Page 79 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Daniela

They herd me into the back of a van with Arno and a man who smells like cigarettes and liquor.

There are no seats. We crouch on the bare flooring and brace our backs against whatever surface is in reach—I choose the ice-cold siding of the vehicle itself, pressing both hands flat against it for leverage.

Save for the glow of a cell phone the other man’s holding in his fist, it’s dark.

I can just make out a black duffel beside him, and I entertain a morbid curiosity as to what might be inside it—at least I do during the few precious seconds when I’m not dreading what might happen if this entire plan fails.

Lucifer demanded my faith once, but it’s harder than I thought to deny it to him now.

Who could doubt that cold, predatory calculation of his; he bites with his teeth fully drawn and saves any thoughts of failure for later, after he’s done feasting on the belly of his conquest. Years of living on the streets and fighting in the cage have left him immune to fear.

I’m not so lucky. Vinny’s possession drips into my sweat. His voice is a constant presence at the back of my head, and I know that, as long as he’s alive, I’ll never be able to silence him...

I own you, Mi Bella.

“You’re jumpy.”

I jolt back to the present as Arno makes that assessment while watching me from the other end of the van, his green eyes sharp even in the darkness.

“You’re worried your precious fiancé will get you back tonight.” He jerks his chin at my throat as if he can see Vinny’s possession wrapped around my neck. When I flinch, he laughs. “You don’t know Dante. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Like how?”

“The same way he looked at the men he wanted to tear apart in the cage,” Arno admits.

“Like he can’t wait to put his fist through your skull, and no one better get in his fucking way.

.. Come to think of it, he’s looked at you like that for a while now.

But you’re still alive.” He frowns and rubs his chin as if trying to figure out why.

“Either way, he won’t let you go until he decides you can go—whether or not this stupid plan works. Mark my words on that.”

Right when he finishes, the van comes to a stop, and the man Mack sent—a brute with black hair and mean, brown eyes—shifts out of his crouch, settling down on his knees.

“Can we cut the fucking chitchat?” he grunts while an overhead light cuts on, which he uses as his cue to tug on the zipper of his duffel.

It’s full of weapons: two guns and a roll of black canvas.

The man sets the guns on either side of him and unfurls the roll against the floor of the van, revealing three knives sheathed in leather holsters.

Freeing one of the blades, he tucks it into the pocket of his pants and inclines his chin to Arno. “You want?”

Arno accepts a blade in silence, but I don’t miss the telltale bulge of his own weapons hidden beneath his battered leather jacket.

Unsurprisingly, no one offers me a weapon, and the next few moments pass in tense silence while my mind refocuses on unease again.

Mack gave Dante an hour. An hour to get into position.

An hour to crack Vinny’s most cherished organization.

An hour to live.

The seconds gnaw at me, though Arno doesn’t seem worried. He’s...bored. The fingers of his right hand keep twitching, and I try to picture that “look” he claimed that the devil reserves only for me. I think Arno’s wearing a similar expression now, longing for the violence of bloodshed to sink into.

And, despite what Mack seems to think, I’m not stupid.

Arno doesn’t defer to Dante any more than the latter does to him.

If Arno came along to babysit Dante’s “little bitch,” then it was for a reason.

Anticipation to learn exactly why spurs my pulse on until I can almost hear it counting the minutes down.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two...

“Any sign?” Arno finally asks, jerking his chin toward the silent phone.

“Not yet.”

“I need to get some fucking air.” Shifting toward the end of the van, Arno wrenches the door open and climbs out.

I get only a glimpse of what I assume is an alley before it slams shut again, and the tinted windows don’t reveal much.

I can’t tell how far we are from the enclaves or even from the hotel.

It’s a strange sort of blindness. For five years, this part of the city has been my prison, but somehow, this feels worse.

I don’t know what to prepare for. Vinny? Dante?

I copy Arno by watching the phone in the other man’s grip, waiting for a noise or a sound—any sign as to what might be happening, but when he catches me staring, his eyes narrow.

“See something you like? ”

His tone sends prickles of alarm shooting through my chest.

“N-no.” I turn away to stare at the opposite corner, but I see him moving from the corner of my eye.

He rises as much as he can, crouching beneath the roof of the van. In three steps, he’s beside me, his repulsive scent filling my nostrils. Without permission, he rakes a meaty hand through my hair, twisting a lock of it between his fingers.

“You’re a pretty bitch,” he admits as if it’s something I should be proud of, but when he reaches for my shoulder, three words spill from my throat.

“Don’t touch me.”

Vinny would be pleased , I think. His precious Lynn is finally protecting his investment...but, for once, he’s not the one I see. His scent doesn’t overpower me, even here. His claim isn’t burning through my skin.

“Now, don’t be shy,” the man snarls, muscling in closer. “Word has it that you’re hungry for any cock that doesn’t belong to Stacatto...”

Run! My muscles barely start to tense before he shoves me down.

The man uses his weight like a battering ram to position himself above me, grunting with the effort.

I kick and dig at his face with my nails, but he’s too strong and easily parries my attempts.

In fact, I think he enjoys my resistance more than anything else.

With every failed hit, the excitement in his eyes burns hotter.

“I said don’t be shy,” he croons against my ear. “Let’s see what Stacatto’s little bitch has to offer...”

He gets one of his hands beneath my sweatshirt and yanks, revealing everything but the very tops of my breasts. He stiffens when he sees Vinny’s mark, and I use the shock to land a kick on his chest that shoves him off me.

There’s no use screaming for help—not here.

My knife is in my pocket, but when I get it free, the man is already on me again, knocking it out of my hand.

It skitters across the floor of the van just as he plants what feels like a knee against the small of my back, causing my chin to smack off the floor.

Stars explode through my vision. My head is left spinning as a guttural voice rumbles through my ears.

“Feisty little bitch.”

Fear drags me back into my body when a rough hand plunges inside my pants, groping at flesh the devil has already left sore and throbbing.

“I figure we have an hour to kill, so let’s play,” he tells me while his fingers cup my ass so hard that the nails dig in. “Now, settle down and be a good girl and I can make it go quickly.”

Quick. Something about that word paralyzes me, and I don’t fight when he peels my sweatpants down to the tops of my thighs.

I obey when he nudges me onto my knees. I look at him when he snags my chin in hands that smell like vinegar and wrenches my head around to face him—but every ounce of focus I have left is fixated on an object that I startle him by lunging for.

The moment my fingers curl around the object, I yank it closer while twisting onto my back.

The man doesn’t even seem to notice when he comes for me, still tugging at the latch of his jeans.

It’s only when I lurch up and the knife bites into him that he tries to push me back, slamming his hand against my shoulder.

It’s in vain. His blade is sharp, unlike mine.

It turns the own man’s momentum against him and sinks deep into his chest. Too deep.

I can’t lessen the pressure before he grits out something that could be a curse even as his eyes glaze over.

Warm, red liquid trickles from his mouth and coats my fingers while he goes limp, crushing me with his full body weight.

Vinny put on enough gruesome shows for me to recognize death when I see it. Back in those days, I would cling to my cello in order to escape the bloodshed, but it’s ironic how, now, I can’t stop staring into his eyes. I can’t let the knife go. I can’t stop hearing the devil’s voice inside my head .

“Being a fighter was a different world from being bait. It was darker. Colder. You looked at a man, and you trained yourself to see him as only a piece of meat, nothing more. You sized up his weaknesses in two seconds, and you bet your life that you made the correct assessment.

“I fucking loved it...”

My lungs are on fire. Pain seeps into my bones, but I can’t move. Not until the barrel of a gun is pressed against the dead man’s head and a man’s voice coldly warns him to, “Get the fuck off her before I blow your goddamn head off.”

I don’t think Arno realizes until the man doesn’t move or say anything in return that he’s already dead.

“Son of a bitch!”

I wheeze for air as the pressure on my chest is suddenly lifted. The man falls sideways, and a thick hand is thrust before my face to help me up.

“Jesus Christ.” Arno glances over to the dead man lying a few feet away.

I don’t know if it’s fear or admiration I see in his eyes when he looks at me again. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

He says nothing while I wrestle my sweatpants into place, and for a moment, we just linger here, panting in the tiny, enclosed space while blood forms a puddle on the floor.