In the dark living room, the heavy breathing sounded eerie. Amelia closed her eyes when she felt it against her neck, hot and intoxicated. Her head swam, her feet felt unsteady.

“You still haven’t paid me this week.” The snuffle was followed by the clink of glass against metal. She saw him lift the bottle to his mouth from over her shoulder, guzzling noisily until there was nothing left. “How many times do I have to remind you?”

“We broke up two months ago.” She turned around to face him, not sure if it was fear making her so cold or the damp clothes. “You are not my boyfriend anymore. There’s nothing between us.”

The answering laugh curdled her blood.

Jason Reeve Kershaw. Recently discharged horse jockey, profligate younger son of a retired banker. Skilled, smooth-tongued, privileged— yet a raging fiend under the influence.

Amelia took two steps back when his hand tightened around the neck of the bottle.

“You remember our deal, right?” He inched closer, his dark brown hair glistening in the streak of streetlight. “You stop paying me and I add to your collection of bruises.”

“I’m not giving you any more of my money,” she explained slowly. “You spend it all on drink.”

She did not see the slap until she was stumbling backwards, the sharp sting burning like red, hot coals. Her hand moved to her cheek, even as she was roughly grabbed and pinned against her console piano. He brutally squeezed her arms, and through the pain, she tried her best to not scream. The soundproof apartment would do nothing to alert anyone.

“You’re back-talking now, are you?” His mouth was contorted, his eyes bloodshot. “What a change, babygirl. Is it because of the new man in your life?”

“Let me go,” she stuttered, wiggling to free herself from the savage grip. He released her and she tried to run, but there was nowhere to hide. She staggered against the piano, sending sheets of music fluttering across the room.

“Is that why you refused to get back together?” he hissed, shadowing her. “Because you already have someone new?”

Her ability to speak was robbed by the slap that followed, pinning her face to the cold wood of the piano. Amelia remembered that hand holding her, leading her to the dance floor, touching her in ways she was now ashamed to admit.

“It took you no time to get over me!” A fist accompanied the roar, then another, pistoning her to the floor. Amelia gasped, her vision blackening, as though she had been stabbed with a knife. She wailed noiselessly, the pain rising from her lower back and spreading across her stomach. The last time he had done that, she spent the night vomiting blood.

She bit her lip when she was yanked back to her feet. “I want my money.” He wrung her face, the muscles of his jaw throbbing. Amelia jerked free and pushed him away, reaching for the wall. 

“It isn’t your money.” She shook her head. “And you’re not getting any of it.”

The bottle came flying at her, and she ducked just in time, collapsing onto the floor again and hitting the corner of her forehead on the cold, hard wood. The bottle lay in shards around her, sparkling in the faint light streaming in through the window. Her head spun but she felt the trickle of blood only when she tasted it on her lips.

“Bitch.” A boot kicked into the side of her stomach and yet again, she resisted the urge to cry out. The pain was piercing like a razor, shooting up her chest. “That’s what you are. A filthy slut.”

There were sounds of her flat being ransacked, but she could not move. Could not breathe. Slowly, with difficulty, Amelia crawled to the kitchen. She had been there too many times to care anymore. As she shuffled to her feet and grabbed the steak knife from the drawer, the sight of the shiny steel filled her with the courage she had so long lacked in the face of fear.

The drunkard stumbled forward when the sharp tip of the blade scraped against his body.

“Careful,” she warned, her hand firmly wrapped around the handle of the knife. “One wrong move and I’m going to rip your insides out.”

A short, confused pause later, he found his voice back. “You… you can’t,” he stuttered, frozen where she held him against the knife. Amelia’s jaw stiffened.

“Try me,” she whispered, pressing the tip into his back, enough to bruise but not draw blood. “I’ve given you too many chances. Tonight, I’m quite ready to stab you to death and bury you in my kitchen.”

He tried to turn but Amelia pushed the sharp tip into his skin, and he stumbled again with a groan.

“Kill me and the whole world will find out,” she added quietly. “But if I kill you, no one will find out. I promise.”

Without turning to look at her, Jason ran out of the bedroom as fast as his intoxicated senses would allow him. Amelia heard the front door slam shut. Only then did she drop the knife and collapse onto the floor, letting the world disappear into a black hole.

#

Baron’s Hall, the main performance venue of the conservatoire, bustled with a frantic energy. In thirty minutes, sharp at ten o’clock, Daniel’s first public masterclass of the season was to begin. Three hundred people in the audience. Four brilliant pianists on the student panel. A highly anticipated hour of deconstructing parallels and paradoxes, streamed live online, broadcast on national networks, and recorded by glaring cameras for posterior viewing. Gracing the stage was the antique 1874 Steinway, from the conservatoire’s museum.

It had been a busy week for him, filled with press interviews, the first round of entrance auditions for the new session, and meetings with the piano committee regarding the line-up of the conservatoire’s annual music festival in June. The centrepiece of the event was going to be his rare performance of Ligeti’s piano concerto, a recital he was looking forward to. Besides the masterclasses, the summer series would also feature Schubert’s late sonatas and various multimedia collaborations, and the world premiere of Amelia Cavenham’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

“Dr McGraw, disaster,” panted a nervous assistant as she appeared at the doorway of his dressing room. “Amelia is not here.”

Daniel lifted his eyes from the book he had been buried in, an activity that centred him before a performance. “Maybe call her?” he suggested calmly. The young woman scratched the back of her neck.

“We have, about twenty-five times. She hasn’t answered or returned the calls.”

Daniel, possessing a composed confidence that shielded him against petty anxieties, felt a slight tremor in his chest. The star attraction, missing on an important day, at an ambitious event. He thought back to last evening, to her quiet assurance of being present at the masterclass. Seven years of knowing her and she had not once broken her word.

“Thank you,” he managed, closing his book. The conservatoire would be abuzz. The media would have a field day. The patrons would be livid. But overriding his frustration and professional anxiety was fear, cold and heavy. “Please inform the other pianists. We will begin without her.”

A half hour later, with a practised smile that he wore as easily as his bespoke suits, Daniel walked onto the stage. The auditorium broke into applause. He bowed to the audience, shook hands with the three pianists accompanying him that morning – Lucille Caplan, Alexander Holland, and Daryll Pavanetto, the special-needs musician from Amber Trust he had been mentoring for ten years. He noticed the empty space where Amelia’s chair should have been. He saw the conservatoire’s principal in the box with his brow furrowed. He caught a glimpse of Eleanor Ainsworth, the wealthy patron who had flown in from Monaco just to watch Daniel and Amelia share the stage after six years.

The conservatoire had kept Amelia’s decision to abandon her programme within tight wraps. Students dropped out for several reasons. But Amelia Cavenham was not another student. She was a jewel in the academy’s crown, valued for the prestige, spotlight, and glory she brought the institution. She had owned some of the biggest music competitions since she was eight, performed at the most hallowed venues across the globe, and given older, more experienced musicians a run for their money. That year, she had been commissioned for four unique arrangements for the most iconic classical music events, two under his conduction. She was the epitome of precocious talent.

He could almost read the minds of the people on the academy’s board. Letting her go was not just a loss. It was potential financial disaster.

“Music, as we have seen through the times, is a labyrinth of collocation,” began Daniel, commanding the hall with his booming voice. “Consider the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow in Schubert’s lieder, each note imbued with tenderness yet tinged with nostalgia. Schubert, driven by his passionate longing for love and artistic recognition, crafted melodies that resonate with both the ecstasy and the ache of life. Every crescendo a triumph, every diminuendo an echo of fragility.”

The masterclass rolled with the finesse Daniel was known for. He delivered his opening remarks, blending historical context with technical insight. He guided the pianists through their pieces, offering critique and suggestions with his typical masterful precision. He analysed etudes and challenged interpretations, peppering his talks with anecdotes from his own career. 

An hour felt like an eternity. The recent change in Amelia had been nagging him for weeks, but that bruise… it had turned his concern into alarm. Now that alarm was turning into a tide of panic inside his chest.

“Each skillful passage played on the piano is a dialogue between the musician and the score,” he said. “A delicate balance between precision and expression that challenges the performer to draw forth the inherent story of a composition while navigating the constraints of technique.”

The event was finely orchestrated, each note perfect, each word captivating. Three hundred pairs of eyes watched in rapt attention. But Daniel’s own fame and iconicity failed to provide a buffer against the unspoken heaviness in the air, the disappointed glare of Mrs Ainsworth, and the whispers that would soon start.

Where was Amelia?

As the masterclass ended in triumph, Daniel took a quick bow, ignored the applause, and made a dash for the exit. Later, he would deal with the academy, the press, and the rest of the world. Now, he needed to find Amelia.

#

“Ye lookin’ for anyone, sir?” The middle-aged gent spoke with a cigarette between his teeth. Daniel was in front of the building he was almost sure Amelia lived in, but he did not feel confident about going up the stairs only to find the wrong house. The man who had just spoken to him was probably the owner of the bookshop on the ground floor.

“Yes.” He cleared his throat and turned towards him. “You don’t happen to know a red-haired girl who lives around here, do you? Name’s Amelia. Small, quiet, green eyes, plays the piano.”

“Sure I do.” The man smiled, pointing up the stairs. “Right there. That’s ‘er flat.”

Daniel’s gaze followed his finger, and he was relieved to know that he had been looking at the right apartment. “Ye aren’t the police, are ye?” the man suddenly added.

“What?”

“Don’t mind me.” He turned to walk back to his shop, stopping only to drop the cigarette butt on the ground and crush it under his shoe. “But it’s time someone called the coppers on that cunt.”

The door of the shop swung shut before Daniel had the chance to thank him or ask what he meant. As he walked upstairs to reach the blue door, he could not help but wonder why a gifted, globally-renowned musician with a prestigious career would want to live there. He was twenty-three when he bought his house. Amelia was the same age now with the same level of success and could easily afford a better dwelling.

Daniel knocked and waited, but the door did not open. He knocked again, listening for any sounds inside. The flat was silent, not a creak or a footstep to be heard. His hand involuntarily reached the door knob, a frown marring his brow when it turned easily. He stepped past the gaping door into a dark apartment, the afternoon sun blocked by the thick curtains.

“Mel?” He called out cautiously. “Are you here?”

His query was met with silence. He stepped forward, then abruptly halted when a piece of broken glass crunched under his shoe. Daniel picked it from the floor, his brow scrunching as he gazed around the living room. Despite the dimness, he could discern the state of disarray, the chairs toppled on the floor and the sheets of music scattered all over.

A wave of icy fear swept over him.

“Amelia…” He hurried towards the open doorway of what appeared to be a bedroom. His blood turned cold at the sight inside.

Amelia was on the floor, still in the same dress he had seen her in the previous evening, her form seemingly lifeless. He knelt beside her, his fingers pressing against her burning hot skin as he checked for a pulse. It was feeble.

“No…” He moved her hair back to reveal the trickle of dried blood running down her face from the gash on her forehead, a dark purple bruise on her cheek that mirrored the one on her arm, and a deep cut down the side of her neck oozing blood down her collarbone. Next to her on the floor was a knife. His heart dropped.

“Mel, can you hear me?” He turned her onto her back, before gently gathering her in his arms. “Open your eyes, please.”

Her bruised lips moved, but the uttered sound was drowned by her fevered breaths. Daniel scooped her from the floor, her weight impossibly light against his chest. Without second thoughts, he carried her out of the room, stopping only to pick up her bag and her coat from the floor.

Shutting the door behind him, he carried her down the stairs and settled her in his car. With a racing heart, he started out, the world blurring around him as he navigated the city streets.