With This Ring

by Natasha Knight

  I struggle to swallow the mouthful of cake and set my fork down. I’m thinking about how to answer, wondering what he must think that I can watch my brothers killed without emotion. Hell, what does that make me?

  “Noah’s just a kid,” I say.

  “It’s more than that.”

  “He’s different than Diego and Angel were. He’s softer. Not mean or cruel like them.”

  “You hated them.”

  It’s not really a question so I don’t answer.

  “What did they do to you to make you hate them?”

  “Well, for starters they killed my mom and dad.” I try to hide any emotion, but I feel it in my words. I’m also sure it shows on my face.

  He searches my eyes. “But what did they do to you?” he asks, leaning in closer. His eyes are so intense and as blue as that vast sea was this afternoon.

  I turn to look over my shoulder at the painting of his mother on the far wall. Electric blue eyes. Like his. When I turn back to him, I see that his gaze has followed mine and there’s something sad in it. Something broken.

  “You have her eyes,” I say before I can stop myself.

  For the briefest of moments, I see surprise on his face. He’s quick to school his features and shift the conversation away from himself. “Are you embarrassed to say?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  I shift my gaze slightly so I’m looking at his forehead, not into his eyes. He’s too intense. Too focused.

  “No.” But I feel my skin get clammy. It’s the truth. I’m not embarrassed. I am ashamed. There is a difference. A big one.

  He narrows his eyes and studies me like he’s considering whether or not to pursue this. There’s nothing to pursue. He’s not a friend. Not a confidante. He is my jailor. I will not tell him more.

  “All right,” he says like he’s finished with it, but I get the feeling he’s not.

  “Your aspirin is expired.” I want to change the subject.

  “What?”

  “It’s ten years old.”

  “You looked through my medicine cabinet too?”

  “I had a headache from banging my head on the wall when you broke into the tower to kidnap me.” I’m making a point.

  “Ah. The maid must have missed it.” He’s either missed the point or is ignoring it. “Do you need some now?”

  “Would you give it to me?”

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  It’s quiet again for a long time before he finally pushes his chair back. “Alec,” he calls out and the soldier who’d brought me upstairs earlier appears out of nowhere.

  “Sir.”

  Cristiano stands. “Take Ms. De La Cruz upstairs,” he says without warning.

  I feel my face pale, the blood draining.

  Alec nods, not quite looking at me but waiting for me to get up.

  Cristiano turns to me again and he looks like a giant from where I’m seated. Without another word to me, he takes the bottle of whiskey and disappears down another corridor.

  7

  Cristiano

  I don’t look at my mother’s portrait when I pass it, but turn the corner into a darker corridor. I make my way to my study thinking about what Scarlett said. That I have my mother’s eyes. A strange comment to make, I think, especially from her.

  Once inside, I close the door. The desk lamp is on. I set the whiskey bottle down, pull my sweater over my head, and sit before pouring another into a glass Lenore left on the desk. She worked for us before, too, and has been living with her family for the ten years since the massacre. She was one of the few people who knew Dante and I were alive.

  I took three bullets during the attack. Two to my torso, one to my head. They’d mistaken me for a soldier or I’m sure I would be dead now. No execution style killing for me. But I did watch from my place on the bloody marble floor that mom loved so much. I remember how cold it felt, even in the July heat. How that small, inconsequential detail stood out.

  My older brother and father were already injured when they brought them in. My mother had been seated in her favorite chair. I watched the tears slide down her face as her husband and sons were made to kneel in a line facing her. Michael, the heir to the throne. Luca and Gianni just kids, scared and trying hard not to cry. The soldier they had mistaken for me, my best friend Jonah. My sister Elizabeth they killed in her room. Lenore’s granddaughter, Mara, is the one body we didn’t recover.

  My family must have thought I was already dead, and I guess I was. Bleeding out while Marcus Rinaldi, the leader, Angel and Diego De La Cruz and their army of soldiers stood in our house, desecrated it, bloodied our floors.

  They killed Michael first. Bullet to the back of the head while my mother watched. While we all watched. Even injured, he was a threat.

  I think, though, that it was a blessing for him given what followed.

  Fuck.

  I forgo the tumbler and bring the bottle to my lips, forcing down big gulps of burning liquid even though my throat has closed up. Even though it feels like I’m already choking as sweat coats my forehead.

  Opening the drawer, I take out the machinery. I made it myself, my home tattooing kit of sorts. I’m not half bad when I’m not drunk. But my tattoos aren’t meant to be pretty. They’re meant to never let me forget what happened. Never forget those who betrayed us. Those who will be made to pay.

  Not that I need a reminder for that. My memory is fine now. Intact from the moment I woke up after almost six years in a coma. I just can’t remember anything before. Well, apart from that night.

  I set the bottle down and take out the disinfecting wipes to clean the spot on my chest where the names Diego and Angel De La Cruz are written. My reaper’s list. I will reap the lives of every single person named. I’m a little more than half-way through.

  For a moment my mind wanders to what happens then. After I’m finished. I don’t see a future after that, though. I’ve never even tried to imagine one. When the last name is crossed off, I’ll be done with anything having to do with this life, this world.

  Cleaning the space that will be tattooed and then cleaning the needle itself, I get to work, the little engine humming. I dip into the ink, wipe off the excess. I don’t use a mirror. Probably should.

  The names themselves my brother tattooed. I remember how he’d looked at me when I’d told him my idea about the list. How he’d seemed disturbed for a moment before he’d grinned and picked up the needle to get started.

  I’d sat through it without a sound, without a word. Whiskey at hand, hate in my heart and vengeance on my mind. He tattooed the names my uncle provided. We’d never even heard of most of them, but he told us their stories night after night, patiently working. Patiently preparing me, our family’s deadliest weapon. Because as the oldest surviving son, it was up to me to avenge their murders.

  I think about Dante. About how he’d gone off the island at the last minute that night. How lucky he was to have been gone.

  It was him who’d found me still alive the next morning. When every single person on the island lay in a pool of their own blood, I still breathed. Not a day goes by that I wish I’d been dead too.

  My uncle had then taken us both into hiding. It’s the one time he and Charlie worked together. He swore Lenore to secrecy.

  I guess my uncle wasn’t ever really a threat to the Rinaldi family since he wasn’t a part of the business. The only reason he’s still alive. Or maybe they just couldn’t risk killing him. He was and still is very well connected politically. To take out a mafia family is one thing. You’re almost doing a service. Two mafia families at war and toss in a Mexican Cartel too? Win-win-win.

  But to kill a man like my uncle, a legitimate businessman—at least as far as the public was concerned—who rubs elbows with the elite of Europe’s high society, well, that’s something else altogether.

  And so, I lived. Broken and damag
ed beyond repair in some ways, but alive. And Dante lived in a sort of coma too as he waited for me to wake. He was sixteen at the time of the incident and my uncle, rightfully so, wouldn’t allow him to retaliate.

  Even without my uncle egging me on, it’s not only duty that drives me to avenge my family’s murders. I want it. I want the blood of their killers on my hands. I want to watch their eyes as I steal from them what they stole from me.

  Not that it will ever bring back my own family. Or even my memories of my family.

  That’s the worst part. This not remembering.

  I’m not sure how long I’m in the study but by the time I finish and stand, the bottle is almost empty and my chest aches where I drew the lines. But my mind is on something else now. On the girl upstairs.

  Fuck her and get rid of her.

  I’m not committed to that last part yet though. Not sure why. Maybe it’s her eyes. Looking at them gave me back a memory.

  Burnt sugar. Crème caramel.

  I know it’s my imagination making me think I can smell it as I make my way through the dimly lit house up the stairs and to my room. Alec is standing guard. He’s Lenore’s nephew, and a soldier I trust.

  “Did she give you any trouble?”

  “Apart from asking me to let her see her brother again, no. She’s been quiet as a mouse.”

  “Good. Check on the kid before you go to bed, will you? Take him what’s left of the cake.” I may not be very principled, but I always keep my promises.

  “Sure thing.”

  I open the door to my bedroom to find the two lamps by the bed on and Scarlett standing at the window, looking out at the water. She’s still wearing my things and doesn’t turn right away, but I see how her body stiffens when she hears me.

  How far would she go for her brother? I have a feeling she’d die for him if she thought it would save him.

  “Did you fuck Marcus Rinaldi?” I ask. I don’t know why she wouldn’t have. She was his fiancée. It makes sense.

  She turns around and I see a bottle of whiskey in her left hand. The one I keep up here. I don’t comment but I am surprised. Although it seemed like she wanted some downstairs.

  “It’s really pretty here,” she says and brings the bottle to her lips as she takes a step. She falters when she does but catches herself on the back of the chair. “Considering.”

  “What are you doing?”

  She raises her eyebrows.

  I gesture to the bottle.

  “Preparing.”

  “Preparing?”

  Her eyes fall to my chest. She points a finger at it, arm not quite steady. She’s not quite steady on her feet.

  “You’re bleeding,” she says.

  I look down, wipe away the smear of blood.

  She shifts her gaze up to mine and drinks another sip, dropping down on the edge of the bed like she can’t stand anymore.

  “Yep, preparing,” she says, and I’ve almost forgotten that I asked. “I figure if I’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much. Also, I just don’t want to remember. So, if you don’t mind,” she says, holding up the same finger she used to point at me as if to say ‘hold on’. She glugs down a couple more swallows that look almost painful from here. “I’m almost done.”

  “Wrong. You’re done now,” I say, closing my hand over the neck of the bottle.

  She doesn’t fight me when I take it. Mostly because I don’t think she can. She’s drunk about half a bottle and judging from the size of her, that’s about half a bottle too much.

  “Christ,” I mutter, looking for the cork, finding it on the floor by the window. “Am I going to have to lock up the liquor?”

  “Does that mean I’ll be around long enough for you to have to do that?”

  “Is that what you’re afraid of?” I ask, corking the bottle and setting it on the table before turning to her.

  Her face falls a little, her shoulders slumping forward. She rubs the heels of her hands over her eyes. But when she looks up at me, they’re bright again like she has a new idea.

  “Do you know the story of Jacob the Liar?” she slurs her words.

  “You’re drunk, Scarlett.”

  “First, he tricked his brother.” There’s that finger again, making some drunken point. “Then his father. Do you know it?”

  “Yes, I know the story. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “My uncle is a liar. Among other things. He can’t help himself. It’s in his name. You can’t escape your name.”

  I step closer, narrow my eyes.

  “Are you always so philosophical when you’re drunk?”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “Besides, there’s no such thing as destiny. We have free choice. People choose what they are.”

  “You mean who they are.”

  “I mean what they are.”

  She considers for a moment before standing and coming up to me to push her finger into the middle of my chest.

  “Do you know the man you have aligned yourself with, Cristiano Grigori? Do you have any idea what he is?”

  One knee gives out and I catch her elbow to steady her. I open my mouth to tell her I know exactly what her uncle is, but she shifts her gaze, distracted by the little bit of red on her finger. She looks from her finger to the smear of blood on my chest, then at the tattoos, at the reddened skin. She peers closer, wipes her finger over the name of her brother. Then, she scratches her nails across the tattoos, across that raw skin.

  “Fuck!” I grab her wrist. “Like I said, you’re drunk.”

  She looks up at me. “Did you just do this? Is that what you were doing? Crossing off my brothers’ names?”

  I nod.

  She shifts her gaze to some of the others. The dozen or so that also have lines running through them. The few that haven’t yet met their fate. Then she does something completely unexpected. She lays her cheek on my chest, soft and warm, her hair tickling my chin. She slides it over the tattoos.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask, releasing her wrist.

  She draws back.

  I see the smear of blood on her cheek and she looks as confused as I feel. But then she touches Noah’s name. When she turns those burnt-sugar eyes up to mine, they’re wet. She sighs deeply, backing up. I think she means to sit on the edge of the bed but miscalculates and slips off the sheets to end up on the floor.

  I shake my head. “No more whiskey for you, Fury.”

  “We’re going to die, aren’t we?” she asks me, eyes wide when she turns them up to me. “What you’re doing now, it’s a game and when you’re finished playing, you’ll kill us. Or have my uncle do it.” She makes a gun out of her hand, points at her own head and shoots. “Pow. Dead.” She touches her cheek, smears tears into the blood. “He’s just a kid, you know.” She shrugs a shoulder then lays down on the floor at the foot of the bed and squints her eyes to look up at me.

  “Some girls are fun when they drink,” I say, crouching down to pick her up.

  She turns her face to me. “Newsflash. I’m never fun.”

  “No, I’m getting that. You’re a depressing drunk.” I gather her in my arms.

  She smacks my chest but it’s like butterfly wings fluttering against me.

  I smile. It’s kind of cute. “Give Fury a little whiskey and she turns into a little kitten.” I lift her up and carry her to the bed, draw the blankets back to lay her down.

  “I’m not drunk and I’m not a little kitten.” Her eyelids flutter closed hair splayed out around her. She’s taken it out of the braid, and it’s got some wave to it. A thick dark mass on the pristine white pillow.

  I walk into the bathroom for a washcloth, running it under the tap to wet it before returning to the bedroom. She’s in exactly the same position as I left her. I can’t help but shake my head.

  This is not how I expected tonight to go.

  When I touch the cloth to her cheek, she startles, gasping, eyes blinking open, hands coming to capture my wrist. On
guard. I get the feeling she’s always on guard, like me.

  “Relax. I’m just cleaning off the blood.”

  She studies my eyes, tilts her head a little and peers closer. “Your eyes are sad.”

  I don’t say anything. What can I say? I just watch her, this confusing girl.

  She reaches up to touch my temple, the scar there, a divot of missing skin.

  “My brothers did this.”

  Again, I remain silent.

  She shifts her gaze to my chest again, my arms, touching the scars there. The two more distinct ones are where the bullets penetrated my chest and side. I’m used to it, but I remember the shock I felt when I’d first seen them and imagine her reaction must be somewhat similar.

  When she looks back at me, she looks resigned. “No.”

  “No what?”

  “I didn’t fuck him. I’ve never fucked him, and I swear I’ll throw myself out of a window if it ever comes to that.”

  “That why they put you in the tower? The bars on the windows?”

  She smiles, eyes heavy-lidded. “I’m sleepy.”

  “Half a bottle of whiskey will do that to you.” I walk back into the bathroom to drop the washcloth in the hamper. When I get back into the bedroom, she’s rolled onto my side of the bed, her head resting on my pillow, hands tucked beneath her cheek.

  I pull the sheets back and consider what to do about her clothes. I decide to undo the tie, which is pretty tightly knotted.

  She makes a sound, her face contorting.

  “Shh. Relax.”

  She does. Just a harmless little kitten now.

  I push the sweatshirt up a little to get the knot undone, see a glimpse of smooth skin, her belly button. I look at her face. She’s pretty. Very pretty.

  And out cold.

  It’s what she wanted. To not remember me touching her. To not feel the pain.

  Do I believe that she hasn’t fucked Rinaldi? I get the feeling if she did, it wasn’t by choice. The thought makes me grit my teeth. Makes my blood run cold.

  I draw the blanket back and climb in. I tug her closer, so she doesn’t fall off the bed. At least I tell myself that’s why. She rolls over, her back to me, ass against my dick which my dick registers as an invitation.