Page 2 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

I run my eyes over Vinny’s chiseled features. He must seem handsome to some, with a Romanesque nose and smooth, olive skin. He has a laugh that can raise goose bumps and eyes that gleam like firelight. But none of that can make up for the monster lurking within the beautiful exterior.

“Get some sleep,” he tells me before laying another soft kiss on my cheek.

“Goodnight, Vinny.” It’s a precarious trip over the bodies of the two dead men to reach the door. I manage to keep my balance until I grab the doorknob.

Then his voice rings out behind me, issuing another command. “Send Gino in here to clean up this fucking mess. ”

“O-okay.” I pull the door open and stagger into the narrow hallway beyond it.

Two men are standing on either side of the doorway, both broad-shouldered with matching stern expressions.

“Gino,” I speak to the one with a goatee and heavy-set build.

“Vinny needs you to clean... He needs—” I wind up gesturing to the room with a wave of my hand.

He nods once. “Of course, Ms. Manzano.”

He brushes past me while I head down the hallway of the suite.

It contains ten rooms, all interconnected on the highest floor of the Hirmark Hotel.

My room is on the far west corner, but I don’t head for it now.

Instead, I cross the living room, past four more men lounging on the imported Italian furniture.

One of them calls out to me. “Your instrument is safely in your room, miss.”

I glance over and nod, forcing a smile. “Thank you.”

“Miss?” He questions when I finally reach the front door. “Do you need anything?”

“No...I—” My grip tightens over the doorknob. “I just need some fresh air. I’ll be right back.”

I twist the lock and push the door open before he can even rise from the couch. Just outside the suite, another guard takes up his post, but he doesn’t say a word when I head toward the elevators. He doesn’t have to.

Vinny has even more men watching me from the shadows. Men ready and waiting to trail me from the concert hall and through the subway, there to step in when two thugs try to rape and mug me in an alley.

Vinny has eyes on me everywhere, but after all these years, I know how to evade them for a few precious minutes.

Rather than wait for the elevator, I take the stairs.

It’s thirty-four flights to the bottom level.

An elegant oak door leads to the main lobby, while a battered metal one opens onto the street.

It’s cold out, and my sweater isn’t a good enough barrier against the mid-October weather.

Each breath I take paints the air white, but I relish the chill.

It’s bracing after the stifling heat of Vinny’s office.

The stench of the city and a dumpster a few feet away almost displaces the spicy scent of blood.

I can breathe again, and I take huge, savoring gulps as I stagger two feet down the alley and then turn the corner to skirt the back of another building.

Vinny likes to conduct his business on the Upper East Side.

Far away from the riffraff we grew up around, but still close enough to keep an eye on his holdings.

It’s the perfectionist in him. The same personality quirk that compels him to carefully plan his days around a clockwork-like schedule. The same way he likes to plan mine.

This little detour is entirely my own, however, and I take my time, walking up at least a block until I reach a familiar stretch of pavement.

There are a few metal trash cans here, nestled against the side of what I assume is an old office building.

Inside one of them is a stack of old newspapers just ripe for the taking.

I scan the faded print in the dim light cast from a nearby streetlamp while I slip my hand into my pocket and withdraw a flimsy book of matches that managed to survive the excitement tonight.

My fingers shake when I strike one, holding the flame as close to my face as I dare.

The heat it gives off licks at my skin. Orange and amber paint my vision, spilling across the pavement at my feet.

It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying. If I drop this flame into the barrel of newspapers, the fire will spread and become out of control.

Holding it like this creates a precarious balance, similar to the skill required to guide a bow along a narrow row of strings in search of just the right tune. The perfect note. Fire contains a symphony of its own. The crackling embers build to their own silent, destructive crescendo.

“Hey!”

The voice startles me so badly that I jump.

The match slips from my fingers and strikes the topmost newspaper.

Almost in slow motion, it starts to burn—bright yellow flames at first, then a brilliant orange that dances its way across a headline proclaiming that construction on a new city park will begin next fall.

“Jesus Christ!” A wad of gray fabric smothers the ember’s music midsong. The flames hiss as they’re beaten down to nothing but embers clinging to a ruined hunk of smoking paper.

Vinny’s man is a full three minutes quicker than he was last time. I can’t hide the sigh of disappointment that shoots out, tainting the air gray, as I turn to face him, fully prepared to obey the subtle command of, “Let’s get you inside, miss.”

But I didn’t expect the hand gripping my wrist. Vinny’s men never touch me—one of the many rules pertaining to the care of his property. Whoever he is, his fingers are callused and rough with grime and dirt. Unmanicured. Unpolished. Unsanitized.

My brain counts the surmounting flaws while my eyes take him in.

He’s not wearing a suit, just a gray hoodie and jeans, another gross violation.

Vinny once beat a man to death for wearing jeans on the job.

“Unpro-fucking-fessional!” he’d snarled in between the blows of his pistol-turned-bludgeoning weapon.

“Aren’t you a little too old to be playing with matches?”

I flinch. His voice lacks a distinct accent. Vinny prefers “imported” men to do his dirty work rather than Americans. I don’t know how to process it. Any of it.

My eyes linger on his face—or what little of it I can make out in the dark. His hair is too long. A line of dark stubble covers his strong chin. It’s impossible to make out his eye color, but I guess something light. Blue? Green maybe?

He towers over me. Almost as tall as Vinny but with none of that imposing bulk. This man is almost lean in build, but his grip is firm. I can’t pull my hand away easily, not that I try to. Those thugs in the alley smelled like alcohol and felt like sandpaper. This man smells like...

A sudden breeze glances off the brick walls, displacing his scent before I can decipher it fully. Cigarette smoke. Musk. Cologne?

“You a mute or something?” he asks. He sounds harsh on the surface, but there’s an almost amusing note hidden between the words like a soprano almost smothered amongst altos.

Alarm floods my veins. I should scream for one of Vinny’s men.

Paranoia is one of Vinny’s dominant traits, and his money allows him to indulge in it to the fullest. From what little information I’ve guessed in a few short months, he even posted some of his stooges on the rooftops.

A few more work as cab drivers who pretend to be blind to any passenger but his own men.

I wait, holding my breath. Seconds tick by while the stranger still speaks—but no one comes.

“Be more careful,” he says while letting my wrist go. “It’s no fun getting busted for arson—”

“I wasn’t playing with matches.” The voice sounds like me, but it isn’t a scream. It isn’t a plea for Vinny or one of his goons to come running. It was a whisper, almost, as if I didn’t want to be heard above the barrage of honking horns drifting from the main street.

“Oh, really? Do you prefer the term ‘playing with fire,’ then?”

I frown at that. “I prefer playing with...light.” My tongue wrestles to convey the words in English. Vinny loathes my accent despite his preference for it in workers.

This man doesn’t seem fazed by it. “With light , huh? You a pyro or something?”

“P-pyro?”

“Pyromaniac. You know, arsonist.” He jerks his chin to the smoldering newspaper. “You like settin’ fires or something?”

Piromaníaca? I shake my head. The question doesn’t make sense. Who would enjoy setting something on fire? Though...I can’t deny the shiver that runs through me at the thought of Vinny’s suite, high above the city, doused in flames. How would my room look while consumed by the inferno ?

My facial expression must change, because the man laughs, the sound grating against the backdrop of city noise.

“You escape from a mental hospital or something?”

“Something like that,” I hear myself reply. Escape. My mind gets stuck on that word and won’t move on. “Yeah, sure. Something like that.”

“Hmph.” The man shifts, tucking his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt. That simple motion violently puts everything back into perspective. This man is way too close, and I move to stand on the opposite side of the barrels.

“Sorry for bothering you,” I say, which is as polite a brush-off as I can manage.

The smart thing to do would be to return to the hotel without having to be escorted back—but for some reason, I can’t move from this spot.

The book of matches is still in my hand, and my heart races with the urge to light another. Just one more.

“Oh, yeah. I have some damn nerve getting on a high horse,” the man grunts.

Rather than leave, he takes a step closer to the barrels between us, and the motion reveals that he’s carrying something on his back : a backpack.

He opens it up and withdraws a round, cylindrical object.

I don’t know what it is until he gives it a shake.

The can rattles like Vinny’s shaving cream, or. ..

“S-spray paint?” My voice is still a whisper, but the man nods. I think he might have even winked, but it’s too dim here to be sure.