Page 15 of Diamonds (Aces Underground #2)

ALISSA

M addox has been staring into my eyes with his mouth open for a solid thirty seconds now.

I grin at him. “Cat got your tongue, darling?”

He breaks eye contact and casts his gaze to the ground. “I’ve just… Words can’t express how much I enjoyed that.”

I tip his chin back toward me. “I’m so happy. It was a wonderful idea to come here. At first I resisted it, because of… Well, you know.”

“Of course.”

I place my hand over my heart. “But this is just what I needed. Something to remind me of the beauty that exists in our world. The way music can fill your soul to the brim with purest joy. And we’re only halfway through. Just wait until you hear the Shostakovich. It’s simply marvelous.”

He smiles at me. “I can’t wait.” He checks his watch. “How long is intermission?”

I flip through the pages of my program. “Twenty minutes, I believe.”

“Could I buy you a drink?”

“I appreciate the gesture, but I want to keep my wits about me for the Shostakovich.” I gesture toward the lobby. “But I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to purchase me a little goodie from the snack bar.”

“Gladly.” He leads me up the aisle back to the concert hall lobby and we get in a line in front of the refreshments station.

I scan the display. “That brownie looks pretty good.”

He kisses my neck gently. “A brownie it is then,” he whispers into my ear.

A rush of warmth floods my cheeks at his public display of affection. But I’m not embarrassed. I’m turned on.

Normally I hate when people are touchy with each other in broad daylight. I used to scowl at all the couples in secondary school who were snogging up and down the hallways between classes.

Maddox isn’t making out with me. That would hardly be appropriate.

But kissing my neck is still a rather intimate act.

And I want him to do more.

I’m dragged out of my thoughts as an elderly woman with cat-eye glasses wrapped in a fur coat walks in front of us, taking a spot ahead of us in the line.

I lean into Maddox’s ear and speak softly. “Did that woman just cut us?”

He tears his gaze from me and turns his head. The old woman is chatting pleasantly with the couple in front of us.

“Maybe they were holding a spot for her,” I say.

“Or maybe the old bat is trying to pull a fast one on us.” Maddox clears his throat. “Excuse me, ma’am. Did these people hold a spot for you?”

The old woman narrows her eyes at Maddox. “Sorry, dear. What was that?”

“He’s asking you if you just cut in front of us,” I say.

Maddox taps the gentleman in front of us on the shoulder. “Do you know this woman? She seemed to be talking with you.”

The guy in front of us frowns. “No, sir. She was just asking if we enjoyed the Beethoven.”

“So you didn’t save her a spot in line then?” Maddox asks.

The gentleman shakes his head.

Maddox turns his focus back to the elderly woman. “Then, ma’am, let me show you to the end of the line.”

“Is that really necessary?” The old woman asks. “Intermission is nearly over. What difference does it make if I’m in front of you?”

“The difference is that if you wanted this spot in line, you should have gotten up here faster.” Maddox points to the back of the line. “Now, before I have to flag down an usher.”

The old woman scowls at Maddox. “Back in my day, fellows like you used to act like gentlemen.”

“I will act like a gentleman if you act like a lady, ma’am,” Maddox says. “Do I have to escort you to the back of the line myself?”

She sneers. “You wouldn’t even be at this symphony tonight if it weren’t for me and my husband, young man! We’re high-tier donors, you know.”

“I don’t care if you’re the Queen of Sweden. You can wait at the back of the line, lady.”

The old lady sputters at Maddox for a moment before finally leaving the line entirely and disappearing into the ladies’ room.

I grab Maddox’s hand. “My hero!”

He smirks. “Hardly. It’s not like she was much of a physical threat.”

“Either way, a lot of people would have just let her take their spot. That’s clearly what she was hoping would happen.” I stand on my tiptoes and kiss Maddox on the mouth. “But you’re not like most men.”

“Just figuring that out now, are you?” He brushes my cheek with his finger.

The couple in front of us leaves and we step up to the snack bar.

“One brownie,” Maddox says.

The woman standing behind the bar smiles. “Y’all are lucky. This is our last brownie of the evening.”

“Well, there you go.” I squeeze Maddox’s shoulder. “Had you not intervened, that old lady might have snagged the last brownie.”

Maddox chuckles. He pays for the brownie and hands it to me.

I take a bite and relish the rich fudgy treat.

I almost never have sweets, so when I do indulge, I always make sure to enjoy them.

“Would you like a bite?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m good. But”—he rubs the corner of my mouth with his thumb—“you have a little chocolate here.”

“Oh, goodness.” I grab the napkin and wipe my mouth. “You must think I’m perfectly disgusting.”

He laughs at that. “Hardly.”

I finish the rest of the brownie, taking care to get all of it in my mouth, and then check my watch. “Intermission is about to finish. We’d better take our seats for the Shostakovich.”

Maddox gestures toward the entrance to the concert hall. “After you, my fudgy princess.”

“Oh, shut it.”

We return to the concert hall and take our seats right as the lights are dimming.

The orchestra tunes again, and the conductor comes back onstage.

The audience breaks into uproarious applause again, and he turns to the orchestra and gestures for them all to take a stand.

The applause continues, and then the conductor takes the podium and the symphony begins.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s eleventh symphony is a completely different composition from the Beethoven.

While the Beethoven began with regal majesty and ended with joyful triumph, the Shostakovich opens with a barren hum of desolation from the strings—depicting the silence that occurs immediately after a small town has been ripped apart by war.

The timpani interjects every so often with muted passages, and then a solo trumpet blares out a mournful melody.

The music is tranquil, but not peaceful—there is an edge of tension to its entirety.

The second movement is full of jagged bursts of sound from the strings and brass, mimicking gunfire and political tumult.

It’s brutal, mechanical, and relentless, a musical massacre.

The following movement is a rising dirge heavy with grief and resignation, an English horn rising above the rest of the music as a memorial to the fallen.

But it’s the fourth movement that makes me cry like a baby every time I hear it. The orchestra surges back to life with a dark urgency, eventually marching forward toward a booming climax of dissonant chords against the clang of church bells.

Both the Shostakovich and the Beethoven end with fast movements with martial flair, but the finales of each work couldn’t be more different.

While the Beethoven concerto ended with a clear triumph, the Shostakovich symphony’s final march is not one into victory, but rather inevitability.

The soldiers marching forward know that they are marching into their own graves, but faced with certain annihilation, they press on.

I’ve always thought of the church bells as the soldiers hearing their own death knells in their final moments as they defiantly face their enemy for the last time.

The symphony ends with one final clang of the church bells, which the percussionist allows to ring out fully into the stunned silence of the concert hall without any dampening. The final bell vibrates directly into my bones, and my body shakes from the sob it desperately wants to release.

The patrons are quiet for a moment—it’s not a sudden jump to applause like at the end of the Beethoven.

But when the brave first few souls begin to clap, the rest of us join in, doubling the amount of volume from the end of the concerto.

The conductor turns and bows, and his long hair is matted down with sweat.

He exits into the wings of the concert hall and then returns for his first curtain call.

The applause is still going strong, with no end in sight.

Several other patrons are wiping their eyes and blowing their noses.

I’m a mess, of course. This symphony always affects me, but now, after that terrible night in the field by the airport, it hits me tenfold.

Those soldiers are marching straight up to the gates of Hell, their heads raised and their weapons at the ready. They know their fate, and they accept it. To retreat is cowardice, even in the face of certain defeat.

Maddox and I are doing something similar. We’re doing everything in our power to make sure that Rouge Montrose faces justice for what she did to poor May.

And I’m not sure we’ll make it out alive either.