Page 56 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

Antonio must see the desperate need for answers written across my face because something in his expression shifts. It's just a slight relaxation, a barely perceptible nod, but in that moment, a flicker of understanding passes between us. The Beast knows I need this truth like I once needed air during those endless nights in the hospital.

His hand finds mine, and the contrast surprises me—rough calluses against my dancer's palm, but the touch is gentler than I expected. His fingers intertwine with mine in a gesture that feels both possessive and oddly comforting.

"Come, next to Naomi," he whispers, his breath warm against my ear, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine despite everything. "Let's forget the sitting plan."

A small, fleeting smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it. The sitting plan—like all our carefully constructed walls and strategies—seems to have been tossed out the window into the roaring Mediterranean. The irony isn't lost on me.

As we move around the table, I catch the Greek brothers watching us with varying degrees of interest. Stefanos leans back, eyes calculating our every move like he's measuring the shifting power dynamics. Nikos seems almost amused, that slight smirk playing at the corners of his mouth reminding meof predators who enjoy watching their prey squirm. The food that had been my shield earlier now sits abandoned in the dim light, plates of half-eaten delicacies that suddenly seem as meaningless as my father's promises.

When I approach Antonio's vacated seat, Naomi's eyes track my every movement. I'm surprised she hasn't launched herself across the table—the old Naomi would have been already holding me, promises of revenge spilling from her lips. But Connor's hand grips her thigh beneath the table, and his usually teasing eyes have gone hard as stone. He whispers something to her, his expression intense.

"Don't worry. I won't put your precious Gràidh in danger," she replies, loud enough for me to hear, the Irish endearment sounding strange on her tongue. Then she pulls me into a hug that smells like home—that familiar mix of her vanilla perfume and the lavender shampoo she's used since we were teenagers. For one precious moment, my chest loosens enough to breathe. Really breathe. Not the shallow gasps that have sustained me since Alexandros dropped his bomb about my mother.

As I settle into the chair, Antonio positions himself closer—so close his thigh presses against mine beneath the table. Is he trying to be my shield against the Greek brothers, or is he making sure I don't bolt from whatever truths are about to be revealed? Either way, I'm grateful for Naomi's proximity, for the tether she provides to a life before all this madness.

She was there after my mother disappeared—her tears mixing with mine as I sobbed myself to sleep night after night. She was there at the showcase three weeks later when I danced until my feet bled, pushing through the pain because my mother had always said she admired my dedication. She was there when I threw myself into rehearsals, using dance as both escape and memorial.

Connor leans in toward Naomi, his Irish accent thicker with emotion. "If it were that easy, love." There's a tenderness in his voice that catches me off guard, and judging by the way Naomi worries her lower lip—that nervous habit she's had since childhood—it surprises her too. But then she gives that familiar little head shake, the one that dismisses thoughts she doesn't want to entertain.

"I can't believe it," she whispers, her voice tight with worry that mirrors the knot in my own stomach.

"You and me both," I murmur into her shoulder, the familiar scent of her grounding me as the room threatens to spin.

When I pull back, I find Antonio watching us, his face a study in carefully controlled devastation. The hope he might have harbored about his mother has been crushed anew, reopening wounds that never properly healed. His jaw is clenched so tightly the muscle jumps beneath his scarred skin, shoulders tensed like before a fight. I can almost feel the waves of pain radiating from him, familiar as my own grief.

Alexandros clears his throat, breaking the heavy silence. He's been patient, but now he's waiting for us to collect ourselves. Doesn't he understand that while I'm desperate for this story, I'm also terrified of what I'll learn? It's like being back in that sterile room, waiting for scan results. Needing to know but dreading the answers all at once.

My eyes keep darting to the door, half-expecting my mother to twirl through it like she used to after successful gallery showings, her laugh echoing off the walls, arms spread wide to envelop me in a hug that smelled of paint and expensive perfume. But this isn't some movie where the dead come back with a clever plot twist. This is my reality—a world where my mother never left whatever grave my father put her in, where Antonio's heart shattered beyond repair, and where hope feels more like torture than comfort.

I grip the soft fabric of my dress, bunching it between my fingers like I used to clutch hospital sheets during bad nights. The seconds stretch like hours as Alexandros takes a deliberate sip of his wine, the ruby liquid clinging to his lips like blood, or is that just my imagination turning everything sinister?

Then, with a heavy sigh that seems to carry the weight of secrets too long kept, he begins to speak.

Chapter thirty-two

Antonio

IwatchIsabellaleanforward,eyes lit with that fragile hope that twists my insides worse than any punch I've taken in the ring. In our world, hope's a fucking liability—something to exploit, to crush, to destroy. And yet, seeing it flicker across her face now, I want to shield it like it's made of glass. Protect it. Keep it burning.

The irony doesn't escape me. I'm the same bastard who tried to snuff out that light with my own hands. Remembering the hurt carving her features, the pain I carved there myself. It makes me want to tear my own skin off, piece by fucking piece.

If these Greeks hurt her, if they feed her lies, if they crush that hope I've spent months trying to break; they'll need another fucking Iliad to chronicle what I'll do to them. I force myself to stay still, twirling my wine glass, letting the liquid burn down my throat. Always fucking pretending.

Alexandros finally starts, his voice carrying like a death sentence. "Your mother, Isabella, had allies in our world. Not that she belonged to us. It's that we belonged to her in a way. One for all. All for one. That's the motto of her family, too."

"Great. You read the three musketeers." My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth. "What exactly does that mean? She married her father." My fingers drum against the table, matching the thunder in my chest.

"Tonio," Isabella whispers, her hand brushing mine, touch light as a fucking ghost and gone just as quick. It sparks something I shouldn't want, a warmth in the cold void I've been drowning in. I hate myself for craving more. For not deserving it.

Alexandros continues despite my glare burning holes through him. I don't like how he looks at my wife—like she's prey, something to consume. It's a hunger I know too well, and my blood rushes hot, fingers itching to remodel his face with my fists.

"We kept tabs on her. Made sure she was safe as he climbed through the ranks. His reputation changed. Becoming more violent. More about him than his men." Alexandros pauses, just a heartbeat. "Your mother reached out to us with one single word in Greek. And we knew. We knew he was planning on killing her. He had been... He had been making her life hell in all the ways he could find. She found support in someone. She was having an affair. And he was having suspicions making everything worse."

I try blocking the images flooding my brain, but it's like stopping a tsunami with my bare hands. Isabella's mother, trapped in her own hell, her spirit crushed day by day. Knowing I orchestrated the same for Isabella. It churns my stomach into acid. Then I think of my own mother, of the hell she endured, and it's a fucking inferno inside me. Rage and despair burningthrough until I can't think past breaking something. Making someone bleed.

Making myself bleed for what I've done.

Naomi lifts her chin, eyes flashing. "My father, right?"

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