Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  “This is what happens when you fuck with the wrong man,” he says. The line is cliché, but his delivery is almost enough to erase the corny-ass phrasing. An accent lurks in his words, but it’s like a knife’s edge, honed sharp and impossible to place. “Enjoy the show.”

  He shoves Parish forward, and another man enters the shot. His back is to the camera, but with a chuckle, he undoes his pants and lets them fall around his ankles. Parish whimpers when he waltzes over to her, but her cries are soon muffled when he takes her by the back of the head and...

  “Jesus Christ, Arno!” I’m moving forward, reaching for the laptop. “Turn it off—”

  “No!” Arnos’s shout mingles with the woman’s. She’s sitting straighter, her eyes glued to the screen. Arno doesn’t seem to notice when he lunges for her and grabs her by the nape of her neck.

  “This little bitch is going to watch. Every fucking minute of it.” He shoves her forward, nearly throwing her out of the chair. With a grunt, she braces her hands against the table, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the screen as the bastard continues to shove his cock down Parish’s throat. Seconds into it, Parish struggles. She chokes when he goes too far. Laughing, the man pulls out of her mouth, only to stand behind her. Bending down, he tugs at her jeans, winking for the camera.

  I memorize every inch of the bastard’s face. My blood hums, singing its bitter melody. I feel rage burn slowly through every nerve in my body, centralizing in my fingers—but without anyone to take it out on, it builds like the pressure in a teakettle.

  “Arno,” I manage to grit out before my vision goes fully red. “Don’t watch this shit.”

  “I need to,” he says hoarsely, but his eyes are unfocused. Unsteady. I can only imagine how many fucking times he’s “watched” it, playing this scene over and over in his mind.

  There are more men in that room, twelve of them at least. They appear from the periphery, circling Parish while the first bastard succeeds in getting her pants off.

  “Fuck.”

  They show no mercy. They’re ruthless, like the animals we all pretend to be. At one point, Parish screams so loudly that the sound comes through the speakers only as static.

  “Arno.”

  He doesn’t look at me, but he’s no longer facing the screen, either. He shoves the woman forward until her nose nearly brushes the screen while his eyes remain fixed on the wall. They’re red and well up with moisture with every pathetic cry his sister makes—but he grits his teeth rather than let them fall. The rest of his men fare no better. In fact, the only one who seems to be at rapt attention to the gruesome movie is the woman in the black dress, her face a mask.

  The man with the gun to her head has his eyes averted from the screen. His hand shakes, his finger quivering over the trigger.

  “Give me the gun.” I snatch it from him before he can comply. “You’ll blow her fucking head off.”

  The woman doesn’t seem to notice or give a damn as to her impending death. She watches the men take turns abusing Parish. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t cringe. Her eyes are almost thoughtful; it’s like she’s taking fucking notes. How much abuse can another woman take before she starts screaming for her mother?

  It’s unsettling watching her. Almost as unsettling as it is watching Arno. His fingers tighten around the woman’s neck. He has her nose brushing the glass now. There’s too much fire in his eyes. When Parish moans his name, it’s like tipping a gallon of gasoline on an already raging blaze.

  “Don’t,” I say, and he glances down in shock. It’s as if he didn’t even realize that his fingers had encircled her throat entirely, pressing into the white flesh. The woman makes a strangled sound, but her eyes never leave the laptop screen. On her lap, her fingers flutter, but then she laces them together tight as if fighting the instinctive urge to resist the suffocating pressure. She’s entirely willing to sit there patiently while he kills her. “Arno...”

  He flinches. His knuckles pop, turning white. Then he lets go, and the woman slumps forward, gasping for air. “I can’t...” He stares down at his hands. For a second, I don’t even recognize him. He’s a stranger, silhouetted against his sister’s screams and the curses and jeers of the men who torment her. It’s a dark game we play: this tip-toe around sanity. Arno’s close to losing whatever shred of it he has left, and some sick part of me almost wants him to. Misery fucking loves company, after all.

  “Stop.” It takes more effort than I’d like to admit to stalk forward and brace my hand against the back of the laptop’s lid. “Turn this shit off—”

  “No.” The protest doesn’t come from Arno this time. The woman on the chair clutches her throat with one hand and bats my fingers away with the other. There’s something almost regal in the motion. She’s a fucking little queen, unwilling to be denied her entertainment. I don’t know whether to be pissed or impressed by her tenacity. Who the hell is she?

  Arno doesn’t seem capable of giving me any answers. His eyes are on the floor. He’s shaking his head slowly from right to left. Then left to right. “I’ve never asked you for anything,” he says heatedly, “Never. But Dante—”

  He doesn’t even need to ask. “Go.” I cut my gaze over to the door. Then I cock the gun and aim it in the vicinity of the woman’s head. “I’ll watch her.”

  He staggers toward the stairs without question, but when his eyes meet mine again from over his shoulder, the lion stares back. “Make sure she watches every fucking bit of it.” He palms the doorknob and gestures to the rest of his men. “Everyone out.”

  They leave, though it’s hard to register the movement when my eyes are focused on the girl. She’s leaning forward again, her ass nearly out of the chair completely. Her prim little lips are pursed, her gaze steely. It doesn’t seem to bother her one fucking bit, the sight of two men using Parish’s limp body at once.

  For what it’s worth, I can’t fucking watch it.

  Two hours. That’s how long the video lasts. The laptop’s almost out of power by the time the final man takes his turn with a motionless Parish. The machine protests its overuse with a steady beep that cuts through the guttural sounds issuing from the video. I turn to the screen just as a prompt warning 2% battery remaining flashes across it and the video cuts off on a still of Parish’s body, lying naked and lifeless on the floor. Someone had thrown syringes onto the floor in front of her, each one filled with amber liquid.

  Slamming the screen shut so hard something cracks is the only thing I can do to preserve her dignity. The violence of the motion makes the woman seated before me jump. She blinks as if snapping out of a trance. Her mouth opens for a sharp intake of air. Then, she laughs. The sound trickles out of her, low and unsteady. Then louder. High pitched. Her body jerks with the force of it, and she winds up slumped, face down against the table, giggling hysterically. Helpless, her hands flutter at her sides, the fingers circling and uncurling as if she doesn’t fucking know what to do with them. With herself.

  It’s as chilling as watching a pack of hyenas cackle after a kill. She’s drunk on the violence and high off the bloodshed. Every brutal, violent image is etched onto her skin, and the bitch just can’t stop giggling as she takes it all in.

  It’s only when she seems to run out of air that the sound finally dies off. She inhales brokenly instead, writhing with each breath. Her face tilts until she’s looking at me, her eyes bloodshot, her hair a mess. There are tears rolling down her cheeks and snot on her chin. “Is that...is that what you’re going to do to me?” she asks when she catches her breath. Like the first man on the video, she has an accent that I can’t place. “Is it?”

  I don’t answer her. Arno does for me.

  “Yes.” He’s returned, guarding the doorway to the stairs like some beast straight out of Hades itself. There’s a cold, icy gleam in his eye that I know well. Hell, I helped put it there. The puppy and the kitty cut their teeth on the same milk bones, back in the day, honing their shared lust for blood. “I’m going to do
exactly that and send it to your fucking fiancé. But not without giving him a little appetizer first.”

  He flexes his right hand, and the knife he holds in it catches the light. It has a wicked edge, and when he reaches the table, he shoves the computer out of the way and stands directly across from the woman. “Hold her still,” he tells me.

  I can’t fight that part of me that bristles at the order, but even I can forgive a grieving bastard for forgetting his place. I reach down, bracing one hand on the woman’s shoulder, not that she struggles. Slowly, she pulls herself upright, sitting pretty once again. Her eyes trace the blade Arno waves in her face. She doesn’t flinch. It’s only when he reaches for her arm that she moves at all, jerking out of his reach.

  “Not my hands,” she says hoarsely. “Not my fingers.” She accompanies the command by reaching up to brush a strand of dark hair behind her right ear. Then she tugs pointedly at the earlobe. Her message is simple but crystal clear: take this instead.

  Arno grimaces. I don’t know if it’s in shock at her brazen request or the fact that the little princess just took all the fun out of his torture. She doesn’t seem scared shitless by the threat of the blade. She merely requests we not cut off her goddamn fingers first.

  Once again, a single question crosses my mind, more fiercely than before. Just who the fuck is she? Your fucking fiancé, Arno had said to her. I picture the man in the video again, the one in the suit with the crooked nose. Was that him?

  The girl has a ring on her left hand. The diamond in the center of it almost spans the width of her entire finger. Whoever her fiancé is, he certainly isn’t a poor motherfucker.

  “You don’t make the fucking rules of this game, bitch,” Arno snarls. But it’s increasingly apparent that he can’t make good on his threat. His hand shakes too badly. The rage is back, consuming his gaze and swallowing him down whole. Before the girl can react, he lunges across the table and snatches her forearm. He yanks her forward, nearly dragging her across the table. Her feet dangle in the air, the black heels scraping the floor.

  Grunting, Arno eyes her skin, hefting the knife. I doubt he’ll be satisfied with just a finger. No. He’ll take her whole hand. Her arm. And something tells me that he’ll want her alive long enough for her “fiancé” to get the message.

  “Give me the knife.” I hold out my hand, forcing Arno to make eye contact.

  He shakes his head. “This is my fight, Dante—”

  “Give me the knife.” Something in my tone makes him back down. He lets the woman go, shoving her onto the chair. Then he slams the knife against my palm, blade side down. I hiss at the burning pain, but I curl my fingers around the blade and switch it to my dominant hand.

  I’m like a butcher, hunting for the finest cut of meat when I trail my gaze along the woman’s fingers. They’re slim, slender, and she curls them up tight beneath my gaze. In the end, I don’t know what makes me seize her earlobe between my thumb and forefinger instead. She has a diamond stud in each one, and the gleaming head serves as the perfect guide for when I start to cut.

  I make it quick. One firm slice and her earlobe is in my fingers. She whines, smothering the sound beneath a pale hand before it even seems to fully leave her throat.

  “Here.” I throw it on the table toward Arno who just stares down at the severed bit of flesh. His fingers shake, but after swallowing hard, he reaches down and captures it in his fist. “Take her,” he says while circling around the table, his eyes on the door.

  “Where?”

  Arno shrugs. “With you. Any-fucking-where but here. Take her upstairs. My men are too riled. I need her alive, and…” He stops in his tracks, and his entire body rises with the force of his inhale. “You’re the only one I can trust. It’s only for a few hours anyway—” he shrugs and looks back at me, his expression the grim mixture of a smile and a grimace. “She’ll be gone tomorrow.”

  I force her to walk up two flights of stairs, and into the apartment Arno let me crash in. She staggers, leaving a trail of blood the entire way but I don’t bother to disguise it. Let Arno get the mess. I hope he has to get on his fucking hands and knees with bleach to erase every trace of her. Maybe then he’d remember that “babysitter” wasn’t listed on my fucking resume.

  She’s silent when I shove her through the narrow living room without bothering to turn on the light. I sense her body stiffen. She’s pale enough to glow in the dark when I shut the door behind me and twist the lock.

  A true monster would get off on her fear. The pain makes her sway. Blood dribbles down her neck, emanating from her like perfume. A part of me can’t resist breathing it in. Then I surge forward and shove her down the hallway before she can bleed all over the fucking floor.

  “Get into the tub.” I grit out the command while I flick on the bathroom light and drag her into the narrow space by her forearm. It’s a tight fucking fit. She has to practically climb over the toilet in order to obey me. With one hand, she clutches at her bleeding ear and eyes the basin of the tub with a wary expression. Her free hand slides down her hip to tug at the hem of her dress, and I imagine her trying to decide the most ladylike course of action to climb inside it.

  I make the decision for her and ram my open palm against her shoulder. She goes down hard, smacking her chin off the tiled wall, but she curls up on her side, small enough to fit inside the coffin-like space with room to spare.

  Blood wells up beneath her. Already her eyes are unfocused, drifting up to the ceiling. Frowning, I snatch a towel from the nearby rack and throw it toward her. “Put pressure on it,” I tell her while I crane my neck back to take in the mess she’s already made all over the floor. Arno won’t be the only one forced to scrub tonight. Fuck.

  The girl curls her fingers obediently around the edge of the white towel, but she doesn’t move. She eyes the ceiling instead, and I leave her there, cutting off the light before I slam the door shut. Her blood spots the carpet. I can see it even in the darkness. I can smell it. I can smell her.

  Ignoring both, I turn and enter the flat’s single bedroom. Then I slam the door shut and try to get some fucking sleep.

  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. It sounds good enough in theory, but no one tells you that when you’re taken from that valley, all you fear is the pain. Your body aches with it. For so long it’s put up with the torment. The agony. Fear is a pathetic emotion, but pain rules all.

  It’s haunted me ever since I left the hotel, lapping at the horrific memories that have only chosen now to surface. It chases my every breath, and at some unguarded moments, I know it’s close to winning. I can hear its hungry growls as it awaits my soul.

  Not fearing death is one thing. Welcoming it is another entirely. Though I may not fear that valley...I’d rather die than be forced to travel through it again.

  The world without Vinny is quiet. There’s only the hiss and rattle of faulty plumbing to fill an otherwise endless silence. Sometimes I hear footsteps. Sometimes I swear I hear Vinny himself, whispering into what remains of my ear. You think you can escape me so easily, Mi Bella? Think again.

  I flinch when a very real sound breaks through the delirious fantasy: a door opening. A sliver of light escapes through the crack. Then the light to my cell itself is switched on, though it’s not really a cell. I’m in a bathroom. My body lies lengthwise in a tub that catches all my blood and feeds it to a hungry drain. He gave me a towel to staunch the worst of it with, but I lie on it and stare out instead.

  He’s shirtless. God, he’s tall, too. Taller than Vinny, even. Certainly bulkier. Muscle weighs down his bones. It’s the type of strength that evil men love to employ to carry out their dirty work. Though I don’t think he works for the red-haired man.

  His blue eyes cut across the room and find me watching him. The sight of me doesn’t affect him in the slightest. With a sigh, he sheds his boxers and stoops for the lid of the toilet. With one hand he palms his cock, aiming surely as he relieves himse
lf.

  It’s something a nice girl wouldn’t watch. So I greedily stare. I’d always assumed that all masculine anatomy was one in the same, but his cock looks different from Vinny’s. The head is smooth, almost naked. Circumcised, a part of me suspects. It doesn’t draw my attention nearly as much as the rest of him, however. His skin is drawn taut against bulging muscle like copper hammered over stone. There are scars on his hips, a row of jagged, semi-straight lines that travel nearly to his knee. With one last tug, he wrestles himself back into his boxers. Then he shuffles over to the sink and begins washing his hands.

  I wonder if he’ll be one of the men who will rape me like the girl in the video. That beautiful girl. She is Olga...and Amelia, and Violetta, and Sabina, and Lina, and Allessandra, and Tiffany, and Sarah.

  She is Daniela. Just another soul for Vinny to use. Another stain on the bottom of his shoe. It won’t bother him in the slightest if I’m dead—or if my body is used and abused before the final bullet is driven into my skull.

  My soul is all that matters to him, and it is already tainted black and tattooed with his name. I’ll never erase the damage he’s done to me. It’s more permanent than the missing part of my ear or the pieces of me he’s marked black.

  I am nothing but a shell. And yet, some part of me just can’t help adding to my misery.

  “Her name...” My throat aches, it’s so dry. I’m dizzy. Blood loss paired with trauma has probably sent me into shock, but none of the physical ailments really matter. “The girl in the video.” It takes effort to get the words out, and the man barely looks up as he scrubs his hands clean in the sink. “Her name. What was her name?”