I Thee Take (To Have And To Hold Duet 2)

“Do you want to see more? Maybe Michael’s involvement? He would have been your father’s successor, after all.”

“No.” I close the folders and consider the evidence Charlie brought. Why hadn’t he found these? He was thorough. He’s always thorough.

“We need to take care with Dante now, Cristiano. Keep him out of that world.”

At least we’re in agreement there.

“Who turned you against me?” my uncle asks.

“It’s not like that.”

“Who?”

My phone buzzes in my pocket but I ignore it.

“Should I take a guess?”

The phone dings notifying me of a voice mail.

I finish my drink and set it down, reach into my pocket to take out my phone. “Do you think Alec tipped off Jacob to Scarlett’s location?” I ask.

“You know I do. Everyone else died. Everyone was executed. That was sloppily done on his part. An amateur move.”

“Why would he do it, though? What does he have to gain?” I ask him, phone in the palm of my hand.

“You should ask him that.”

“Or do you think he was left alive to throw me off track? Send me barking up the wrong tree?”

He snorts, shifts his gaze to the photo album, closes it.

I look down at my phone. The name of the caller I missed flashes on the screen and for a moment I’m not sure I’m seeing it correctly.

My uncle starts to say something as I push the button to play the voice mail and bring the phone to my ear. Felix’s accented voice and the pumping of blood against my ears drowns out my uncle’s words.

“I have a location. He just got there but I’d hurry. He has a nickname, I’m told. The Minute Man.” Felix chuckles. “The Rose Club. Back rooms. Where the real action is.” The message ends.

My throat is dry. My uncle is still droning on. I feel sweat already bead at my forehead. Feel my hands fist.

Without a word, I turn and walk out of the study and out of the house because tonight is the night Marcus Rinaldi dies.

22

Cristiano

The Rose Club is a high-end strip club for all intents and purposes. On the front end, at least. Four soldiers enter with me, flanking me.

Back rooms. Where the real action is.

The back rooms are where the more illicit events take place. Where drugs are sold. Where women are sold. Where those with more deviant desires are sated.

I stop just inside the deep velvet curtains that are so dark a violet they appear to be black. The lights are subdued, and three stages showcase three separate dancers. Two bars take up the whole wall at either end of the large room with glass shelf upon glass shelf of the highest quality liquor up to the vaulted ceiling. Throughout this room are situated richly upholstered deep violet chairs to match the curtains separating this room from the other spaces.

“He doesn’t get out. Not tonight,” I tell my men.

They all nod. I have two more men out front and two at every other possible exit.

“There.” In the farthest corner I spot the two men who clearly don’t belong here. They’re standing on this side of a closed door, their jeans and T-shirts out of place. The ill-fitting jackets they are wearing, obviously borrowed, and the looks on their faces that of men who’ve never seen girls like this before.

He cannot be this stupid.

“Key,” I say to the madam who is standing nearby.

“He’s in the back rooms. I told you. I don’t want trouble in here.”

“I said key.”

“Sir, I—”

I turn to her and she backs up a step when she sees my face. I lean toward her. She’s five feet tall tops. “Key.”

A moment later, the key card is in my hand. Modern, like a hotel room key.

I make my way through the center of the room to the door where the two men stand sentry. When they can drag their lecherous gazes from the women to finally notice us, they’re too late to reach beneath their borrowed jackets before my men have disarmed them.

They start to speak in Spanish, words hurried, any loyalty Marcus thought he had gone.

“Take them out back,” I tell my men, my eyes locked on that door. I hold the keycard up against the electronic pad and listen to the satisfying click as a green light blinks. I push the door open to find another corridor. The carpet, walls and ceiling are black. Sloppily done. No doors in this corridor. At the end, I come upon the second part of the club. The one the tourists don’t see.

A security guard meets my eyes as he slips his phone into his pocket. I’m sure that was the madam announcing my arrival.

Without a word, he gestures to a door at the far end, then slips past me and into the corridor I just walked through.

My men and I cross the large, dimly lit space to the lone door at the far end. There, I use the same key card to enter.