Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  Lucifer frowns, but there’s no aggression in his posture when he turns to face me. He’s thoughtful. He’s hostile. He’s confused by his own fucking motives.

  “Stay away from—”

  “Why are you helping me?” I ask again, making my voice just loud enough to overpower his. It doesn’t take much effort; the shower repaired his control, and his baritone is a low steady hum once again.

  “Why the fuck does it matter?” he counters, flexing the hand I know bears his mark. “You’re getting your ‘revenge.’”

  “I am,” I admit. Prodding him is a reckless game that I can’t seem to quit playing. His taunt haunts me. I’ll fulfill my end of our bargain on a much quicker timeline. He meant it to be a threat, but it’s more like a tempting suggestion. Maybe it would be better if he did kill me now and end this sick game before the rules changed. A devil needs to remain a devil. A dangerous man is meant to be feared. I knew that best after living with Vinny, but I didn’t know what happened if those lines started to blur. Evil shouldn’t be...craved.

  “Are you helping me because of what happened to you?” I ask on a desperate bid to vanquish that fear. “Because of what that...man did? I know that’s why you gave me the alcohol.”

  Anger. On him, it has a smell. It permeates the air like smoke, and before the flames can even touch your skin, you’ve already suffocated. Rage paints his eyes an unnatural shade of blue, and for a moment, it’s the only thing I see. I’m sure it will be the very last thing I see...

  Then, the devil surprises us both.

  “I got my own revenge,” he says coldly, though his mouth frowns as if unsure why the words tumble out of it. “So, you can write off that little theory.”

  “How?” I draw my knees up to my chin and stare at him from between them.

  “The cage,” he says finally, each word harshly clipped. “You remember it?”

  A shiver runs through me, and I force myself to nod. I remember it. I can’t forget it. I will always picture him inside of it. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray with every cell I possess that Lucifer will make good on his promise. Kill me now with that image in my head for the last time. Kill me now…

  “I was sixteen the first time I fought in one,” he says. There’s a steady edge to his voice; he doesn’t like to mention the past, but the violence that lurks in those memories comforts him at the same time. “I told you that...that I tried to climb out. But it was good money, so I kept coming back. Running drugs was easier, but riskier—no one could fuck with you while you were in the cage.” His voice lingers over that statement. The chain-link fencing and gritty sand of the pit were home to him. He missed it. “Apart from the bastard paid to beat the living shit out of you, that is. But it was better. As a runner...there are only so many places in the human body you can hide a stash.”

  I cringe at the imagery. Then I envision a certain place on the human body...paired with his own traumatic memories. My heart aches. I hate this part of me that feels for him—aches for him—more than I do the part of me that cringes at the thought of Vinny. The devil isn’t mine to hurt for. He isn’t mine for me to wonder just how many awful things he’s been forced to do to survive. He isn’t mine, and I shouldn’t feel this gross, morbid satisfaction that he claimed to have gotten his revenge, at least.

  “Dino preferred his fighters, anyway, and even as bait I made enough to keep my spot in the ring and keep my head down—”

  “Dino?” The devil falls silent. I can almost hear his teeth click together in irritation, but he humors my questioning and throws me another bone of his past to taste.

  “Dino Mulligan. A man who ran a gang called The Saints. Heroin distribution. Illegal gambling. You name it, he ran it, but his favorite was the pit. Cage fighting. He could make up to ten grand a night with the right fighter and the right crowd.”

  “You admired him.” I lift my head and peel my eyelids open just enough to see such an emotion on him for myself. The devil displays his respect in gnashing teeth and eyes that flash like gems.

  “I respected him,” he admits. “The man took me in when I was fourteen in a way. People called him ‘Oliver Twist’ because he had a habit of taking in boys off the street to use as runners or bait. He was a cold son of a bitch, but he ran his territory well.”

  “Fourteen?” It’s a two-year gap from twelve. I’m not sure if I want to know what dark secrets fill in those missing months. Thankfully, the devil doesn’t seem willing to tell me.

  “I lived on the streets for a while,” he says, leaving it at that. “If I wasn’t bouncing in and out of a group home, I was stealing. With Dino though, I at least had a roof over my head and food in my mouth.”

  I don’t dare to judge him. It’s a sad story he weaves: a criminal had sheltered him when no one else would.

  “So, you fought in the cage.”

  He nods and drags a hand through his hair, leaving it buried within the dark strands. “I did. It wasn’t bad. I got my ass kicked, but I would rather eat with a busted rib than not at all. I did okay as bait for a while. But one day, they threw me in with a different fighter than the street punks I was used to. They called him The Machete. A sadistic son of a bitch who liked to put on a ‘good show’ in more ways than one for the sick fucks who watched him fight. He requested his bait specifically...liked them young and ‘pretty.’” His voice breaks and the guttural rumble melds into a snarl. He has to clench his fists at his sides as if fighting back the memory before it even descends. “He chose me, but it wasn’t a normal match. The rate was ten percent when the normal cut for bait was only three or less. The cage was different, too. And The Machete...he was a huge son of a bitch.” His eyes widen. For a moment, he’s there again. The past consumes him, and I feel something crawl painfully through my chest when his breathing gets heavier, and his eyes narrow into slits. “It was only right before the match when one of the handlers started muttering about ‘rumors.’ ‘It’ll hurt less if you don’t fight, kid,’ he told me. ‘Just let him rile the crowd. For the love of fucking god don’t...don’t be a little bitch and cry.’”

  Each word is a deadly rasp, burning coals over my flesh. I’ve never seen him look so cold. So hard. So soulless.

  “The cage was run by another man. Some punk Dino hated who let his fighters do whatever twisted shit they wanted to fuel the crowd. Death matches. Torture. Whatever. As long as the money was good, he let it fly, and Dino gave him a few fighters for a hefty price. But business is business.” He grits his teeth, grinding his hatred between them. “The Machete liked young boys. He beat the shit out of his bait and liked to strip them naked afterward and make them scream for kicks. I didn’t know that until he’d already broken one of my fingers and cracked my eye socket. It was the point when I usually would have been dragged from the ring, but he...he started to tear at my shorts, murmuring about how much he loved ‘fresh meat’ and ‘new little piggies to make scream.’” He shakes—no, Lucifer sways. His hip careens into the counter, but he doesn’t even seem to notice the pain. “I remember looking at him,” he says hoarsely. “I remember staring dead into the bastard’s eyes. I remember trying to fight him off while he laughed. I remember...” He shakes his head, and his hand falls, relinquishing its grip on his hair. “The next thing I knew, Dino was dragging me off the fucker. I couldn’t...I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. All I could taste was blood.” He glances down and eyes his hands in the dim, artificial light. There’s a careful, practiced way that he extends each finger, the same way a knight might draw his sword from its sheath or the way Vinny palmed his precious knives. Bone, nails, and sinew were his weapons of choice, and he wields them as well as any other warrior. “I put the bastard in a coma for six weeks,” he says. “Dino was pissed. I cost him a lot of money...he made sure I paid for that. But not even a month later, before what would have been my next match as bait, he pulled me out of the lineup. Told me to pick a ‘real’ name for myself. If I could fight the way I did against The Machete, then he would
make sure I earned him ‘every fucking dime’ he’d lost.” The sound that trickles from his throat is coarse, but it might even be a real laugh. He raises a hand and points to his neck. I strain my eyes and lean forward to make out the script of the tattoo there: Kitten. “I chose the name he gave me himself. I earned him his fucking money back and then some. Being a fighter was a different world from being bait. It was darker. Colder. You looked at a man, and you trained yourself to see him as only a piece of meat, nothing more. You sized up his weaknesses in two seconds, and you bet your life that you made the correct assessment. I...I fucking loved it.” He didn’t mean to admit that out loud, not to me. He frowns, but it’s too late to take the words back.

  I knew how I could sound when I spoke of the cello. How my tone could verge into the territory of a sigh and how people would sometimes shift uncomfortably if I droned on and on about the complexities of Bach. Lucifer applies the same joy that I found in music to the ferocity of beating the shit out of other men in the cage.

  Do I think of him any less for admitting as much? It makes my head hurt that I can’t tell. Admiration. Disgust. Where does one end and the other begin?

  “That was the first time that Dino saved my life,” Lucifer states. “The bastard would never admit it, but he paid off The Machete—once the fucker healed—to keep him from coming after me. He trained me hard. Trained me well. He made sure I didn’t lose a fight that was in my favor, even if the payoff would have been greater if I did. He was a cold son of a bitch...but I trusted him with my life. Up until then, I had never told him about what it had been like before he took me in, though. All he knew was that I came from the streets and never looked back. But right before I turned eighteen...” He falls silent for so long that I almost assume story time is over. Maybe I want it to be. Need it to. The spot in my chest that he had already scraped raw wouldn’t survive another beating. I will break, and only God knew what would happen if that part of me gave way. For five years of torture, my heart had managed to survive—in five minutes, Lucifer had it splintering.

  “I kept tabs on the fucker,” he snarls. “My mom, she had another kid after me, but when she died, they sent him to live with our grandparents rather than with him. ‘Couldn’t raise a baby,’ he said, and they couldn’t manage two kids, let alone a toddler. But when he turned eight, they couldn’t handle Espi anymore, either. ‘He needed to be with his father.’” He spits out the words. “I don’t know what lie he told them about me. That I was a runaway. I was on drugs. I was fucked up. But I was there the day they brought Espi to him. I watched from an alley across the street. Poor kid. He had no clue.” His voice breaks and for a second, the devil is little more than an angel caught mid-freefall. There’s an ageless pain in his eyes that I recognize. Some days I saw it in the people Vinny tortured. Some days I even saw it in myself. It’s a helplessness that goes deeper than mortal constraints. You feel it in your soul, and there is no way to ease the sting. “He had no clue...and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do a fucking thing—” he forms a fist and smashes it against the counter so hard I hear something pop. Crack. Break. If it’s bone, his face reveals nothing. He’s too busy glaring into the past to give a damn about the present. “I was an animal that night in the cage. I went too far and nearly killed the man I fought. Dino almost beat my ass himself...but I told him. I told him about Espi. I told him about that fucker. I told him everything. He didn’t say a damn thing. I think he already knew. He made me get dressed. He drove me to the house. He walked me to the front door. The fucker tried to close it in our faces, but Dino forced our way in. Espi was in the living room watching television. It...it was an hour until bedtime.” He inhales sharply, and I expect him to attack the counter again. He looks at me instead. I don’t know what he finds in my gaze to make his breathing a little easier and his posture less tense. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t shy away from the horror he spills out. I listen. I wait. I watch. “Dino introduced himself as a ‘long lost uncle’ and made me take the kid upstairs while he had a chat with our father. I didn’t know what Espi would think, but...they must have told him about me because he knew who I was. ‘You’re Dante.’ ‘You’re my big brother.’ ‘Want to play trucks?’ I knew then and there that if...if anything...if that bastard—” he inhales. Exhales. Tries again to speak. “I would kill him myself. I would. But I knew without even having to ask that we had made it in time. Espi was okay. So, we played trucks while Dino made our father have a little ‘accident’ that broke his arm in four places. I went there every day, after that. I made the fucker move into the basement. I took Espi to school. I cooked his meals. I tucked him in at night... The only thing that fucker did for him was give him health insurance and a roof—the only shit I couldn’t get him with what I earned in the cage. That’s it. I did everything but sleep there. I couldn’t...never again, but he never touched Espi. I made fucking sure of that. I slept during the day while he was at school, and I watched over him at night in his room.”

  My feet throb when they hit the floor, but I don’t even register standing until he stiffens, eyeing me warily from across the room. Each breath I take scrapes the inside of my lungs as I take another step forward and lift the edge of my borrowed sweatshirt with both hands to reveal Vinny’s mark.

  “I told him I hated him,” I say, the words sticking in my throat. It takes four more raspy breaths before I find the strength to continue, rewarding his dark foray into the past with one of my own. “It was after he tortured the third maid in front of me and made me listen to her s-scream. I told him that I hated him. I shouted it at him...and then he hit me so hard I saw blood.” I’d tasted it as well. He’d struck me in my chest, and it was only three days later that his doctor deduced I had fractured three ribs. The memory makes me sway. I’m not strong like him. I have to cling to the counter just to find my balance again. “He pinned me to my bed and told me about a Russian slaver he knew who tattooed his ‘whores’ to keep them from running. He’d mark his name on their faces or their backs so everyone would know who they belonged to. Vinny caressed my cheek and told me that he could never ruin my beauty that way. So, he stripped me naked and strapped me down while he tattooed his name on my chest the way the slaver had taught him.” Stick and Poke, the technique was called, or so I’d learned afterward. He used only a needle jammed into a stick of wood, a bit of thread and ink. It took him three hours to carefully cement the letters in ink, stab by vicious stab. “He told me that it was so that...so that I would never forget who really loved me.”

  Lucifer doesn’t react to my dark secret. I’ve obeyed him this far, at least; there is nothing else I’ve kept from him now. He knows it all. He owns me in that way, too. I don’t know if he means to exert that ownership when he reaches out to me, just as the door opens and a soft voice warily calls out.

  “Dante?”

  I wrench the hem of my sweatshirt down while Lucifer muscles past me, his eyes on the door. “Darcy,” he states when a slender, blonde figure creeps inside.

  She smiles when she sees him, but the expression flickers when she notices me. In her hands is a single plate, carefully wrapped in tinfoil. “I brought you some food. I didn’t let Mack anywhere near it before you give me that look.” Her tone is playful, but there’s a hint of truth lurking in it before Lucifer can shoot the food a wary glance. He watches her set the plate onto the counter, but then she lingers, her fingers toying with the foil. I don’t miss the second look she shoots at me, two parts confusion mixed with a tiny bit of uncertainty. She wants to talk to Lucifer alone, and I don’t miss the familiarity that taints the air between them. They know each other, and I hate this part of me that wonders how. Who is she to him? Who was he to her? Where do they stand now?

  It’s harder than I’d like to admit to swallow the nosy questions down and stoop for the artist’s duffle. I sling it quietly over my shoulder and enter the bedroom, closing the door behind me. Then...

  I should crawl into bed. Put the sheets over my head. Play prete
nd like I’m not straining my ear to catch every softly spoken word. I should.

  But in the devil’s lair, the rules of etiquette no longer applied.

  I lift the tinfoil from the plate just enough to make out two pieces of fried chicken, a hunk of mashed potatoes, and some macaroni and cheese. It’s not enough to share with the woman in the bedroom—a fact that I can’t ignore. Darcy was never rude so the only other explanation is that she, for whatever reason, didn’t think there would be another mouth left to feed.

  I drag my gaze along her face, searching the smooth planes of it for any hint of what Mack could possibly be planning. I know she’s aware of the suspicion, but she just smiles and pushes the plate toward me. “Eat up. I don’t think Mack brought along any snacks on your little ‘boys’ outing—”

  “Not hungry.” I cut my eyes over to the door and wonder if the little bitch would stick her nose up at it over fucking Thai, though—that is, if Darcy was being honest about Mack getting nowhere near it.

  “I thought Arno would have taken her back by now,” Darcy admits, swirling the edge of her thumb along the rim of the plate.

  “Why?” The question comes out harsher than I mean it to and Darcy flinches. After all, the bitch was Arno’s problem. His responsibility. His prize. His...

  And he can fucking try to take her if he wants to. My fingers flex at the thought of it, burning hot. He can try.

  “He said that was why she was here.” Darcy nods to the bedroom, but my eyes are already scanning the scarred wood as if I can see her leaning against the other side of it. Hell, I can smell her, the nosy little cunt. “He said that she was part of his plan for getting revenge for Parish—”

  “You can tell Arno that he can have her...when I’m done fucking her.” I make my voice loud enough for her to hear and hate that I can only picture her reaction. How would the little princess react to being referred to as my whore? If she lets out a haughty little gasp in disgust, I don’t hear it above the sound of Darcy choking.