I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two by Knight, Natasha (books to read in your 20s txt) 📕

rooms. I find them empty although there were people here at some point. Handcuffs hang from the headboards of the beds and the stench of fear clings to the walls.

“Upstairs,” Dante says.

I turn back to find him holding the woman who is pointing up. I move, weapon ready, hurrying up the narrow, winding stairs to the attic room. Its door is left open, the bed empty, no handcuffs on this one. Just a bucket, a camera with its red light still blinking and one of Scarlett’s shoes. Those ballet flats.

“She was here,” I say, tucking my gun away and picking up the shoe. It’s so small. She’s so small. And on her own. No match for the men of our world.

Antonio and Dante walk in behind me as I push a few buttons on the camera to play back the recording. I see her then. Scarlett carried in. Unconscious. Dumped unceremoniously on the bed. Handcuffed to it. My uncle giving the orders from the sideline obvious even though there is no sound.

Dante stands beside me as we watch Scarlett wake. As I see her take in the surroundings. As I see her decide she’ll fight even if it’s impossible.

And when she gives the camera the finger, I give a half-hearted, bitter smile. “That’s my girl.”

“She’s tough,” Dante says, and I realize I said that out loud.

I push the button to forward through the footage until I get to Felix Pérez walking into the room. I watch them have a conversation. I watch her spit in his face. I watch him slap hers so hard he almost knocks her out. When she opens her eyes, she’s dazed. She rights herself and I see the cut on her cheekbone, see blood stain her face.

That’s the breaking point for me.

I close my hand over the screen, my throat tight, jaw tense, everything inside me wanting to break. To kill. To demolish.

I take the camera and smash it against the far wall the way I will smash both my uncle and Felix Pérez.

34

Scarlett

We drive out of the city, mostly taking backroads to wherever we’re going. The three of us in the backseat are quiet while Felix alternates between taking calls and singing along with the radio, like we’re on some bazaar family road trip. It must be at least two hours later that we reach our destination, a hulking house in the middle of nowhere, guarded heavily at the gates and beyond.

There must be two dozen cars parked out front and that many more soldiers loitering around the vehicles.

“This is the end of the line, ladies,” Felix says as the car pulls to a stop around back.

The girl, no, not the girl. I know her name. Her real name. Mara looks both curiously and fearfully up at the house.

Felix focuses his attention on me. “That’s turned ugly. Don’t make me hit you again.”

The doors open and we’re escorted out. Mara isn’t handcuffed and she walks a few steps behind the woman, a soldier at her heels.

My soldier takes me by the arm and keeps shoving me toward the back door which is opened before we get to the stairs that lead up to it.

“This way,” someone says, ushering us inside. “Two?” she asks Felix when she sees us. “I was expecting one.”

“Change of plans. I’m sure you can accommodate us.”

“Of course.”

“Put them together. That one is a sly one,” he tells her, pointing to me. “Keep your best guards on her.” He turns to the woman who strapped Mara’s hands in the SUV. “She needs to be bathed. Badly.”

“Asshole,” I can’t help but mutter.

The woman raises her eyebrows and gives me a look.

Felix glances at me. “One more word and I’ll cut out your tongue.”

I keep my mouth shut.

“Shall I take care of it, sir?” the woman we drove with asks.

“Do. Without leaving marks.”

She nods.

He turns to me. “She’s got a talent for not leaving marks. Isn’t that right, Lizzie?”

Lizzie—Mara—doesn’t answer.

He shifts his attention back to the woman who let us in. I wonder to myself how women work with men like this, knowing what they’re doing. Selling other women and girls.

“And this one, well, I don’t need to tell you what will happen if this one isn’t delivered in pristine condition. No one lays a finger on her. Helga will remain with her at all times.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he here?” I hear Felix ask as we’re ushered upstairs by Helga.

“Not yet but we’ve had word his envoy is on its way.”

I momentarily hear a harp as a server pushes a door open carrying an empty tray into the large kitchen. He doesn’t spare us a glance as we’re led up two flights of stairs to a luxurious hallway with gold and pink wallpaper and plush carpet. The patterns are dizzying. There are a dozen doors on this floor. As we walk past them, I hear some sound, but not a lot. What I can hear reminds me of the boat with those women. This must be the auction. This must be where they were brought.

Mara and I are taken to the room at the far end of the corridor. It’s a bedroom more luxurious than any I’ve seen. The huge bed is the centerpiece, the fabric draping it like something out of a princess movie. Pink all around, as far as the eye can see. I wonder if a five-year-old decorated this place.

Three men accompany us inside and Helga starts right away.

“You, sit.” She points to a chair in the far corner as if Mara is a dog.

Mara spares me a glance before walking to the chair and taking a seat.

Helga turns to me, looks me over, eyes scornful. I can’t tell how old she is. She could be thirty or sixty with her gray-streaked hair drawn back into a tight bun, face pudgy, the lipstick she has on strangely out of place, too pink, too smudged. She’s sturdy, built big.

She unhooks the same strap she’d used to strike Mara from her belt.

“Strip