With This Ring (To Have And To Hold Duet #1) - Natasha Knight Page 0,18

So, I don’t answer. Instead, I follow him through the large, open living room with its elegant, Venetian style furnishings and glance at all of the paintings we pass. I notice his eyes linger on one in particular. A woman in her late twenties. She’s beautiful.

“Who is that?”

“My mother,” he says without turning around.

His mother.

She was executed with the rest of his family by my brothers. By the man I was to marry.

I shudder with a sudden chill. If he notices he doesn’t say anything as we proceed into the decidedly cooler and darker corridor, the smell of must already present here. It’s the one that leads to the cells. I remember being dragged up here.

I make a mental note that we’ve only passed one soldier inside the house.

“Hold on to the handrail,” Cristiano tells me. He walks ahead of me like he can see in the dark.

“There aren’t any lights?”

“No.”

“Are you keeping Noah in the dark?”

He turns and I can just make out his eyes from the little bit of light coming from the house. “Better than six feet under, isn’t it?”

I swallow. Yes, I guess it is.

I miss the next step, gasping as I stumble forward. Cristiano catches me, steadies me, then wraps my hand around the handrail, his hand covering mine entirely, the skin rough but the act gentle. He keeps it like that, holding mine for a moment too long and I still have to look up at him even though he’s standing on the lower step.

“Hold on to the handrail,” he repeats.

I nod, breaking eye contact.

We walk on. Once we take the next turn on the curving stone staircase, I see light. I don’t wait for Cristiano to step aside or lead me to it, but rush there myself.

“Noah!” I close my hands around the bars and see my brother sitting on a cot eating the last of his meal. The source of the light, a flashlight beside him.

“Scarlett!” He rushes to me, hugs me through the bars. “How did you get away from him?”

“She didn’t,” Comes Cristiano’s voice. He takes up space at my back, too close, making the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end.

Noah looks up at Cristiano who has a good six inches on him and about seventy-five pounds.

“You ate?” Cristiano asks as I look my brother over. He doesn’t seem to have any new bruises, no broken bones that I can see.

“Yes, sir,” Noah says.

I can tell Cristiano likes this. “Have you been beaten?” he asks.

“What?” Noah asks.

“Beaten. Did anyone abuse you?”

“No. No, sir.”

Cristiano nods and turns to me looking at me with a ‘told you so’ expression on his smug face. But then he takes my arm and turns me away.

“Hey.” I try to claw his arm off.

He stops, looks back at me. “You saw your brother. He’s fed. He’s unhurt. Let’s go.”

“That’s not really fair.”

“It’s exactly what you asked for.”

“But…no. That’s not…I want to talk to him. Can he come upstairs? He’s harmless.” I gesture to Noah as if to make a point.

“Are you warm?” Cristiano asks Noah over my head.

“I…guess.” I forget how young he is. Just a kid. So unlike Diego and Angel were. “I have a blanket.” He points to it as if he doesn’t want to be any trouble.

Cristiano turns back to me. “You’ll visit tomorrow.” He pulls me to the stairs.

“He’s probably scared down here all alone.”

“I think he’s old enough to no longer be afraid of the dark. Let’s go. If you give me trouble, you won’t see him again.”

I go with him because I don’t have much choice. “Does that mean we’ll both be alive tomorrow?” I ask when we’re upstairs.

He releases me, looks down at me. Sweeps his eyes over my—his—clothes. “I haven’t decided. That’s my favorite tie by the way.”

I look down at the end of the tie hanging out from underneath the sweatshirt. “I wasn’t going to put that dress back on and I wasn’t going to walk around naked, so I didn’t have much choice. If you give me a different tie you like less, I’ll give this one back to you.”

He reaches to pull the sweatshirt up and I grip his forearm. Not expecting it, I’m not sure what he’s about to do. Not that I’d be able to stop him if he wanted to strip me naked right here. But he just fingers the knot.

“It’s ruined.”

“I’m sure it’s not ruined, and I didn’t know it was your favorite tie.” I think of