My head floats on an ocean of blackness, but pain is like a rudder, steering me back toward my body despite how every part of me just wishes to die. It would be so damn easy to let go.
And maybe I could if the devil wasn’t whispering in my ear. He calls to me—at least, I think it’s him. I swear I can even hear the guttural cadence of his voice, but when I finally regain consciousness, I recognize the fingers running through my hair with terrifying clarity.
“Welcome back, Mi Bella,” Vinny tells me as he seizes a lock of my hair, tugging hard enough to make me wince. The brief, searing agony joins the symphony of it playing through my entire body. The lighter notes of pain from my previous injuries meld with the throbbing percussion of the blows Vinny landed. I’m nothing more than a twisted, beautiful melody of pain when I peel my eyes open and face the man who claims to love me above everyone else.
“I’ve missed you.” He runs his fingers along my throbbing cheek, careless of the open wound that burns a fiery trail there. “Look at me.”
I blink so that he knows I’m aware. I see him...and no sight has ever terrified me more.
“This...this was not how our reunion was meant to happen,” he explains, freeing his hand from my hair and placing it on his knee. The movement draws my gaze down. I’m naked. He’s stripped me to nothing but bruised and bloodied skin against an ivory duvet that I recognize as lining the bed of my old cage. With a terrible certainty, I know what he plans to do, even while I struggle to keep my eyes open—one aches badly enough to warn me that in a few hours, I’ll be lucky if I can open it at all.
“Look at me,” Vinny commands as he climbs off the bed and stands before me. He starts to undo the latches to his pants, taking his time with every deliberate tug on the zipper. “Apparently, you have no issues with being used as a whore.” He sighs at that assessment: twenty-three years of waiting for my “virtue” wasted. “So, you shouldn’t mind if I use you like one.”
The words chill me to the core. Desperate for escape, my eyes scan the edges of my room, searching for the familiar shape of my cello, but when I finally find it...the music doesn’t come to me like it used to. I can’t imagine the stage anymore. The notes of that old, soothing melody don’t take me away.
I’m rooted in place as Vinny frees his cock and starts on the buttons of his shirt. My mind spins, hunting for anything to latch onto. I’m a caged bird gnashing her beak against the bars of her cage. The cat is already tugging on the latch...and there is no escape.
Vinny starts to murmur to me, telling me how hard he plans to “fuck” me and which holes he’ll soil. I inhale, my heart quickening with fear as my eyes drift to the ceiling. He’s already hard. I can hear him stroking himself, grunting with lust.
It’s only when pain flares through my chest that I realize my fingers are prodding an aching wound there. A burn. Vinny must not have been able to distinguish what it really is amid all my other bruises and scrapes, but my fingertips tread the path of every single letter. I mouth them all to myself, in the end, whispering the devil’s name like a prayer.
“...Until you scream, and then I’ll take my knife and... What did you say?” Vinny’s tone cuts me to the bone, awakening an old fear, but with my fingers still prodding my brand, it’s easier to ignore him. It’s easier to sink into the cadence of my own heartbeat and replay a song performed on a more archaic set of instruments than a simple cello—bone, sinew, heat, groans. Lucifer taught me how to play him well. I can taste him. I hear him in my head, overpowering even Vinny’s shouts.
A stinging slap tilts my face onto my left cheek, and I blink as my vision blurs. “Daniela.” Something sharp sounds near my ear. His snapping fingers. “Look at me.”
I do, still tracing the name of the man who owns me in ways this monster can only dream of.
“What did you say?” His eyes rove over to my collarbone and hone in on the burn. He observes it more closely, attempting to puzzle out the meaning of the shapes he first thought were meaningless. His eyes flash; someone new has tainted his toy, and his cock deflates beneath the strength of that rage. That fear. “What the hell is that? What does it say?”
I should cringe and keep silent. A part of me merely wants to escape on the cloud my memories of the devil represent. They encase me stronger than any Bach suite. I could drown in his taste alone. But stroking the part of me he’s tainted makes me bolder. Reckless. Stronger.
“Dante.”
Vinny draws back—I see him from the corner of my eye, though I’m already staring far beyond him. I don’t dream of a stage this time, just a man. One with piercing blue eyes and rich black hair and the scorch marks of hell on his soul.
“What did you say?” When Vinny grabs me by the chin, forcing me to meet his gaze, I don’t hesitate to repeat it.
“It says...Dante.”
He slaps me so hard I see double, and I’m left clinging to the side of the mattress. When I right myself, I leave a stream of blood against the white comforter, but I barely feel the pain with my mouth humming beneath the lasting vibrations of the devil’s name. “Dante.”
Vinny strikes me again—this time with his fist, I think. The blow knocks me sideways, disrupting the neatly made bed under me. The room is spinning. My lungs ache with every breath I take.
“That’s his name? That motherfucker,” Vinny asks, and I assume he’s referring to the man in the video. “Dante. I will find him, Lynn. I will kill him, slowly. I’ll have you play something nice while I do it. And then...” He cradles my jaw in his hand, digging his nails in so deeply that I groan. “Then, I’ll fuck you senseless in a puddle of his blood.”
He shoves me down and strolls for the door, wrenching his pants back up as he moves. “Dinner is at seven,” he tosses over his shoulder, his voice smooth and suave once again. “I expect you to be dressed and presentable. Don’t you fucking dare be late.”
There is no maid in my cage to help me dress this time. I have to force myself to crawl from the bed to the wall and climb upright, clinging to a windowsill for balance. My old wardrobe is a forest of unfamiliar silks and satins, but I settle on a black dress that seems “nice” enough for the occasion.
Dinner. In Vinny’s world meals are a formal affair. Struggling to remember the old routine, I stagger into the bathroom, and I bathe myself without glancing in the mirror. My left arm won’t bend the way it should, and I have to wrangle my hair the best I can with only one hand. I brush it flat and settle it against one shoulder—the closest to tying it back as I can manage.
Then, clinging to the countertop, I douse my skin in his favorite perfume. I clean the dirt from my nails. I pinch color into my swelling cheeks and neatly arrange the dress around my broken frame.
The whole while I imagine the million different ways that I could kill Vinny. A steak knife through his chest. A bottle of wine against his skull. The soup dish. The silver cheese platter. A wine goblet. Each fantasy is more gruesome and grisly than the last, but none of them contain the violence that someone like Vincent Stacatto deserves.
“Miss?” I flinch at the sound of knocking on the bathroom door. Gino’s accent plays a terrifying melody as it echoes off the marble flooring and elegant cream walls.
“Yes?” I force myself to croak out in response.
“Mr. Stacatto requests that I remind you that dinner will be ready within ten minutes.”
I frown. Vinny doesn’t send reminders. If I’m late to this meal, it would only serve to give him more incentive to devise the cruelest torture imaginable to punish me. Regardless, I shut off the faucet and tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear.
“I’m coming.” I stand and limp over to the door on bare feet. When I open it, Gino’s stoic expression is what greets me from the other end. But something isn’t right... Maybe it’s in the hand he extends toward me, the palm held toward the floor with his thumb tucked against it. I stare at the appendage for I don’t know how long.
Gino knew the rules—unless they had changed so drastically within the course of the few days I’d been gone. No one touched me except Vinny. No one.
“Miss,” he prods when I don’t move. “Mr. Stacatto is waiting.”
I consider walking past him—a little over a week ago I would have. Now, I think it’s the thrill of subverting Vinny’s wishes that makes me reach for his trusted thug’s hand, but before I can touch him, he slides his palm above mine, and I feel something against it that’s tougher than skin.
“The toast,” Gino says, lowering his voice. “Make sure you offer to pour the glass.”
He turns away before I can fully process his words. When I blink, he’s already heading across the bedroom and out into the hall. When I follow him, I realize for the first time that we aren’t in the hotel suite. The furniture is the same—the layout of this room is nearly identical to my old one—but the hallway curves around a row of closed doors and opens at the mouth of a grand staircase rather than a living area.
A house?
“Mr. Stacatto regrets that he didn’t have the time to give you a tour of his wedding gift,” Gino explains as we descend the staircase that deposits us into a spacious entryway. My eyes drift over to the door longingly, but I’m not stupid enough to move toward it, and Gino doesn’t even seem to entertain the thought of me running.
He guides me down an expansive hallway and into a grand dining room where Vinny stands at the head of a long table draped in a pure white tablecloth. Silverware marks exactly two place settings and a bottle of wine sits between them. I can smell food cooking. Meat. The scent serves as a brutal omen that matches the ferocity in Vinny’s charming grin.
“Good evening, Daniela,” he croons to me before reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a single object that he tosses onto the table. I know in an instant what it is: a woolen cap, like the kind that might hold back a mop of unruly black curls from brilliant blue eyes. It’s Espi’s, and my heart turns to stone in my chest. “He’s dead,” Vinny explains, flashing his teeth.
I find Gino, standing in the corner of the room, his face expressionless. I eye his hands—the same hands that killed Espi and my own curl around the object he gave me. I consider throwing it to the floor and crushing whatever it is beneath my bare foot—but almost as if reading my mind, I swear I see him shake his head once. No. Wait. He cuts his gaze over to the bottle of wine. Make your toast.
“Come here,” Vinny commands, and I take my time approaching him. His eyes drift appreciatively over my towel-dried hair and the dress I wear. When he sees my bare toes, he frowns, and I know that his fingers flex, aching to deliver a slap for the offense. For now, he contents himself with the obedient way I take my place beside him, my head bowed. Remembering Gino’s request, I observe the bottle of wine, but nothing about it seems special. It’s imported—Vinny’s favorite brand.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” he says softly, dragging his finger along the neck of the bottle. “To my love, Daniela. And to Dante...when I find him.”
My blood runs cold. The object that Gino pressed into my palm is the only thing tying me to the present, and for the first time, I shift my grip on it, trying to suss out the telltale shape. It’s square. Small. Familiar...
A goofy, cartoonish image pops into my head—a grinning moose.
“Here,” Vinny says, drawing my attention back to him as he lifts a wine goblet.
“W-Wait...” I force myself to raise my hand, reaching for the bottle before he can. It’s heavy. I have to cradle one hand against the bottom and clutch at the neck with the other. Someone had already removed the cap, and I can hear the liquid sloshing within the glass. “I want to make the toast if that’s okay.”
Vinny says nothing. He merely watches on suspiciously as I tilt the bottle with both hands pressed flat against it. “To...to our love,” I hear myself say while I attempt to pour an amount of liquor into Vinny’s glass. But, with my left arm unsteady, I miss. The liquid spreads across the beautiful tablecloth and spills right down the front of Vinny’s perfectly tailored black pants.
“Damn it!” His hand lashes out, and I go flying. The bottle overturns, and liquid careens in every direction, splashing from the table and onto the polished wooden floor. I wind up on my hands and knees, and I finally lift my palm to reveal the object Gino gave me.
A book of matches. I don’t think. I don’t even hear Vinny raging above me. Another voice is in my head, taunting me by asking if I enjoy setting fires like a true pyromaniac. When I tear free a match and strike it, I do it for Espi. When I spot a puddle of alcohol—which seems way too clear to be wine—I let it fall for Dante. But when I draw back and watch as fire consumes everything in burning hot snatches, it’s all for Daniela.
The flames are greedier for freedom than I could ever be. They lick at everything in their path, dancing across the floor, climbing up the table. They even try to devour Vinny. He curses when the first embers nudge the heel of his polished loafers. He’s able to kick it back, already shouting for Gino to “put this fucking shit out!” He doesn’t notice when I throw my arm out within his path until he trips over it, his heel striking bone so hard that I hear a crack. He lands on his knees, already preparing to lurch upright again, but my other hand seizes his pant leg. Then I spot the wine bottle rolling across the floor just a few feet away and reach for it. Surprisingly there’s still liquor sloshing around inside of it, and it spills out, eagerly drenching Vinny’s thigh when I aim it in his direction. He kicks me off, standing to his feet, his teeth bared, his eyes like midnight.
I don’t know how I manage to light another match, striking it against the matchbook with just one hand. Maybe fate is on my side for once as Vinny doesn’t even seem to realize when he takes a step toward me. The “wine” forms a puddle that stretches from my wrist all the way to the heel of his polished loafer. When I let the match fall, it instantly lights with flame. Like a beautiful creature formed of flashing orange light, it lurches across the wood and seeps through the fabric of Vinny’s slacks.
He shouts and backs away, fanning at the flames with the back of his hand. Gino. He calls for Gino...but his trusted flunky is nowhere in sight. The door to the dining room is closed. When Vinny tugs, it doesn’t open. His shouts grow louder, and curses mingle with the words—someone is on the other side of the doors, watching him through the frosted glass, but they don’t lift a finger to help.
“You motherfucker! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you—argh!”
Another lit match feeds the flames. I can’t seem to stop striking them, even as heat leeches into my body and a sharper, more intense pain joins the melody of it already playing through my system. I strike another, watching the beauty of the fire engulf the tiny wick. When I let it fly, it joins the rest—surging, smoldering, crackling heat.
“You stupid bitch!” Agony flares through my left arm when someone grabs it—a demon. He’s on fire, his heat searing my skin and drawing a gasp from my lips. A scream. He won’t let go, and I have no choice but to look into his eyes as the fire grows. Spreads. Consumes.
He doesn’t seem to realize until it laps at the collar of his shirt. Then he draws back, and the shouting becomes screaming...
A part of me knows what I’m seeing: a man dying, but I don’t dare tear my gaze away. I think I vaguely recognize the sound that tears from my lips for what it really is before smoke chokes my lungs—laughter. I’m laughing. I’m crying. I’m watching a man I once called my best friend stagger across a beautiful dining room, crashing into the elegant furniture, and I find the sight hilarious for some reason.
A goblet to the head wouldn’t do Vinny justice—this is the only fitting way for him to die. Consumed by fire. By rage itself. Watched by the creature he molded and shaped into his image.
I laughed because after five years of terror I finally embodied the twisted, beautiful monster he had always wanted me to be.
The thought is a terrifying one. It’s freeing. I’m free from the fear and the pain even as the heat sears my skin and my body suffocates on the acrid stench of burning flesh and wood.
I’m free...and when my vision finally goes black, the last thing I see is Vincent Stacatto writhing in agony as the fires of hell reclaim the black soul they once spit out.
But the harshest of ironies is...the devil isn’t there to welcome me.