The Beast (Wicked Villains #4) - Katee Robert Page 0,55
the same.
There are so many things to say, and I can’t find the words to even begin. Before I have a chance to, the buzzer announces the arrival of Beast’s guests. I take a seat on the chair facing the door and don’t miss the way Gaeton leans against the wall at my back while Beast goes to answer the door despite it being Gaeton’s apartment. Do they even notice how they’ve shifted their relationship since my father’s death?
I rub my hand against my chest. Maybe there will come a time when the reality of my father being gone forever doesn’t hit me with an almost-physical blow. When the loss of him doesn’t rise like a rogue wave to drown me when I least expect it. Maybe.
I tense as the door opens, but the woman who walks through isn’t the stranger I expect. I blink. “Tink?”
Tink stops short and narrows her eyes. She’s a pretty, plus-sized white woman with a mass of blond hair and the personality of a honey badger. She’s also a brilliant designer and responsible for most of the formal clothing in my closet right now. The man at her back is tall with medium-brown skin, a close-cropped beard and black hair that falls to his shoulders. Hook, the leader of one of the smaller territories in Carver City.
Tink looks at me for a long moment and then turns and levels a glare at both Beast and Gaeton. “What. The. Fuck.” She points at me. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Um,” I say.
“No, they get to speak for themselves.” She talks over me like I’m not even here and turns to point that accusing finger at Hook. “Did you know about this?”
He raises his hands. “I know as much as you.”
“Good, because we would be having words.” She spins back to Gaeton and Beast. “We’re friends. I consider us friends.”
I have to twist to see Gaeton and he looks like he’s facing down the honey badger I compared Tink to. “We are friends, Tink.”
“That’s good. Then you won’t mind explaining why Isabelle Belmonte is sitting here in your robe, looking like she’s been run over by a truck.” She spares me the briefest glance. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I say faintly.
“There’s a simple explanation,” Beast interjects. He doesn’t look ruffled, but Beast always shuts down his reactions in stressful moments.
“That’s good. Because from what people are saying, it sure as fuck sounds like you hauled Isabelle out of the Underworld by her hair and have kept her locked up here as some kind of sex slave and, friends or not, I will castrate you right fucking now if that’s the case.” She’s wearing a pair of jeans that look painted on and a cute flouncy crop top, so I don’t think she has a weapon hidden anywhere, but both men tense up as if she just pulled out a gun and pointed it at them.
Beast takes half a step in front of my chair. “It’s none of your business.”
Hook whistles under his breath. “Good luck with that.”
“You made it my business when you sent out an invite to bring me here—an invite, I might add, that sounded a whole lot like a command.” Tink crosses her arms under her breasts. “I talk to Isabelle alone or I walk—and I will be walking right to Meg and letting her know that this fuckery is taking place in her and Hades’s territory. Your choice.”
I fully expect the men to fight her on this. Neither of them takes orders well from anyone other than my father, and Tink’s married to the leader of an entirely different territory. But Beast finally steps back and Gaeton brushes a light hand across my hair. “Tell her whatever she wants to know, Isabelle.”
I twist to look at him. I truly do not understand the power dynamics in the room right now. “What? Why?”
“Because she’s a friend.” He gives a smile that’s almost a grimace. “And she doesn’t bluff.”
Their friend.
Maybe it’s true, but there’s a lot more in the way of undertones here that I don’t understand. Or maybe I simply never stopped to think about what Gaeton and Beast would look like as friends with other people. They socialized with the people that work under them, but that always felt almost like an obligation. Both men keep others at a distance as a matter of course. The fact that this woman is here, is close enough to demand answers without them seeing it as