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

“Did you?”

I swallow. “I overheard my brothers after. I don’t think they knew he’d do that, but they…they didn’t stop him.”

He looks at me. “Do you know what he said to her when he finished? Just before he slit her throat? Did they say?” he asks, eyes so earnest that it’s almost sad to see him like this.

I swallow, shake my head no. I wish I knew, though. I wish I could tell him.

“I need to know what he said, Scarlett. What Rinaldi said.”

“What difference does it make?”

He takes a step back, eyes shielded again. “I need to know.” With a deep breath in he runs a hand through his hair then looks at me again. “Go to bed, Scarlett,” he says quietly, like all the energy has bled from him. Like he has nothing left.

“How did you survive? How did your brother? They thought they killed you all.” They celebrated it. I won’t tell him that part though.

“Dante was off the island. A last-minute change of plans. Me? They mistook me for a soldier. Executed my best friend in my place. I was in the room though. Bleeding out from the bullet wounds. Dante found me the next morning. My uncle and Charlie hid us.”

I nod.

“Now go to bed.”

“What about you?”

His eyes are distant, unfocused at least for a moment. “You want me to bed you?”

I feel my stomach do a flip but shake my head because that’s the only right answer.

“Didn’t think so. Go upstairs now then. The door across from mine with the lock on the outside, you’ll sleep there tonight.”

I look at him, confused. “Why haven’t you put me in a cell with my brother?”

“I should. I would if I were smart.”

He moves to the kitchen door, opens it. But when I stand there, he returns to me, comes so close I feel his chest against my chest and my back presses to the wall. He puts one arm up on the wall between me and the door. He’s so close I can feel his breath on me, feel his heat on me.

“You need to go. Now. If you stay, I’ll do more than kiss you.”

I swallow.

“You have exactly three seconds to decide.”

He gestures to the door with a nod of his head and I don’t wait. I slip underneath his arm and scurry upstairs.

13

Cristiano

I let her go. Let her slip away. I don’t know how I have the self-control to do it.

That night, I don’t even trust myself to sleep in my own bed. Not with her in the room across from mine.

There’s something about Scarlett. It’s true what I said. There’s an emptiness inside me. A hunger I need to fill. I want to fill it with her.

In the morning I take a shower in the bathroom in my office. I jerk off but it doesn’t take the edge off. I want her. I need her.

Fuck.

I sit behind my desk and am running my hand through my hair trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me when Lenore knocks then opens the door to my office.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asks me, setting the tray down and arranging a pot of espresso, a cup and a plate of food I won’t touch. She glances at the photos strewn across my desk, careful to set the things down around them. She doesn’t comment on any of it.

“I’ll sleep tonight.”

“Dante just got in. He’s having a shower and will be down soon.”

I nod. I have to remember Dante can take care of himself. He has a hard time being in the house. Harder than me. I know that. I understand it.

“Is Scarlett down yet?”

She shakes her head. “Go get her. Bring her in here.”

“You could be less heavy-handed with her. You scare the girl.”

I look up from the desk. “Well, maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Cristiano—”

“Get me the girl, Lenore.”

She looks like she has more to say but purses her lips, nods and leaves.

Scarlett asked me last night why I haven’t put her in a cell, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is about her. I’m not sure what happened last night. How things went so off the rails. Maybe it was meeting with the families. Seeing them all again like that. Maybe it was the killing after. That couple. It didn’t feel right. Maybe because they were old. I don’t fucking know. All I know is it didn’t feel right.

I take out the ledger from the bottom drawer. The ones who aren’t tattooed on my chest I keep track of here. I write down their names, write down the dates next to them.

Before closing it, I leaf through the pages and read some of them out loud. It’s a ritual of mine. Every time I add a name, I read from the list those that felt like the couple from last night did. A remembrance of sorts. Not that they deserve it. They had a hand in my family’s massacre, no matter how small.