With This Ring (To Have And To Hold Duet #1) - Natasha Knight Page 0,82

who come into view. I don’t recognize them.

“Get up.”

“Fuck you.”

“Lift her out.”

They’re on either side of me before I can make a move. Two sets of hands hauling me to my feet, water dripping off me, splashing onto the bathroom floor as I fight. It’s no use, I know.

“Where’s Cristiano?” I yell to my uncle as he stands perusing me.

“Take her.”

One of the soldiers reaches for a towel.

“Like she is,” my uncle instructs, and the soldier only hesitates momentarily before he drops the towel.

I fight as they lift me off my feet, kicking when they throw me face down onto the bed and drag my arms behind my back. Binding my wrists first, then my ankles. I manage to kick one in the nose before they can secure my legs.

Once I’m bound, they stand me up. The one I kicked wasn’t the one who had reached for the towel. He raises an arm to slap me, but my uncle grabs it.

“Not her face,” he says. “Don’t mess up her face.”

But when the soldier makes a fist to punch me in my belly, he doesn’t interfere. He just looks on as I double over, the wind knocked out of me so I can’t even scream.

Once is enough, but he does it a second time, before I’m lifted, doubled over, and carried out through the house. I see Alec on the floor at the opposite end of the room. He’s cradling his arm but he’s alive. The rest of Cristiano’s soldiers are lying on the ground dead or dying. I wonder how I didn’t hear the bullets, but I know a moment later when we get outside. Another soldier is dragged to his knees and executed with a bullet to the back of the head. The gun is fitted with a silencer.

I’d scream but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this. Not even the second or third. And it all happens so fast. The icy rain on my naked skin, my feet scraping against stone, shin slammed into the back of the car as I kick my legs, bound to make a mermaid’s tail. I’m lifted and dumped into the trunk of a waiting car.

35

Cristiano

It’s a dream. I know it. There’s a texture to it. An echo in the sound. I know it and it still doesn’t make a difference. This fucking nightmare, this chapter of my life, will always own me.

Except that this time, something’s different. But I can’t figure out what it is.

The marble is cold beneath me as I watch the blood circle widen. Deep red on pristine white.

They’re already here. My brothers. My father. I can hear them, but I can’t open my eyes to see.

I hear her too. My mother.

I drag my eyelids open. The first thing I see is my own reflection in the mirror of blood. My face white as the marble should be.

I should have died. Why didn’t I die?

They’re on their knees. Michael’s already dead. His eyes are open but he’s already dead.

That echo comes again and then I hear it. I hear him tear her dress. See her pushed to her knees in my periphery. See her hands slip in Michael’s blood.

She’s wearing a red dress tonight. She wasn’t wearing red that night. But maybe that’s blood on the dress and I can’t see straight.

I want to wake up. I want to wake the fuck up. Too much whiskey. My uncle was right.

“I figure if I’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”

No. That’s wrong. That’s Scarlett’s voice. She doesn’t belong here. Not in this dream.

But she’s here and she’s crying. Sobbing. Calling for me. Asking for help. Pleading for it.

And I can’t move. But when I open my eyes again, I see him. I see Marcus on her and all I can do is lie there in my own blood. All I can do is watch him do it just like the last time.

“…won’t hurt as much.”

But it’s not my mother on her knees before him. It’s not her in the red dress.

I claw at the floor, hands slipping in my own blood. And she’s calling for me. She’s begging me to help her. To make him stop. And I can’t fucking get to her.

“…won’t hurt as much.”

He hurt her. That’s why she’d drank so much the first night because she expected pain. I remember it now.

I wouldn’t have hurt her.

“Scarlett.” Does she hear me? “I’m coming.”

But I’m not. I can’t. All I can do is watch her face lying