While I’m here I search through the drawers to see if there’s anything I can use as a weapon, if I need to.
I chuckle to myself at the thought.
If I need to.
I will need to. He’s told me what he plans to do. Is that really the only reason my brother and I are alive? And is Noah truly alive? Or did he just say that to appease me? To ensure I wouldn’t fight too hard when he lays his hands on me?
Shit.
No. I can’t think about that. He’s alive. I have to believe that.
I return to the bathroom and pull the towel off my head. Rummaging through his drawers I find a brush. I meet my reflection and peer closer, shifting my gaze to the right to see the bruise high on my cheekbone where the skin is cut. Probably happened on the floor of the cell. I’m surprised I’m not more badly hurt although my head aches.
Setting the brush down, I open the medicine cabinet and locate a bottle of Aspirin. I’m about to swallow some when I notice it’s expired. By about ten years.
I look at the few other containers and notice they’re all old too. Almost like no one has opened this cabinet in a decade. That seems strange. I close the door deciding against the expired aspirin and work the brush through my hair wondering about that oddity but not lingering overly long.
When I’m finished, I squeeze as much moisture as I can out of my hair and braid it. I hate having the length of it wet down my back. Twisting the braid, I tuck the end into itself to hold it in place and return to the bedroom. I eat the rest of the sandwich as I survey the space.
I wonder if Noah’s had any food. He eats like a machine these days. Losing my appetite at the thought, I wipe my hands on the cloth napkin. I pick up the bottle of whiskey, only half-full, and turn it to read the label. A bittersweet memory momentarily overwhelms me. It’s the same brand my father used to drink. I’d forgotten. Strange how you don’t realize you’ve forgotten something until you’re reminded of it again.
I don’t want to forget my parents.
I open the bottle and sniff. For a moment, I’m transported back in time, back to my dad’s study with its cloying cigar smoke and whiskey smell. I hated it back then. Curled my nose up at it. Now I’d give anything to be there again. To smell that smell. To see him laughing at me when I twist my face.
Closing the bottle, I set it aside before starting with the dresser closest to me.
I’m surprised Cristiano didn’t place a guard inside the room with me. I know that probably means there isn’t a weapon for me to find. He’s not afraid of me looking through his things. He must know I will. I guess he’s also not afraid I’ll steal something. Where would I hide it? Especially if he’s thinking he’s getting laid when he gets back from wherever he went.
Did he take my uncle with him, I wonder? And how closely aligned are they? He asked each of my brothers if they knew where Rinaldi is. He meant my fiancé. Marcus Rinaldi’s father has been in the hospital for the last two weeks. It’s all been hush-hush, but my brothers were anxious to get the marriage sorted before he recovers. If he recovers.
I met Marcus’s father on two occasions. He didn’t seem like a bad guy. But next to Marcus, Satan might seem like pleasant company.
I keep looking through the drawers finding nothing. Just more clothes, briefs and socks like any normal person. He’s not though.
The image of him standing there with his shirt off reappears before my eyes. I couldn’t drag my eyes away. He’s built powerfully and seeing him shirtless was more dangerous than I thought it could be. Dangerous because I wanted to look. Couldn’t drag my gaze from all those scars and tattoos.
I’m not sure which he had more of, actually, but the one thing making me shudder were the few names I recognized inked on his chest. Many I didn’t know but I saw Diego and Angel’s names along with Marcus Rinaldi. Below theirs was Noah’s name. Some had lines running through them. None I knew.
When I open the next drawer, I see something familiar. My engagement ring. It sits among neat rows of cuff links. There must be two dozen of them. And there, just tossed in, is the obnoxiously big five-carat ring.
I pick it up, looking at it. Not because I want it back but just to see it. To remember when it was forced on my finger. Marcus laughing, a fool, drunk as he fake proposed to me, almost breaking my finger when I spat in his face.
Angel and Diego pretending to be as drunk as he was. They laughed but I could see it wasn’t real. They just stood by while I was stripped naked at Marcus’s demand to get a look at the goods.
My brothers had allowed the stripping. The humiliation. But they’d saved me from having to fuck him at least. Probably afraid he wouldn’t buy the cow if he got the milk for free.
I burn with embarrassment at the memory of it. My stomach turns at what my own brothers made me do.
I throw the ring back into the drawer and slam it shut. Cristiano can have it and everything it stands for. If it’s Marcus Rinaldi he wants, I’ll bring him his head on a silver platter if it will free Noah and me.
But I want something in exchange. I want my uncle’s head on a matching platter. Would he give me that?
Cristiano’s reasons are noble even if they endanger the one person I care about. He is avenging his family.
He just has no idea who he’s aligned himself with.
4
Cristiano
I wonder if she felt anything at all watching her brothers executed. She barely flinched. It makes me wonder what they did to her to make her hate them.
I’m sitting in the boardroom along with my brother, two of the family attorneys, my uncle and two representatives from the charity to which I’ve made a sizeable donation. Charlie didn’t accompany me to this meeting. This is the legitimate side of things. He’s in charge of the other side.
One of the women is ogling me from across the table and I’m trying to avoid having to look at her. I’m only half-listening as I turn the diamond link on my cuff around and around.
“Cristiano,” Uncle David starts. “Are you listening?” He smiles to the women and gestures for me to get my head out of my ass and pay attention. But I can’t be fucking bothered.
“No, not really, Uncle.” I get to my feet as he clears his throat, looking annoyed. “Why don’t you and Dante handle this. Looks like you’ve got it all under control.” I nod to those at the table and walk away.
He pushes his chair back. “Excuse us for a minute,” he says, buttoning his jacket as he follows me out the door. “What the fuck, Cristiano?”
I stop. Turn.
Dante closes the conference room door and folds his arms across his chest.
“I have bigger fish to fry, Uncle. This is handled. Papers signed. They want to throw a fucking party in my honor? No thank you. Don’t fucking waste my time.”
“It’s a fund raiser and if your names are on it, the survivors of the massacred mafia family who have risen from the dead, come home to make good, well, it’s good for business. Good for everyone.”
“What do we care? The donation bought what we needed. It’s a fucking front anyway.” The money won’t be going to the charity itself. At least not most of it. It’ll line the pocket of another greedy politician who will in turn be in my pocket.
“God damn it. Keep your voice down.”
“Dante will go in my place.” I hear my brother’s muttered curse. “I need to get back to the island.” I take a step away.
He puts his hand on my arm. “Is it the girl?”
I look down at it, then at him. I take a step toward him. David is my father’s half-brother. He’s in his late forties and at six feet tall, about four inches shorter than me. He’s a businessman. Built like he sits behind a desk all day.
And he’s overstepping.
“I’ve got bigger priorities, Uncle. You handle this. This is what you want. You were never part of our father’s business. Keep it that way.”
“No, I opted for clean money.”
“No, not clean. Cleaned so you
can’t see the blood.”
He grits his teeth, jaw tightening. He shakes his head with a loud exhale. “That’s what you think of me? After everything? That’s Charlie Lombardi poisoning your mind against your own family.”
“Christ.”
I run a hand through my hair and walk to the window, looking out over the city. We have different goals, my uncle and me. I want revenge. I want anyone who had a hand in my family’s massacre dead.
He wants to capitalize off that vengeance.
And he hates Charlie.
Dante comes to stand beside me. “Hey. You okay?”
I watch the pedestrians on the street. Tourists and locals going about their uncomplicated lives. I turn to Dante. I nod.
He pats my back as we both turn back to our uncle.
“I don’t think that of you. And Charlie hasn’t said a word about you to me,” I say. “I know what you did for me. I know if it wasn’t for you, I’d be six feet under with the rest of them.”
He nods. “You know I miss them.”
“I know. I’m closer than I’ve ever been to finishing this.” I just need to find Marcus Rinaldi now. Plans to take care of his father are already in place, but honestly, I have a problem putting a pillow over the face of a dying man. Not out of the goodness of my heart. No. I just want to be sure he sees me. Sees my eyes as I smother the life out of him. I want him to know it’s me.
“Go,” Dante says. “I’ll take care of this.”
“You’ll both attend the gala?”
“We’ll both fucking attend the gala,” Dante says, giving me a look. “If I have to go, you have to go.”
“Fine.”
“Good. All right.” My uncle pats my back. “Dante and I had better get back in there.”
“Are you coming back to the island tonight?” I ask him.
“No. I’ll stay in the city. I’ve got a few things to take care of. You’ll be meeting with the families tomorrow?”
I nod but don’t tell him more. Just as Charlie isn’t involved in the legitimate side of things, I keep my uncle out of the criminal side.
“Are you going with him?” he asks Dante.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Why don’t you stay out of it, Dante. Let Cristiano—”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t miss it,” Dante says, cutting him off. We exchange a glance. My brother has my back and I’ve got his, even if we don’t agree on everything.
“All right,” my uncle says and takes a step but stops, wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb and looks around before asking his question. “What’s your plan with Jacob?”
“Don’t ask me those questions. You know that. You’re either in the family business or you’re out of it.”
He studies me for a long moment, then nods. “I don’t trust him.”
“You think I do?”
He chuckles, pats my back. “Just make sure it’s not the girl that’s turned your head. Fuck her and get rid of her. You owe them that.”
Them. My family.
“I know what I have to do.” That’s the one thing he doesn’t need to remind me of.
5
Cristiano
Cerberus, my German Shepherd, enthusiastically greets me when I enter the house. I smile, crouching down to pet him. He’s been with me for two years. A loyal companion. Dante is spending the night in town. I can’t blame him. I’m not a lot of fun these days and now that we’re back in the land of the living, he’s making up for lost time.
Servants have cleaned more of the house in my absence. More dust cloths removed, almost the whole of the downstairs looking lived-in now.
The house is huge. Well, it’s a compound, a safe place. It should have been, at least, and it will be again now that I’m back. For all intents and purposes, the island is only accessible by sea or air. Guards are stationed in a watchtower. The building itself is six centuries old. A castle for a nobleman whose name I can’t remember.
Another damn thing I can’t remember.
My family purchased the house more than five-hundred years ago when the owner’s family fell out of favor with the ruling party at the time. We’ve managed to hold onto it since, and the Grigori family has lived in it for all that time. Except, of course, for the brief decade after the massacre when it sat empty.
The Grigori family has been running things in southern Europe for all those years. We’ve lined the right pockets, made the right alliances. And we made the rules for all the crime families to obey. Ones they agreed to adhere to.
Well, agreed is a big word. That’s one thing my father did wrong. You can’t coerce true allegiance, I know that. You either have it or you don’t and if you don’t, you cut it out.
But when the new trade deals were negotiated, I was a kid. Barely ten years old. And it did work for seven years until the De La Cruz Cartel and the Rinaldi Mafia Family joined forces, rounded up supporters, and took us down.
“Cristiano,” Lenore, the woman who manages the house and one of the few people left that I trust, says as she comes out of the kitchen.
I appreciate the interruption and smile, relaxing a little. “Lenore, it smells wonderful.” It makes me realize how hungry I am.
Cerberus goes to her to take whatever treat she has for him. He doesn’t like many people so those he does seem to take a liking to, I remember.
“Thank you. It’s good to be back in my kitchen.” Lenore has been with our family since before I was born and is more like a grandmother than staff. While my mom loved baking, she wasn’t always successful, and she couldn’t cook a meal to save her life.
Crap. What a metaphor.
“You took lunch upstairs?”
“Yes, of course. And she ate every bite.”
“Good. I have a request.”
“You do?” I never have requests so she’s surprised.
“My mother’s crème caramel. Can you make it?” Burnt sugar. I want the memory back.
She appears confused momentarily but then nods, her smile a little sad. I know she loved my mom. “I’ll start on it tonight and have it for you tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
I turn to walk out of the dining room as a woman begins to set the table for one. I stop and turn to Lenore. “Two. Set it for two.”
“Will David eat here?” she asks, her tone always just a little different when she mentions my uncle. I wonder if she realizes it herself.
“No.”
“Your brother?” Her eyebrows crawl up her forehead. Dante rarely spends evenings at the house.
I shake my head.
It takes her a moment as she figures out who I mean to eat with. She nods, and I walk out of the dining room leaving Cerberus to follow her to the kitchen where I’m sure she has more treats waiting. I don’t stop to look at the portrait of my mother before climbing the stairs to my room where Alec is patiently standing guard.
“Anything?” I ask.
“Nothing. All quiet.”
“Good.”
I open the door not sure what to expect. Well, sure of one thing. It won’t be Scarlett on her hands and knees with her face down and ass up. The thought makes me grin.
She’ll make me bend her.
But I don’t have a problem with that.
I ready myself for an attack but then again, I always ready myself for an attack. Like Alec said, though, all is quiet, and I’m surprised to find Scarlett is asleep on the armchair closest to the window, her head leaning against the wing.
I’m quiet as I make my way toward her. She’s wearing my clothes which look ridiculous on her. She has her feet tucked up under her. Her toes peek out from underneath and I see pink polish.
Her hair’s in a braid that’s coming undone, the shade even darker since it’s damp. She has a book on her lap, thumb in the page.
I take it slowly, look at the cover as she stirs with a quiet moan.
She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. There’s a momentary pause when she opens th
em, confusion about where she is, I guess. After that, she starts with a gasp, pressing her back into the chair and looking up at me with those pale whiskey-colored eyes.
“You read Italian?” I ask, gesturing to the book.
She shifts her gaze to the book. Almost like she isn’t sure what I’m talking about before shaking her head no.
“What time is it?” she asks.
“Dinnertime.”
“Where’s Noah?”
I shrug a shoulder. “Same place I left him.”
“I want to see him.”
I move to place the book on the nightstand, and she stands up, adjusting her clothes. My clothes. I look her over, only to realize one of my favorite ties is knotted at her waist. It’s the only thing keeping the pants up.
“Hello? I want to see my brother. I did what you said. I showered and I haven’t done anything stupid.”
I smile at that and walk to the closet to change into a pair of jeans and a sweater. “But you also weren’t waiting for me as I instructed.”
“I’m not—”
“You don’t make demands, Scarlett,” I throw over my shoulder, noticing the drawer where my cufflinks are stored, isn’t properly closed. It gets stuck sometimes, but I remember closing it.
Glancing at her, I go to it, open it.
“I didn’t steal anything if that’s what you’re thinking.”
No, she didn’t. Not even the ring I took from her. “You looked through everything?” I ask, turning back to her.
“Yep.”
“Good. That’s out of your system then.”
She just narrows her eyes at me. Suspicious of me. She should be.
I walk into the closet and when I emerge after changing, she’s standing at the window looking outside.
With This Ring: To Have and To Hold Duet Book One Page 4
