I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two

by Knight, Natasha

  A hand cups the back of my head. I still. I can’t move. Can’t turn my head. Can’t open my eyes.

  Fury.

  No, not Fury. Just a pathetic little kitten.

  “Scarlett.”

  I stop breathing, more tears pouring.

  It’s Cristiano’s voice.

  But he’s dead. Am I dead?

  No. There’s too much pain for that. The pain inside my heart the worst of it. Dead doesn’t hurt, does it? It’s an ending to pain, isn’t it?

  “Scarlett,” he says louder.

  I open my eyes but keep my gaze on the bed. I smell laundry detergent and that distinct metallic scent of blood. But there’s something else. Something familiar.

  “I need you to be my Fury now,” he says, and I turn my head to look at him from the corner of my eye. Then tears come again. So many tears.

  “You’re dead,” I manage, the words sticking in my throat.

  He smiles, leans down to brush the hair from my face, pressing his lips to the top of my head.

  “I’m not so easy to kill.”

  The lights blink on then and I realize the only light in the room was from the candles set along the perimeter.

  “We need to move,” someone says.

  I turn to see Dante who makes a point of averting his gaze when the blanket slips away.

  Cristiano gets up, pulls his shirt over his head and covers me with it.

  “Keys?” he asks his brother.

  Dante is going through the pockets of a jacket he’s got in his hand. “Try these.” He tosses them to Cristiano.

  The third one on the ring works. Cristiano unlocks my ankles first, then my wrists. I sit up, looking at him. He adjusts the shirt he just tossed over me, pulling it over my head.

  “I thought you were dead,” I say as I wrap my arms around him, clinging to him. “I thought—” my voice catches. He holds me tight, hugging me into his chest, one strong arm around me the other around the back of my head. He lets me cry just for a minute. Just for the briefest moment.

  “I need you to be my Fury now, Scarlett,” he whispers.

  I know what he means. I nod, try to pull myself together.

  “Did he—” he stops, unable to say the rest of the words.

  I shake my head. “I’m okay,” I say. “He didn’t…” I trail off looking at the dead man, realizing what that warm wetness was. Blood. His blood.

  He stands and helps me up.

  “Don’t look at him. He doesn’t deserve your gaze.”

  Dante reads something on his phone, and I see the Glock he’s holding at his side.

  “Our men are on the grounds, not in the house yet though.”

  I hear gunfire outside the house then and a moment later, a small explosion.

  Cristiano goes to the window, one arm wrapped around me, as he looks out over the front yard. I see the men out there, the gunfight. I notice the fire at the far end of the house.

  “We need to move,” he tells Dante, then turns his attention to me. “Is Felix on site?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  He nods. “If he is, I’ll find him. But I need to get you out first.” He holds my hand, and we walk around the bed to where the dead man is lying face down in his own blood. He bends to tug his knife out of the man’s side.

  I notice the new injury on his side then. The bandage over the new set of stitches long gone. I touch it.

  “You’re hurt.”

  He takes my wrist, shifting his grip to my hand. “It’s nothing. Let’s go. Once I get you out, I’ll come back for Felix.”

  “Wait, Cristiano.” I grab his arm when Dante opens the door.

  Another explosion rocks the house and I let out a little scream.

  “We have to go, Scarlett,” Cristiano says with some urgency.

  “Mara,” I say.

  Dante whirls to face me. A crease forms between Cristiano’s eyebrows.

  I look at them both. “She’s alive. She’s here. Or she was here.”

  “Alive?” Dante asks, taking a step toward me.

  I nod. “A man called Petrov has her. He…bought her.”

  “Petrov?” Dante looks sick suddenly.

  I nod.

  “If Petrov has her, she’s gone,” Cristiano says. He turns to say something to Dante, but gunfire breaks out in the corridor and we duck to take cover.

  Everything happens so fast then. So many men. So many shots fired. Heavy boots beat down the lush carpet as they rush through the halls. Cristiano drags me with him, refusing to let go of my hand as war breaks out inside the house.

  I don’t know who’s who. I can’t tell who’s on our side, who’s on theirs. And I feel like dead weight as Cristiano covers me again, shielding me from harm, putting his body in the way of any bullet that might come for me.

  There’s another explosion, this one closer, knocking out a door at the far end of the hall.

  “Stairs,” Cristiano calls out over the noise, pointing.

  I recognize them. They’re the stairs I climbed when we first got here.

  “They’ll take us to the kitchen!” I scream to Cristiano and Dante as soldiers bear down on us.

  We get to an open door and Cristiano shoves me into the room, freeing himself to reload his weapon before stepping out into the hallway again.

  “No!” I call out when I hear the bullets.

  But a moment later, I see Dante. He’s caught up to us. I hadn’t realized we’d lost him. He switches out the Glock’s magazine, turns and takes another shot. More boots charge up the stairs at the opposite end of the hall, running over the fallen bodies of soldiers.

  We get to the stairs that lead to the kitchen and sprint down, Cristiano catching me when I fall.

  “Get her out!” Cristiano yells to Dante, releasing me as soon as we’re in the kitchen. From here I see the fire in one of the outbuildings.

  Dante turns, sees something, and immediately throws himself in front of Cristiano. His body jerks violently and he stumbles back to the wall, stunned momentarily.

  “No!” I cry out because a circle of blood is already seeping into his shirt at the center of his chest. “No.”

  Cristiano goes white when he sees his brother stumble, slide down a little. When he sees the smear of blood on the wall, that shock morphs into something else. Something powerful and violent and vengeful.

  He is Fury now.

  He turns to face the oncoming soldiers and I scream. I cover my ears and scream and scream. He kills every one of those men before one final, massive explosion rocks the house. The floor beneath us seems to sway, men falling, the click of an empty pistol loud in the moment before this tsunami touches down.

  Cristiano turns to me, then to his brother.

  Dante stumbles. Cristiano wraps one arm around him, the other around me, and we almost make it to the door before the house explodes around us.

  45

  Cristiano

  Dying is a strange thing. To be half a part of this world half a part of another.

  There’s pain first. A burning, searing pain.

  I look at my brother. He’s still here. Feeling it. I see it in his eyes.

  Then comes the buzz of noise as sound fades in and out. As you fight to understand. Fight to stay alive. To stay here.

  Some people say they saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t. I only remember the dark. If I believed in a god, I’d say it was his way of letting me know he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

  I touch my brother’s face.

  He turns his head a little to look at me.

  I hope he sees the light. I hope…fuck…I hope there’s light for him.

  “Get them out!” Someone yells.

  I look up, see Antonio. See soldiers. Ours. See the piles of dead bodies beyond. Beside me I see Scarlett. She’s sitting up, hand to her head. Dazed, bruised and bloodied but alive and alert.

  When she looks at me, her mouth opens, and I know she’s screaming my na
me but it’s all just white noise now.

  When I look at Dante again his eyes have closed.

  He’s dying. Maybe I’m dying too.

  Scarlett’s hands turn my face, making me look up at her. I reach up to touch her cheek. Smear away blood. So much blood.

  She’s the last thing I see before I close my eyes. And I try to tell her I’m sorry.

  Because I told her I’m not so easy to kill. But maybe I’ve used up my lives.

  46

  Scarlett

  I carry two cups of coffee into Dante’s room. Cristiano is sitting across from his bed watching him. Maybe willing him to open his eyes. To wake up.

  Cristiano is alive. Battered and bruised, his hearing comes and goes but he’s alive. The blast had knocked him out. For a minute, I thought he was gone, really gone this time, but he’s back.

  He looks over at me, stands. I take in the bandages I can see on his arms, his neck, the side of his head and I’m sure he does the same with mine.

  But it could be worse.

  I glance at Dante.

  “You need to let the doctor look at you again,” I tell him.

  “After.” Smears of blood and dirt still stain his clothes and skin. I know most of it isn’t his at least.

  He takes one of the cups of coffee and leads me to a chair. He sits down beside me, and we watch Dante together.

  It’s been twenty-seven hours since the house blew up.

  Twenty hours since Dante came out of surgery.

  I don’t know how many hours or days since David kidnapped me.

  I look at Cristiano. Neither of us speaks. I think we’re just both grateful the other is alive. And worried that Dante may not be for long.

  “Did the doctor say anything else?” I ask him. I’d left to get coffee when he’d come in to check Dante’s vitals.

  “He’s sleeping longer than expected. He should have woken up by now.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Not in so many words but I read between the lines.”

  “Maybe take what he says at face value, Cristiano.”

  Cristiano pushes a hand into his hair and gets up, walks to the window. “He’s so fucking stubborn.”

  I follow him and lay my hand on his shoulder. “So are you. Why would you expect he’d be different?”

  Dante took the bullet that saved Cristiano’s life. It missed his heart by about a centimeter. But that’s not all. The blast, the fire, the damage to his right side, his face, body, it’s bad.

  He sighs deeply. “Some of the families of the women are on their way,” Cristiano says, turning back to glance at his brother, unrecognizable beneath the bandages, before shifting his attention to me.

  “That’s good.” Four of the women from the barn made it out alive. Four who are likely to survive out of the dozen. I know I have to focus on the survivors. Be grateful for the four. It’s hard, though. Unfair.

  “Felix was long gone when we got there. On a flight back to Mexico.”

  “He’s a coward.”

  He nods in agreement. “How did Mara look?”

  “Scared. But brave. She’s tough. Still rebellious after ten years. That’s something, right?”

  He smiles. “It’s something.”

  “There was this woman, Helga. She must have been a sort of horrible nanny-jailor to her. When she,” I pause momentarily, not quite sure how to say the next part. “When she died, Mara went through her pockets and stole a switchblade. And a candy bar.” I leave out the strap that I’m sure was used to keep her in line. That’s not going to do anyone any good to know.

  “A candy bar?” He smiles.

  I nod. “She’s smart, Cristiano. When she met Petrov she didn’t cower, not for a second. And she made him promise to not let Felix hurt me.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…I killed Helga. She didn’t just die. I did it.”

  He nods, pulls me in for a hug. His big hand cradles the back of my head. “That’s my Fury.”

  “Not Little Kitten anymore?”

  He draws back, looks down at me, dips his head to kiss me. “Both. You’re strong when you need to be and soft when you want to be.” He pulls me in for a hug again and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Tell me about the promise she extracted from Felix and Petrov.”

  “Petrov offered her a gift and she asked that the gift be my safety. He twisted the words around though after he promised I wouldn’t be hurt. Felix, too, twisted the words. But when they left, she didn’t seem beaten. I think she felt good about having done something to help me. Or thinking she had. Felix knew she wasn’t Elizabeth and I know she knows the truth, too. Maybe they sold her to Petrov as Elizabeth Grigori?”

  “She’d have been more valuable.”

  I told him what David told me on the helicopter. That David had arranged for Elizabeth to be kidnapped and sold once she was older. And he told me what David had told them about his mother. About how David suggested his mother had accused him of raping her.

  The massacre was his vengeance for her having chosen Cristiano’s father over him. For her not loving him back. I wonder if punishing her daughter like he planned to, kidnapping and selling her, if that was also to punish Cristiano’s mother or if it was simple economics. Money. Why waste a warm body?

  He also told me about Dante, about him possibly being a product of rape. He’s already sent DNA to a lab for a paternity test. We’re waiting on the results.

  “Petrov has disappeared. Charlie thinks he’d arranged the explosives to detonate after he left.” I’d assumed the explosions were from Cristiano’s men, a distraction, but this makes much more sense.

  “Why would he have done that?”

  Cristiano shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe he knew Felix and his fondness for cameras? Maybe he just hated the assholes present? Who knows? Who cares?”

  “Who is he?”

  “Russian businessman. That’s all I’ve been able to get so far. But I’ll find him.”

  “We will find him,” says a low, raspy voice from the bed.

  I gasp, turn my head. Cristiano is beside the bed in an instant.

  “Brother!”

  A doctor and two nurses rush in. They must have been alerted by the machines to Dante’s waking.

  “Well, it’s good to see you’re awake, Mr. Grigori,” the doctor says, smiling.

  “I’d have opened my eyes earlier but these two were declaring their undying love and I thought I might puke.”

  We all smile even though I know they all hear the effort it’s taking Dante. Even though we all see the extent of the damage.

  “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” Cristiano says but there’s an edge to his voice, relief but not quite. Dante isn’t out of the woods just yet.

  The doctor takes a few minutes looking him over and the nurse adjusts his bed so he’s sitting up a little. I can see it’s painful.

  I see his eyes move to me through the holes in the bandages around his head. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m in better shape than you.”

  It’s quiet. “How bad?” he asks.

  “You’re alive. We’ll deal with the rest,” Cristiano says. “You step between me and a bullet ever again I will fucking kill you myself, do you understand me?”

  “You’re welcome,” Dante says with what I think is a strained chuckle.

  “Thank you but don’t do it again.”

  “Mara?”

  “She’s alive. That’s more than we had a few days ago. Like you said, we’ll find her. You get yourself healed and out of here and we’ll go get her.”

  “She must be terrified. All these years she’s been out there on her own,” Dante says.

  “I was telling your brother that she’s strong. Tough.” I leave everything else out.

  He nods. “Felix?” he asks Cristiano.

  “Back to his hole.”

  “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”

  “You’re going to have
to get in line. And you’re going to have to get out of here first.”

  “I want to go home, Brother.” He glances out the window at the gray sky, the rain streaking the glass. “This place doesn’t agree with me.”

  “As soon as the doctor gives you the okay, we leave. I’ve already arranged for doctors—”

  “How bad?” Dante asks.

  “You’ve got your arms and legs, you’re fucking alive.”

  He moves an arm, fingers touching the bandages wrapped around his head. “What do I look like?”

  “I don’t have a mirror,” Cristiano lies. He’d made the nurse take out the single mirror in the bathroom just in case.

  Dante is quiet, eyes on his brother. He understands. Nods. “Fuck. That stink. Have you had a shower?” he asks Cristiano.

  “Fuck you,” Cristiano says as his phone rings. He looks at the display. “It’s Charlie.” He walks toward the door to step into the hallway but stops a moment later and turns to me with a wide smile on his face. “That’s great news. Just a minute.” He looks at me. “We found Noah.”

  I gasp, smile. “Where is he?” But then my mood darkens. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. He recognized one of my men at the square in Naples.”

  “So, he found you?” my eyebrows rise up on my forehead. So much for my brother disappearing like he promised. For the first time, I’m glad he didn’t listen to me.

  “I guess so. He’s on the island now. You can call him when I’m done.” He excuses himself so it’s just Dante and me in the room.

  There’s an awkward moment of silence before Dante speaks. “I’m sorry I let David take you. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been to you.”

  “You were protecting your brother. I know that.”

  “Still. I’m sorry, Scarlett. You didn’t deserve anything you’ve had to deal with. I know that. I knew it all along.”

  Warm tears fill my eyes. “It’s forgotten. Just get better so we can go home.”

  Home.

  We both smile.

  Epilogue 1

  Cristiano

  Eight weeks later and Scarlett and I are back home. I moved Dante into a private facility where they can deal with the burns. Cerberus won’t leave Scarlett’s side.