Page 14 of Crescendo

“Get my fucking knife.”

“No! No!”

My fingers are numb. I don’t feel them anymore. I don’t even register commanding my body which note to play next. Everything just moves, muscle and sinew in perfect sync.

“Ma...MACKENZIE!”The anguished cry battles with my solo for supremacy.“Mackenzie sent me. Arno Mackenzie. Mackenz— ”

Everything goes silent but the steady stream of classical music filling every inch of the room.

“Enough.”

I keep playing. My left shoulder hurts. The right one is throbbing. My lungs can’t seem to hold any air, but I don’t stop manipulating the strings while I guide the bow. Faster. Faster. Faster...

“Damn it, that’s enough!” Someone yanks on my right hand.

My bow slips from my sweaty grip and goes flying across the room. Just like that, Bach’s prelude comes to a screeching halt and only my labored breaths fill the silence.

Blood taints the air I’m forced to pant, haunting and sweet. I shouldn’t look over, but I do. A man’s body is lying on Vinny’s antique floor rug—they didn’t even bother to place anything under him to protect the woven threads. His pants are down, bunched around his ankles. There’s a bloody, gaping mess where his male anatomy should be. Though I assume that it might be whatever one of Vinny’s men is now holding, flaccid and severed, on a silver platter probably fetched from the kitchen.

I coldly register the sight. I don’t feel anything when my gaze slowly roves back down to the dead man on the floor. His mouth is open, but there’s too much red pooling around his lips. They’re painted red with it. Between his teeth is just a gaping hole...

A childish part of me wonders where his tongue is.Oh, it perks up, spotting something lying on Vinny’s desk amid a puddle of even more blood.There it is!

My stomach churns. I only have enough time to bend over and shove Vinny’s hand away before my mouth opens and a stream of vomit coats the wooden floor at my feet.

“Jesus Christ,” Vinny snarls, backing away a few steps. “Get a fucking hold of yourself, Daniela.”

“Get a fucking hold of yourself.”

When I’m done retching, I try to wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand, only something hard bumps my lip and cuts it. It sparkles when I brace my fingers against the floor.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp while blood wells up, dribbling over my tongue. “I’m sorry...Vinny.”

He scoffs in disgust, but once again, the violence has fed his hunger, for now. There’s almost a gentleness when he glares down at my puddle of vomit and snaps, “Clean that up!”

I’m on my knees in a second, ready to mop up the mess—with my skirt my hands,anythingto distract myself so I don’t have to look, don’t have to smell...

“Not you,” Vinny says, and I go still.

In silence, his goon crosses over to me and carefully wipes up my undigested pasta with a handkerchief pulled from nowhere. He wads it up, crosses over to the body, and shoves it into the dead man’s mouth with a hiss of disgust. “I’ll find someone to help me with this, sir,” he promises before leaving the room.

Vinny nods. Then he mumbles curses under his breath, running a hand through his dark hair. “Mackenzie...fucking Mackenzie.” This new foe only holds his attention for just over a minute, however. After all, we still have unfinished business. “So...what do you think?” Looking at me, he nods to my hand, and I glance down to find the mocking surface of my ring glinting back at me. “Before we were so rudely interrupted, you were about to tell me. What do you think?”

I swallow hard, wishing that it were possible to choke on a lie. No such luck this time. The words tumble out without difficulty, and I’m still alive. “It’s b-beautiful... I...”

I love it,I should say.

“You what?” Vinny questions. He takes a step closer, and Ijump, pressing both hands flat on the floor. “Tell me how happy you are. We’ve wanted this for so long.”

He’s feeding me all the right words to say. He’s making this way too easy. God, it’s like he can sense everything I keep locked behind the barriers he’s enacted in my own mind.

“I...”

“Lynn?” He takes another step, slow and measured.

“I...”

“Daniela.”