Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  I take every dose until she’s writhing. Until the sounds she makes cease being sounds at all, and she’s merely grunting beneath the brutal, twisted fuck. I taste every single, goddamn inch of her. Then I use my fingers to finish her off, trapping her clit beneath my thumb and rubbing until her back bows and her nails break my skin. It’s only when she’s limp and panting that I come up for air.

  I don’t take the time to observe her flushed body when I spot my jeans lying in the corner, and I shove them on. With single-minded determination, I rip the camera from the tripod. When I toe the threshold, I finally look back and find her watching me, her eyes unsettling...

  And I slam the door behind me so hard it shakes on its fucking hinges.

  Arno’s seated at the bar, waiting for me. He doesn’t react when I drop the camera onto his fucking lap. He doesn’t make eye contact. There’s a full shot glass resting on the counter in front of him, and he merely shoves it toward me.

  I take it and knock it back, grimacing at the bitter taste. It’s a dangerous fuel to add to the fire already consuming my fingertips. The blaze grows hotter, lapping up my wrists and surging through my blood with every unstable beat of my pulse. She did this. Her taste mingles with the alcohol. I swipe at my mouth with the back of my hand, but she clings to my lower lip, stubborn and vile. I rub at the spot, nearly stripping the skin raw. Then I take the second shot Arno offers me and down it.

  He says nothing when I leave, slamming the door on my way out. It’s dusk. A spreading night sky battles with a resistant, orange sunset that scars the horizon like a burning fire. I scowl at it. Then I head down the street, going wherever my fucking legs take me. I’m unfamiliar with this part of the city. After five years, street names have changed. New buildings have crept up on the ashes of the old ones. The people are even different. Tougher. Stranger. Louder.

  They don’t offer me one fucking moment of silence to clear my head. One moment to find the familiar beast I know dwells in my skin like a parasite. The noises and barrage of sound don’t even succeed in drowning her out. I still hear her moaning. Panting. Begging. Pleading. The sounds form a noose around my cock, which is so fucking greedy after being denied for so long.

  Trolling the streets like a dog off its leash is a bitter way to brace myself for the wrath that will come once Stacatto sees what his fiancée’s gladly done. But the fucker can come for me. I’m ready.

  Oh, the fuck am I ready.

  I almost believe that fate’s playing some kind of cruel, twisted joke when a man staggers into me the moment I turn a corner. For the first time in his fucking life, Dante Vialle finally gets his goddamn wish...

  “You got a problem?” the man demands, his head cocked. He’s got a five-o’clock shadow stretching over his jaw and wears the dirty jeans and oversized sweatshirt of a punk with too much time on his hands and too much dope in his brain to know when to back down.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “I’ve got a big fucking problem.” The bastard doesn’t hear the warning note in my voice: it’s the jarring crunch of a bulldog breaking off its leash; it’s the second when the wolf realizes that there’s blood in the air and releases a howl; it’s a danger that even I sense, and my fingers clench fighting to ignore the way they burn. Throb. Ache, still slick with her.

  The stupid fucking bastard doesn’t know how close I am to losing control. How much I goddamn want to lose it. I need any excuse. Any fucking one.

  And he presents it by stupidly stepping closer. His hot breath fans my cheek, mingling with the sweat from her skin. Her taste is still on my tongue, even as the bastard says, “I suggest you apologize. Friend.”

  It’s like lighting a match above a pool of gasoline. Fire erupts, spreading wild and ravenous, and there’s no fucking way to contain it. My skull breaks open and something evil spills out. It stains my vision the color of blood, and my fist goes flying.

  Flesh and bone reverberate beneath my knuckles. Again. Again. Again. There’s shouting. I’m in the middle of the street in near broad, fucking daylight, but none of it fucking matters. I can hear each sickening blow I land. Maybe the bastard managed to get some in himself because I’m not sure whose blood I taste when hands paw at my shoulders and finally pull me back.

  Under...arrest... The words come in slow motion. Pieces of my vision return like puzzle pieces. The conflicted sky. A confused sea of faces. A body lying motionless in front of me.

  My mouth’s open, I realize. I’m laughing as icy metal encircles my wrist and some asshole reads me my Miranda rights while sirens wail in the distance.

  I can’t fucking stop.

  It’s been nearly a week, right on the dot. Van Hallen was right.

  General lock-up isn’t like being in prison. You’re herded like cattle into a cage with other vicious mutts. They size you up, warily, wondering which dog has the biggest dick—who you just don’t want to fuck with. Maybe it’s the blood on my knuckles. Or the look in my eye. Hell, maybe it’s the subtle scent of I-don’t-give-a-fuck wafting from my skin. Whatever the reason, I’m left alone. It makes for an interesting way to pass the night. Arno might want to try it sometime when he’s not drinking himself to death on liquor.

  Nothing says “fun” like waiting for the inevitable.

  “Vialle.”

  I stiffen at the sound of my name, mangled by a Brooklyn accent. An officer stands before the holding cell, reading from a clipboard—but his uniform isn’t the royal blue of a patrol officer. He’s wearing a tan trench coat over faded gray slacks. He sure takes his job seriously, down to every last fucking cliché.

  “Vialle,” Van Hallen reads again while his eyes seek mine out through the bars. “You’re free to go.”

  Free? I don’t question it. I hold my tongue when an actual officer enters the cell and undoes my cuffs. He and Van Hallen lead me to the front of the station where I sign a piece of paper. Just like that. I’m “free.”

  “You’ve been bailed out,” Van Hallen explains when I start to head for the door. “Seems you’ve got some powerful friends out there, Vialle. The man whose jaw you broke won’t even press charges. Says it was all just a ‘misunderstanding’—or he wrote it, at least. There are even corroborating witnesses who’ve stepped forward to say that he started it first. It was self-defense.”

  I should keep walking, but I don’t know what makes me slow near the glass doors to the station and glance over my shoulder. The only other person around is a clerk behind the front desk who does her best to busy herself with paperwork and pretend to be invisible.

  “There a point to this, detective?” I ask.

  Van Hallen, the prick, merely smiles. “If you were out on parole you wouldn’t even have the option of bail. You’d be sent right back where you belong.”

  I shrug. “But my record’s sparkling clean, officer. The DA saw to that.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Vialle,” the detective says gruffly. “We both know it’s only a matter of time before you’re hooked up on something that intimidation and nice connections can’t wriggle you out of. Tell me something. A man loses his temper and nearly beats someone to death right in front of a passing patrol car containing officers just about to start their break. Talk about coincidence.”

  I raise an eyebrow, dissecting his words. “You’ve got a detail on me...” I spot a name tag stuck to his chest and play off the fitting name embossed there in gold. Richard V. H. “Dick?”

  He shrugs, but there’s something smug about his expression. The buzzing at my skull perks up, but it’s only a dull whisper, sated by enough violence for now.

  “Let’s be serious now, Vialle,” Van Hallen says, “a man would notice if he were being followed, wouldn’t he?”

  I grit my teeth, irritated by this interesting new bit of information. “That he would, detective.”

  “A man would also try to keep things in perspective,” Van Hallen adds, and I suspect that this is the real reason why he cornered me here. Not to gloat about the fact that he had men
watching me, but to spew whatever it is that’s about to come out of his mouth next. “I’ve been going through your old case file. Interesting stuff.”

  I turn on my heel and head for a door, not giving a damn as to how it looks.

  “You beat a man to death with a hammer...” The bastard keeps up with me. “But do you care to explain why there were no fingerprints? No hard physical evidence? Nothing we could pin on you, not even with the fuck-up at the DA’s office. A man who’s reckless enough to kick someone’s ass in broad daylight can’t even leave one bloody smear on the end of a ball peen—”

  I barrel through the glass doors and allow them to slam shut behind me. Van Hallen’s not stupid. He doesn’t follow me out of the precinct, but I feel him watching me. Then I have enough fucking sense to scan the block for any patrol car or cop who seems to be on my trail. It’s late. Pedestrians crowd the sidewalks, heading home or looking for trouble while traffic churns through the streets.

  It’ll be a long walk back to Mulligans, and I can only assume that’s why apparently Arno didn’t send one of his thugs to collect me. He wants me to sweat it out. Clear my head. The bastard’s known me for way too long.

  They leave me there. In that room. On that bed. Drowning beneath his scent and mine. The sheets are a prison. The ones hanging from the walls drape me in shadow. I’m a twisted, shallow shell of a creature who doesn’t truly know what she even is anymore.

  My head swims with him. The things he made me feel. What I wanted to feel...

  I’m sore and throbbing between my legs. When I slide a hand down my stomach, there’s only wet skin, still burning from the heat of his mouth. My eyes slam shut while my fingers do things that I don’t tell them to. Rub. Twist. Touch. They mimic him, but the feeling isn’t the same. It’s a slow, painful burning that only intensifies when my mind pairs my own ministrations with dangerous, twisted thoughts. Images, really. His face. Those eyes. The sounds he made when sheathed inside of me, to the hilt.

  My head goes back as my fingers quicken. My stomach bunches and tightens into knots. My eyes roll within their sockets. I cry out once and then drive my teeth into my lower lip to silence the sound. Breathless and shaking, I rock against my own hand, forced to picture him. Taunted by him. Haunted by him. Then everything in me loosens again, all at once, and I unravel.

  My eyes are wet when my body finally goes limp, and the only thing I can do is pant. I draw my hand away and let it fall at my side, aching and pathetic. My lungs heave for air, struggling to push out the unwanted stench of musk and rage that taints a man like Lucifer.

  I almost succeed. Almost. Then I move and my body flares to life with the aftermath of being filled by him all over again.

  I hate him. I hate him more than Vinny. More than the red-haired man. More than Gino and Nicholai. More. More. More. No matter the evil comparison, it still isn’t hateful enough.

  The only course of action I have left to take is to crawl from the mattress and stagger into the bathroom. The lights are already on, and they illuminate everything about me in harsh clarity. My bloodshot eyes watch me accusingly from the mirror’s surface. I’m dressed like a whore. Part of the duct tape on my ear is starting to peel off, revealing the gaping wound underneath. My hair is a mess. My lips are bloody. Angry little crescent-moon-shaped marks dot my skin, left by...nails. Fingernails. Greedy, grasping fingernails...

  My head swims when I turn my back on the mirror and yank off the lacy bra. Then I stagger into the shower stall and turn the water on as hot as possible—the highest setting. Steam drifts up, distorting everything beneath its presence. My skin is on fire...but bit by bit the pieces of himself that Lucifer left behind circle the drain along with everything else.

  I strip myself of every inch of him. Then I recollect my thoughts, centering them around the only thing that matters: I was free. Vinny would see the video and...well, whatever happens after, I most likely wouldn’t be around to see.

  The sobering thought drives me to shut the water off. With no towel in sight, I settle for drying myself off using the bedsheets. Then I re-don my video “costume,” and I sit, bracing my back against the wall. Then I stand. I tap my foot against the floor. I pace. Despite the restlessness, I’m fine until I misstep and my toes cringe away from something rubbery...wet. I glance down, and the world sways.

  The next second I’m backing out of that room and then the apartment altogether. The hallway’s deserted. It’s late, I assume. A flickering light bulb casts unsteady illumination and even harsher shadows. The door to Lucifer’s lair is across the hall. I wonder if he’s there. Can he sleep? Does he remember his promise?

  My finger drifts up to graze a burning trail across my throat. It’s not that hard to imagine it. With his strength alone, he could make it quick. With his icy temper, he could make it slow.

  I’m not sure now which one I prefer.

  My finger still trembles when I reach back and find the doorknob to the showroom. I should go back inside. Who knows what the red-haired man plans to do with me next. Until Vinny sees that tape, I’m still at his mercy. The fact that he went along with my little plan meant nothing. Revenge taints things, even deals between enemies.

  My foot twitches against the floor. I need to go back inside. I shouldn’t stagger forward, trailing my hand along the wall for balance while the other tugs the apartment door shut behind me. It is a long, slow journey to Lucifer’s red door. My heart falters the entire way. When my fingers finally brush the wooden door, I can only sense silence on the other side of it. Curling my fingers into a shaking fist, I knock once to no answer.

  My knees curl instinctively, and I slide down to the floor, leaning against the wall. My hair shields the rest of the hall from me. Staring at a sliver of red paint, I can almost imagine that I’m truly in hell, at the mercy of my very own custom devil.

  I’m shaken awake when the world shifts under me. Something slams into my elbow, and I blink my eyes open in confusion. The red door is gone, revealing a portal of darkness in its place. A demon stands over me as if prepared to shove me through it, and I glance up into an icy blue gaze.

  He has his arm extended above me, clenching the doorknob in one hand while the other dangles by his side, curled into a loose fist. There is blood on his fingertips. Even more speckles his shirt. Fear mingles with dread, and I shift back against the doorjamb. Only then do I realize that he already has the door open.

  He tears his gaze away from me and steps over my curled legs. I wait for him to slam the door in my face. Maybe a part of me even wants him to...but the bastard leaves it open, and I can’t resist the part of me that scuttles over the threshold and kicks it shut with my foot.

  We stay there like that for what feels like an eternity. A million questions well in my throat to fill the silence. Where was he? Was the tape sent? What will happen next? My teeth lock them away, however, so I settle for watching him instead. His back is turned to me. He doesn’t move an inch, and the shadows drape us both as if struggling to conceal the naughty little secret we share.

  Tension swallows me down whole. I wonder if he’s affected, but almost as soon as the thought crosses my mind, he’s already headed down the hall and into the bedroom. The door slams shut behind him, hard enough to jar the entire damn building, it seems like.

  Sighing, I slump against the wall. My borrowed lingerie itches. The shower did little to ease the all-consuming ache that encases me from head to toe. It doesn’t diminish any when I curl my knees up against my chin and rest the good side of my face on top of them.

  It just lingers, seeping into my bones like the tendrils of fear sown by Vinny that will never ever fully leave. The devil’s made his mark on my skin, for all of eternity.

  Whether we both like it or not.

  I wake up hungover and painfully hard. My soul is hard. My resolve to find Espi, whether he wants me to or not, is even harder. My cock is steel...

  It’s a defect that I struggle to ignore, gritting my teeth until I taste
the damn enamel being ground away. When I lift my head, and shrug off the blankets, I don’t find Stacatto’s whore lurking within one of the corners. I vaguely remember leaving her by the door, but for all I know she could have run. Or maybe Arno’s men had gotten bored and decided to “borrow” her for the night?

  It’s not the thought that drives me to my feet, wincing as blood rushes to my throbbing head—both of them. I have to piss—maybe brush the fucking taste of that woman, blood, and booze from my mouth—while I’m at it. Those are the concerns that drive me into the hallway.

  I don’t notice the bathroom light is already on until I’m over the threshold, nearly running into the slim figure leaning against the sink. Her ass juts out, her pale hand clutching the sink’s basin like it’s the only thing capable of holding her up. She has my toothbrush clenched between her teeth. Apparently, she’s as eager to scrub away the taste of my cock as I am to erase her. Her eyes meet mine as she manipulates the toothbrush woodenly before removing it from her mouth and spitting. Wordlessly, she turns on the faucet, washing her mess away. Then she holds out her hand, presenting the toothbrush to me.

  I take it, easily muscling her body away from the sink and against the tub. My eyes narrow as I make a show of sticking the bristles beneath the running water and grinding them beneath my thumb, chasing her essence out. But it’s as futile as picking up a dropped piece of food from the floor and pretending that unseen bacteria haven’t already tainted it. I take a leap of faith when I slather the brush in toothpaste and shove it against my tongue. One hard scrub and I know that I failed; she clings to the surface, and I’m grinding her taste between my teeth.

  I don’t let on, though. I spit, rinse the bristles, and then return it to the cabinet. I use my hands to splash water onto my face, scrubbing at the crust that’s formed around my eyes. I shut off every sensation but the mechanical motions. I almost succeed in blocking her out completely, but when I turn for the shower, she’s still there. Her eyes hone in on the moisture sliding down my chin. I don’t think she notices my hand shoot past her to wrench on the shower faucet until the water switches on amid the squeal of rusty plumbing. Then she scuttles out of reach while I strip my bloodied shirt and jeans. Her eyes trace my calves as I shed my boxers, though, and I know that she’s making note of the scars on my hips.