Page 37 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dante

“I want in.”

Arno glances up as I circle around him and take up a stool at his side. He’s nursing two different bottles of liquor today. Does the bastard live at this counter?

It’s only when I meet his once again bloodshot eyes that I realize that—at least for the past few nights—he probably has. Wherever he does stay, he most likely shared it with Parish.

“So, the Kitty wants to jump back into the litter box.” He pours a shot of something clear that smells like varnish and nudges it over to me. “I was wondering when you’d run with the wolves again. Frankly, shit’s been boring without you—”

“Give me a job,” I insist rather than reminisce. “Anything. I’ll do it.”

Preferably something nasty. Something violent. Something to get me away from her .

“Eager to sharpen your claws?” Arno eyes my hands with a smirk .

I ball both into fists and don’t answer. I’m not in the mood for games.

“All right, all right,” Arno sighs. He takes the glass in front of me and downs it himself.

Then he sips from the second bottle and winces.

“There is a small... irritation you could handle for me. There’s this bastard on South who runs a cushy little operation smuggling weed out of a bookstore.

‘Special order’ books on exotic plant life, you see.

” He chuckles, but when the sound dies off, his eyes are a little clearer.

His hands grip his next drink a little steadier.

Nothing sobers him up like plotting the pitfall of another rival.

“It’s a low-level piece-of-shit operation, but I want you to make a point, more or less.

The man who runs it used to work for me, but lately, his judgment’s been off, and he seems to believe that he takes his orders from Stacatto now.

I want you to jog his memory—but you don’t work for me, Dante.

When you bring that asshole into line... make him answer to you .”

I raise an eyebrow and consider taking one of his bottles of liquor for myself. “Why?”

Arno flashes a lethal smile and brings a newly filled shot glass to his lips.

“Because, when that fucker Stacatto is nothing more than a memory, I’ll need a true ally to help me take back this shithole of a city.

” He downs the shot and slams the empty glass onto the bar.

His eyes seek mine out, and for a second, he’s Arno again.

“Welcome back, Kitty. Let’s see if you’ve still got that nasty bite. ”

It’s a cold, dark descent into the criminal underbelly that people like Richard Van Hallen like to pretend doesn’t exist. The shadows rejoice in my return, swallowing me whole.

I’m home, amid the muck and violence and chaos men like Arno hone for profit and, on a more basic level, simple entertainment.

Prison taught me better than anything else that a wolf is never truly at ease until it’s back hunting on the outskirts of a pack, bathed in the growls and the musk of its own kind.

The man Arno sent me to see conducts business in a seedy part of the city that’s seen better days. The sidewalks have weeds growing through their cracks. Even the police don’t patrol here, preferring to skirt the outer perimeter of this forsaken shithole.

The man, a dealer by the name of Andre, has set up shop in a dilapidated storefront that calls itself a bookstore.

A sign, handwritten on cardboard, proclaims All Shakespur 50% off!

When I shove open a battered metal door and step inside, I’m greeted with the telltale stench of cigarette smoke and weed.

“We’re closed,” a man snarls. He’s about half my size, wearing an outdated “Welcome to 2000!” T-shirt. His hair is matted.

I guess that it used to be naturally curly. At one point, this man probably didn’t naturally reek of piss and body odor.

“I’ve got nothing to sell,” he tells me smugly as I pick my way through metal shelves piled high with old magazines and books that seem decades old, as if picked from the remains of a library.

“I’m here to see Andre,” I say once I am close enough to his perch that he can’t run without crossing my path. My fingers flex.

The room’s narrow layout is fairly open—there are no witnesses. Even for as shitty a dealer as he seems to be, the lack of protection is just plain stupid, and I intend to teach him that lesson through example.

“Who the fuck are you?” he slurs, his eyes bloodshot from sampling his own merchandise.

“I’m your new best friend,” I say while I try to decide which part of his face I’ll bruise first. “Arno Mackenzie says hello.”

Daniela

Like any good conundrum worth solving, my Lucifer apparently possesses two sides.

One half is the beast I let crawl into my skin—a man who doesn’t seem to give a damn about anything or anyone.

The other half is a figure so similar in appearance that he could be his twin: a stranger who cared enough about the welfare of some random waif of a woman that she had to beg him out of going to the police.

“I’m justdirty,” I lied.“I haven’t showered yet, just a lazy girl lounging in.”

He didn’t believe me, of course. Regardless, he let me spin my tales and babble something about being “just about to take a shower” as any non-captive would. Hell, I almost believed I’d convinced him.

Then he surprised me by crossing the center of Lucifer’s lair and perching his lanky frame on the very edge of that hated couch as if he had no clue that he’d just ventured into hell.

“Go ahead,” he prompts while I try to approximate just where he’s sitting. Where the tips of some of my nails were still embedded within the upholstery? Or where I smothered my moans into the padding? “Go ahead,” he repeats when I don’t react. “Change. I’ll wait.”

It’s an ironic dilemma: Lucifer’s angelic twin wants me to implicate his darker half. Give him any reason at all to...

What? My mouth twists into a frown while I try to decipher the relationship between the two men. I need to see for myself that he isn’t...

“That’s not a good idea,” I say finally, forcing myself to meet his gaze.

The artist merely shrugs. “Afraid he’ll come back?”

I flinch, caught in my own web. Afraid of Lucifer?

Not really. I am merely concerned by what might happen when the wolf returns to his lair to find another creature sniffing around the carcass he keeps hidden in the back room.

By opening the door, it feels like I’ve unknowingly tipped over a domino chain miles long. Where would the final one land?

Only God knows that .

“Take a shower,” the artist says. His voice is softer. He’s looking at my legs, trying to avoid the bruises and marks that mar everything else. “Danny. It’s...it’s Danny, right?”

I force a nod, surprised that he remembered my name.

“Then, Danny, please . If you’re here of your own ‘free will’ and all, then take a shower.

Change into the fresh clothes that I’m sure you have in a suitcase somewhere.

” He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Just, please. Prove to me that my brother isn’t a.

..freak.” The word is a fill-in for a darker insult he can’t say. Monster.

I would hate to be the one to spoil that secret.

Before I’m forced to, I register the rest of his words— brother —and flinch again, seizing my lower lip between both rows of teeth.

I bite down once, hard enough for the pain to flood my system and counter any emotion that could cross my expression and give me away.

Lucifer has a brother—a man who likes to paint the devil on the streets.

It’s almost too poetic.

“Okay...” I shake my head to clear it and head for the hallway—or at least I pretend to. I take the exaggerated route, skirting around the counter, and then I pretend to trip so that he doesn’t notice the knife I tuck into my hand.

The rest of Lucifer’s dwelling seems to repel my presence when its master isn’t there.

I shiver when I make a detour into that lonely bedroom and approach the pile of things he keeps in the corner.

It’s such a meager set of belongings. Plain.

Simple. Durable. Vinny wouldn’t survive on such a lifestyle.

Lucifer doesn’t require tailored suits, gold watches, and thousands of dollars to cut an intimidating presence, it seems.

All he needs are those eyes. I can almost feel them watching me now as I reach out and bat aside a pair of gray boxers to find three more plain T-shirts lurking underneath.

I settle on a navy-blue one—as feminine a color as I’m likely to find.

After a moment’s hesitation, I grab the boxers too, hoping they might pass for shorts, if I can even get them to fit, that is .

I’m ice cold when I creep into the bathroom and run the shower at full blast. The pelting hot spray doesn’t do much to ease the ache in my limbs or quiet this insistent whisper in my head warning me to just take my chances and run.

Damn Vinny. Damn Lucifer. At least I’d spend my last moments of freedom. .. away from some form of bloodshed.

I let the fantasies goad me into some semblance of peace. It’s only when I finally climb out of the tub and reach for one of the damp, used towels on the floor that I realize I never let the knife go. It adds a mocking shimmer to my reflection when I finally gather the nerve to turn and face it.

Lucifer’s brother has been humoring me. There’s nothing remotely “fine” about the woman staring back at me with dry, soulless eyes.

They’ve been sucked clean of all emotion—she’s a robot, merely going through the motions.

I’m that pathetic automaton again, the one Vinny molded and corrupted me into being .

Lynn. She traces her broken lips with a pink tongue, already anticipating the next beating.