her pupils dilate at the sound, her lips parting on an inhale she doesn't release. It's not a power play. It's the truth. Complicated and yet so simple. "Torna da me."

The Italian flows off my tongue, natural as breathing. “I love you, my ballerina. Come back to me.” It's a plea, a promise, a fucking prayer all rolled into one.

Isabella's eyes lock with mine over Elena's head. She shifts Elena to her hip, and I catch a glimpse of the mark I left on her neck last night, barely visible above the collar of my hoodie. My brand. My claim. Heat surges through me at the sight, quickly tempered by the reality of our daughter between us.

She leans in close, ostensibly to adjust Elena's hair, but her lips barely brush my ear. "I will," she whispers, sending an electric current down my spine that makes my fingers twitch against hers. Her voice has that particular husk to it, the onethat only appears when she's fighting emotion. "You're mine too, Beast. Both of you. Don't forget it."

The possessiveness in her tone hits me like a physical blow, a rush of heat flooding my veins. My scarred face pulls tight as I swallow hard, caught between the urge to crush her to me and the knowledge that our daughter is watching with those perceptive eyes that miss nothing.

Her free hand finds mine, our fingers intertwining with Elena's small hand sandwiched between. The simple touch grounds me, reminds me of what's at stake.

I brush my thumb across Isabella's knuckles, remembering how her skin felt against mine just hours ago. "Come back to us," I repeat, my voice low and rough, mindful of Elena's presence. "Or I'll tear the world apart to bring you home."

It's not just a threat. It's a promise written in my blood, etched into every scar that maps my body. My hand tightens around hers, fingers interlacing so completely it's hard to tell where I end and she begins. The Beast inside me—the one I've spent years feeding with rage and vengeance—growls in agreement, but not for destruction's sake. For protection. For preservation of what's mine. What's ours.

Elena looks between us, her little brow furrowed. "Together soon?" she asks, her voice small but hopeful. A strand of her hair has caught on her damp cheek, and I brush it away gently, my calloused thumb grazing skin as soft as petals.

"Yes, principessa," I assure her, even as my heart clenches. The clock on the wall ticks mercilessly forward, each second bringing us closer to their departure. "Together soon."

Chapter fifty-five

Isabella

TheItaliancountrysideblurspast like a choreography I've watched a hundred times but never performed. My eyes are fixed on Antonio instead. On the precise way his hands grip the steering wheel, the tension in his forearms, the now-familiar topography of his scars catching the late afternoon light. His other hand rests heavy on my thigh, a paradox that sends heat radiating through my body despite the ice lodged in my chest. A claiming. An anchor. A reminder.

My heartbeat performs that dangerous stutter-skip I know too well. Not SVT this time, but something equally overwhelming. I press two fingers against my pulse point, counting beats like my cardiologist taught me. One-two-three-four. Steady. Breathe.

It's broken, this heart of mine. Not medically this time, but emotionally. The shards of it sit jagged in my throat as the reality sinks in: I'm leaving. Actually leaving.

I almost laugh at the bitter irony. If someone had told me three months ago—while I paced that moldy prison of a room, while I counted the salt crystals on my window, while I plotted every possible escape—that leaving this fortress would feel like losing a limb, I would've thought they were higher on drugs than I was during chemo.

Yet here I am, feeling like I'm abandoning a part of myself. Leaving Elena, who taught me joy could exist even within stone walls. Leaving the fragments of trust I've painstakingly rebuilt with the man beside me. Leaving the woman I've become. Not just a cancer survivor, not just a former ballerina, but someone with steel in her spine who stared down the Beast and found the man beneath.

My fingers trace the nearly invisible scar on my collarbone absently, a ritual from hospital days. I can't help but wonder: if our positions had been reversed, would I have believed Antonio? If I'd watched him laughing, seemingly carefree and oblivious, while my mother plotted our escape? If I'd discovered he'd said something—anything—to his father about that meeting? Would I have condemned him, too?

"You're too quiet," Antonio says, his voice cutting through my thoughts. "What's going on behind those eyes, Bell'cenda?"

I glance at him, then back at the road ahead. "Just... thinking about perspective. About how we see what we want to see." I shift in my seat, fabric catching against my skin where years-old surgical scars still occasionally protest. "You saw me dancing, living in this protected bubble. You saw your mother whispering with me. You knew I said something to my father that I shouldn't have."

His jaw clenches, that muscle ticking in his cheek. "Isabella—"

"No, let me finish." I place my hand over his on my thigh, feeling the scars there, too—a matched set, both of us mapped by survival. "In my nightmares, when I was going throughtreatment, I would see another reality. One where my father actually went through with the auction, where I ended up with Henrik when I turned eighteen. What would I have done to escape that? How far would I have gone?"

The look he gives me is raw, stripped of the Beast's armor. Just Antonio, with all his broken, jagged edges exposed.

"It doesn't excuse what you did," I continue, my voice barely above a whisper. "The isolation, the cruelty. Those scars run deeper than the ones from cancer. But I understand why you thought what you did."

He brings my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. I can feel his stubble against my skin, the heat of his mouth, the slight tremor in his grip that no one else would notice. I've learned to read his body like sheet music, each tension and release a note in our complicated song.

My focus narrows as Antonio turns into the airport entrance. I straighten my spine automatically—first position, shoulders back, chin lifted. Muscle memory from a thousand performances, from facing down doctors with grim expressions, from surviving the unimaginable.

Franco stands near the private terminal, his stance wider than usual, more alert. The Greeks flank him like sentinels. But there's someone else. A stranger whose presence makes me tilt my head, trying to place his familiar-unfamiliar face. My dancer's eye catches details: the way he stands with weight evenly distributed, how his gaze continuously scans, the subtle bulge of a weapon under his jacket.

"Who's that with Franco?" I ask, my fingernails digging crescents into my palm.

Antonio's eyes widen slightly, a flash of surprise before his expression settles. "That's Manuel," he says, relief and respect coloring his tone. "I wasn't sure he'd make it. Ex-special forces, specializes in extraction and crisis management. He's been offthe grid for years, working deep cover. He and Franco go way back."

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