Page 14 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

“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 is nearly brushing the screen while his eyes remain fixed on the wall.

They’re red and welling 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 to watch 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 have 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 tiptoe 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 gaze is 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 threw syringes onto the floor in front of her, each one filled with amber liquid.

Slamming the screen shut so hard that 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, facedown 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’s caught her breath. Like the first man on the video, she has an accent 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 I know well.

Hell, I helped put it there. The puppy and the kitty cut their teeth on the same 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’s holding 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’s waving 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 thisinstead.

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.