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

  I Thee Take

  To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two

  Natasha Knight

  Copyright © 2021 by Natasha Knight

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  1. Cristiano

  2. Scarlett

  3. Cristiano

  4. Scarlett

  5. Cristiano

  6. Scarlett

  7. Cristiano

  8. Scarlett

  9. Cristiano

  10. Scarlett

  11. Cristiano

  12. Scarlett

  13. Cristiano

  14. Scarlett

  15. Cristiano

  16. Cristiano

  17. Scarlett

  18. Cristiano

  19. Cristiano

  20. Scarlett

  21. Cristiano

  22. Cristiano

  23. Scarlett

  24. Cristiano

  25. Scarlett

  26. Scarlett

  27. Cristiano

  28. Scarlett

  29. Cristiano

  30. Scarlett

  31. Cristiano

  32. Scarlett

  33. Cristiano

  34. Scarlett

  35. Cristiano

  36. Scarlett

  37. Cristiano

  38. Scarlett

  39. Scarlett

  40. Cristiano

  41. Cristiano

  42. Scarlett

  43. Cristiano

  44. Scarlett

  45. Cristiano

  46. Scarlett

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  What To Read Next

  Also by Natasha Knight

  Thank you!

  About the Author

  About This Book

  Scarlett

  Cristiano is my enemy. He’s also the only man with whom I’ve ever felt safe. Protected.

  But I have to remember that he married me with one purpose in mind. Revenge. I would be the bridge to his real enemies.

  I can’t let myself forget that he isn’t the hero of this story. His hands are covered in blood. I saw that with my own eyes.

  Cristiano

  I thought I knew Scarlett’s past, but I didn’t know anything.

  I thought I knew the worst of monsters, but I hadn’t seen anything yet.

  Sometimes you have to lie to yourself to survive.

  Sometimes it’s those closest to you who will bury their knives in your back.

  Too many times it’s the innocents who pay for your mistakes. For your refusal to see.

  I can’t let Scarlett pay for mine.

  But I may be too late to stop it.

  I Thee Take is the second and final book of the To Have and To Hold Duet.

  With This Ring, Book 1 of the duet, should be read first. One-click With This Ring here.

  1

  Cristiano

  Six men lie on the ground at the front of the house, all but two shot execution style. The two are riddled with bullets. They were taken by surprise. The others were rounded up. They saw death coming.

  “The front door was open when we got here,” Antonio says.

  I should have left him with her. Why didn’t I leave him?

  “Any of their soldiers among the dead?” my uncle asks.

  Antonio shakes his head.

  We were ambushed. Betrayed again. No one knew this house even existed. Even if they did, no one knew she was here. No one but the men who were here with her. Who are now dead.

  All except for one.

  “Where’s Alec?” I ask. He’s the lone survivor. He called it in a few hours ago.

  “Kitchen.”

  I look beyond the house to the mountains. Turn around to the ocean. They drove right up. Killed the men at the checkpoints and continued straight to the house.

  Betrayed.

  Again.

  I turn to my uncle who has remarkably not puked at the sight of the bloodbath, both outside and inside the house. Maybe I don’t know him as well as I think.

  Inside is decidedly worse, the blood marking the walls and furniture. I’m taken back in time, back a full decade to another massacre.

  The other half dozen men and the kitchen girl lie dead. Shot in the back of the head execution style like the others.

  “Fuck.”

  The bedroom doors stand open and from here I see the rumpled bed, see the shards of glass from the whiskey bottle I’d smashed against the wall. The bathroom light is on, too.

  At least she’s not dead. They didn’t kill her. Anything is better than dead.

  “Cris,” Alec starts, rising from his seat, but wincing and falling back down to the chair.

  I look him over but can’t tell how much of the blood is his and how much is from the others. What strikes me most isn’t that. It’s his expression. The tears he’s trying hard not to shed.

  The last time I saw a grown man cry was when my father watched his wife degraded before his eyes.

  My jaw tenses, my gut twists.

  I go to him. “Are you okay?”

  “I should be dead.”

  Why aren’t you? I don’t ask.

  “He’ll be fine. Out of commission for a while, but fine,” the doctor who stitched me up just days ago says. Lately, it seems I singlehandedly keep his mortgage paid. “Can’t work this arm for a while and he’ll need a cast for his leg.”

  “Who were they?” I ask Alec.

  “Mexican soldiers. Her uncle led them.”

  Jacob De La Cruz. I’d seen him just hours ago. Ordered him to arrange a meeting with that fuck Felix Pérez.

  “Was she hurt?”

  He doesn’t quite look at me.

  I grip his hair, force his face to mine. He needs to man up. I made a mistake trusting him to protect her.

  “Did. They. Hurt. Her?”

  “She was hunched over when they dragged her out,” he pauses. “Naked,” he adds in a barely audible whisper.

  It’s hard to swallow. I can’t put a finger on the thoughts and emotions turned to physical sensation inside me. Blood pounds against my ears. A burning hot rage followed by the cold fear of loss. Of losing someone else. Losing her.

  My dream comes back to me, that scene again. Scarlett in my mother’s place. Scarlett calling for me. Calling for me to help her. It was no coincidence.

  “I figure if I’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”

  I release him and walk into the bedroom. Glass crunches under my shoe. I look down only to see the wedding band I ripped from her finger.

  I called her a whore. I almost hit her.

  “I figure if I’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”

  Won’t hurt as much. It had struck me when she’d first said it. Not a virgin, no. How badly did Marcus Rinaldi hurt her? Did he do more than she let on? And was her uncle lying when he told me that story of how her brothers humiliated her? Wouldn’t let Rinaldi touch her until after the wedding?

  I shake my head, run a hand through my hair and bend to pick up the wedding band. I’d dropped it on the bed after forcing my mother’s ring from her finger.

  Fuck.

  Fuck me.

  No. It’s not me who’s fucked. It’s her and I’m the asshole who let it happen.

  I see the blood then. Not much but it’s there on the terra cotta tile. A deep red stain against the rusty orange. It comes off the ring when I smear my thumb over it.
I slip the gold band onto my pinkie finger. It only goes to the first knuckle. She’s just a little thing. No match for the men who came for her.

  “She was hunched over when they carried her out. Naked.”

  Did he touch her? Jacob? Would he have touched her?

  “No.” I pocket the ring and walk into the bathroom. If I go down that road, I will not be able to function.

  This is where they surprised her. She must have been in the bath. Maybe trying to make sense of my accusation on our wedding night.

  The tub is still mostly full and there’s a lot of water on the floor. A towel lies discarded a few feet away. If I know Scarlett, they must have dragged her out of the tub kicking and screaming. She’s a fighter. A survivor.

  She’ll survive until I can get to her.

  She has to.

  “Cristiano,” my uncle calls, tucking his phone into his pocket.

  “I want Jacob De La Cruz,” I say. “Alive.”

  “Too late.”

  “What?”

  “His body was found at some docks near Genoa.”

  “Genoa? That’s what? Seven hours away?”

  “Chopper should be here...” we both hear the sound at the same time. “Now.”

  “Where are Marcus and Felix?” I ask, as he and Antonio flank me on our way outside.

  “Don’t know yet. I put men on it,” Antonio says.

  The chopper lands, sending up a dust storm. I turn to Antonio. “Get Alec back to the house. I want you to watch him but don’t alert him to anything. Put a man you trust on him. I want to know who he talks to. If he makes any calls. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” He’s probably thinking the same thing I am. Why is Alec alive when they made sure everyone else was dead?

  “Are you going home or coming with me?” I ask my uncle.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I nod and the two of us, along with a handful of soldiers, head toward the chopper.

  My uncle stops me a few feet away. “You should have told me this is where you wanted to spend your wedding night,” my uncle says. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the whirring of the blades.

  “You’d try to talk me out of it.”

  “And for good reason. Why didn’t you tell me? Even about the church?”

  I consider my response. How much I want to give away. “You met with him,” I say, finished with games. I’ve been finished with them since I woke up from the coma. Time has become more valuable. And I’m fucking tired.

  Both eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Met with who?”

  “Rinaldi.”

  “What?”

  “Three years ago. On the balcony at the opera. I didn’t even know you liked opera, Uncle.” I study his face as I say it, laying out my cards, watching for any tells.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I have a photo. Several. You and him, in a private and very heated discussion.”

  He studies me as closely, left eye narrowing infinitesimally. Then he laughs, just a quick burst of air as he shakes his head.

  “It was a charity event. I’d been invited for my contribution. I can’t dictate who the opera allows in and who they bar from entry, now can I?”

  “So, you just coincidentally happen to be there at the same time as the man who murdered your brother, your sister-in-law, your niece and nephews? And you’re able to hold a conversation with him knowing he’s responsible? Knowing what he did to my mother?” That last part I force out, blocking the emotion that wants to worm its way into my words.

  “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

  “I don’t know, Uncle.”

  “Where is this photo? How did you get it?”

  “Doesn’t matter. What were you talking about?”

  “Quite honestly, I was taken by surprise when he, his soldiers, and those two Cartel brothers arrived at the box where I sat with the president of the charity. He came to pour salt into the wound, Cristiano. My anger got the better of me. I told him in no uncertain terms that one day, I would kill him.”

  “This lasted seven minutes?” The time was stamped on the photos.

  “How dare you!”

  “Look around you, Uncle. I was betrayed tonight. Again.”

  “And you think it was me? I didn’t even fucking know where you were!” he pauses, glances around then lowers his voice. “Have you thought of Alec? Have you wondered how he managed to survive considering they made sure no one else did? The rest were killed execution style. No room for error when you have a fucking bullet in your head. Have you considered maybe it was him?”

  “I consider everything,” I say, somehow calm. “I have to. What else were you talking to Rinaldi about at the opera? Seven minutes is a long fucking time.”

  “I already told you. And if you doubt that I was as impacted by the murders of your family, then you’re having a brain hemorrhage.” He leans in close, pokes his finger against my chest. “Remember who saved your fucking life.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Dante.”

  “No, not Dante. He found you. I’m the one who made sure you were kept safe and protected while you couldn’t defend yourself. I made sure you were taken care of, made sure you were out of sight until you were strong enough to stand on your own, to take back what was stolen from you and to avenge your family. You think Dante didn’t want to go after them? You think I didn’t want revenge? I protected him too. Saved his life too when he’d have thrown it away going after those fuckers. I knew all along we needed to wait for you. We couldn’t take that from you, and that’s the truth of it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything but hate for the family who killed my family.”

  I look beyond him to the waves of the ocean. I scrub my face, take a deep breath. It makes sense what he’s saying.

  The tattoo I scribbled badly on my arm throbs. My uncle’s name. But if I look at him now, if I recall how he looked when he told me about last night, he was as surprised as I. And he’s my own blood. My father’s brother.

  “Look, it’s been a stressful few days. Scarlett’s missing. I can guess who has her. You’re under a lot of pressure. And I haven’t helped when it comes to her. I know that. But believe me, Cristiano, I have no ulterior motive. You’re the closest thing I have to a son. I’d never betray you.”

  I nod. It’s all I can do. Right now, I have to get Scarlett back. That’s my first priority. All this I’ll process later.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  We walk in silence the rest of the way to the chopper and climb inside. The pilot lifts off the ground as soon as we’re inside and I think about the last time we were in the chopper heading to my wedding.

  How things change in a matter of hours. Minutes. Seconds.

  How life turns upside down and inside out, spitting out what’s left of us after it’s chewed up everything that matters.

  2

  Scarlett

  Murmurs and quiet whimpers are the sounds I hear. The smell is dank, like sweat and something else, something rotten. When I’m jostled violently, those whimpers swell to a joint scream followed a few moments later by the sounds of someone retching.

  I blink. Turn my head. My neck is sore, my shoulders, back and arms aching. I groan, try to bring my hand to my face but my wrists are bound behind my back. As my eyes open and the room comes into focus, I remember why.

  I remember Marcus. Remember my uncle.

  And Marcus killing my uncle.

  I move backward through time and memory, remembering farther back to the room at that house. My bath. Cutting my foot on the shards of glass from the bottle Cristiano destroyed.

  Our wedding night.

  Cristiano accusing me of being a whore on our wedding night.

  Something inside me twists but I don’t linger because there’s another one of those swells and panic grips me. I struggle to sit up just as we crash down and water sprays the windows, splashing through the one where the glass is missing. We’re on a
boat. A stinking, old, decrepit boat.

  The women around me scream as I take it all in.

  The stench. It almost makes my nostrils burn. Dirty mattresses line the floor, two or three women taking up each one. I look at their faces. Some can’t be older than fifteen. Sixteen. I’m not sure who looks more terrified, though.

  Some are quiet, staring ahead wide-eyed. Some are sobbing. Many have bruises on their faces, or on bits of exposed skin. Almost none of us are wearing shoes I realize.

  “You okay?” the voice to my right croaks.

  I look over at the girl. At twenty-two I must be one of the oldest ones in here. I nod to her, and she holds up a bottle of water. It’s almost empty.

  I lick my lips, nod.

  She stretches her arms out to me. She’s bound too, but her wrists are in front of her.

  I drink a sip of the lukewarm, stale tasting water. “Thank you.”

  She can’t be more than sixteen, I think, and beneath the dirt and bruises and fear, she’s beautiful.

  “Are you okay?”