I drop to the edge of the bed.
David? My uncle?
“David sends his regards.” I hear it now. I hear him say it. I’d heard him then, too, but I couldn’t remember or didn’t want to remember.
My uncle was responsible? My uncle had my family slaughtered? My uncle had my mother raped?
“Oh, and one more thing.”
I look up. Marcus is at the door.
“Your wife is a dirty whore. I may never have fucked her but let me tell you something. After seeing her take her Uncle Jacob’s filthy dick, I really couldn’t get it up for her anymore. That’s some nasty shit.”
He goes on but I don’t hear any more words. Even his laughter is somehow tuned out. I’m not in control of my body anymore. It’s not even instinct. It’s rage. Pure, raw rage.
I’m across the room in an instant, the hilt of the blade from my side in my hand, a roar like that of an animal blotting out the heavy metal as I take him down, both of us landing heavy on the black floor in this back room.
Marcus’s eyes have gone wide, the gun knocked from his hand with the impact.
I don’t think. I don’t breathe. I don’t feel the pain of my wound as I hold his head down with one bloodied hand, leaning all my weight into it because I can’t keep myself upright, as I raise my knife hand and bring it down into his jugular.
23
Scarlett
Something’s wrong. I feel it.
It’s been hours since Cristiano left, and Noah still isn’t back. I’m anxiously sitting in Cristiano’s bedroom watching for either of them.
I glance at the pouch and the contents I’ve scattered on the bed. The gun looks ominous and I know it’s for my own protection, but I don’t want it. I don’t want Noah to have it. I don’t want either of us to have to use it.
There’s ten thousand dollars in cash along with the two passports with our new identities. American passports. I have no idea if they’re good forgeries or not, but I guess they are. The key is to a BMW.
Cerberus sits beside me looking out the window. He must feel it too, this anxiety. This feeling that something has gone wrong.
“Everything will be okay,” I tell him. It’s a lie. I have no idea if anything will be okay.
He sets his head on my lap with a small whimper.
Did Cristiano find Marcus? Is that why he’s given me this pouch? Shown me the way off the island. I know this is the one thing that’s kept him alive. His hate. His need for vengeance. The drive to kill Marcus Rinaldi. Does he still intend to be done with things now, though? Done with life once he’s had his revenge? I know the passports didn’t happen overnight. He’s put some planning into it. But what’s happened between us, hasn’t that changed anything for him?
The sound of a speedboat has me running to the window. I’m not sure if Cristiano left by chopper or boat. I heard both earlier. I can’t see who is on the boat before it disappears around the corner.
“Let’s go,” I tell Cerberus after shoving the money and passports back into the pouch and tucking it and the gun under my pillow.
My pillow.
How quickly I’ve come to call it mine.
Cerberus follows me out the door and down the stairs where I already hear Noah.
I breathe a small sigh of relief when I see him. He’s talking with another soldier, someone I don’t know, and the older man laughs at what he says. Cristiano is nowhere among the half-dozen men who enter, but Dante is. His eyes track me as I make my way to my brother.
I don’t like Dante and I don’t trust him. The feeling is mutual, I know.
“Scarlett,” Noah says, coming to me. “Is he following you around now?” He points to Cerberus.
Dante glowers at me, pets Cerberus’s head and passes us to the kitchen.
“I need to talk to you,” I say as quietly as I can, so no one hears. As uncertain as I am about things, I do know one thing, I know what’s best for my brother.
“Sure,” he says, his face serious as he follows me up to Cristiano’s room. “Did you tell Cristiano yet?”
I nod. “I’m not sure how he took it. He’s processing, I guess.”
Noah appears uncertain. “You think I’m remembering wrong? I’ve gone over and over it and I swear, the minute I laid eyes on the photo, I just knew. I felt it, Scarlett. Does he think I’m making it up?”
“No. No, of course not. That’s actually not what I want to talk to you about.” I take the pouch out from under the pillow but leave the gun where it is.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“I have a bad feeling, Noah.” I have these a lot and over the last ten years I’ve been right more often than wrong. Although maybe that was the circumstances. “Something’s wrong. Something’s happened. With Cristiano I mean.”
He studies me. “No, don’t worry. He’ll be fine. He’s got nine lives.”
“How many of those has he used up do you think?”
He pauses at that and I think about how much he’s seen, how much he’s lived through for his fifteen years.
“What’s in there?” he asks.
I take out his passport and hand it to him. He opens it and his eyebrows shoot up. “Michael Preston?”
I take out mine. “And his sister, Elizabeth.” I know those names weren’t random choices. I pull the pouch open so Noah can see the bills.
“Whoa.”
I tuck my passport into my pocket. “Cristiano gave this to me. He said if anything happens, I’m to take you and go.”
“Take me and go?” He looks confused. “Go where exactly? And how did he think you’d manage that? There are about two dozen soldiers on the island that I counted just on my way in.”
“You’re keeping count?”
“I’m not stupid, Scarlett. These men are loyal to Cristiano. If something happens to him and Dante takes over, I’m pretty sure you and I are dead.”
“Shit.” I sit on the edge of the bed, pushing my hand through my hair. I know this, but Noah saying it, Noah knowing it, it makes everything feel that much more dangerous.
Makes me doubly certain that I need him out of here. Now.
“Do you want to go?” he asks, sitting beside me. “I mean, would you? Right now? If we could?”
“Would you?”
He nods and I see the little boy he was when all this started. It’s the look in his eyes he sometimes gets. Like he’s just barely holding everything together. He’s just fifteen. A kid. Even if he is taller than me and slowly starting to fill out. I see the little bit of a mustache he must have shaved a few days ago growing back in.
And what I’ll have to do makes my stomach twist.
“He showed me a way out,” I tell him, not answering his question. “A secret way.”
“How? There’s guards watching everything. It’s an island, Scarlett. We’re surrounded by water. There is no secret way.”
“There is. Under the water.”
“What?”
“There’s a tunnel that leads off the island. Access is through the cell where they killed Angel and Diego. We just have to get to the cells.”
“Wait. Why did they put us in there if there was a way out?”
“I don’t think anyone but Cristiano knows about it. Maybe Dante. Put that away, okay?” I motion to the passport. I don’t want anyone walking in and seeing us with passports.
He looks down at it and tucks it out of sight in his back pocket.
“Here,” I take out just a few hundred-dollar bills and push them into my pocket before handing him the pouch. “This too. There’s a car waiting on the other side of the tunnel. Key’s inside there. Don’t be stupid with the car.”
His eyes narrow as he takes the pouch. “I can drive just fine but why are you telling me all this now? You can tell me when we get there.” He knows the answer. I can see it in his eyes.
“Because you need to go first, Noah. I’ll follow as soon as I know he’s safe.”
“Scarlett—”
&nbs
p; “I need to know he’s safe.”
“If he’s safe, there will be no reason to follow.”
“Then I’ll bring you back. If we disappear together, they’ll start a manhunt. As long as they see me, they won’t think anything of you not being here. I’m his wife. I’m the one the cartel wants back.”
“No. No way. I’m not leaving you behind. How will you protect yourself against them if he doesn’t come back?”
I reach under the pillow and take out the gun.
He sucks in a breath, shakes his head. “No. No fucking way, Scarlett.”
“Listen to me, Noah. This is my chance to get you out. This is our one real shot in all these years. And it may be the only one we get.” I feel my eyes fill up with tears, but I steel myself, harden my heart. I will not be weak. I cannot. Not now. “I couldn’t protect you against Angel and Diego but I’m not going to let anything else happen to you.”
“What they did had nothing to do with you.”
I don’t want to discuss what our brothers did over the last ten years, so I put the gun back under the pillow. “Let’s go. There’s food and water if you’re hungry and you’ll need something warm.” I walk past him into Cristiano’s closet and take the warmest sweater I can find. A thick wool one that still smells like him.
Worry interferes in my thoughts, but I shove it away. There will be plenty of time to worry.
Noah’s still standing in the same spot when I return but he’s holding the pistol. I look at him and he looks at me and I rush to him, taking that thing from his hands, more determined than ever that this is the right thing to do.
“Here,” I say, putting the sweater over his shoulders. I tuck the gun away.
“Scarlett. I don’t want to leave you behind,” he says, and I know from his tone that he’ll acquiesce.
I smile. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. And besides, you’re not leaving me behind. I’m just coming a bit later.”
Leaving Cerberus in the bedroom we walk out into the hallway as casually as possible. We don’t pass any guards upstairs, but I hear them downstairs. They move quickly through the living room and out the front doors. I hear the chopper a few seconds later.
“Let’s go,” I tell Noah and we hurry to the door that leads to the cells. I only remember how dark it is down here once we’re through the door, but Cristiano thought of everything. There’s a small flashlight in the pouch we can use to make our way down the stairs and hurry as quietly as we can to the last cell. I think we both try to avert out gazes from the dark stains on the stone floor where Diego and Angel died.
I take the flashlight from Noah’s hand and pan it over the wall. Cristiano left the mattress slightly skewed and I find the boulder easily. Noah stays close behind and neither of us speak. I push on the boulder that is truly a door and after a few tries to find the right spot, it opens.
I smile, turn back to Noah whose eyes have gone wide.
“Here,” I say, walking into the black hole to pick up one of the bigger flashlights and switch it on. It blinks twice but stays on.
Noah steps in behind me, taking the sweater off his shoulders and slipping it on.
“How long is it?”
“Eight miles. It’s a straight shot.”
Noah looks at me. “Come with me. Now. We can go now.”
I shake my head, my eyes filling up again as I wrap my arms around my little brother. I can count the number of times over the past ten years that I’ve wondered if I’d ever see him again.
This time, the tears come, and I can’t stop them.
“Give me two days. I’ll be at the piazza. Under the tower. You know where I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“If I’m not there by nightfall on the second day, you leave and you don’t look back, understand?”
“Scarlett.” He hugs me so tight it hurts but I don’t want to let go. “Please come with me. Please just come away with me now.”
I hear how his voice wavers but just shake my head again, unable to speak.
“Do you love him?” he asks.
I draw back and look up at my little brother. I nod my head. “I think I do.”
“I’m glad.” He tries for a smile and hugs me to him again, holding me tighter than he’s ever held me before turning and disappearing into the tunnel.
I wipe my eyes as I make my way back up the stairs. It’s the right thing to do. I know it. But I also realize, in a way, by saying out loud that I would be there in two days’ time meant that it was a possibility I would not. And that this, tonight, was very possibly goodbye forever.
My mind is preoccupied as I reach the top of the stairs and turn the corner toward Cristiano’s bedroom. I don’t know where else to go when he’s not here, in the house. I’m an imposter without him to validate my presence. I don’t realize in time that the door is ajar or maybe I just don’t remember having left it that way. But when I walk inside, I stop dead because the room is not empty.
And it’s not Cristiano standing there.
It’s Dante.
And he has the gun Cristiano gave me pointed right at me.
24
Cristiano
Blood. Me on the cold, white marble floor. No. Not cold. But dark. Slippery like that night. Slipping in my own blood.
Someone calls my name but it’s an echo.
“David sends his regards.”
My uncle did this. My uncle slaughtered my family. Our family.
“Your wife is a dirty whore.”
Not a virgin.
“Your wife is a dirty whore. I may never have fucked her but let me tell you something. After seeing her take her Uncle Jacob’s filthy dick, I really couldn’t get it up for her anymore. That’s some nasty shit.”
No, not a virgin.
I punished her for it.
She paid for it.
“It won’t hurt as much.”
It was her uncle who’d hurt her. What had my father said?
“You’re blood. Never forget that blood matters, boys.”
Blood massacred my family.
Blood massacred hers. Blood violated her.
Our blood is corrupted.
Commotion around me. I open my eyes and see Marcus Rinaldi’s face. His eyes are open, too. Looking at me. But they’re empty. Dead. The knife still sticking out the side of his neck.
I reach for it. I want to dig it deeper. I need to. I want to sever his head from his body.
But as the room fades again, I realize I have what I wanted. The voices become echoes in the background. I have exactly what I asked for.
I know what Marcus said to my mother that horrified her.
I know that he’s dead by my hand.
There wasn’t anything else. I never planned for anything after this. I can let go. I can leave it. Leave the betrayal. Leave the constant pain of life.
Just go.
But then there’s Scarlett.
25
Scarlett
“Where were you?” Dante asks. “And where’s your piece of shit brother?”
A soldier appears at the door. “Not up here,” he says.
“Find the fucker.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He uncocks the gun and shifts his grip to look at it.
I exhale, touch my hand to my pocket, grateful my passport wasn’t under the pillow. I look around to find Cerberus is gone.
“What’s going on?” I ask again, wondering if he can hear the panic in my voice. “Where’s Cristiano?”
He opens the chamber of the pistol and drops the bullets into the palm of his hand, pocketing them and tucking the gun into the back of his jeans before turning back to me. He studies me for a long minute, and it takes all I have to not back away when he closes the space between us.
“Where did you get the gun?”
“Cristiano gave it to me. Give it back.”
He snorts. “Right.” With the flat of his hand against my belly nudges me to the wall. “You’re a liar
, Scarlett De La Cruz. Just like the rest of your family.” He stands just inches from me and I stare up into eyes just a few shades darker than Cristiano’s. My heart is racing but I need to keep my face impassive, unreadable.
“I doubt your brother would like to hear how you put your hands on me.”
His expression changes, something sad passing through his eyes before they harden again.
“Cristiano should have killed you on day one.”
“Where is he?” I ask.
The pressure of his hand on my belly intensifies.
“Don’t act innocent. That may have worked on my brother, but it won’t work on me,” he says, his jaw tight. He’s stronger than me. And he wants to hurt me. I see it and I need to be careful with him. He shifts his grip to my arms squeezing hard enough that I know there will be bruises. “Where is your brother, Scarlett?” he spits my name.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Am I?” He spins me around, grips a handful of my hair and tugs it back so tightly I let out a cry. “How’s this then? Better?”
I have one hand locked around his forearm but the way I’m twisted, it’s no use. I can’t budge him.
“I’m your brother’s wife,” I remind him. “Let me go!”
“He did what he had to do for the family. That’s the only reason you’re his wife. Don’t read too much into him fucking you. You’re a piece of ass. That is all you are. All you ever were.” He takes my other arm and twists it behind my back. I don’t think it’ll take much to snap the bone. “Where’s your brother? Where did you two disappear to?”
“You’re going to break my arm.” It hurts so much. “Please.”
“How did you do it?” His voice breaks. “How did he get to him?”
My heart drops to my belly. Who got to him? “Dante.” I turn my head as much as I can. “Please tell me where he is. Where’s Cristiano?”
“I was starting to think I was wrong about you, you know that? I was starting to think maybe you really did care about my brother. That was my bad.”
I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two Page 12