Page 57 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

The piercing sound travels through me like a bullet, ripping apart flesh and bone.

It’s the primal howl of a wounded animal.

Still screaming, she falls to her knees, clenching her fingers in the dirt until her voice starts to break.

When it does, her hands form fists and hammer at the ground with the same rage I attacked the trees with.

She shrieks and hits, and I don’t know if I mean to stop her when my hand falls over her shoulder or if I simply want to feel her breaking.

If that’s the case, I’m not fucking disappointed.

Cracking into pieces beneath porcelain skin, she whirls on me with a shout.

Whatever she calls me isn’t in English, but she accompanies the insult with a clumsy punch to my jaw.

When I grab her by the wrist, she slaps me with her free hand.

Then she hits me again, forcing me to take a step back.

Growling, she strikes again , her nails raking my skin this time, but I don’t try to stop her.

On the tenth swing at me, she finally misses, and as if someone suddenly cut the strings holding her together, she breaks.

Before I can move out of range, her arms go around my shoulders.

She’s sobbing wordlessly into my chest, her tears seeping through the cotton of my shirt.

I feel the fight drain from her. The loss of it weakens her knees, and she nearly pulls me down with her.

I have to stagger forward and brace both hands against the top of the fence while her fingers paw at my hips and her face connects with my left knee.

When she finally speaks, her voice is a whisper that somehow has no trouble rising above the distant sound of barking dogs.

“He...he killed my entire family.” She sounds so detached that she could be talking about the rain.

It pelts us in scattered drops that glance off my body before they can reach her, but I don’t feel the need to move. Yet. I grit my teeth and eye the row of trees in front of me instead.

“I know he did,” she insists. “My parents... They knew that all I wanted in the world was to be able to play the violoncelo .” Whatever language she natively speaks seeps into her words, tainting some of them.

In fact, I wonder if he’s part of the reason for how she struggles to hide her accent; it’s only when she’s angry that it creeps out in full force .

“They let me practice whenever I wanted, and even though I couldn’t afford one of my own, my father made deals with the theater he worked at to let me use their instruments as long as he cleaned.

.. It was my dream to play in a symphony when I graduated.

I wanted so badly to get into a performance school.

..but I knew that we couldn’t afford it. ”

She breaks off, and I can hear the violent click of her teeth clenching together. She doesn’t want to go this far, and I tell myself that my impatient grunt isn’t what makes her keep talking in the end.

“When I was seventeen, they surprised me with a bus ticket upstate so that I could audition for a scholarship... My father worked hours of overtime. My mother gave up her weekends for extra shifts. They sacrificed so much. I... It was the happiest day of my life. They...they even rented a cello for me to play at home. I got there early. I practiced until my fingers ached. I played...and I made it to the final round of auditions.” Two tears slip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, the only sign of life behind her fractured mask.

“My parents were so proud of me. My brother even helped me practice, tapping out the beat with his pencils.”

I stiffen when her palms flatten against my lower back, but for some reason, I don’t shove her off.

“I hadn’t thought to tell Vinny until the night before the final auditions,” she says.

“I’d never seen him so angry. ‘You’re leaving me,’ he said.

‘You think music is more fucking important than loyalty? I love you, Mi Bella.’ ” She gives the words Stacatto’s guttural pronunciation, and her nails bite even deeper into my flesh.

“My father tried to warn me. He didn’t like how possessive such an older man had become of his daughter.

Vinny intimidated the other boys my age.

He interfered when I tried to date. My father said he was too jealous.

‘Brincando com fogo,’ he used to say. His temper is like playing with fire. ..but he was my friend .”

Her eyes shut against the word, and more tears fall down her cheeks.

“He knew how important music was to me. He knew how much I’d staked my future on joining an orchestra.

He knew. He knew ...and later that night, he invited me out to dinner to apologize.

We went to his favorite place, owned by his boss.

Capellas. He ordered the chicken marinara and even bought enough for my entire family. ”

Her voice starts to lose its coldness—pain makes it shake, and the words crack, straining against her tongue.

“I-I felt so s-sleepy when I got home. I went straight to bed. Vinny had to walk me inside—I could barely see straight.” She swallows hard.

Her eyes open again and her hands slide down my hips, landing on either side of her in the mud.

“When I woke up...everything was so quiet. Mam?e wasn’t humming in the kitchen as she cooked breakfast. My father wasn’t cursing at the news.

Christoph wasn’t ramming his toy trucks against my door.

So f-fucking quiet. I thought that...that maybe they were planning a surprise. ”

She giggles, her gaze wide and unsteady.

“It...it was my birthday, after all. But, when I went into the living room...all I saw was Vinny. ‘It was an accident,’ he told me. ‘A terrible accident, Mi Bella.’ Someone had tried to rob us, apparently. They took my mother’s golden bracelet.

My father’s watch. They ransacked the house, and they slit my parents’ throats while they slept.

They never woke up, not even as they drew their last breath.

It was so strange... They hadn’t even changed yet.

My father had even taken a plate of food to bed, so excited to try Italian cuisine. My brother, however...”

She inhales sharply and shakes her head as if her protest alone can keep the memory at bay—but fate’s a cruel fucker, and I know that, when her eyes widen, she’s seeing every single detail etched into her brain forever.

“They...they found him in the hall. He had woken up when the attacker crept into his room. He tried to fight him off, and th-they had to stab him fifteen times. He’d been heading toward my room.

His eyes were on my d-door. I know he was screaming for me.

I still hear him.” She’s silent, and the storm begins to build in earnest as if feeding off the morbid picture her words paint.

“Vinny had a detective there. Sosa ,” she spits out.

“He corroborated his story despite the fact that there was no sign of forced entry. Burglars did it. My parents were lucky to be asleep while they were butchered. And...I almost believed it. I almost let myself fall for his lies...”

She frowns as if wondering whether or not that would have been easier to swallow than the truth.

“But Christoph didn’t like saucy foods. He didn’t touch the meal Vinny brought.

He was awake when my best friend and protector returned in the middle of the night with a knife.

Christoph fought back. That’s why Vinny made him suffer. ”

I don’t say anything. I steel my shoulders against the rain, and I squash the fucking emotion that flickers through my chest too quickly to name. When I finally start to move, she touches my knee.

“I want him dead.”

I have to glance down to make sure the icy voice came from her, but she’s already looking up, staring dead into my eyes without flinching.

“I want Vinny dead ,” she insists, and there’s a hint of wonder in her tone, as if she finally had the nerve to voice some deep, dark secret out loud.

Her eyes flicker—a part of her doesn’t like giving in to the violence, but she blinks, and it’s gone.

“I want...I want to watch him burn.” When she tilts her head back, her forehead leaves the shelter of my chest and raindrops slide down to her lips.

She licks at them, tasting Stacatto’s blood in the rain.

The flavor must be her own potent narcotic, because for just a brief second, her body goes limp.

“I want...I want to set the fire myself.”

I don’t know what the hell she finds in my eyes that makes her tug one of her sleeves down to her wrist, revealing the bloody gash in her palm.

I don’t know what the hell makes her raise that hand toward me while thunder rumbles in the distance.

I don’t know what gives her the fucking nerve to make a demand out loud.

“Promise me?”

And I don’t know why the fuck I take her bloodied hand with one of my own, sealing yet another oath in blood.