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

door. I look from it to her. She’s humming a tune, a strange, creepy little lullaby.

“Sweetheart,” I say, walking to her. I wipe the few drops of blood that got on her face off. “What did they do to you?”

The door opens then, and I spin around.

Two soldiers enter followed by Felix and another man. A big man. He’s in a suit that barely contains him. He looks a little older than Cristiano. He has blond hair and blue eyes that are so pale they’re almost eerie to look at.

They take in the woman lying on the floor. Felix’s eyes land on the lamp, then me.

“What did you do?” he asks through clenched teeth.

The man beside him laughs outright. He pats Felix on the shoulder and Felix looks so small next to him. “You have trouble, Felix,” he says with an accent that I’m pretty sure is Russian.

“No trouble I can’t handle,” Felix spits, eyes on me.

The man, what was his name? Petrov? Yes. Petrov’s eyes land on Mara who is still sitting in her chair. He smiles at her. “Do you like my gift, little doll?” he asks her, his tone different when talking to her.

It makes my stomach turn.

“I’m too old for teddy bears,” she tells him outright.

Felix mutters a curse and takes one step toward Mara, but Petrov catches him by the shoulder.

“What would you like then, little doll? What would make you happy?”

She just stares at him, her face expressionless.

“Tell me what gift you’d like,” he says.

“A gift?” she asks him, standing.

He nods, appraising her. “Name it. It will be yours.”

“I can have anything I want?”

I stand by and watch this, unsure what the hell is going on.

“Anything.”

“Don’t let him punish her.” She points to Felix.

My gaze snaps to Mara as Petrov’s lands on me. He walks toward her. I go to move between them, but someone grabs my arm to hold me back.

He’s a fucking giant. He towers over her.

“That’s what you want? You can have anything. That’s what you ask for?”

She nods.

“And you’ll be my good little doll if I give you what you want?”

She nods again.

“No, Ma—”

Mara’s gaze snaps to me, quieting me, and I see not a little girl in her eyes but someone much older. A survivor. One so brutally damaged, so broken, I’m not sure she can be unbroken.

She looks back up at Petrov. “Will you give me that?” she asks, her tone suddenly sweet.

He smiles dotingly, nods once, turns to face Felix, his hand wrapping possessively around the back of Mara’s neck.

I want to kill him. I want to lunge at him. Because men like him deserve to die.

“This is Grigori’s wife?” Petrov asks although I’m pretty sure he knows.

Felix nods.

Petrov looks at me, appraises me, nods. “Felix won’t touch a hair on her head, will you, Felix?”

Felix shifts his gaze to me, hate in his eyes, and I hear the wording, the exact and deliberate formation of Petrov’s sentence.

“I will not touch a hair on her head,” Felix repeats, eyes narrowing, a wicked little grin twisting his lips.

“Then we shall take our leave,” Petrov says. “Come,” he tells Mara.

Mara turns to me. She gives me a strange, crooked smile and something inside me constricts because I know what will happen to her. I think she does too. And there won’t be a thing I can do to stop it.

I watch him walk her out of the room. Felix keeps a smile pasted on his face as they disappear. He then turns to walk toward me.

“How could you do that? Let him take her? She’s a little girl. Just a little girl.”

“She’s not your problem. In fact, you have much bigger problems to worry about, Cousin.” He nods to the man who has hold of me. The soldier starts to walk me out of the room.

“You promised not to hurt me! Let me go!”

“I will keep my promise. Just like I kept my promise to let your husband know Marcus Rinaldi’s location.”

I stop. “You did that?”

He nods.

“You set him up?”

This time he smiles. “I always keep my promises, Cousin.”

We step out into the hallway just as another door opens and another woman, one I vaguely recognize from the boat is escorted out.

“Let me go!” I fight the guard now, knowing Felix sent Cristiano to his death. Knowing I’ll join him soon.

“I won’t touch a single hair on your head,” Felix continues calmly as if I haven’t spoken at all. He turns to walk in the opposite direction.

39

Scarlett

Over the next twenty minutes two men keep me down while three women do their work. One waxes me to within an inch of my life. The only hair left on my person is that on my head and my eyebrows. I’m beyond feeling embarrassed at this point. I’m just fighting and I manage to kick one of the women in the nose. I’m pretty sure I break it, but I don’t care.

Finding me too much trouble to apply makeup like they have to the other women, they brush out my hair and leave it loose down my back before attaching heavy cuffs to both my wrists and ankles then securing my arms at my sides by chains that attach to the ankle restraints. My ankles are connected too, by a short chain that makes every step a hazard.

There are more than a dozen women in here with me. I recognize a few of the younger ones from the boat. We’re all naked, my towel long gone. I’m the only one whose chains connect at the ankles, though. Theirs lock their arms to their sides but give them some mobility.

They’re heavily made up, each more beautiful than the last. Each more terrified than the last. We’re made to walk down a long, narrow corridor that’s dimly lit toward the single door at the end.

It’s loud in here. The sound of our chain gang reverberating off the walls.

An armed soldier leads the procession with several to accompany us. Although I hear some of