With This Ring

by Natasha Knight

  “Where’s the brother?”

  “End of the hall in one of the guest rooms.” The house is coming together slowly, one room at a time.

  “Good.” Pushing the door open, I stop to take in the scene.

  Scarlett’s wearing a robe standing with her arms folded across her chest obviously refusing something. She doesn’t have a stitch of makeup on and her hair hangs in loose waves down her back. She looks pissed. Again.

  “What’s the problem?” I ask.

  They all turn to me and the women start. Scarlett just watches as they tell me she won’t let them do her hair or her makeup.

  I turn to her, raise my eyebrows.

  “I can brush my own hair and put on my own makeup.”

  “That’s it? You want to do your own hair and makeup?”

  She narrows her eyes, juts her chin out, then nods once.

  “Fine.” I turn to the women, thank them for their time and tell them to leave. Tell them they’ll still be paid.

  Although irritated, they pack up the few things they’d unpacked and are gone in a few minutes.

  I sip my coffee.

  Scarlett eyes the second cup.

  “Lenore says you won’t eat. Is this another hunger strike? Because I thought we talked about how effective they are.”

  “I remember. You’d have to be of some value for it to work. I know my worth to you, Cristiano.”

  My jaw tenses. I set her mug on the nightstand. She can drink it or not. I could give a fuck. I need to get this girl out of my head and out of my system. She’s fucking with me. Tonight will do the trick. Fucking her will do it.

  “All right. You got what you wanted. We leave at five this evening. Be ready. And fucking eat something for Christ’s sake.”

  “And my brother?”

  “Will walk you down the aisle if you like.”

  She appears surprised.

  “If you don’t plan on being an idiot about it.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not but you sure can act like one. Give me your word, Scarlett. Tell me you’re not going to give me any trouble.”

  “Is this all because I told you to stop drinking?”

  I take a deep breath in, sip my coffee and count to ten. She is right. I was the idiot last night.

  Not to mention being an asshole to her.

  “Are you going to give me trouble or do you want your brother there tonight?”

  “My brother.” She folds her arms across her chest.

  “Good.”

  “Why? Why are you being nice?”

  “I’m a nice guy.” I give her a smile that’s more a baring of teeth than anything else.

  “Or is it that you fucked your whore last night like you wanted, and you feel guilty?”

  That stops me. “What?”

  “I heard the chopper go out. After you dragged me upstairs, I mean.”

  “And you think I went off the island to find a whore to fuck?” Is she serious?

  “Did you?”

  “Would you care if I did?”

  “I don’t want any diseases.”

  I snort, put my mug down and go to her. “I didn’t fuck any whore. I didn’t even leave the island. That was two of my men who went to the mainland.”

  She looks at me, studies my eyes. Maybe she’s trying to gauge if I’m telling the truth. Then she shrugs a shoulder like she could care less but I know better.

  “I used my hand.”

  It takes her a moment to catch on and her mouth falls open when she does.

  I grin. “I used my hand to jerk myself off. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “More than I needed to know, actually. Spare me the details.”

  “Virgin ears can’t take it?”

  “You know what? Fuck you. Our marriage is just a front anyway. You can fuck anyone you want. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  She takes a step back, putting space between us, and picks up her mug to sip. That’s when I notice she’s not wearing the ring.

  “Where’s your ring?” I ask urgently.

  “I took it off last night. After you manhandled me up here and locked me in all for—”

  “Where is the fucking ring, Scarlett?”

  She looks confused but gestures to the bathroom.

  I walk in to find it on the counter by the sink. Picking it up I return to the bedroom to take the mug from her hands, not caring about the splash of scalding coffee on my fingers. I push the ring back on her finger.

  “Ow. You don’t have to be so rough.”

  I squeeze her wrist. “Some girls need rough. You need rough.”

  “Why are you so angry with me? What did I even do?”

  I close my hands over her shoulders and walk her backward to the wall.

  “It doesn’t come off again.”

  “Fine.”

  “Tonight, you’re going to be my wife. That means something to me.”

  “It shouldn’t. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “No? Are you changing your mind?”

  She stares up at me. She’s testing. “I’m just making sure you know I’m only doing it because I don’t have a choice, Cristiano.”

  I look down at her, at the expanse of skin exposed by the robe. Reaching down I finger the knot of the belt taking my time to undo it. I trace my knuckle over the center of her chest, up over her throat so she tilts her head back a little. I only stop when I have her chin in my grasp. I hold her at an angle that’s just short of comfortable.

  “I know what they did to you,” I say.

  She clenches her jaw, narrows her eyes.

  “Your brothers. I know what they did when Rinaldi wanted a look.”

  Pink flushes her cheeks, and her eyes go from indignant, to hurt, to accusing.

  “They humiliated you.”

  Tears well in her eyes but she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t attempt to pull free.

  “While your uncle stood by and watched.”

  Those tears begin their procession down her cheeks, thick and wet. But she still won’t look away. Good. She and I both need to look at things with eyes wide open.

  “I could force you, Scarlett. I could humiliate you. Hurt you.”

  I feel her swallow when she lowers her lashes, letting those tears rush out.

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing?” she asks, voice quieter than usual.

  “You don’t make this easy, you know that?” I let her go, step back, and run my hand through my hair.

  “How did you know?” she asks, her voice tight.

  “Your uncle told me.”

  “Of course, he did. Did he tell you he tried to stop them? Because that would have been a lie.”

  “I know the kind of man he is.”

  Silence, then, “What do you want, Cristiano? Why are you here? I’m going to do what you said, what we agreed. So why bother talking to me now after the way you treated me last night?”

  “Do you remember what I said last night about my enemies?”

  I see from her face she does. It was graphic. Overdone, I admit.

  She nods.

  “I need a friend, Scarlett. Just one friend.”

  She studies me, confused. I get it. I’m confused too. Is this what I’d intended to say when I came in here?

  She snorts then, shaking her head and wiping errant tears off her cheeks.

  “Why do you do this?” she asks.

  “Do what?”

  “Mess with me. First there’s what happened last night. You almost kill me, then you…you kiss me and,” she pauses, breaking eye contact and pushing her fingers into her hair. “After you do what you do, you order me out of your study like I’m used up. A piece of trash.”

  “You’re not a piece of trash. I never said that.”

  “It’s how I felt. How you made me feel.”

  “Well, that wasn’t my intention. I was protecting you.”

  “Protecting me?”

&n
bsp; “Yes.”

  She shakes her head again as if dismissing that. “Then you drag me upstairs practically pulling my arm out of its socket and lock me in here. Then this morning you come in here looking all guilty—”

  “Guilty?”

  “And manhandle me again, then ask me to be your friend? Are you schizophrenic? Is that what this is?”

  I chuckle. I shake my head this time.

  “Have you gone off your meds, Cristiano?”

  “Be careful, Scarlett.”

  “Because if you think I’m your friend, you’ve surely lost your mind.”

  I fist my hands at my sides, force myself to breathe. This was a mistake. Saying what I just said—god what the fuck even possessed me to say it?

  I need to get out of here before I hurt her because man does she know the buttons to push.

  “You and me, we’re enemies. Enemies to the end,” she says, a new energy fueling her words.

  “To what end?” My self-control is gone in an instant. Before I can think, I slap my hands to the wall on either side of her head so hard and so loud, I’m sure there’s a dent.

  She jumps, deer-in-headlights eyes on me. There’s only fear in them now.

  “You want to be my enemy, Little Kitten?”

  I watch her throat work as she swallows.

  “You got it. Enemies until the end. Know that you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

  Only when I push off do I hear her audibly exhale.

  She wobbles and slides down the wall a little before locking her knees to stay upright.

  I fist a handful of hair to make her look at me. “You just make sure you look pretty for me and you say those two little words. Because if you don’t, I’ll break your brother’s neck in front of your eyes and throw his broken body at your feet. Are we clear?”

  She stares at me with terror in her eyes. Stares at me like she’s looking at the devil incarnate. And maybe she is.

  “Are we fucking clear?” I scream and she whimpers, cowering. Cowering away from me. And fuck me.

  I release her, slam a fist into the wall.

  I hate myself right now. Hate myself because what have I become? What kind of monster am I?

  “Ah, fuck you Scarlett! Fuck you for doing this to me!”

  27

  Scarlett

  “Fuck you for doing this to me.”

  Right.

  Because I made him threaten to break my brother’s neck. I made him into this crazy man who has a personality disorder.

  Who’s scary as fuck.

  I suck in a shaky breath. He wants me to look pretty tonight? That’s not happening. My eyes are puffy and red, skin blotchy from crying all day long and over what? Him? God. Something is seriously wrong with me. Maybe it’s me with the mental disorder.

  “I need a friend, Scarlett. Just one friend.”

  I pick at my cuticle and try to forget how he looked when he said that. How he sounded.

  How much more screwed up can things get?

  Someone knocks on the door and I expect Lenore with another tray of food. She’s tried twice now but it’s not that I don’t want to eat. It’s that I can’t.

  It’s close to five so I guess it’s a soldier making sure I’m getting ready. I’ll be ready. I won’t look pretty but I’ll put on a dress and show up and say those two words. Period.

  “Come in.”

  But when the door opens, Noah’s standing there looking fresh from the shower, wearing clean clothes and smiling at me.

  “Noah!” I hop off the bed and run to him, jump into his arms. I swear he’s grown taller just in the last few days.

  He hugs me back. “You’re going to crush my ribs,” he says.

  “Oh, God it’s so good to see you.” An onslaught of tears springs from my eyes.

  Alec clears his throat. “Chopper leaves in half an hour. Your brother will bring you to the roof.” He looks at Noah who nods.

  “What’s this? Are you working for him already?” I ask my brother.

  Noah doesn’t quite meet my eyes.

  “Cristiano wants to know if you need anything,” Alec says.

  “I just need him to go to hell. Can you tell him that for me?”

  He clears his throat. “Thirty minutes.”

  Once the door is closed, Noah walks in a circle, taking in the room. “Have you been living in this lap of luxury while I’ve been in that cell?” He picks up a plastic toy and cocks his head to the side. “How old does he think you are, like five?”

  “It’s his sister’s room. And he moved the lock to the outside. That’s why I’m in here. You agreed to work for him?”

  “What choice did I have? And besides, he hasn’t been horrible to me. Better than my own brothers, at least.”

  “Well, shit. Isn’t he wonderful then?” I grin sarcastically, probably looking like some maniac. “Because our brothers set the bar pretty damn low, Noah.”

  “This is our world, Scarlett. It’s been our world. You need to stop fighting it and figure out a way you can live inside it.”

  “I’ll never stop fighting him.”

  “Our family murdered his family. Tried to kill him.”

  “No, not our family. Diego and Angel. Not us. Not our parents.”

  “Well, I can see where he’s coming from.”

  I snort.

  He sits on the bed, tests it. “Nice. I got a room down the hall but it’s pretty bare bones.”

  “Lucky you. Is your lock on the outside?”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re alive. We’re alive. He’s going to marry you. You’ll be his wife.”

  “For the cartel. He is using me to get to the cartel.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It means something to him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because it’s different than it was when it was Rinaldi. I know how Rinaldi was to you.”

  I feel my face burn. Does he know what they did too? Did our uncle enlighten my kid brother to my humiliations? I scrub my hands over my face but when I open my eyes, I’m still here, in this little girl’s room. Still trapped in this nightmare.

  “Cristiano, even the way he talks about you is different,” Noah goes on and it’s like we’re living in two different worlds.

  “What do you mean when he talks about me?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugs a shoulder. “When he told me about the wedding and all.”

  My right hand moves to turn the engagement ring on my finger and my brother looks at it. He comes toward me, takes my hand.

  “He gave you that?”

  I look at it too and shrug a shoulder. “Please don’t tell me you’re impressed. A big diamond means nothing.”

  “It’s not that,” he says, studying it.

  “What is it then?”

  “I was just downstairs. You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s his mother’s ring.”

  “What?”

  “In the portrait in the living room. The one that looks like she’s staring right at you.”

  “I know the portrait but I never noticed a ring.”

  “I had some time to study it while Cristiano was in a meeting with his uncle. That guy’s a dick by the way.”

  “Well, we agree on that.”

  I look down at the ring anew and remember how he looked panicked when I had taken it off this morning. Why would he give me his mother’s engagement ring?

  “See. He’s different than that douche, Rinaldi.”

  I shake my head. “Don’t do that. He’s not better than Marcus or our brothers,” but even as I say it, I know it’s not true and his words ring in my ears and I want to shut them out. Shut him out.

  “I need a friend, Scarlett. Just one friend.”

  Crap.

  I understand that need. Why did I push him? I know he’s hurt. I know he’s alone. I think Cerberus is truly his only friend and how sad is that?

  “Are you wearing th
at to your wedding?” Noah asks.

  I have to swipe the back of my hand over my eyes to clear away any stray tears before I look down at myself in this oversized robe. “I should. It’d serve him right.”

  “He hasn’t hurt us, Sis. He probably has more right to than anyone else had but he hasn’t.”

  I study my little brother, see him for the fifteen-year-old kid he is. Diego and Angel were the worst to him. Found him weak because he’s gentle. Because somehow, in our world, he manages not to be filled with hate.

  “I’ll get dressed,” I say, going into the closet which can swallow up the various rooms I’ve been locked in whole.

  The dress he chose is simple. Just a straight satin floor-length white silk gown that fits like a second skin. I actually like it. But I’m not wearing it. Right beside it is the one that’s more fitting.

  Once I’m dressed, I walk out and stand in front of the full-length mirror.

  “That’s the dress?” Noah asks, looking confused. He’s holding something in his hand. A toy or something. “I guess it’s prettier than what Marcus had you wearing.”

  “Anything would be prettier than that disaster.” I finger comb my hair. I already decided to leave it down and I don’t plan on much makeup. Just a little mascara and lipstick.

  “One day, when this is all over, you’ll actually fall in love.”

  “No, I won’t. Love just isn’t in the cards for me.” I say, my throat closing up again. How am I ever going to make it through this ceremony?

  “No veil?” Noah asks.

  I glance at my mother’s veil. “I don’t want to get blood on it if things go wrong.” It’s a joke but in such poor taste even I wince.

  “Well, you look really pretty,” he says. “Different than you did when it was Marcus.”

  “Thanks. Hey, you’re walking me down the aisle, right?”

  “What?” he asks, putting the toy down and picking up a framed photograph.

  “You’ll walk me down the aisle?”’

  “Someone has to or you’re going to trip over your own feet in those shoes,” he says, pointing to the pair of four-inch pumps that look like Cinderella’s glass slippers. He glances at the photo again. “Scarlett, do you know whose room this was?”

  I come to glance at the photo of the little girl standing with some friends around a swimming pool, hair soaked, all with happy smiles on their faces. “Elizabeth. Cristiano’s sister.”