My cello is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned—though I’m not stupid enough to believe that I truly possess it. Vinny commands everything. What’s his is his, and what’s mine is ours. He claims he’s done it all for me—built this world, fought these imaginary battles with men no better than he is.
It’s why he wants me to be a part of it. It’s why he made me drag my cello from my room and set it up in a distant, forgotten corner of his office where even the light doesn’t reach. I’m a part of this. His violence is my entire world, and he’ll never let me forget it.
“Play something nice,” he commands, his words grunted and clipped. His shadow is a stain on the floor, but I don’t look up to see the rest of him. Three men occupy this room with me. My fiancé, one of his hired slabs of muscle, and the other...
He’s a stranger I’ve only seen once before, while he aimed a gun at my head. He missed. My eyes squeeze shut to trap the tears that well up, but I obediently settle my bow into position blind. Play something nice. I take his loose definition of the word, and I run with it.
I play something loud. My bow saws, spilling out a melody that washes away the harshness of the room. It’s Bach, I think. Cello Suite No. 1. Prelude. The composition doesn’t matter either way. I simply perform, hugging the wooden instrument between my legs, and it’s almost enough to drown out the tortured sounds of the man’s moans.
My upper teeth descend into my bottom lip when a gasp mingles with the notes I weave, but I don’t stop playing. I am nothing in this moment. I’m just sound. I’m endless. I’m...
“You motherfucker!”
The shouting jars with the melody.
“Who the fuck do you work for?”
I play even harder. Sweat beads on my brow. My arm begins to hurt. Something heavy weighs down my left hand, affecting the precise movements.
“Who?”
There’s a smattering of words in return.
“Fuck you.”
My arm slips, and a false note cuts the air. I pant, hesitating, but an admonishment doesn’t come. Vinny is too busy interrogating to notice. When I continue, the sound isn’t enough to erase what he says next.
“That’s enough of this shit. Get his fucking pants off.”
Off. My arm takes off. I throw myself into the composition, holding nothing back. Every tone. Every subtle note holds a piece of my soul.
And it still isn’t enough to silence the horror taking place in the room.
“Who do you work for?”
“Go to hell.”
“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 that I’m forced to pant, haunting and sweet. I shouldn’t look over, but I do. A man’s body lies 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 now holds, flaccid and severed, on a silver platter probably fetched from the kitchen. My eyes register the sight coldly. 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 use my skirt to mop up the mess—my hands—anything to 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 in 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’s 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 I jump, 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 that I keep locked behind the barriers he’s enacted in my own mind.
“I...”
“Lynn?” He takes another step, slow and measured.
“I...”
“Daniela.”
“I just...I...maybe it’s too soon.” He says nothing, and the footsteps trail off. My spine tenses. I can’t look up to gauge his expression. “Maybe...we should wait a little longer. Just a little—”
“Longer?”
I don’t expect the blow, and it lands without warning. I see a flash of white. When my vision clears, the right side of my jaw burns, but I nearly sigh with relief. Just a slap.
“I’ve waited twenty-three years for you,” he says, his voice dripping with a tumult of emotions that he likes to define as love. “I’ve waited enough. This is what we’ve wanted our entire lives.”
“Yes, yes,” I promise the floor. “I know. I know...but—”
“But?”
The floorboards creak beneath his retreating footsteps. I’m stupid enough to think I’m safe. That he’ll walk away and leave me here without retribution. As if mocking me, the light flickers off the surface of my ring, disrupted by the heavy shadow that falls over me.
I quake, and my cowardly instincts try to stave off the inevitable. “Vinny, please—”
He grabs me by my collar and heads for the doorway. He’s too fast. I can’t stand up, and I find myself being dragged down the hallway toward my room. He kicks the door open, startling the poor woman on the other side of it who seemed to be in the middle of packing away a new outfit packaged neatly in a black shopping bag. It looks like a dress, slender and black...a cocktail dress. My stomach churns with the knowledge that he’s planned the engagement party already.
She pales when she sees Vinny, but he shoves her out of the way and yanks me upright before shoving me onto my bed.
I stare up at the man above me. Violent splotches of red paint his cheeks. He’s angry. Furious. I school my face into a blank mask so that I don’t react when he raises the object he has clenched in his left fist. My bow.
“Turn over,” he grits out, his jaw clenched.
My body moves woodenly. I flop over onto my belly, burying my face into the duvet. My eyes shut. Like always, my teeth catch the tip of my tongue so that I won’t make a sound.
“Spread your hands out,” he commands. My heart sinks, but I do it anyway, digging my fingers into the blanket, clutching fistfuls. “Yeah...like that. Now, tell me you love me.”
The woman in the corner of the room whimpers, even before I feel a firm hand begin to tug at the back of my skirt, lifting it over my hips. My panties are peeled down next, just far enough to reveal my ass. I flinch when he palms the left cheek. “Say it,” he urges as his fingers curl, sending his nails into my flesh.
I inhale and exhale my soul, leaving the rest of my body limp in his grip. With my last ounce of will, I turn my head just enough to free my mouth, so the words come out clear. “I love you.”
The air hisses. I hear the slap of wood against flesh first before I feel the sting. It’s not quite as sharp as it could be. He hit me too far up, and the wooden spine of my bow struck me through the barrier of my skirt.
“Say it again.”
He’s toying with me, and dread makes it harder to speak. “I...I love you.”
He aims true this time and hits nothing but tender skin. My entire body jerks with the force of the blow. Fire burns along my lower back, but I don’t scream. I squeeze my eyes shut, instead. I will myself far, far away...
I’m not here. Not really.
“Say that you need me.”
He hits me twice when I don’t answer quickly enough, and the threat of a sob chokes the back of my throat when I do speak. “I need you.” He growls, unsatisfied. Once again, I’ve done it wrong; the words come out too breathlessly.
“Say it again—” another blow.
“I—” My teeth clatter together when he hits me again, unexpectedly hard. A real moan drips out onto the bedspread before I can smother it. Without even having to look, I know that he broke the skin. Raw agony sears through flesh and muscle. “I...” I fight to suck in enough air. “I n-need you.”
“Damn right, you do.” He hits me again, the force unrestrained. The resounding thud echoes in my bones. My entire body jerks when he strikes again. Again. He’s grunting with the effort, bracing his other hand on the small of my back so that I can’t wiggle away—not that I try.
I float beyond the pain and just listen. The sound my bow makes whenever it connects is almost beautiful. A violent, staccato rhythm that would sound lovely when paired with a few notes from my cello. Something low and haunting, in G-major. I can almost hum it, it sounds so real. Da da. Da dum...da da...
“Look at me.” Snapping me from the melody, Vinny grabs my collar again and flips me over.
I can’t smother a groan that breaks loose when I land on the mattress, face up. My backside is on fire. Vinny staggers back at the sound, his nostrils flaring—but he’s not ashamed. He breathes in my fear like it’s a potent narcotic. It fills him with every deep, heavy breath he takes until he’s drunk on me.
“Do you know how much I’ve done for you to scoff at that fucking ring?” He jerks his chin toward my hand. A part of me wonders if he’ll go get his knife and cut off the offending digit. Maybe he’ll take the whole hand—both of them. Fervent desperation flares up so sharply that I have to squeeze my eyes shut against it. Maybe this time he’ll lose his mind and kill me in the process. God, please...
Let him do it.
“Look at me, Daniela.”
I obey, but my eyes are painfully dry. It hurts to keep them open like this, but I don’t dare close them for a second. I don’t even blink.
“Do you?” he questions. “Do you understand everything I’ve given up for you?”
I don’t answer and, not expecting one, Vinny stalks forward. I don’t react when he bends over me and harshly undoes the clasp to my skirt. With one hand he yanks it down, while the other wrenches at my blouse. I’m not wearing a bra underneath, and my breasts are bared. So is the message he himself etched into my torso.
He inhales sharply when he sees it, and his eyes shoot black. “You are mine, Mi Bella,” he breathes out, while his thumb traces one of the letters, smearing his possession into my skin. “Mine.”
The hand that attacked my skirt moves over to his waist. He tugs impatiently at the buckle of his belt, and something inside me goes numb. Dies. His ring becomes a lead weight. Is this the real reason why he wanted me to wear it? Can he justify “spoiling” his promised fiancée more than he can his pure, perfect, virginal Lynn?
I can see him wrestling with the decision as he lets his pants fall down to his ankles. He observes me carefully while twisting his fingers around the waistband of his boxers. I hold my breath when he tugs them down his legs, revealing toned hips. There’s a tattoo etched into the skin of his left thigh. The shadows of the room obscure the script, but my mind fills in from memory. Victory.
“Look at me.” I do. My eyes are glued to him. He looks ghoulish in the dim light that spills in from my window. When did it get so late? The moment the thought crosses my mind, my fingers throb. How long had I really played? How long had that man been tortured? How long?
“Is this why you don’t want to marry me?” he wonders, his voice dangerously soft as he gestures to my body with a wave of his hand. “Are you afraid?”
He palms his cock with one hand...but I don’t look. I eye the ceiling instead, counting the flourishes in the speckled ceiling. One. Two.
“Answer me, Daniela.”
Threefourfivesixseven—
“Look at me, damn it.”
My neck cranes down slowly. It seems even darker than it had seconds ago. Vinny is a specter standing at the foot of my bed, formed of shadow—my nightmare come to life, getting off at the sight of my pain. The veins in his neck pop while his right shoulder pumps up and down... “Don’t you know how much I love you?”
“Yes, Vinny,” I chant on cue. Please don’t. Please.
“I love you, Lynn.” He takes a step forward...and then he lashes out, grabbing the woman who’s pressed herself against the wall instead.
She doesn’t shout when he wrestles her to the floor, tugging at her neat blouse. He strips her torso bare, leaving her in nothing but a bra while he positions her on her hands and knees.
It’s a familiar game, but this time I forget the rules. “Vinny, don’t!”
“Lay down,” he growls before I even register sitting up. “You get off that fucking bed, and I’ll break her neck. You just watch.”
I go limp. The back of my head strikes the pillow just as the woman cries out. The sound is so brief and so sharp. It’s like the howl a dog makes when you step on its foot. The rest of her cries are smothered, however. She’ll bite her lip. She’ll grind her face into the floor if she has to. Anything to keep from rewarding him with a scream.
Vinny’s low groan scratches against my eardrums when she falls silent. There’s a sickening sound like that of flesh striking flesh—hard. Again. And again. “What’s your name?” he demands of the woman on the fourth thrust. His hand fists into her hair, yanking her head upright when she doesn’t answer quickly enough.
Her eyes are glassy. Drool runs down her chin. I don’t think she hears him until two broken syllables tear from her lips. “Ol...ga...”
He grunts and lunges against her, rutting like an animal. He doesn’t give a damn about her name—but he knows I do. He knows why I’ve avoided learning it for over a month.
Olga. Her muffled cries haunt me, a painful melody until the moment Vinny finally pulls out with a groan. He shoves her down and braces his hand against her back to find enough leverage to stand. Then he turns to me, still erect.
Shut it off, I tell myself. I’m not seeing him. I’m not here. I’m not...here.
“I love you,” he tells me over Olga’s whimpers. She tries to crawl away from him, but her arms tremble too badly to support her weight, so she tumbles onto her side and just lies there. “I love you, Daniela...” Vinny hisses, palming the length of his erection. His hand moves violently while he braces both feet flat against the floor. “Look at me.”
My eyes meet his, but I don’t see the irises. I’m staring far beyond his head. There’s a stage. Bright, beautiful lights that create a puddle of light around a single chair. There’s a cello there, too... It’s perfectly crafted. The elegance of it makes tears sting behind my eyes. Not this. I’m not here. Not here.
“I love you—fuck!”
Hot liquid hits my thighs in burning lines. Once...again. Being marked with the evidence of his lust aches worse than the marks he left with my bow. I’ll never erase them. He’s marking my soul; it’s just a plaything to sate his cruel desire.
“I love you,” he insists while pulling up his pants. “Tomorrow, you wear the fucking ring. You smile. You will be proud.” He spits that word at me while he steps over Olga and staggers through the doorway. The door slams shut after him, and then there’s only silence.
Olga and I don’t dare commiserate together. We simply exist...staring at the ceiling while darkness consumes it.