Page 20 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

She does so obediently, folding her hands on the table in front of her.

She winces when her tongue shoots out to staunch the blood dribbling from her mouth.

Already, the skin is starting to redden.

Oddly enough, she doesn’t seem to mind the pain.

There’s almost a cat-got-the-mouse expression that flits across her features too quickly to pin down.

She’s like a kid who’s been smugly rewarded with an extra scoop of ice cream after asking for it politely.

Arno’s men can’t leave her alone though.

Varying levels of anger distort their features, but I’m not impressed.

How many of them fucked Parish or gave her money for drugs?

How many of them treated her like shit and called her as much to her face?

Her death has made her a saint. Arno’s sister will be avenged, all right.

One of the men steps forward, tugging at the clasps of his pants. “How about a little preview, sweetie?” Once his limp prick is revealed, he palms it, gasping out, and gives her an impromptu performance.

The princess doesn’t even spare a glance in his direction.

I’m grudgingly curious as to why—especially when she didn’t seem to shy away from my own dick.

She’s staring off again, her features blank and empty.

It pisses me off, that look. She’s far from the pain.

The indecency. No one can touch her wherever she flies off to, and deep down, some part of me acknowledges why that dazed expression lights a burning in my fingertips. I fucking know that look.

Arno’s man jumps back when I approach, his jeans still bunched around his fucking ankles. I ignore him, my focus solely on the girl. She doesn’t react, but a part of her returns to observe me curiously the closer I come.

I expect her to wince when I reach out and seize her chin in the palm of my hand, but she doesn’t.

Not even when my thumb presses into her split lip and then slides along her mouth, painting it with her own blood like a canvas.

I can see her chest rise and fall from here, but the movement is steady.

She’s not afraid. When I lean down, close enough to bring my mouth alongside her ruined ear, her breathing doesn’t even hitch.

She’s flying off again, steeling herself for whatever I’m going to say.

I don’t feel the urge to whisper, but I find myself speaking gruffly anyway, for her benefit.

“Tell me about Stacatto.”

I withdraw just in time to see her eyes flash with interest. We’ve hit upon her favorite topic of conversation, it seems. Apparently, nothing gets a bitch to talk like her own fucking love life.

“This won’t work,” she says. She meets my gaze fully, and I don’t know if it’s amusement or despair that I see there. “Hurting me... It won’t work. Vinny will expect me to suffer.” She shrugs as if the threat of pain is just a messy business she’ll have to just endure. “He thinks I’ll die for him.”

It’s the second time she’s spoken like that. He expects her to be honored to die for him. He thinks .

“So, what doesn’t he expect?” I wonder.

Arno certainly seems to be in the mood to try all new kinds of torture. The princess doesn’t seem capable of giving me an answer though. She frowns, her expression thoughtful. I guess she hasn’t considered that side of the scenario. Her gaze drifts down to the ring sparkling on her finger.

“You’re wrong,” I tell her. “What Arno plans to do to you...” I trail off, shaking my head. Something that could be a smile shapes my mouth, and I watch her carefully to see how she reacts to it.

“You don’t know Vinny,” she replies, her voice steady and assured despite the tender hint of a bruise that’s already blooming over her jaw.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to see those things happen to my fiancée—”

“He’s not human,” she counters as if it’s as simple as that.

I frown, not liking the way she assumes I’m not in the same boat.

We’re all monsters here, I think, looking her up and down.

Even her to some degree. She’s seen things—her eyes hold the scars.

Whatever shred of humanity she might have once had has already been tainted, long before Arno’s men snatched her.

“Well, what would piss him off?” I wonder for the second time.

She laces her hands together, seeming to think it over. “I’d have to...disobey.” She frowns as if confused by the possibility. Her ring catches my eye again, and I can’t resist imagining what drew her to such a man. Perhaps the little princess gets off on power?

“Disobey?” I repeat, curious despite common fucking sense.

She whispered the word like a prayer—one of those naughty ones we mutter internally so the priest won’t hear, those imploring pleas for God to smite whoever wronged you.

To hurt that bully on the playground or strike a wayward offender down with fire and brimstone.

I knew those prayers well, back when I still believed in them, that is.

“How?”

She shrugs, and her gaze begins to glaze over .

But I’m not satisfied, and I snatch for her wrist; she won’t fly off so easily. “Disobey how?”

She doesn’t answer me, and rather than press the issue, I let her go and reach for the camera Arno left. It’s small but easy to use.

“He wanted a picture,” I remind her. A part of me bristles at doing Arno’s dirty work, but something tells me his men won’t let her pose alone. Intervening isn’t my main goal, however—once again, I’m fucking curious.

“Disobey,” she said. As if the man controlled her by a leash and not a priceless diamond ring.

When I raise the camera and capture her face on the screen, it’s utterly expressionless, dangerously pale.

With the wad of duct tape over her mangled ear and her hair a mess, she cuts a striking image.

Despite what she claims about the man, a mad dog can guess the reactions of another mad dog—and there isn’t one alive who wouldn’t growl when another beast steals his toy.

“Smile, sweetheart,” someone goads from the sidelines.

When my finger hits the button and the flash goes off, I assume she ignored the taunt.

With the swelling shaping up nicely on the left side of her face, Arno will have a very pretty snapshot regardless.

But, when I glance down and scroll through the gallery, something rises up swiftly, knocking me full in the chest. Shock ?

The zombie-caricature of a woman stares at me from the camera’s screen.

She smiles back. The grin contorts her mouth, plumping up her cheeks and giving life to her eyes.

She looks like a party girl, exhausted but having the time of her fucking life.

She isn’t imploring help or begging her fiancé to save her with puppy-dog eyes.

She taunts him, her bitter smile a twisted message: I’m bruised and broken and bloody, but I would rather be.

Disobedience, I think, looking up to face the woman in person.

She entertains a much different definition of the word than I do.

I let the camera fall back onto the table.

A part of me wonders if I should make her take another one—force her to look pathetic—but I don’t, and she stares blankly ahead as if she had never reacted at all.

I keep her secret and return to my place at the wall, watching her. Arno’s men are anxious. They loudly discuss what they’ll do when Arno finally gives the go-ahead. How many ways they can make a “bitch scream.”

If she hears them, the girl’s face offers no indication.

She’s ice cold, her expression a carefully composed mask.

I’d admire her if I weren’t almost as impatient as the other dogs were.

The waiting game never was my forte, but Arno seems to relish making her sweat.

I wish he would fucking get it over with.

I want to see how the little princess keeps her head held high when she’s forced to pleasure an entire crew of brutal, violent men.

Something tells me she’s been through worse, and I fucking hate the part of me that wonders exactly what.

Maybe an hour passes by the time Arno finally returns, his hair streaming behind him like fire.

He scan the room, spotting me near the corner.

“Dante.” He doesn’t seem surprised to see me back early—he sighs, apparently more relieved instead.

“Something came up. I need these assholes to help me...take out the garbage .” He gives the words a meaningful edge that make his men lurch to attention.

I can fucking hear them sniffing at the air, eager to cut their teeth on fresh meat.

“Can you watch her? It won’t take long.”

He leaves the matter up to me, but I shrug rather than answer. The little princess has stiffened up in his presence, and I don’t miss the slight slip in her otherwise impenetrable armor. Despite her shit about disobedience, she truly is afraid. I can’t decide if I’m amused or not.

“Dante?”

I shrug again and run a hand through my hair. The fingertips burn slightly, and I’m not sure why. “I’ll stay. ”

“Good.” With one look, Arno musters his men into action, and they follow him up the stairs.

The ceiling trembles with their combined weight as they march across the length of the bar and exit out of what I assume to be the main doors.

God help whichever bastard pissed Arno off today.

The girl might get a reprieve after all.

If she’s lucky, the worst of his murderous lust will be rubbed out by the time he comes for her.

Though I doubt it will do much good. She may be better at hiding it than most, but her body can’t stave off the lasting impact of pain and exhaustion for very long.

She’s already trembling, rattling the metal legs of the chair.

Her skin is icily pale, and a sheen of sweat glistens over her forehead.

I give her an hour, maybe two, before she fully goes into shock—and she certainly won’t be laughing by then.

The desire for something to pass the time drives me up the basement steps, leaving her there.

She won’t follow, and I doubt she has enough strength left to run.

I take my time when I head across the now nearly empty barroom to the counter.

The bartender gives me an odd look when I ask for something “strong as hell,” but she tosses me a bottle of dark, nearly black liquor, and I accept it with a nod.

I sip at it while I return to the basement. Whatever it is, it burns like hell. I drain nearly a third of the bottle by the time I finally approach the woman.

“Drink,” I tell her, placing the bottle down in front of her—though I don’t fucking know why.

If she’s stupid, she’ll hit me with it and try to run. If she’s smart, she’ll ignore me. I can see her wrestling with either decision as she warily scans the label.

“W-why?” she asks.

I cock my head and shove the bottle closer. It flirts with the edge, only about an inch from spilling onto her lap. “Drink.”

Her fingers tremble as she clutches the neck of the bottle with one hand. Her eyes dart to mine and then flit away again. She knows she won’t find any comfort in them. She gets her reassurances from the drink instead, taking a small, pursed-lip sip. It’s fucking pathetic.

“Another,” I command, bracing one hand flat against the table so I have enough leverage to position myself above her.

To her credit, she doesn’t flinch or sink into her seat. She keeps that debutante posture, her fingers clutching the edge of the table.

Slowly, she reaches for the bottle and wraps her lips around the opening.

She tosses the bottle back and almost immediately lurches forward, sending drink spraying across the table.

Her eyes water as she sputters. I bet her lip is burning, along with her throat and her internal organs.

The little princess has never sampled good booze before.

She winces at the taste. Then her cheeks redden, and I don’t have to prompt her to take another taste.

This time, she gets most of it down, though some trickles down her chin.

Her eyes meet mine again, still hesitant, as she should be.

“Another,” I tell her. I mime drinking from a glass when she doesn’t comply and make my tone harder. “Take another sip.”

She wipes at her mouth with the back of a shaking hand. She doesn’t want to. I can see it in her eyes, but she makes a show of taking another measured taste.

“Again.”

“How much?” she counters. The defiance in her gaze becomes questioning.

Something in me bristles at that. I’m an asshole, getting the sacrificial lamb drunk before her slaughter to see if she’ll make even more of a mess. Arno’s plans for her don’t faze me in the slightest, but when she takes her hand off the bottle, I don’t know what makes me reach for it.

“Drink.” I press the opening to her lips, ignoring the way she flinches back. “More. ”

“W-why—” She breaks off and rephrases the question, her eyes meeting mine. Probing. “How much more?”

I consider holding her down and pouring the liquor down her fucking throat.

It certainly would make for one hell of a prelude to the main event Arno has planned.

In the end, I set the bottle on the table.

She’s not expecting it when I reach out for her wrist and manually curl her hand around the bottle’s neck.

“Drink,” I tell her, my gaze settling over the blood welling from her cut lip. “Drink...until you stop feeling the pain. Until you don’t feel a damn thing.”

Something flickers across her expression as she swallows hard.

I’m sure she’ll resist. I’m just about ready to take the bottle for myself when she lifts it and brings it to her lips again.

When she throws her head back, most of the liquor is wasted on sputtering coughs as her body rejects the bitter taste.

But, when I no longer have to command her, I know she’s gotten enough.