Beast: A Hate Story, The Beginning

Frankie.

He’d taken Frankie to the roof, had a dinner prepared. She’d been drunk. Anteros hated those who couldn’t handle their liquor, but that wasn’t what drove him to madness with her. It wasn’t that she’d somehow circumvented his rules and found alcohol, it was that her drunken state was another reminder of what he already knew: he was losing it.

With her, he was out of control.

The morning after the funeral when he’d awoken and seen Frankie in his bed, he’d realized just how close to the sun he was flying. He knew he should have sold her that morning, gotten rid of her somehow, but instead he’d prepared a date for her. He was addicted to the heat on his wings.

She constantly drove him to do things he would never do, to say things he had no intention of saying. He hadn’t planned to tell her about her father, had every intention of locating the idiot and continuing their arrangement, but the words had fallen like a loose tooth from his mouth. Even still, she drove more from him. Anteros was a collected and calm man. In interrogations, he never spilled, and the scars on his body were testament to that.

With Frankie, he spilled like a tipped over oil can.

He knew what was happening, too, but still it didn’t help. For some reason, Anteros couldn’t lie to her. He could keep secrets from anyone else, but if Frankie asked him point blank, he was compelled to tell her. Where he once had been so calculated he was almost robotic, now he was becoming…sloppy, emotional even.

Anteros stared at the door, wondering. He’d basically opened the door for her and said, Go. He hadn’t seen her since leaving her at the table and driving the point home. She was so blind to what she was doing by staying with him. There was no honor in staying, and for another fucking reason he couldn’t figure out, he’d had to show her that. He half expected to walk out and find her gone.

He exhaled through his nostrils. No, she wouldn’t go.

She was too attached to her fuckhead of a father.

Did she not realize what a complete craven she sacrificed herself for? Why did she keep risking everything for such a complete piece of human garbage? Still, when he gave her the opportunity to run far away, to never see him again, she kept risking herself. Loyalty was something to be admired, but not when it was at the expense of the person giving it. She was just so fucking maddening.

She should take his bargain and run far, far away from him. It would kill many birds. If she left, he wouldn’t have to worry about the Wolves, about fucking up his life. She would be gone, out of his hair. He could go back to his normal self.

He stared at the grains in the door, wondering if she had gone. Anteros had turned off the video monitors the night before, not wanting to watch her, trying to get her out of his system like a junkie during a detox. He had no idea if she’d gone to bed or if she’d slipped out the front door.

Maybe she was out in New York.

Or maybe she’d gone back to Jersey, to the empty home where her father had abandoned her. He put his hands together on his desk and leaned forward, staring at the door, fighting the urge to stand and check. The clock ticked one…two…three seconds, and Anteros folded his hands together, so tight the nails dug into the skin. Another few seconds passed, his eyes boring into the wood. If she left, it would fix so many of his problems.

“This is fucking stupid,” Anteros said to himself. He stood just as the door opened. With his hands pressed flat on the desk, he paused, waiting to see who would come through the door. He knew who it was—it was the person who always came at this hour—yet for some reason he thought it might be someone else.

Someone with long, curling brown hair.

Nikolai appeared in the doorway. “To the docks, Boss?”

Anteros arrived at the docks at the same time as Rhys and Emilio.

“Senator Hatch is, of course, upset,” Rhys said. As Anteros opened the door and took a seat behind his desk, Rhys walked to the middle of the room and Emilio slouched onto the couch. Unlike his Wolves, Rhys never took a seat. He never was entirely comfortable in the office. Anteros leaned back while Rhys continued. “He was under the impression we were going to allow him to simply step down.”

“Well,” Anteros said, leaning forward and bringing his fingers together in a point. “He was a fool.”

“I am still concerned about damage control…” Rhys continued, but Anteros found his focus waning, thoughts drifting to the night before. Frankie had looked radiant, her gold dress catching the lights above them like dragon scales. Anteros still wasn’t sure where she’d gotten the alcohol, but if he had learned anything about Frankie these short weeks, it was that she had hidden depths of intelligence and she was full of surprises. Finding alcohol was probably the least she could do.

“And,” Rhys continued, “I have sources that say he’s not going to let this go—” The door burst open, cutting Rhys’s words off at the quick. His wolves, minus Crazy A, came barreling through.

“Have you heard of knocking?” Rhys asked, irritation lacing his tongue. “We were in the middle of something.”

“What’s that?” Big O asked, taking a seat on the couch.

“Knocking?” Pretty Boy put a hand to his chin, sliding into his seat. “Is that a British thing?”

“The bald bastard and the De Luca bastard have more manners than us,” Little O commented, taking a seat. “They weren’t raised by wolves.” He grinned, baring teeth.

Rhys’s eyes clouded under a furrowed brow. “Always good to see you, Nico, Orlando, Ottavio.” Rhys nodded to them, tone clipped. He adjusted his coat, making a motion to leave. Turning to Anteros, he said, “I will fill you in later, Mr. Drago.” He headed toward the door and Emilio trailed after like a puppy.

When they were gone, Anteros turned to his Wolves. “Has Crazy A spoken with you all?” Anteros disguised the fact that he wasn’t sure. It was obvious that Crazy A wasn’t at the meeting, and that would have been a mortal insult had Anteros decided to address it. The other Wolves probably thought that Anteros was allowing it, and Anteros chose to let that implication lie.

“I haven’t seen him since before the funeral,” Pretty Boy said. Little O and Big O nodded in agreement, and Anteros paused for a moment. If no one had seen Crazy A, then that meant they knew nothing about The Council’s involvement with the attack. Before Frankie, he’d never be