Page 30 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)

I promptly choke, spraying egg across the floor. “What…what are you talking about?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll stop coming into the dressing room at night.” He opens his mouth, seemingly on the verge of saying more, but then he closes it.

And I don’t know whether to laugh or count my damn blessings. Without him there, the world is gray again, dominated by Piotr. I’ll have no excuse to dwell on feelings and needs that shouldn’t matter. An addict only ever knows how to survive on the verge of needing a fix.

“Okay.”

We both tentatively swallow another steaming mouthful of eggs.

He exhales sharply as the food goes down his throat. “But…I still need to check out those stitches.”

Of course, he does. I shift around so that he’s facing my left side.

With a clinical precision, he helps me peel off the sleeve of the hoodie I’m wearing—his.

He breathes out sharply when he sees my arm—bruised from Arno’s manhandling, inflamed from my nights at the bar, still leaking tiny droplets of blood in places.

He rises and gets a rag from the kitchen counter. When he comes back, it’s damp with the water from the faucet, and he gingerly dabs away at the area around the stitches. When all is said and done, they’ve held at least.

But Espisido doesn’t finish his examination just yet.

His hand goes to my shoulder, flicking back the hair shielding my neck from his gaze.

At the moment, Jose’s marks take precedence over Vladimir’s little wound.

Whenever I swallow, the muscles throb in torment.

I know from experience that most of the danger from strangulation comes after the fact, when the sore muscle swelled and damaged the windpipe.

I’ve seen girls suffocate a day after having been choked, but I don’t have any trouble breathing. For now.

Or at least any difficulty caused by the injuries. My lungs are frozen due to an entirely different reason.

“That crazy motherfucker,” Espisido says softly while his fingertips feather over the bruising.

Is he referring to Arno or Jose? I don’t know, and I don’t bother to ask. There’s a certain look in his eyes that I vaguely recognize. Something distant and pained.

“I take it he’s not a ‘friend’ of yours?”

He flinches, his gaze cutting down to the floor. After a minute, he shakes his head. “You could say that.”

I’m satisfied with his gruff admission—until he continues to speak.

“A few years ago, I was doing something for Arno. Something stupid. Something he technically wouldn’t allow me to do, but I thought I could make him some decent money, so I tried it anyway.”

“What was it?”

He shrugs. “Running drugs. Look, Arno’s no citizen of the year, but he’s not entirely insane.

” He cracks a worn, small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I did it on my own. Thought I could make a quick buck. Make him proud so that he’d let me handle bigger jobs.

I was almost out of school by then. I had nowhere else to go but the Gardai.

Thought I had to earn my keep. It was stupid. I know.”

“So, what happened?”

“My dumb ass cut through territory run by the Cartel. I didn’t know it at the time, but Arno and Jose had already tussled over ‘boundaries’ before.

When he caught me, Jose thought Arno was breaking their little treaty.

” He draws back so swiftly that my entire body resonates with the loss of his heat.

His eyes shut as he tears a trembling hand through his hair, holding the black curls away from his face.

“He decided to make an example out of me.”

The memory of the man chained to the floor, Jose’s breakfast companion, makes my blood run cold, numbing my skin.

“He strung me up against the wall,” Espisido says. “He went at me with whips. Different shapes. Different kinds. For hours.”

The view of his back springs to my mind—the scars, lengthy and jagged. I’m already reaching out for him. My fingers grip his shoulder and tug. After a moment’s hesitation, he allows me to lift the corner of his shirt.

With single-minded determination, I paw the dark cotton away and peer at the pale skin underneath.

The worst of the scars are easy to see, bulging against taut muscle and the ridges of his shoulder blades.

The full extent of the damage, however, can only be felt through my fingertips.

Every twitch and shudder of scar tissue.

Every bumpy stretch of tendon where I assume he can’t feel sensation anymore.

Jose made an “example” out of him, all right. He gave him wings—a twisted, broken mockery of them.

“Did he do this too?” My hand slides down to his right wrist. Two of my fingers slip in between his, ghosting the spaces where his are missing.

Shaking his head, he pulls away. “No. No…that was someone else.”

For a moment, I can only stare, taking him in. Every inch. He wears his scars so differently from mine. Open and guarded at the same time. He doesn’t cut them away or hide them behind masks and different names.

He just is.

I find the voice to ask when he doesn’t continue the thread of the story himself. “What happened?” There is a reason why he didn’t wind up like Julio, wasting away while Jose ate a meal on his bloodied remains.

“Arno happened,” Espi says gruffly. He readjusts his shirt, pulling the hem back down to his waist and covering the scars.

“He found out what I’d done. He came in the nick of time.

I know he might seem like a hardass, but the Cartel outnumbers the Gardai two to one.

It was suicide for him to go in alone, but he did.

He had to beg Jose to let me go. He begged . ”

I can’t see his face—I merely hear the icy, tormented edge to his words—and have to imagine his expression on my own. Indigo eyes narrowed in pain. Beautiful features chiseled and hardened.

“Even after all that, I’m not sure what he had to promise Jose to make him stop. It took me four months to heal.”

The gravity of the violence washes over me. I have to brace one hand against the couch cushions to find my breath. In the midst of the tumult of emotions raging in my head, one thought sticks out.

“Where was your brother? What did he do when he—”

“Dante?” Espisido chokes out a laugh. “Dante was in prison. By the time he got out, there didn’t seem to be a point in mentioning that little story.”

My throat feels tighter. “Where is he now?”

I don’t know what to expect. A different gamut of emotions comes over him when he speaks of Dante versus Arno. With Arno, he’s angry, loyal, aggravated, and understanding all at the same time. When all thrown together, I think it’s love. With Dante, there’s just… pain .

“He got out of prison about a year ago,” he says, his shoulders hunched away from me.

“For a while, it was good. Then, six months later, he cut out again. Just left some money on the table for me and was gone. Again .” He shakes his head, his dark hair flying, and fights to suck in air.

One ragged breath paints the air between us.

I don’t realize I’ve touched him until I feel him shiver beneath my palm while his heart beats furiously against his skin.

“If he got bored of me or sick of me tagging along or something like that…I could handle it. But Dante only breaks loose when something’s wrong. When he’s trying to protect someone.”

“You and Arno are looking for him?”

He scoffs. “Something like that. We won’t find him, though, until he wants to be found. But…” He faces me, brushing off the hand I have on his back. “This time, I have a feeling that having him back won’t be as easy as him ditching an orange jumpsuit.”

I don’t answer in favor of scrutinizing the planes of his face and memorizing every angelic detail.

Why? The act does little to diminish the inexplicable ache humming through my veins whenever he’s near.

It’s not lust—not that I’ve ever felt that emotion for myself.

I just watch it unfurl in the men who look at me and only see a body.

A hole. A quick fuck and the loss of a maybe a few bucks.

Even after I left the Syndicate, dating didn’t repair any of the damage left behind. So what I feel for him isn’t lust.

It’s something more pathetic than that. Something needy and aching that won’t let me back away from him, even though I can tell he wants me to. I’m not his type.

Maybe he doesn’t like blondes or box-brunettes. Maybe he doesn’t touch dancers on principle. Maybe…

So I’m the one who touches him , sliding my hand along the top of his shoulder. Just once. It’s not enough. My fingers curl, catching the muscle underneath. I’m pulling him closer before common sense can warn me to stop. Closer. Too close.

For some reason, he lets my lips brush his—too chaste a touch to even be called a kiss. Even so, I taste him as I breathe him in—cigarette smoke, mint, and the faintest sting of alcohol. He’s virtue and vice in one conflicting taste.

I surface once I’ve gotten my fix, but he has other plans. I don’t think he means to kiss me so much as he intends to feel. How my lips feel. What I taste like. The sounds I make when his body presses into mine. Gasps. Moans. I can’t control it.

He exhales himself into me, and my tongue sneaks out to steal more of him away. More mint. Acidic smoke. Sweetness. Egg. Everything.

We’re fused at the mouth, his body positioned between my legs, his hands surely on my waist. His fingertips graze my stomach while his tongue flutters against the outside of my lower lips.

Soft. Tempting. I can’t stop myself from reaching for the waistband of his pants, and I barely brush the denim before he shoves my hand away.

“Stop!”

I’m left panting, staring up at him as he lurches to his feet.

His eyes flicker, catching the emotions laid bare in mine.

He shakes his head, tearing a hand through his hair, and groans.

There’s nothing boyish or cute about the motion.

He’s more devil than angel again. Shadows drape his innocent features, adding definition to the ivory.

“It’s not like I don’t…like I don’t want you,” he says thickly. “I do.”

I do. Everything in my body rides the wave of those words. I want you.

I’m already croaking out an argument. “But—”

“ But you won’t want me,” he says.

And then he’s gone. The door slams. Reality descends, and my body ramps up for yet another grueling withdrawal. Good. I deserve to suffer.

Biting my lip so hard that I taste blood does nothing to assuage the self-hate surging through my veins. God, how could I be so fucking pathetic? I look down at my fingers in disgust. Then again, how could I not be?

Piotr taught me that the only way to process lust is to take what you want. Demand it from those weaker than you and break down anyone strong enough to resist. I’m still his creature, so desperate for affection.

So broken.

Tears escape my eyes before I can blink them back, searing fiery trails down my cheeks. The sting of rejection shouldn’t affect me so harshly. So fucking deeply.

But it hurts.

As it should. Maybe I’ll learn my lesson now. I’ll heed Arno’s advice. I’ll stay away.

I won’t consume another dizzying dose from a dealer who wants nothing to do with me.