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

“Let’s go,” I say, then glance at the woman who has started sobbing again. One of the soldiers is holding on to her. She’s not struggling against him, but she wants out. “Let her go,” I tell him.

We file out of the decrepit house and back to our vehicle. With traffic, it takes us almost an hour to get to the hotel where, according to Antonio’s contact, David checked into the Presidential suite for one night under an alias. That alias has a first-class seat booked on a plane heading to Dubai first thing in the morning.

“Does he have men with him?” I ask as we enter the property.

“No. Not that my contact has seen.”

“Anything else on the location of that auction?” I ask for the hundredth time even though I know Antonio would tell me the instant he knew anything.

“Not yet.”

The three of us ride up on the elevator accompanied by two soldiers.

“He’ll know,” Dante says.

I look at him, see the furrow between his brows. He’s processing all this. Processing our uncle’s betrayal.

He runs a hand through his hair and looks at me. I get that he’s feeling responsible for allowing Scarlett to have been taken. He is, on some level. He should have protected her. But I also understand why he didn’t.

“He’ll know where she is. He doesn’t leave loose ends,” he adds.

“Aren’t we loose ends?” I ask him.

His gaze darkens and he shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Cris. Makes no fucking sense.”

I nod because he’s right. It doesn’t make sense that he’d massacre our family and leave us alive when he could easily have killed us. Me at least. I lay helpless in a coma. Dante too. Dante trusted him. We both did. It would have been easy for him. What was there for him to gain by keeping us alive apart from having me become his personal killing machine when someone crossed him?

“He’s going to explain it to us now, Brother.”

The elevator lets us off at the twenty-second floor. There are two doors in the hallway. Two suites. One is empty. Or was until I booked it. I won’t take a chance that we’re interrupted.

“How are we doing this?” Antonio asks when we step off the elevator.

I turn to him. “We’re not. Dante and I are. And we’re walking right up to the door and knocking.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Antonio asks, clearly, he doesn’t think so.

“I’m sure.”

Antonio and the soldiers flank us as we walk to the double doors of my uncle’s suite. Once there I raise my hand and knock.

“It’s about time,” my uncle’s voice carries before he even opens the door. “Does your chef know what rare—”

He’s mid-sentence when the door opens. He looks pissed off, holding a plate with a steak on it, the piece of meat sliced in two sitting in its own bloody juices.

My mouth moves into a smile of its own accord. I don’t feel it though. What I feel is a hardening in my chest. A deadening. Because when I look at this man, all I see are the bodies of my family lying on that bloodied marble floor.

“Uncle,” I say as he looks first at me, then at Dante.

For a brief moment, I see that we’ve surprised him. That he truly did not expect us.

“Cristiano!” He smiles wide, sets the dish down on a side table. “I thought you were dead!”

“Hm.” He almost moves in as if to hug me, but I push past him into the suite. Dante follows. Antonio and the soldiers stand sentry at the door as Dante closes it.

“Steak not rare enough?” Dante asks peering at it. “Looks good and bloody to me.”

I take in the large room, the wall of windows, the river that separates North Amsterdam from the center. All the lights, the lives being lived oblivious to what happens under their unsuspecting noses.

Scarlett is out there somewhere. Alone. Unprotected from men like my uncle.

I turn to face him. “Where’s my wife?”

“Scarlett?” He glances at Dante but only momentarily as he addresses me with his answer. “I gave her back to Felix. Unharmed. I thought you were dead, Cristiano. I needed to protect Dante. She was a peace offering.”

“It didn’t look very peaceful on the video you left behind.”

“That was Felix. Not me.”

“You told me my brother was dead,” Dante says.

“I thought he was,” he says like he’s confused by the question.

“No. The soldier who passed the news on, told you I was injured but stable,” I tell him. “I don’t have time for this. Where’s my wife?”

“I don’t know. I took her to the address Felix specified and from there, I don’t know.”

I remember Scarlett talking about how calm she remained in violent situations. How her heartbeat didn’t even accelerate. She thought she might be a monster. I told her she wasn’t. I stand by that.

Because I’m looking at the real monster. His mouth is moving but all I hear is the sound of bullshit. “I don’t even know why you—”

I take hold of his arm, drag him to the desk in the corner and slam his hand flat onto it before taking the letter opener and stabbing it through the back of his hand with so much force, so much rage, that the wood splinters as the blade penetrates the desktop.

My uncle’s scream is choked like it’s caught in his throat. His eyes widen to stare at his impaled hand, at the blood seeping from it, at me.

“Where. Is. My. Wife?”

He turns from me to Dante who is watching from a few feet away. Dante picks a French fry off a dish beside my uncle’s half empty glass of wine. He dips it in mayonnaise and eats it like it’s the most normal, casual situation.

“That’s nasty,” he mutters, eating another one without the mayo. “I’d heard the Dutch eat their fries with mayonnaise, but I didn’t believe it. Why would anyone do that?” He picks up the bottle of