With This Ring (To Have And To Hold Duet #1) - Natasha Knight Page 0,4
know where he is?”
“Fuck no, you think I’d take the fall—”
“Then you’re of no use to me,” Cristiano says and straightens. He steps back and gives a nod. Just a nod. And my uncle points the gun between Diego’s eyes and pulls the trigger. It’s so fast, no hesitation, no time for Diego to beg. No time for me to even process, though I knew it was coming.
The sound reverberates off the walls. Why don’t they use a silencer? Blood and pieces of my brother’s brains splatter across the wall, and my face.
I wince, wipe it away, but I don’t scream. And I don’t look away. I watch instead. Watch Diego as his body twitches, still kneeling as if not realizing he’s dead, before finally dropping to the floor with a thud.
I don’t feel a thing. Not an ounce of emotion.
We’re all monsters, the De La Cruz family.
When I shift my gaze from my dead brother, I find Cristiano watching me, that curious expression on his face again.
Angel is looking at Diego motionless on the floor, half of Diego’s head missing. He’s next. He knows it. I know it. And he begins to whimper as Cristiano takes hold of his hair and forces him to look him in the eyes, while my uncle prepares the next shot.
“Where is he?” Cristiano asks. Same question.
Angel drags his gaze from Diego. He’s shaking. My two brothers, both cowards when they’re outgunned and outmanned.
I only wish it lasted longer. They deserve to suffer. Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he want that?
“Where. Is. Rinaldi?” Cristiano asks again. It’ll be the last time he asks. I know it.
Angel glances sideways to Diego momentarily before shifting his gaze back to Cristiano, then to my uncle. He’s trembling now. He used to laugh at me when I trembled.
“Please,” he begs.
Cristiano releases him with a disgusted expression on his face and steps back. I guess he doesn’t want to get his nice suit dirty. That alone is the signal my uncle needs to pull the trigger again, killing his other nephew. His godson, this one.
He’s never been much of a family man, but I didn’t realize he was a killer. Although I’m not surprised.
Cristiano’s eyes fall on Noah who is sitting up now, looking dazed, shocked. His head is probably spinning like mine was, jarred awake to witness this scene. This massacre of what remains of his family.
“Bring the boy,” Cristiano commands. Two soldiers move as if it would take them both to lift my fifteen-year-old tall but scrawny baby brother.
“No!” I’m on all fours then, scrambling toward Noah, the wedding dress slowing me down.
In my periphery I see my uncle raise his gun and aim at me. Then I see Cristiano’s hand close over his forearm and point the gun down.
Would he have shot me? God. Would he have shot me, too?
I throw myself between Noah and the soldiers, spread my arms out Christ-like. “No!”
One comes to shove me out of the way, but Cristiano makes a sound. A tsk. The man stops, steps backward. They’re like dogs, his soldiers. Well-trained dogs.
Cristiano moves toward me, my uncle on his heels.
“He’s a boy!” I scream, pushing my back into Noah in my attempt to shield him.
“Boys grow up to become men.”
“Please. He’s only fifteen. He was five when it happened. Five.”
My uncle cocks the gun, drawing all my attention.
“Look at me,” Cristiano says.
I blink.
“Me. Look at me.” He steps fully between my uncle and me, so I’m forced to. “How old were you?”
“What?”
“You. How old were you?”
I’m confused. I open my mouth, see my uncle’s impatient face move into view beyond Cristiano’s shoulder.
“Twelve,” I say to Cristiano, forcing myself to block my uncle out.
“One of my brothers was twelve. The other eleven.”
“We didn’t…Noah and I…” I shake my head, panicked as I see Angel and Diego’s bodies. Unable to block them out. “We weren’t part of that.”
“Hmm. But you would marry that Rinaldi bastard?”
“What?” It takes me a moment to process. “You think I had a choice?”
His response is a grunt but it’s something.
“Did you notice the fucking door you broke down was locked? That I was locked in?”
“The boy,” he says calmly to his solder, opposite my frantic tone. He holds my gaze as he speaks.
“No!” I’m on my feet and lunging for the soldier in the blink of an eye, fingers like claws, nails digging into flesh. But big hands grab me from behind and peel me off.