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

“We’re to stay—”

“You can wait outside. I don’t want you near Lizzie and you’ve certainly had your eyeful of this one.” She turns her attention to me, looking like she’s disgusted as the men clear out. “Come back in fifteen minutes to take her to the waxing room.

Waxing room?

She turns back to me. “Get to work.”

I pick up the loofah.

35

Cristiano

“We have a lead on David,” Antonio announces as I turn away from the woman in frustration. Her English is broken but from what she’s telling me, she’s one of the women they’d trafficked at some point. Terrified out of her mind, she keeps making the sign of the cross every time she glimpses either of the dead men, a stream of words in a language I don’t understand pouring from her.

“They brought me to make the food,” she repeats again. “But the girl doesn’t eat.” When I turn away, she continues to tell one of the soldiers. “I go now,” she says, nodding as if giving herself permission to leave.

“Where?” I ask Antonio.

“Hotel in Amsterdam. I can get you there in forty minutes.”

“Does he know we found him?”

Antonio shakes his head. “The man who just delivered his dinner called. Soldiers are on their way, but it’ll be about twenty minutes before they’re on site.”

“Let’s go,” I say, then glance at the woman who has started sobbing again. One of the soldiers is holding on to her. She’s not struggling against him, but she wants out. “Let her go,” I tell him.

We file out of the decrepit house and back to our vehicle. With traffic, it takes us almost an hour to get to the hotel where, according to Antonio’s contact, David checked into the Presidential suite for one night under an alias. That alias has a first-class seat booked on a plane heading to Dubai first thing in the morning.

“Does he have men with him?” I ask as we enter the property.

“No. Not that my contact has seen.”

“Anything else on the location of that auction?” I ask for the hundredth time even though I know Antonio would tell me the instant he knew anything.

“Not yet.”

The three of us ride up on the elevator accompanied by two soldiers.

“He’ll know,” Dante says.

I look at him, see the furrow between his brows. He’s processing all this. Processing our uncle’s betrayal.

He runs a hand through his hair and looks at me. I get that he’s feeling responsible for allowing Scarlett to have been taken. He is, on some level. He should have protected her. But I also understand why he didn’t.

“He’ll know where she is. He doesn’t leave loose ends,” he adds.

“Aren’t we loose ends?” I ask him.

His gaze darkens and he shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Cris. Makes no fucking sense.”

I nod because he’s right. It doesn’t make sense that he’d massacre our family and leave us alive when he could easily have killed us. Me at least. I lay helpless in a coma. Dante too. Dante trusted him. We both did. It would have been easy for him. What was there for him to gain by keeping us alive apart from having me become his personal killing machine when someone crossed him?

“He’s going to explain it to us now, Brother.”

The elevator lets us off at the twenty-second floor. There are two doors in the hallway. Two suites. One is empty. Or was until I booked it. I won’t take a chance that we’re interrupted.

“How are we doing this?” Antonio asks when we step off the elevator.

I turn to him. “We’re not. Dante and I are. And we’re walking right up to the door and knocking.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Antonio asks, clearly, he doesn’t think so.

“I’m sure.”

Antonio and the soldiers flank us as we walk to the double doors of my uncle’s suite. Once there I raise my hand and knock.

“It’s about time,” my uncle’s voice carries before he even opens the door. “Does your chef know what rare—”

He’s mid-sentence when the door opens. He looks pissed off, holding a plate with a steak on it, the piece of meat sliced in two sitting in its own bloody juices.

My mouth moves into a smile of its own accord. I don’t feel it though. What I feel is a hardening in my chest. A deadening. Because when I look at this man, all I see are the bodies of my family lying on that bloodied marble floor.

“Uncle,” I say as he looks first at me, then at Dante.

For a brief moment, I see that we’ve surprised him. That he truly did not expect us.

“Cristiano!” He smiles wide, sets the dish down on a side table. “I thought you were dead!”

“Hm.” He almost moves in as if to hug me, but I push past him into the suite. Dante follows. Antonio and the soldiers stand sentry at the door as Dante closes it.