Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1) Read online

  “Now?” Arno rips the lid off the bottle. “Now we play, Kitty. Welcome back.”

  Something is wrong. It’s been two days since his proposal, but Vinny’s kept his distance. I’ve spent those days inside my room, playing until the callouses on my inner thumbs blister and bleed. It’s a welcome reprieve, but the anticipation chills me more than the freedom from him gives me peace.

  Time gives Vinny a chance to brood. A brooding Vinny is more likely to leave scars, like the kind I know will mar my backside for at least a month. The pain mingles with dread as I fidget on the seat of my vanity and eye the reflection that faces me. The woman in the mirror reveals none of Vinny’s secrets. She’s curious. Too many questions battle for supremacy in her eyes when a sudden knock rattles the door.

  I’m shaking too badly to even call out a reply.

  Is it him?

  What does he what?

  What will he say?

  Do?

  “I’ll get it, miss.” My fiancé’s absence is joined by Olga’s. The morning after the proposal, a new companion shook me awake. I haven’t bothered to learn her name, and I can only pray that I never have to.

  She’s younger than Olga, and slender, with red hair that gleams as she crosses over to the door and pulls it open.

  “Mr. Stacatto requests your presence, Miss,” Gino says. His tone is flat, revealing nothing. “Eight o’clock tonight. He suggests that you wear the new dress.”

  “T-Thank...” My lips are too dry, and it takes several swipes with my tongue before I can form a coherent response. “Thank you.”

  “Miss.” He’s gone, closing the door behind him, and it’s a painful waiting game until night rolls around with all the finality of a tolling death bell.

  The dress is silk. Lace adorns the sweeping neckline, and I’m alarmed to find that it plunges between my breasts, displaying a teasing V of cleavage. It’s an upgrade from my usually demure wardrobe, but it’s not an improvement. Vinny only likes to show off the toys he knows are his. You are mine, Mi Bella.

  “Your hair, miss.”

  My new companion styles it expertly, pinning up the dark waves to display my neck. The illusion pays off. I seem whole despite my healing wounds, and the battle scars etched into my flesh beneath black silk. Vinny’s chosen word haunts me. Nice.

  “The car is waiting, Miss Manzano,” Gino calls from the hallway.

  I believe that all is well until I enter the hallway. There are only three men in the suite tonight—Vinny’s taken the bulk of his detail with him, it seems. Their eyes chase me across the room, but on my way through the foyer, I catch sight of the grandfather clock perched against the wall. The time is displayed in emblazoned numbers, and I freeze in my tracks.

  8:15

  “It’s late.” Fear chokes me. I think I’m going to be sick, but even my churning stomach knows better than to ruin my new dress. Oh, God. Oh, God. “C-Call him! Please.” I turn to Gino, and for a second I forget myself. My hand shoots out, seizing his collar. “Tell him! Please. It wasn’t me. It’s not my fault. I can’t be late.”

  The room spins. Gino has to physically pry my fingers loose, but he lets me go just as quickly and backs away, leaving me to sway on my feet. His hand darts into the pocket of his suit jacket, withdrawing a slim cell phone. “I will,” he promises, bringing the receiver to his ear. The words he speaks are barked out in another language, but he assures me that everything will be okay in English when he finally hangs up.

  I believe him as he ushers me into the elevator and leads me across the lobby below. I have to believe him.

  Out front, the car idles, unconcerned by the danger its driver has placed me in. I think of the girl in my room, fearfully organizing the clothes in my closet. Will I learn her name tonight? God, the thought of it is too much. It swallows me whole, locking me within a prison that seals me up tight, cutting off all oxygen.

  Gino leaves me at the curb. I’ll travel to this nightmare alone. I’ll face Vinny alone. The thought has never terrified me more. I can’t. I can’t.

  I’m a shell of a woman, sitting in the backseat of the car with my hands folded neatly on my lap. My heart is a pathetic ball in my chest, incapable of churning blood. I can’t take my eyes off the scenery darting past, muted by the car’s tinted windows. I’m sure that I’ll die before we reach the venue—suffocate.

  But my pulse keeps thumping. My lungs continue to fill with oxygen. My body won’t obey me, so conditioned it is to following Vinny’s will.

  My fiancé’s will.

  My husband. The thought sends hot tears trickling down, but I don’t hold them back. I’m too tired to wipe them away. He’ll be angry when he sees. I’ll be punished.

  And yet they continue to fall throughout the entire journey and still linger when the car finally comes to a stop, and the door is opened from the outside. A sob hitches in my throat. My ring weighs me down. Whoever the unlucky goon is to greet me, he’ll have to carry me inside.

  I wait for him to utter the usual line. “He’s waiting, miss.”

  I don’t expect for whoever he is to climb inside instead, shoving his body against mine. I don’t expect to hear a gun cock or feel the icy ridge of a barrel graze my temple.

  It’s like waking up from a dream. This new rush of fear that jolts down my spine is another flavor from the kind Vinny inspires.

  “Keep driving,” a gruff voice commands, as the door is slammed shut again, but with me trapped inside. “Keep fucking driving.”

  Being Arno Mackenzie’s “guest” comes with the perk of a fully furnished apartment above the pub. It’s small but clean, something I’ve learned to appreciate after the shared quarters of a maximum-security prison. It’s a rare luxury to have your own toilet to piss in. Even rarer to take a shower without jostling for a spigot with twenty other men.

  Arno himself claims to have his own place close by, but after the first night, I’m in no mood to reminisce. I spend the first night alone. Back before, I’d troll the city, keeping an ear to the ground for information, or I’d scrounge up old allies who might not run at the sight of me. For what it’s worth, I avoid the bar, but I don’t have to for one fact to become crystal clear.

  Arno wasn’t embellishing shit, for once. Espi doesn’t want to see me. He lives at Mulligans as well, from what Arno would tell me, but in twenty-four hours I have a better chance of forming a relationship with the roaches that scuttle in the corners than I do of reconnecting with my suddenly “adult” kid brother.

  The brush-off leaves me antsy. Espi knew better than anyone that I hated to be ignored. I preferred a man to face me head-on rather than sulk in the fucking shadows. Van Hallen. Arno. They didn’t know shit. Espi was still the same punk kid I’d left behind, pouting in the corners.

  I’d given him long enough. Impatient and restless, I head down to the bar, just after midnight, descending the single rickety staircase that separates the two levels. It opens onto a back room behind the bar counter, beside the kitchen.

  On the previous night, I’d heard enough noise seep through the floors to know that Arno liked to keep a full house, but tonight, the pub itself is nearly deserted. Only Francisco and Arno sit at the counter. The latter rests his head in his hands, but I knew enough to suspect—despite how much he liked to knock back—the man wasn’t stupid or suicidal enough to get drunk out in the open.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Spotting me, Francisco rises to his feet. “Arno...”

  “Leave him.” Arno raises his hand, slicing the air with it. Like a good dog, his man falls back, but not without fixing me with a hostile glare I graciously return.

  “What the hell is going on?” It isn’t too often that a man went from a “brother’s” welcome to spooking the puppies overnight. Typically, that kind of swift change came on the heels of a murder or two. “Where’s Espi?”

  “Espi.” Arno releases a harsh bark of laughter as he pulls himself upright. His eyes are red. Bloodshot. Even back in the day, h
e never sampled his own product. The only other explanation is that the bastard had been...crying. “Where’s Espi. Where’s Parish?” he growls.

  “Parish?” I frown. Only twelve hours ago did the man kick his sister out on the street when she tried to ask me for money. “In an alley, somewhere?” I guess, taking a stab in the fucking dark. “Getting high? I don’t fucking know.”

  Arno laughs again, but the sound comes out dangerously unsteady. He’s the mad-dog gnawing at his leash this time. “Getting high,” he snarls. In one smooth motion, he’s on his feet, facing me with his stance open, his hands clenching into fists. “You want to take that back, Dante.”

  “Arno.” Francisco, the dog, has enough sense to step back. “Arno. Try to keep a clear head. You don’t—”

  “The fuck if you know what I don’t want to do.” Fire gleams in the redhead’s eyes. He’s burning—itching—for a fight. To beat something or someone bloody with his fists. To bare his teeth. Growl. Bite.

  Don’t I fucking know the feeling? My blood boils. My fingertips burn. They ache. I can’t stop flexing them. I’m hungry for a battle. Fuck that; I crave it.

  But I’m not an idiot.

  “Listen to him, Arno.” I jerk my head in Francisco’s direction. “Sit back down.”

  “I will,” Arno growls, the muscles in his arms straining. “Just as soon as you take back that shit you just said about my goddamn sister.”

  I don’t hesitate. “No.”

  With an unrestrained roar, Arno lunges, and I’m ready for him. My fist tightens eagerly, and I let it fly into his stomach, driving every ounce of air from his lungs. The blow lands harder than I’d meant it to. Harsher. He wheezes and swipes at my head with an open palm. It’s child’s play to duck it, and I land another blow on the center of his chest that sends him backward, sprawling against the counter.

  “Stop!” Francisco steps in between us. His stance isn’t hostile to me as he places a restraining hand on Arno’s shoulder, but it’s almost too hard to silence the lust that rises up so fierce and so hard that I can feel it taking shape around me. The buzzing begins at the back of my skull, swelling to a deafening hum that won’t be silenced until I beat Arno’s face into a pulp. Until I smash his fucking face into the counter. Until I feel his blood on my hands. They curl, hungry for that slick, intoxicating heat. And I want—need—to feed that itch.

  “Dante.”

  I shrug off the voice that battles with the steady pulse taking residence in my brain. It’s a chant, almost. Fight. Punch. Bleed. Kill.

  “Dante.” It’s Arno calling me this time. There’s blood on his chin, but I’m not sure how or why. My knuckles ache. I’d only registered two punches, but the twinge in my shoulder warns me that it was several more. “Dante,” Arno tries again. He spits out a mouthful of blood onto the floor, which is dark enough to obscure the violent coloring. “Parish...she’s...fuck, Dante, she’s dead. Parish is dead.”

  “What?” I shake my head, desperate to clear it. It’s too confusing to jump from violence to blood and then death.

  “She’s dead,” Arno says, almost as if to himself. His hand fumbles along the bar until he finds a discarded glass and he downs whatever is inside it. “How the fuck am I supposed to tell our mother? Those bastards didn’t even...”

  “Who?” My voice ripples over that familiar, low tone. Clarity returns in snatches, but my fingers aren’t shaking at least. “What happened to her? Mack?”

  “No, not him. These other bastards—” Arno breaks off, and something cold fills his gaze. “I didn’t want to bother you with this. I know this isn’t your fight, but—”

  “I’m in.” Parish. Stupid fucking Parish. So, busy trying to act older than she was, but still too fucking young to die. If it was Mack who got her, then some other drug dealer probably gutted her when she couldn’t pay—if she hadn’t put a needle in her arm first. It’s cruel, but not unexpected, though I don’t know why Arno seems so caught off guard. He understood the fire his sister liked to play with. Hell, some might even say that he was the one to inject it into her veins in the first place, considering the business he dealt with.

  But no. Arno seems too raw. Too broken. Parish wasn’t killed at random.

  “I’m in,” I repeat, giving the word a vicious edge. “Whatever you need.”

  “Good.” He nods once. Then he turns and heads for the back of the bar, jerking his head for Francisco and me to follow. “I’ll need someone to help me clean up the mess.”

  Arno heads to the basement of Mulligans. There’s a door off the rear entryway near the fire exit. One of his men stands guard. There’s a Glock in one of his pockets and a knife tucked in the other. He doesn’t attempt to disguise the telltale bulges of either weapon, and his gaze is icy. Parish may have been a nuisance, but loyalty to Arno makes her death everyone’s burden to bear.

  “It came a few hours ago,” Arno’s saying as he leads the way down a wooden set of stairs. “Fuck. S-She...” He shakes his head, squaring his shoulders as if preparing to barrel through the closed door awaiting us at the base of the steps. Instead, he knocks on it once with the broadside of his fist, and the door is opened almost immediately from the inside.

  “She’s here,” a man says as Arno moves past him, ushering Francisco and me into a large, open area where more men lurk in the corners like guard dogs. The only light comes from rows of fluorescent lights attached to the ceiling. The walls are gray, nothing more than painted cement. The floors appear to be poured concrete. There’s none of the comfort or care that decorates the upper interior of Mulligans. The barroom is for show. This place is for business.

  “Well, where the fuck is she?” Arno demands. He cranes his neck and makes a show of glancing around the room on a scavenger hunt for a woman hidden among the slew of men. I follow his gaze. He has about ten bodies here—for show, I suspect. Whoever this guest of honor is, Arno wants to make quite the impression.

  The only furniture is a metal folding chair placed in the center of the room, beside a matching table and a laptop. It’s flipped open, the screen displaying a blank blue desktop.

  “They’re on their way in,” one of the men says, and Arno begins to pace, raking his fingers through his mane of hair.

  Maybe five minutes pass before the door leading to the stairway finally opens.

  “Did anyone see you?” Arno demands of the figure at the door before they can even enter the room. “Were you followed?”

  His voice prickles with suspicion. He’s on edge. His hair gleams like a flame, and the man himself seems just as untamable, liable to set everything he touches on fire.

  “No one saw,” another man replies, his voice gruff. “I got her. The driver’s been paid off. It went as planned.”

  I’m expecting a man to appear from the shadows of the doorway. Not a woman. She’s small, slender, and dressed as if for a party. Her black hair is piled on top of her head, displaying a slim throat. Her dress is short, paired with a cleavage-baring neckline, but if Arno had decided to mourn his sister by ordering a high-class call girl, she doesn’t seem to be the type. She looks too young, for one. Her lips are painted red, but they do little to combat the smattering of freckles across her nose or the innocence that wafts from her skin like perfume. I’d peg her at twenty, tops. The color of snow, her skin gleams beneath the fluorescent lighting, though I figure the paleness of it has something to do with the gun being pressed against the back of her head.

  “Arno...what the fuck is this?”

  He doesn’t bother to answer me. Instead, he grins as the woman is marched across the room by the gun-wielder who I recognize as one of his men. Dall. “Sit her down,” Arno commands, jerking his chin at the table.

  The woman is shoved down onto the metal seat, though she does her best to regain her composure. Her legs cross politely at the ankles, her hands settling primly on her lap. She could be at a fucking tea party if it weren't for her expression. Fixated on the laptop screen, her eyes are dead, starin
g far away at something that isn’t there.

  “Arno...” I don’t know whether to intervene or merely watch. There’s something hypnotic about the entire scene. Something intoxicating. And I fucking hate having to admit it to myself. The urgency calls to the beast inside of me who stirs hungrily, sniffing at the air. The threat of violence is as irresistible as it is disgusting. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Language, Dante,” Arno playfully scolds. “We have a guest.” His eyes continue to smolder. He’s amped up on something more potent than alcohol—it’s rage. Like venom, it taints his every word, and I stare down at the seated woman on whom he seems to project most of his wrath. She doesn’t seem capable of murder, but I know without even having to ask that whatever is going on has everything to do with Parish. “Play the fucking tape,” Arno snarls, but his voice slips an unsteady octave. His bottom jaw trembles and he clenches both tightly in an attempt to hide it. “Now, damn it!”

  The man with the gun keeps it trained on the woman with one hand, while he leans over her and fiddles with the keys on the laptop with the other. The screen turns black, and then the still image of a woman appears. Over her face hovers a white sideways triangle enclosed in a circle. The universal symbol for Play. The moment the video begins, I know why Arno’s so unsteady. Why his men sport the looks of wolves eager to hunt.

  The video’s star stares dead into the camera. Her hair hangs dank and limp down her shoulders, and her green eyes are vacant but steady. She’s high, but not to the point where she can’t feel any fear. “Arno...” She inhales, her voice trembling. Someone behind the camera must be holding up something for her to read because she squints. “T-this is what happens...”

  “Keep going,” someone grunts, their face unseen.

  Parish flinches. Her tongue shoots out to wet her lips before she tries again. “Arno, this is what happens when you—oh God.” A hand seizes her hair, yanking her head back, and the camera pans out to reveal the figure standing behind her. He’s tall. Parish, hunched over on her knees, barely comes up to his waist. Dressed in a black, tailored suit, he doesn’t seem like the sort to solicit the favors of a coke whore. He’s young, maybe thirty, but there’s an agelessness in his dark eyes. Slicked-back brown hair frames a broad forehead anchored by a square jaw. His nose is crooked—like it’s been broken one too many times. Behind him is a nondescript backdrop of white walls and tiled flooring. I scope out every detail, but it’s no use. They could be anywhere.