Page 16 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Daniela

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 that 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 is lying 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’m lying on it and staring out instead.

He’s shirtless. God, he’s tall, too. Taller than Vinny, even. Certainly bulkier. Muscle weighs his bones down. It’s the type of strength 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 himself.

It’s something a nice girl wouldn’t watch.

So I greedily stare. I 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. Yet some part of me just can’t help adding to my misery.

“Her name...” My throat is so dry that it aches.

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?”

If Vinny has taught me anything, it’s that a name is a powerful weapon.

I’ve avoided learning them out of self-preservation ever since he used the very first maid he’d appointed to me as a tool in my punishment.

She will haunt me forever. They all will.

Regardless, I still can’t resist adding one more ghost to the ones I already carry inside me.

That girl with the haunting, green eyes can’t be forgotten.

Vinny won’t own all of her soul; I’ll keep part of it.

“Please.”

The man at the sink shuts the faucet off and takes his time shaking the water from his fingers. Then he carefully dries them on a gray towel hanging from a rack beside the mirrored cabinet. I know he can hear me. He knows I know he’s ignoring me on purpose.

It’s a silent game we play. In the end, he eyes his reflection in the mirror and then heads for the door. I flinch when he turns the light off. The darkness should be a welcome friend by now, but it’s suffocating. It hides too many unknown variables lurking just out of reach.

The man closes the door behind him, but I don’t hear the latch lock. His heavy footsteps retreat away from me, down a hall maybe? I don’t remember enough of the layout of where he brought me to make a proper guess.

I’m too tired to sleep, however. So I wait.

My captor returns just as graying daylight drifts in through the bathroom’s only window. It’s built into the wall, high above me—too high to reach. Or so he seems to think when he appears in the doorway and eyes it with a frown. Maybe he’s just cursing what I assume will be another rainy day?

He provides no answers. There’s an intention conveyed in the way he moves, however. Fluidly. Self-assuredly. He knows I won’t run. He knows I won’t fight. I think I bore him. Perhaps that’s why he sighs when he finds me curled up in the bathtub where he left me last.

He’s fully dressed now, wearing jeans and a faded, gray T-shirt sporting the name of some band Vinny would smear as vulgar. His feet are bare, and I eye his overgrown toenails as he pads to the center of the narrow room and comes to a stop at the center of a fuzzy, blue rug.

“Get up.”

The tension in his voice stirs something in my blood.

The part of me that obeys Vinny without question stirs sleepily, recognizing the power of a man with the potential to be just as brutal a master.

He’s not used to taking orders—he prefers to give them.

I saw a glimpse of it last night when he interfered with the plans of the red-haired man.

A wounded doe knows a dog when she sees one, and this man is no different from Vinny. They even stand the same.

“Get up,” he repeats. There’s no glimmer of concern in his eyes for the fact that I’m still dizzy from the blood loss. He’s impatient, and I’m too tired to tempt him.

My body screams in agony when I attempt to sit upright.

It takes me three tries before I can get a good enough grip on the rim of the tub to haul my upper body from the base of it.

God . My ear burns when I lift it from the towel.

The terrycloth tries to cling to the ruined skin.

Fresh beads of blood drip down to coat my neck, but I don’t bother wiping them away.

It’s only when I try to stand on trembling legs and climb out of the tub that simple physiology overcomes sheer will.

I’m too weak. My knee slips and I go sprawling forward.

My elbow strikes the tiled floor while one of my legs remains caught in the tub.

My ass is in the air, my dress bunched up around my waist. If I’m expecting the man to help me, I’m sorely disappointed.

He merely stands there, watching and waiting.

The world swims while I wrestle to regain control of my limbs, and I somehow manage to hook one of my hands underneath me and push off the floor.

My other knee crosses over the rim of the tub and catches the end of the fuzzy rug before I can fall.

I’ve almost managed to raise myself up on both hands when I vomit.

Foul liquid splashes mere inches away from the man’s toes. The next torrent bathes them in it.

I stiffen in grim anticipation. Vinny would hit me for daring to soil him, even by accident. This man... Well, this man just sighs.

The floor creaks beneath his weight as he turns and exits the room, his footsteps slow and unhurried. I press my cheek against the icy floor and try to imagine what might happen if he never comes back. I could bleed out. Die here. It would be peaceful. No Vinny. No violence. No lies.

My delirious brain plays tricks on me. I start to drift off.

When something jostles my shoulder, I believe that it is Saint Peter finally here to wrench me out of this world and into the next—but it’s another entity shaking me awake.

I blink my eyes open and shudder at the sight of the filthy foot nudging my shoulder.

My captor has returned. He drops something onto the floor in front of me, missing the messy puddle of my vomit by inches.

“Change.”

The command tickles old nerve endings of fear that I’d thought living under Vinny for so long had snuffed out.

At least until I notice that the garment he’s given me is an old cotton T-shirt that smells like cigarette smoke and musk.

He’s worn it. He hasn’t washed it. A part of me trembles at the thought of slipping it on over my dress.

Vinny’s carefully selected scents and this man’s don’t mesh.

It’s two different worlds clashing together with an aroma that scratches at my nostrils.

Groaning, I struggle to pull myself upright. My support arm wobbles while I reach for the shirt with the other. My captor watches me observe it as if I’m checking the thread count. How long has it been since I’ve worn something that hasn’t been hand-sewn or purchased in a fancy boutique?