Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1)

by Lana Sky

  “Yes,” Van Hallen says with a nod. “Dead, but not off the hook. The bastard’s organization will feel the legal ramifications of his crimes for years to come, you can bet your ass on that. And, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that Stacatto had some powerful criminals in his fold who were complicit in his crimes. It’s only a matter of time before they pick up where he left off...like your friend Arno. Let’s hope he has seen the light and the Gardai will all suddenly become upstanding citizens—”

  “So, if you aren’t here to arrest anyone, why the visit, interim police chief?” I cut in. “Sending your condolences?”

  “Look, I only came here to let you know that she’s safe, Vialle,” Van Hallen says, his tone softer, and hell, I think he might even mean it. “At least from me. As far as the hospital knows she’s still your ‘sister’ Gabriella Vialle who was in a terrible ‘car accident.’” He scoffs at the lie, shaking his head. “I guess they didn’t teach creativity one-oh-one in prison.” He starts to head down the hall, but only a few yards away he stops. “Oh, that reminds me... About your case...I did some digging.”

  A heartbeat later I’m stone, already contemplating which part of the bastard I’ll break first. “Is that so, detective?”

  “Yeah, I did some deeper background into the victim,” Van Hallen admits, oblivious to the darker note in my voice and the way my hands shake. “I dug up some old allegations—very old—from a son he had. Seems none of it was founded or even investigated—things like the boy not wanting to strip down for gym class or being jumpy in the showers. Small stuff, but it’s clear the system screwed that kid over. In my opinion, if that boy did eventually take a whack at that man with a hammer, no one could blame him—in theory. But, even then something still didn’t add up...”

  Nearly a full minute passes before he finally shrugs and inclines his head to the door to the girl’s room. “I know the kid did it, Vialle. And,” he adds before I can even start toward him, my fists drawn. “The case is closed. Sealed. Done. The debt to society was paid...by you.” He turns on his heel, tugging at the collar of his jacket. “I would say ‘see you around,’ but quite frankly I don’t want to.”

  I watch him go, my hands still clenched. The heat surging through my fingertips doesn’t fade no matter how fucking tight I grind them together. When I turn and throw open the door to the girl’s room, she’s still unconscious, but Espi isn’t. He watches me from the bench beside her bed. So far, he hasn’t complained about being forced to share the same space as me—apparently, his concern over the girl overrides his hate for me. Still, I don’t expect him to speak to me directly the moment I cross the room.

  “What did he want?” His eyes cut over to the doorway. Apparently, an ingrained suspicion of the police was an inherited trait.

  “Nothing,” I grunt. “But I will say that your little antics with Arno haven’t gone unnoticed—”

  “I had an audition,” Espi blurts out, shifting to sit upright. “At an art school, up north. Arno gave me the money for the application process, but I wasn’t going to take his charity, so I did the tagging stuff for him as payback. The placement stuff was this week. That’s where I was.”

  I don’t move, processing each bit of information. An art school. It was a big leap from “joining the traveling circus,” like he’d claimed he would do back when he was a kid. Placement stuff. “So...you got in?”

  He shrugs. “Of course, I got in. You know anyone else with a colorful, though maybe not entirely legal, portfolio like mine?” I don’t miss the way he glances down at his bandaged hand and winces.

  Still, I assume that means he used Arno’s tags as part of his “audition.” I don’t know whether I’m impressed or...relieved? “So that’s it?” I risk asking. “You’re done running with the Gardai?”

  “For now,” Espi says, but he puts an edge on his tone that warns me not to push the issue. Talking him out of criminal activity—like a goddamn hypocrite—could come later. I didn’t realize until now just how much I had missed this...talking to him. Not having him run from me or take a swing. If I had a soul, I might have put a name to the emotion swelling in my chest, but I don’t have the fucking time.

  “She’ll be out for a while,” I say, nodding to the woman between us. “If you wanted to go back with Arno...”

  “Nah.” He shakes his head. “I’ll stick around until she wakes up. It’s the least I could do for her...”

  I don’t challenge that, but I take up a position on the opposite wall so that he won’t change his mind, either. In the dim lighting, I just watch him. Little Espisido’s all grown up. Five years have stripped away the little punk who slept with a nightlight to reveal someone who acted like a man. One who talks about getting into art school while sporting a mangled hand. I know that I’m partially responsible for the stern set to his jaw and the weariness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I’d spent years protecting him from whatever I could, but it still wasn’t fucking enough.

  Apparently, of the same mindset, Espi stares me dead in the eye, crossing his arms over his chest as best as he can. “Damn it, Dante, let’s cut the shit. I heard what that guy said. The cop.”

  I don’t say a damn thing. I can’t. The therapy sessions we sat through in prison were more about learning how not to smash in a bastard’s face than confronting the past.

  “You...you never asked me what happened,” Espi goes on. “Not...not even when you saw. You just did what you do best.” He swallows hard, and when his eyes widen, I know that he’s looking back five years ago. All that fucking blood. “You never even fucking asked me—”

  “I didn’t want to know,” I say before he can even go there. It’s the truth. After all that time...I’d finally gotten the phone call I’d dreaded—Espi so fucking incoherent that all he could do was cry into the goddamn phone. I had never experienced that fear—not even for myself. When I’d gotten to the house, the bastard was already dead, and Espi was covered in blood. “I couldn’t let you go to...I had to protect...I couldn’t protect you from him...”

  “He didn’t, you know,” Espi says softly. “He didn’t touch me.”

  Suddenly, I’m leaning against the wall. When I finally manage to exhale, it’s like five years of fear blow out through my nostrils, and my fingers unhook out of fists, numb for once. “Good.”

  “He...he was drinking, and...he started talking about you.” I barely recognize the sound of the voice that continues to speak. “Dante. How he deserved to have you hate him. All the...all the shit he did to you. How he—” He breaks off, and the kid can’t fight back one of his old habits; tears slip down his chin, and he grits his teeth like he does when he’s fighting the urge to cry. “You never told me. I never knew. I thought maybe he just hit you a few times, that’s why you were always around. I thought you had it rough when you ran away. That’s why you used the drugs and why you fought all the time. I thought that was why you looked like you were dead every time you came around. But...I knew, I knew right then that it was because of me.”

  “Bullshit.” Shaking my head, I pull away from the wall. “Espi, what the fuck are you talking about—”

  “It was my fault.” His eyes are on the floor but he holds up his good hand when I start to circle the bed toward him, and I stop dead in my tracks. “It was my fault. You went there because of me. You tolerated that asshole because of me. He was sitting there, wondering if you would ever be able to forgive him when I couldn’t even forgive myself. You spent my entire life trying to protect me, and...it was killing you. I didn’t...I didn’t mean to do it,” he croaks. “I just remember shouting at him and s-slapping the bottle out of his hands. The hammer was just lying there, and...” He stares down at his own hands, flexing his still attached fingers. “I thought you’d be angry when you saw. I wanted you to yell at me. Hit me. I’d fucked up, and once again you had to clean my mess. But all you fucking did was make me change my clothes, send me to Arno, and I didn’t even know until the next day that
you were in lock up.” He glances up at me, his eyes shining with hatred. “Even then, you put me first. You confessed without even knowing what the fuck happened. You gave up the rest of your life for me, and you didn’t even ask me why.”

  “It didn’t matter,” I snap. “I would do it again.”

  Espi watches me for so long that at least three nurses have crept into the room to check on the girl only to dart right back out by the time he finally sighs.

  “I know you would...and that’s what pisses me off.”

  “Then I suppose you’ll just have to be pissed off then,” I counter, not giving a fuck if that makes him hate me even more. “So, you better go to fucking art school and stay out of trouble. You fuck up, and I’m the one who will take the fall for you, whether you like it or not.”

  He doesn’t say anything to that, but when I approach the bench and sit down beside him, he doesn’t run off either.

  I’ve had a clear image of heaven in my head since childhood, thanks to my parents. A devout Catholic, my father entertained this cliché fantasy of a soul being greeted by angels playing the harp in a pool of white light—and until now, I never had any reason to doubt that hope.

  Reality paints a different picture, however. My heaven is black, and the only serenade I hear consists of angry, masculine voices.

  “You think it’s that fucking easy?” Someone snarls. “You just hand me the reins, and I’m what? King for a day until Daddy decides to come back home?”

  “No,” another man growls. “You fucking keep it. I never wanted it—”

  “That’s not how it goddamn works, Dante! I know you’ve been on ‘vacation’ for a while, but there’s only one way the alpha stops being alpha. Just ask Dino...”

  “Do you really want to try that method?” The moment that dangerous tone resonates down my spine I know where I really am. The pearly gates of heaven must have slammed in my face; this is the devil’s domain.

  From what I can gather, Lucifer himself and one of his trusted demons are arguing about who really owns the fiery pit.

  “I should challenge you for it,” the first man starts—Arno?—but his voice doesn’t hold any real aggression. Just...pain? Hurt? Regret?

  “You could,” the devil concedes. “I won’t fucking stop you.”

  It’s more of a dare than a taunt. Tension builds, licking at the silence like flames. Higher...higher...until something has to give.

  “Damn it, Dante...fine,” Arno spits out finally. “Have it your fucking way. But, if you think for one second that you can just waltz back in and I’ll roll over like a good little boy, then you’ve got another thing coming. I’ve been doing just fine on my own. I’m nobody’s fucking benchwarmer.”

  “I don’t expect you to be,” the devil snaps, but his voice is softer and easily drowned by the thud of heavy footsteps. What I assume is a door slams shut seconds later and my perception shifts once again. I’m in a room.

  When I finally manage to peel my eyes open, I’m blinded by daylight streaming in through a nearby window—not hellfire. My searching fingers deduce that I’m on a bed and even with my vision blurry I have no trouble recognizing the dark silhouette lurking beside it.

  Awake, there is nothing about him similar to the fallen angel I’d watched sleep. His bulk is glaringly out of place here, and his scars shape everything about him—how he sits, waits, breathes. Scanning his worn expression, I don’t see any new scorch marks, however, so I doubt he walked through fire to find me.

  But where are we now?

  Without saying a word, he waits for me to notice the tubes snaking from my wrist and the bags of fluid hanging from a nearby IV—answering the question I’m too tired to ask; a hospital room. He’s not alone either. Someone sleeps on a small couch beside him, using their bandaged hand like a pillow. Darcy? No, this figure is way too tall, with an unruly mop of black hair...

  A flurry of beeping pierces the air—an alarm sounding from the machine monitoring my vitals. It doesn’t like how quickly I sit up, struggling to regain control of my heavy limbs.

  “Espi?” The specter on the couch groans, turning his face into the crook of his elbow. He sounds real enough... My brain warns me that it’s impossible, but when I blink, he doesn’t disappear. “Is...is he all right—”

  “He’s fine,” Dante grunts, gritting his teeth—but “fine” seems to be the operative word in this equation.

  Guilt gnaws at my chest when my eyes take in Espi’s bruised face and the mess made of his right hand. He might not be dead, but he’s survived his trip into hell with plenty of souvenirs.

  The thought makes me glance down at my own hand, covered in gauze. My fingers seem to be intact, but when I flex them, a dull ache travels up the length of my arm, triggering a wave of memories: white-hot flames licking at my skin. Smoke. Burning. Death. Dying...

  “How?” I look up while my tongue runs along my sore, cracked lips, tasting blood. “How did I...”

  “Gino,” Lucifer grits out. “Turns out he wasn’t so loyal to your precious Vinny after all.” Anger rides every single word, searing hot—though the devil doesn’t even seem to understand why he’s furious as he stares down at his open hands. They’re bruised and swollen even worse than before.

  Like an arrow to the chest, something warns me that I’m the reason. While maybe not through the actual fire, my devil did go through hell, if only to drag his new toy from a rival’s grip. Not that it did one damn bit of good.

  Despite everything...I’m Lynn again, squashed beneath Vinny’s thumb. His death didn’t erase my memories. My lungs struggle beneath the weight of them. My limbs burn with the need to escape, but my body...every cell is too heavy to move.

  Did you think it would be so easy, Mi Bella? My old friend taunts from the darkest reaches of my soul. Think again. I own you...

  Trapped, I squeeze my eyes shut and bite my throbbing lip until it bleeds—anything to be distracted from that hollow, pulsing feeling in my chest. Is it fear? Agony? Or is it merely the knowledge that alive or not, Vinny will never let me go.

  “Look at me.”

  My eyes fly open at Lucifer’s command, and Vinny doesn’t exist for the second his gaze hones in on mine—not that the devil’s rage is any easier to stomach. I have my own evil to answer for, and Lucifer frowns, both my judge and jury.

  I broke our promise.

  I made a liar out of the devil.

  I further corrupted his broken soul.

  He tallies up my crimes in silence, and Espi’s snoring fills the space between us, mingling with the steady drip of IV fluid and the distant commotion of the hallway.

  When what feels like an eternity passes, I can’t bear the tension anymore. “Arno...is he okay?” I don’t know if I’m really concerned or if I’m just that desperate to say something. Either way, I chose the wrong topic.

  “Mack wanted him to pay for your kill with his life, if that’s what you mean,” the devil says. His voice is as sharp as the blade we toyed with between us, drawing yet more of my blood.

  “What—”

  “It’s fine,” he says quickly. “I handled it.”

  He handled it, but I don’t think it was in a way Arno approved of. I know you’ve been on ‘vacation’ for a while, but there’s only one way the alpha stops being alpha. What did that mean? I start to ask, but a different voice cuts me off before the words even leave my throat.

  “You’re alive.” With one shift of his lanky frame, Espi sits upright, running his unbandaged hand through his hair.

  “So are you,” I croak once I find my voice again. I can’t help the way my eyes dart from him to Dante. Side by side it’s like watching a yin and yang symbol come to life. Espi’s smile lights up the room, contrasting with the devil’s permanent scowl—but I’m not sure which expression I find more comforting.

  They both eye me carefully, and I must make for quite the sight because when a nurse peeks her head through the doorway, she makes a show of calling for the doctor
.

  In a blur of medical jargon, they throw around a few terms like poison darts. Broken ribs. Fractured arm. Months of physical therapy. Healing. Quiet. Peace.

  When they leave, the only tangible piece of information I manage to decipher is that after a few days of observation I’ll be “free to go home, sweetie.”

  Home. It’s been so long since I’ve applied that term to an actual place. Ironically, the only image that comes to mind is of a narrow room with a single bed dominated by a sleeping, imposing figure.

  “You got banged up pretty good, Pyro,” Espi states with a whistle, drawing my attention back to him. His smile is as bright as ever, though the cut on his forehead ruins the carefree illusion he tries to cast. “The docs think you’ll be stuck in here for at least a week. After that...”

  He lets the statement hang as if expecting me to dream up a plan of action on the spot. With Vinny’s domain in flames, I was “free,” after all. When I don’t answer, Espi glances warily at his brother.

  “If you don’t have a place...you could stay with me,” Espi says. “Arno got me some digs outside of the city, and I have the extra room.”

  He fiddles with his right hand while he speaks, rolling the fingers of his good hand over the bandages. I’m so fixated on the unconscious action that I don’t realize until he clears his throat that nearly a minute has gone by.

  “I, uh...thank you,” I croak out, “but I can’t.” I’ve tainted the devil and his angelic cohort long enough—though neither one seems to appreciate my guilt.

  “Really, Pyro,” Espi starts. “It’s no trouble—”

  “You have nowhere left to go,” the devil says, rising to his feet. There’s blood on his shirt. And his jeans. His hands... Noticing my expression, he doesn’t try to hide it. He’s the beast from the cage again, bearing his battle wounds like medals of honor. “Stacatto’s dead,” he adds. “Arno sure as hell won’t take you in. So, unless you have a better option, I suggest you drop the stoic martyr act and take the fucking offer.”