Page 99 of Beautiful Forever
Instead of stepping over him, Tristan kicks the dead body out of his way. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Viktor has Aleks.” Pyotr’s worried eyes meet mine. “But he wants you.”
Forty-One
With both myeyes swollen shut, I can’t see the brass-knuckled fist coming, but fuck do I feel it. My head recoils like a spring at the impact, and pain explodes like a bomb on the side of my face just below my temple. A few millimeters higher and to the left, and I’d be dead from a brain bleed. I’m powerless to fight back because my arms and legs are zip-tied and duct-taped. Guess they weren’t taking any chances.
The guy has been going at me for over an hour…I think. Time tends to suspend into a blur of blood and pain when you’re being tortured, where a short minute feels like a fucking lifetime.
I have no idea how long I’ve been here. Or wherehereis. I don’t even know who the hell is punching me. He hasn’t spoken a word the entire time. He’s letting his fists do all the talking.
Another blow, more painful than the last, the force powerful enough to send me toppling sideways to the floor on the chair I’m strapped to. My shoulder takes the brunt of the hard concrete, and I choke on the metallic taste of blood that fills my mouth.
“Fuck you,” I rasp.
He answers me by slamming the toe of his boot into my chest. The crack of bone breaking is loud enough to echo between the walls of the room. I try to pull in air past the constriction in my lungs and instead aspirate blood.
“Pick him up,” someone says. A woman. It’s the first voice I’ve heard since I woke from whatever they drugged me with.
I’m hauled upright, and my entire body protests at being moved. I wish they had left me on the floor.
“What do you want?” I ask the disembodied voice and get punched for my query. Fuck, I can’t breathe. Consciousness flickers in and out like a candle’s flame when it reaches the end of its wick.
Right before oblivion pulls me under, I hear the woman reply, “That bitch you call your wife.”
Forty-Two
“No! Absolutely not!”
“If you think?—”
“Over my dead fucking body are you going to?—”
Constantine has been the only one not shouting.
“I need some air,” I tell him and walk out of the study.
Cillian’s house is a maze of corridors and rooms, but somehow, my feet know exactly where to take me. Quietly padding into the room where Fénix is soundly sleeping in his travel crib, I watch the steady rhythm of my son’s chest rise and fall. Moonlight coming in through the crack in the drapes casts shadows on the wall that look like a forest of trees painted in gray watercolor. Alana must have turned on his starry-sky nightlight I brought with us. It fills the ceiling with tiny white pinpricks. The room is like Peter Pan’s Neverland, where your dreams can fly.
Looking down at his slumbering form, my heart breaks for my child. I thought I could keep him safe from this world. Protect him from it. I thought I could bury my past and live my life as Syn.
But it was all an illusion of my own making.
“Once upon a time, there was an angel with a shattered soul,” I begin, keeping my voice low so I don’t wake him. “The devil stole her memories and left her in darkness. But the one thing he could not take was her heart. Always remember, my sweet boy, there is nothing stronger than love. Not hate or fear or vengeance can match love’s power. Love guided the angel back to her soulmates and defeated the devil. But there was still one missing piece.”
Fénix’s lips pucker and smack, and he makes a soft coo in his sleep that melts me completely.
“The missing piece belonged to a boy she had forgotten when the devil stole her memories. But the boy was now a man. Inside, he was lost. Angry and broken. And then one day, the angel and the man found each other again. Even though he was supposed to be the enemy, the angel didn’t run from him. She looked past his darkness and scars and saw something…good.” I pause when my voice cracks. “The angel didn’t mean to fall in love with him. But she did. She saw all his jagged parts and thought he was perfect just the way he was. He filled that missing piece in her heart and made her whole. He became a brother to her soulmates and a father to her child. But the devil comes in all forms, and another one has risen from hell and has stolen him.” I lightly brush my finger over the downy softness of Fénix’s cheek. “The angel is going to bring him back.”
And kill the devil one more time.
There’s a swish of noise behind me, and I look over my shoulder. Alana briefly hesitates at the open doorway before coming in.
“How much did you hear?” I ask when I notice the baby monitor she’s holding.
“You know it’s a trap. Viktor isn’t going to just let Aleksander go.”
I know that. I’m not stupid. But it doesn’t change anything.
