Page 6 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

CHAPTER THREE

Daniela

“Miss.” Someone shakes me awake, their fingers warm over my shoulder. “Miss...it’s t-time to wake up.”

The timid whisper belongs to a woman. Her fear calls to my own, and the recognition makes me huddle beneath the silken sheets. She has to tap me yet again.

“Miss?”

I finally sit up with a sigh, rubbing at my eyes with one hand. When I blink, a pretty face greets me, sporting a strained smile that does its best to seem comforting.

“Good morning, Miss Manzano.”

I nod in response while the woman hurries over to the handcrafted wardrobe in the corner of my room and throws the doors open.

She flips through hangers, searching for the outfit Vinny planned for me to wear down to the last detail.

One by one, she withdraws each requested garment and sets them on a nearby chair.

I strain my eyes in the weak daylight spilling in through the windows and observe each piece carefully: a skirt and that silk blouse. .. My stomach sinks .

There’s more to the outfit, however.

Frowning, the girl goes through the wardrobe twice, still searching. On the third pass, her hands shake with fear. “L-lace shawl?” she murmurs to herself. “I can’t...I can’t find it—”

“It had a hole in it,” I force myself to say, picturing the garment in question—a shawl custom-made for me by some well-known designer from Italy. “I threw it out.”

“Oh.” She can’t resist rummaging through the clothes one last time before accepting defeat.

She’s young, maybe twenty. I don’t know her name. For the past four weeks she’s waited on me, I’ve never dared to ask.

Her skin is pale, her eyes blue. She keeps her long, blond hair pinned neatly back, the way Vinny prefers it, but when she coaxes me out of bed and sits me before my vanity, she brushes my dark tresses out rather than arrange them the same way.

I don’t know why. I don’t ask, not even when she secures the waves behind my ears with an ivory headband I don’t even remember owning.

Vinny makes me wear white from head to toe today—the blouse and a matching skirt that reflect the shadows of the room as if taunting me when my companion displays them on their hangers and forces another smile.

“Beautiful, yes?”

“Yes,” I say as expected, but the look we share contains anything but admiration.

We’re grim. We’re silent.

With gritted teeth, she helps me out of my nightgown, and we both suck in a breath when my torso is bared.

The black lines etched into my flesh are never easier to stomach.

Some days, I manage to trace them with a finger, mouthing each letter—but never what they spell out.

Vinny tries to erase what he’s done to me with high collars and scalloped necklines.

My pure, innocent Lynn, he likes to murmur into my hair.

He thinks the lies flatter me...but there’s nothing pure about the girl staring at me from the mirror. Her hazel eyes hold too many secrets .

“Please, miss,” my companion urges. Her gaze nervously darts to the clock propped on my nightstand, and she presses the blouse Vinny’s chosen for me against her chest. “Let us dress you now?”

I nod and hold my arms out at my sides while she drapes the fabric over me. It’s pretty, which in Vinny’s world is a term that comprises more than just pleasing to the eye. I look pretty . Untouchable. Unspoiled. His.

My heartbeat speeds up. I can’t look at myself, so I tear my gaze away to the floor. Vinny demanded lunch, but the clock claims that it’s not even ten yet.

“Is... Are we leaving now?” Hope taints my voice, nearly impossible to squash back down.

My companion smiles. It’s a fleeting, shaky expression over her pale face, but it’s real.

“Not yet,” she whispers after glancing over her shoulder at the door.

“Not for an hour...maybe.” She takes a hesitant step across the room, toward the instrument case leaning against the wall. “You play now? For a little?”

I don’t hesitate . My fingers shake when I ease my cello case onto the floor, flip the lid, and lift out the instrument carefully tucked inside it.

Balancing it on its stand, I carefully maneuver myself onto the chair near my vanity.

I swallow hard when I stoop for my bow and ease it into position. Then...I play.

My arm moves fluidly, manipulating the strings while my fingers coax out the proper tune. Notes tumble loose, and then the music floods, drowning everything else out.

The cello weeps for me. It disguises the words I can’t say, the emotions I can’t feel. The pain weaves a silent thread, hidden beneath the pleasing music. It’s one of the few things I have left that Vinny hasn’t taken or tainted.

“Miss? Miss?”

I flinch when a hand settles over my shoulder, and the music ends on a harsh note.

My companion stands over me, her face two shades paler than it was only minutes ago. “It’s time to go...” She cuts her gaze over to the door.

Gino is standing there in the doorway, his expression unreadable. “Are you ready, Miss Manzano?”

“Yes.” I lurch to my feet while the woman rushes to carefully take my cello and my bow.

She doesn’t follow when I slip past Gino and enter the hallway. She’s lucky in that her imprisonment only extends to this suite. She doesn’t have to wear invisible chains wherever she goes.

“It’s cold out,” Gino remarks, pressing a navy coat into my hands.

I nod and pull it on while we cross the suite and step out into the main hall.

Charming classical music drifts from the hidden speakers the hotel has tucked within the corners of the hall.

The sound serves as a haunting soundtrack during the torturous descent in the elevator and the grim parade through the front lobby, where I find a black car out front, waiting to take me across town to Capellas.

The sky is weeping; it’s such a dreary day.

Ice disguised as rain is falling steadily by the time we pull up to the restaurant.

It’s a beautiful place, really. Small, quaint, and nestled in an older part of the city, away from the harsher realities of the poorer areas—but still a far cry from the posh restaurants that cringe at the thought of serving a crime lord.

I think that’s why Vinny cherishes it so much.

The brick facade with its emerald-green awning must remind him of the old days, the ones he likes to smear and accolade in the same breath.

We may have grown up in shit, Lynn, but it’s nothing like how the world is today. ..

“Miss?”

I flinch, realizing that the driver has already opened the door for me.

I was staring at the curb with my hands clenched into fists, unconsciously dreading stepping foot onto it.

My fingers sting, aching for the feel of my bow and the glossy casing of my cello.

I would play forever if it could prolong my precious few moments without Vinny.

I’d saw at the strings until my nails broke and my fingers bled.

I’d wring every bit of sound I could from the instrument’s wooden frame. I’d...

“Miss Manzano.” The driver’s voice holds a warning now.

I reluctantly obey it, shedding my coat. Time ticks stubbornly forward. Vinny said lunch at noon. It’s 12:01. Depending on his mood, I’ll either be punished with a warning or...

My throat closes up, but I can’t seem to move until the driver finally clears his throat.

“He’s waiting, miss.”

The staff members at Capellas are well conditioned to Vinny’s moods.

When I follow the driver through the main doors, a nervous waitress is already there waiting to take my coat.

She doesn’t smile, and the moment I inhale, I realize that it might be impossible to.

Tension laces the air. Animosity holds an undercurrent that contradicts everything else—the soothing classical music played by the live band at the corner of the nearly empty dining room and the few carefully selected patrons dining at tables spread throughout, their movements stiff.

Vinny’s men guard the corners, unmistakable in their starched suits.

My tormenter himself dominates the center of the room, seated at a table he’s chosen for us specially.

When he sees me, his dark eyes remain uncharacteristically flat. “Lynn.”

I swallow hard. My footsteps falter, and I nearly trip at the mouth of the doorway leading to the dining room. “H-hello, Vinny.” It takes everything I have in me to force a smile, which he doesn’t return.

Instead, he unfolds his silverware and snaps the white napkin into the air with a hard flick of his wrist. “Sit.”

I hold my breath when I approach the table. Unease ripples through me. My hands shake. I do my best to shove them underneath the table as I sit down, but he notices, and his eyebrows lift ever so slightly.

“Do you want to know what I’ve learned?” he wonders, his voice the perfect cadence of a gentleman proposing we discuss the news. “About your... accident last night.”

I can’t breathe. I try my best to mime the motion, forcing my chest to contract inward and then outward. But, through and through, I’m already dead. “N-no.”

“Someone tipped them off, it seems,” Vinny says.

He drags his steak knife through the tines of his fork, noisily sharpening the blade.

“Those men. They knew exactly where you were. I don’t know anyone in my employ who might want to hurt you, Lynn.

..” His eyes home in on mine, darker than the black lining of his crisp, gray suit. “Do you?”