“You had Rinaldi rape our mother,” I say again, out loud. It feels good to say it to him because he is more guilty than Rinaldi.
I push the knife deeper, feeling my own rage.
“Why?” I ask.
He drags his gaze from the knife up to me. He looks old. Already dead. “She accused me of it. I wanted to be sure she knew the difference,” he spits. He shifts his gaze to Dante. “She couldn’t love you because of it. She would have gotten rid of you. She needed to be punished. They all did. I did it for you. For you.”
Shock registers on Dante’s face. His mouth opens, closes, opens again. “No.” Dante shakes his head, backing away as he does. “No.”
No.
I turn from my brother to my uncle. I stare in disbelief for a long, long moment. Because I’m registering too. “You fucking bastard. You god damned mother fucking bastard.” Rage amplifies my voice. I start to slice the vein open. I want it to be painful. Slow. But I need something from him and all of this, all of what he is saying now, I need to wait to process it. It needs to wait.
“Where is my wife?”
“I loved her, don’t you see?” he asks me, then turns to Dante. “Don’t you see?”
“Where is my fucking wife?” I scream, stabbing the knife through his wrist and pinning it to the desk.
Dante is behind him in the next instant, gun cocked and at his temple. “Where is she, you bastard?” his voice is somehow controlled. “Where. Is. Scarlett?”
Our uncle, my uncle—he’s something else to Dante, turns to Dante, gives him a grin. “You were never worth it.”
My brother pulls the trigger.
36
Scarlett
She leaves the door open so I can see a part of the bedroom and hear clearly. I scrub my hair as I listen to her talk to Mara, chastising her for not being in her seat. She was at the window.
“Let’s get you changed. Mr. Petrov will be here soon.”
“Do you know him?” Mara asks her as she undresses her before dressing her again in a pretty pink dress hanging in a garment bag from the closet door.
“No, of course not. But he’s paid handsomely for you. Just look at this dress he sent.”
“It’s very pretty,” Mara deadpans. I can see her face from here. She hasn’t even looked at it.
“And look at this. There’s even a teddy bear for you.”
“I’m fifteen. I don’t play with teddy bears,” Mara says.
“You’ll accept it and be grateful for it. Now sit.”
“Do you know how old he is?”
“Why would his age matter? Silly girl. Now sit down so I can arrange your hair the way he wants it.”
Mara turns to look at Helga, who has her back to me. Her eyes catch mine for just a brief moment. “I’m scared,” she tells the woman.
Helga sighs. “Nonsense. He’s been looking for someone like you for years. I’m sure he’ll take good care of you. You’ll be his little doll and he’ll look after you just like Mr. Pérez does.”
“That’s what I’m scared of.”
“Do I need to get the strap, Lizzie?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Good. Now sit down so I can do your hair.”
Fucking bitch. She knows exactly what this Petrov is going to do to her. She knows exactly what he wants her for. And she’s preparing her for him.
Sick.
“Five minutes,” Helga calls over her shoulder, her tone entirely different when she talks to me.
“Almost done,” I say as I look at her broad back, her thick hands braiding Mara’s hair. There’s a small mirror in front of Mara and I can see her face, see her looking down at the stuffed bear while Helga tugs and twists.
I climb out of the tub and grab a towel, wrapping it around myself as best I can with the cuffs binding my wrists. I pad into the bedroom.
Helga is finished with the first braid and is working on the second one.
Outside the door I hear footsteps, two men laughing, and a woman maybe. Mara hears it too. I see it in her worried expression.
Holding the towel to myself I look at the nightstand, at the lamp there. I wonder how much it weighs. It looks heavy, unwieldy, but I could manage. Even with the cuffs, I can manage it.
“Almost done,” Helga says. “Sit still.”
I reach behind the nightstand to unplug the lamp and pick it up to test its weight, as I pull off the shade.
I have nothing to lose but my life and isn’t that gone anyway? Dead woman walking.
I turn to Helga just as she finishes the second braid. She backs up a step to look at her work and Mara’s eyes meet mine in the mirror as I approach.
The floor creaks just as I’m a step away and Helga begins to turn.
“Oh no!” Mara cries out, dropping the bear, drawing Helga’s attention just as I raise the lamp and bring it crashing down on the back of Helga’s skull.
37
Cristiano
I look at my brother. He’s still got the gun pointed at my uncle’s head. Or where his head was. What’s left of it is hanging backward and sideways. The knives pinning his hand and wrist to the desk are the only things keeping him in that chair that somehow hasn’t toppled.
The door opens and Antonio steps inside. He stops, takes in the situation, expression unchanging like this is something you’d see every day.
Unruffled, he pulls out his phone and turns slightly away to make a call.
“Are you all right?” I ask Dante.
He looks at me, confusion and disbelief in his eyes. He takes a breath in, nods his head.
“Give me the gun,” I say, holding out my hand.
“I’m fine,” he says, holding it by his side. It’s his first kill as far as I know.
Antonio disconnects the call. “Cleaner will be here in one hour.”
“Thank you.” I turn to my brother. “Give me the gun, Dante, and go wash your hands and face.”
He tucks the gun into its shoulder holster, takes a deep breath in. “We need to find Scarlett,” he says and walks to the kitchen, shoulders straightening as he does, as he washes his hands then splashes water on his face. He turns back to us as he wipes his face with a kitchen towel. He looks at the back of our uncle’s head.
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s not your fault. He deserved that.”
He meets my gaze. “You didn’t let me finish. I’m not sorry I killed him. I’m sorry I did it before he told us where Scarlett is.”
I study him. I’m thinking about what David said. What he implied about Dante. What Dante must be processing.
But now isn’t the time.
Antonio is already looking through David’s pockets and a moment later he has the phone in his hand.
“I’ll check the bedroom. See if he has anything that’ll tell us.”
I nod. Antonio and I watch him walk away and when he’s gone, Antonio turns to me.
“Is he okay?”
“I doubt it. He probably shouldn’t be alone,” I say, my eyes on the empty space at the end of the hall where my brother disappeared. My brother whom I wanted to protect from this. Protect from everything since I woke up from that coma. “We need to regroup. Get a location on that auction. The rest we’ll deal with after.”
Antonio is already working the phone. “Any idea what his password would be?”
“Call Charlie.” I walk toward the room my brother entered. I find Dante rifling through papers and clothes he’s dumped out of David’s single suitcase. It’s nothing more than an overnight bag. He rushed.
“He has another phone,” Dante says without looking at me. “He’s been fooling us all these years. Me longer than you.”
“Hey.”
“Ten years I spent with the man who killed my family.”
“Dante.”
He swipes papers off the bed with an angry sweep of his arm.
“Hey.” I touch his shoulder, but he shrugs me off.
“What?”
; “He’s a liar. We know that. What he said—”
“Mom was raped,” he spits the words but at least he’s finally looking at me. “You knew it and you never told me.”
“You didn’t need to know.”
“Well, it seems I kinda did, considering the bit of news Uncle David just shared.”
“I told you he’s a liar.”
“He’s not lying about this,” he says, shifting his gaze to the mess on the bed. He pulls his hand through his hair, tugging hard, taking a deep breath in. “We need to find Scarlett now. I let him take her. I need to get her back.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my fault. You know it as well as I do so let’s move on.”
Something in the jumble of papers on the floor catches my eye. I bend to pick it up. It’s a black business card with three letters embossed in gold across the front.
I V I
“What is it?” Dante asks as I straighten.
I turn it over to look for more details but there’s nothing. “I don’t know.”
He takes it from me. “I V I.”
“Do you know it?”
He shakes his head but looks thoughtful. “Maybe.” The phone in Dante’s hand vibrates with a text message. It’s from a contact with the initial X.
Petrov’s entourage arrived. The address is at the fucking end of the world. Eindhoven. Willemstraat 13.
Antonio walks in then. “Charlie’s working on the password. He’s got—”
I take the phone out of my brother’s hand and turn to Antonio. “Willemstraat 13. Eindhoven. What’s there? And who’s Petrov?” I ask as the screen goes dark. When I hit the button to bring it back up, it’s black, the phone password protected.
“Charlie?” Antonio asks, putting Charlie on speaker.
“Private residence on several acres of land surrounded by forest.” I can hear him typing.
“Sounds like it’s private enough to hold a human auction.”
“That it is. No one actually lives at the estate apart from a caretaker and his wife. No neighbors for miles. It’s perfect.”
“I’m guessing we’ll need more soldiers,” I say, but Antonio’s already on his phone.
“On it.”
“Let’s go.”
38
Scarlett
Helga stumbles backward, the sound she makes, the low keening, strange, almost inhuman. She catches herself on the vanity as Mara scrambles out of the way.
My towel has fallen. I stand over the woman naked and raise the lamp again. I bring it down harder on her forehead. Blood splatters across the mirror and she drops to her knees, eyes unfocused, mouth open but no sound coming.
Mara, who has backed away a few steps drops to her knees to stare at the woman.
“Again,” she says.
I glance at her but she’s staring at Helga. Helga turns her head to look at Mara.
“Again,” Mara repeats. “Harder.”
I bring the stand down one last time and this time, she falls backward, her bulk shoving the vanity, dropping a perfume bottle onto the carpet.
Mara crawls toward her, peers at her face. She sits back on her heels and looks up at me. She smiles and begins to rock.
“He’ll hurt you,” she says to me.
I drop down to my knees too, cover myself with the towel then take her hands. “Mara?”
She blinks, looks up at me. I see how her eyes glisten with unspent tears. A decade’s worth of tears. Her mouth opens and for a second, I think I see a flash of something, someone else in her eyes. But then it’s gone, and she shakes her head.
“I’m Elizabeth,” she says.
“No. Elizabeth is dead. You’re Mara. I know your grandmother, Lenore.”
She shakes her head again and shifts her gaze to the dead woman. “I’m Elizabeth,” she says again while she undoes the strap that Helga had tied to her belt. “Elizabeth. Sometimes Lizzie. Never Mara.”
She takes the strap, curls it up and tucks it into the pocket of her dress. A dress for a much younger girl. She then moves to Helga’s pockets and from inside she takes a candy bar and what looks to be a small army knife. She flips the tiny blade open, tests the tip more deftly than I’d think she’d know how and tucks those away too.
“The windows are locked but you should go. You’ll have to use the door,” she says to me as she gets to her feet. “He can’t punish me. I don’t belong to him anymore.”
“You don’t belong to anyone,” I say, rising too. “I know Elizabeth’s family. Her brothers.”
She stops, turns to me. “I told you. I’m Elizabeth. If you say I’m Mara, he’ll be even angrier and then he’ll punish you. You need to go now. Before he sees,” she says as she takes a seat on the chair she’d been instructed to sit on before. I realize what I’ve just done, wondering if I’ve put her in even more danger than before.
More footsteps sound on the other side of the door. I look from it to her. She’s humming a tune, a strange, creepy little lullaby.
“Sweetheart,” I say, walking to her. I wipe the few drops of blood that got on her face off. “What did they do to you?”
The door opens then, and I spin around.
Two soldiers enter followed by Felix and another man. A big man. He’s in a suit that barely contains him. He looks a little older than Cristiano. He has blond hair and blue eyes that are so pale they’re almost eerie to look at.
They take in the woman lying on the floor. Felix’s eyes land on the lamp, then me.
“What did you do?” he asks through clenched teeth.
The man beside him laughs outright. He pats Felix on the shoulder and Felix looks so small next to him. “You have trouble, Felix,” he says with an accent that I’m pretty sure is Russian.
“No trouble I can’t handle,” Felix spits, eyes on me.
The man, what was his name? Petrov? Yes. Petrov’s eyes land on Mara who is still sitting in her chair. He smiles at her. “Do you like my gift, little doll?” he asks her, his tone different when talking to her.
It makes my stomach turn.
“I’m too old for teddy bears,” she tells him outright.
Felix mutters a curse and takes one step toward Mara, but Petrov catches him by the shoulder.
“What would you like then, little doll? What would make you happy?”
She just stares at him, her face expressionless.
“Tell me what gift you’d like,” he says.
“A gift?” she asks him, standing.
He nods, appraising her. “Name it. It will be yours.”
“I can have anything I want?”
I stand by and watch this, unsure what the hell is going on.
“Anything.”
“Don’t let him punish her.” She points to Felix.
My gaze snaps to Mara as Petrov’s lands on me. He walks toward her. I go to move between them, but someone grabs my arm to hold me back.
He’s a fucking giant. He towers over her.
“That’s what you want? You can have anything. That’s what you ask for?”
She nods.
“And you’ll be my good little doll if I give you what you want?”
She nods again.
“No, Ma—”
Mara’s gaze snaps to me, quieting me, and I see not a little girl in her eyes but someone much older. A survivor. One so brutally damaged, so broken, I’m not sure she can be unbroken.
She looks back up at Petrov. “Will you give me that?” she asks, her tone suddenly sweet.
He smiles dotingly, nods once, turns to face Felix, his hand wrapping possessively around the back of Mara’s neck.
I want to kill him. I want to lunge at him. Because men like him deserve to die.
“This is Grigori’s wife?” Petrov asks although I’m pretty sure he knows.
Felix nods.
Petrov looks at me, appraises me, nods. “Felix won’t touch a hair on her head, will you, Felix?”
Felix shifts his gaze
to me, hate in his eyes, and I hear the wording, the exact and deliberate formation of Petrov’s sentence.
“I will not touch a hair on her head,” Felix repeats, eyes narrowing, a wicked little grin twisting his lips.
“Then we shall take our leave,” Petrov says. “Come,” he tells Mara.
Mara turns to me. She gives me a strange, crooked smile and something inside me constricts because I know what will happen to her. I think she does too. And there won’t be a thing I can do to stop it.
I watch him walk her out of the room. Felix keeps a smile pasted on his face as they disappear. He then turns to walk toward me.
“How could you do that? Let him take her? She’s a little girl. Just a little girl.”
“She’s not your problem. In fact, you have much bigger problems to worry about, Cousin.” He nods to the man who has hold of me. The soldier starts to walk me out of the room.
“You promised not to hurt me! Let me go!”
“I will keep my promise. Just like I kept my promise to let your husband know Marcus Rinaldi’s location.”
I stop. “You did that?”
He nods.
“You set him up?”
This time he smiles. “I always keep my promises, Cousin.”
We step out into the hallway just as another door opens and another woman, one I vaguely recognize from the boat is escorted out.
“Let me go!” I fight the guard now, knowing Felix sent Cristiano to his death. Knowing I’ll join him soon.
“I won’t touch a single hair on your head,” Felix continues calmly as if I haven’t spoken at all. He turns to walk in the opposite direction.
39
Scarlett
Over the next twenty minutes two men keep me down while three women do their work. One waxes me to within an inch of my life. The only hair left on my person is that on my head and my eyebrows. I’m beyond feeling embarrassed at this point. I’m just fighting and I manage to kick one of the women in the nose. I’m pretty sure I break it, but I don’t care.
I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two Page 17