“How?”

Fuck.

I face my brother but don’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m in love with her.”

It’s the first time I say it out loud. First time I really hear it. Understand it.

I focus on my brother’s eyes. I can’t tell what he thinks at hearing this. His features are schooled, steady, we’re both good at that. He studies me and I let him. It’s all I can do. Because this is the truth, and he deserves the truth.

He nods, turns his gaze downward. I think how he’s sobered up since I first walked into this room.

“I know you don’t like or trust her. I understand. But I know she’s as much a victim as our family was.”

He shifts his gaze back to mine. “What if she’s not who you think, Cristiano? What if she betrays you?”

“She won’t.”

“What if she does?”

Something twists inside my chest. “Then I’ll deal with her,” I say, my voice tight.

“What if you don’t make it to deal with her?”

I steel myself. It won’t happen, I tell myself.

“What if you don’t make it to deal with her?” he asks again a little more forcefully.

“It won’t come to that.”

“What if it does?”

“You don’t touch her. You don’t lay a finger on her. Whether I’m dead or alive. You protect her.”

He snorts.

I grab his shoulder. “You. Protect. Her.”

His eyes narrow.

“For me,” I say.

Nothing.

“Promise me, Dante. Promise me if anything happens to me, you’ll protect her. Keep her safe.”

Gazes locked, we stand quiet for a long moment. She won’t betray me. I know that.

Dante nods tightly once and it’s in that moment I truly grasp that my brother is a man. And that he is capable. And that he is capable of violence. Because his nod wasn’t his acquiescence. The opposite.

If something happens to me, he’ll punish Scarlett. I know it.

If I die, she dies.

It will not come to that.

“I’m looking for the girl,” he says. I’m confused. He must see it because he continues. “From that night.”

“Why?”

He sighs. Shrugs his shoulders. “She disappeared. When I called the number she gave me, it was disconnected. When I went to the apartment I thought was hers, it was empty. I was drunk. So fucking drunk but this thing it’s fucking with me, Cris. It’s making me doubt my own memories.”

He’s not alone in that.

I watch him, watch the confusion in his eyes. See the self-doubt that is too familiar. I wrap a hand around the back of his head and tug him to me. We hug. We haven’t hugged in a while.

“We’ll figure it out. Together. Okay? We’ll figure this shit out.”

He gives me a smile when I pull back. “I should apologize to the cop. I was an asshole.”

“Yeah. You should. I’ll make sure he’s paid well but you should.” I open the bedroom door and we step into the hallway. “Question for you. Are you keeping the supplies in the tunnel up to date?”

He smiles. “Yeah. I have been for a while. Dad said it was you and Michael who’d have to do it but you couldn’t so the task fell to me. You went down there?”

I nod. “Does anyone else know about it?”

He shakes his head. “No way. Dad said just us.”

“How’d you get there?”

“I’d come in from the other side when we were in hiding.”

“So Uncle David doesn’t know either?”

“No.”

“Good. Keep it that way. Let’s go home.”

20

Scarlett

Cristiano closes the door and sits on the couch. He returned to the island an hour ago with his brother who looked a little worse for wear.

I take a seat beside him.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

He scrubs his face then takes Cerberus’s eager one into his hands. He looks at the dog who makes a whining noise as if he feels his master’s agitation.

I hear one of Cristiano’s signature grunts as he turns his attention to me and pets Cerberus absently.

“You remember how to move the rock to get into the tunnel?”

I nod. He just showed me last night.

“If anything happens to me, you go. Take your brother and go.”

“What?”

“Keep Cerberus by your side as long as you can. He’ll protect you.” He gets up, goes to his desk and opens a drawer to take out a pouch. He holds it out to me.

I take it and feel the jagged edges of whatever is inside, the weight.

“There’s cash in there and information on the bank account where there’s more. It’s in your new name. Everything you need to disappear is inside including new passports. If anything happens, you call Charlie. He’s the only one you call, do you understand?”

I unzip the bag, look inside it, look back up at him. “Cristiano—”

“I put his name and—”

“I don’t want a gun,” I say as I look inside to find a small pistol, more cash than I can count, two passports and a key.

“Noah will handle the gun. The car is at the dock where you’ll exit the tunnel. The information—”

Tags: Natasha Knight To Have And To Hold Duet Romance
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