With This Ring (To Have And To Hold Duet 1)

“They’re people, Uncle.” Product. It bothers me that he calls the women that.

He pauses, looks irritated for a moment before continuing.

“As I was saying, patrons pay top dollar for use of the women. For anywhere from a single night to several years.”

“Then I guess business has been bad lately.” We intercepted the last shipment, and my men are still working on repatriating the girls and women to their countries, their families. It’s harder than you’d think. Some have been slaves for years. Some don’t want to go back home out of shame. And some of them, well, their families don’t want them back. Dirtied goods. As if being kidnapped and sold was their choice.

“You could say that.”

“How did you find out about them?”

“You know I have my contacts.”

“And you won’t say.”

“I can’t.”

“Fine.” My uncle has a lot of contacts. We pull onto the street where his office is. “Anything else?”

He looks out the front window. “You should have what you need and the couple in question has been…contained.”

I nod as we come to a stop in front of his building. “Have a good day, Uncle.”

“Let’s have dinner. We can talk about Rinaldi. Make a plan.”

“Another night.”

“Soon.”

“Soon.”

He opens the door and has one leg out but stops, turns back to me with a strange smile on his face. “Leave a mess Cristiano.”

I study him. For not actually wanting to have his hands in the bloodier side of things, he’s more macabre than I’d guess he’d be.

“Always do, Uncle.”

11

Cristiano

Charlie and Dante are standing outside of the restaurant a little out of town talking.

They’re both dressed impeccably in dark suits and looking, for all intents and purposes, like legitimate businessmen. Dante’s twenty-six now. My one remaining brother. Our bond is strong, but he can be a pain in the ass, too. Although Charlie’s the same age as my uncle David, he looks younger.

Five SUVs are parked in the lot and several soldiers are loitering by their vehicles.

I climb out, adjust my cuffs, very aware of the eyes on me.

“Everyone’s here,” Charlie says.

“How many soldiers?”

“About two dozen. No firepower inside.”

I nod and turn to my brother. “Have a good night?” I don’t like the nights he spends off the island, but I understand.

“Okay. How about you?”

I snort.

He smirks. “What’s the matter, Brother, don’t tell me you didn’t get any.” He clucks his tongue.

“Fuck off.”

He puts an arm over my shoulders and leans in close. “I can find you a girl who looks like the De La Cruz girl if that’s your—”

“I said fuck off.” I shove his arm off me.

“Getting laid might help you relax a little.”

I grunt.

“Hey.” Dante moves to stand in front of me. He adjusts the collar of my jacket then rests his hands on my shoulders. “You okay?”

Am I okay? No. I’m not okay. I don’t remember the last time I was okay. But I nod. “We should get this done.”

“You’re not doing it alone, you know. I’m right there beside you. We take it back together. We destroy the motherfuckers who tried to destroy us together.”

I study him, smile, mess up his hair. “Thanks for the pep talk but it’s all good. Let’s go.”

He smiles. I know he’s got my back and I’ve got his even if we don’t agree on everything.

We walk into the building. For as bright as it is outside, it’s dark inside. It’s a dinner club, not a breakfast club, with dark walls and curtains, tinted windows and elegance all around.

“Gentlemen,” I say, taking inventory.

Dante does the same, moving to stand at the opposite end of the room.

A single representative from each of the five families in Italy sits at the table. I haven’t seen them in ten years. I tell myself that’s why I don’t recognize them. Not because of my missing memory.

“Cristiano,” Matteo Gribaldi says, standing to shake my hand. I only know it’s Matteo because I studied the photos, the histories.

“Matteo.”

“It’s good to see you. We’d thought…well, we’d believed the worst.”

I smile but it’s just a stretching of my lips. I feel nothing.

He resumes his seat and each of the others greets me in turn. These men have been working with Rinaldi in the ten years I’ve been gone. They’ve participated in and gotten richer off the one thing that was forbidden to them. They’re greedy, all of them. But it’s not their greed that bothers me. It’s their duplicity and their weakness I despise. Because only after I attacked Rinaldi did they have a change of heart.

I take my seat at the head of the table, noting the soldiers standing around the room.

“You are here because you agreed many years ago, some when your fathers were in command, to the rules my father set. The one activity we will not deal in. The Rinaldi family is finished. The De La Cruz Cartel has been dealt with. And now that I’m back, I resume my place at the head of this table.” I pause. “My father made your fathers rich. My grandfather made your grandfathers rich. And we did it without trafficking in human flesh.”