“I’ll never stop fighting him.”
“Our family murdered his family. Tried to kill him.”
“No, not our family. Diego and Angel. Not us. Not our parents.”
“Well, I can see where he’s coming from.”
I snort.
He sits on the bed, tests it. “Nice. I got a room down the hall but it’s pretty bare bones.”
“Lucky you. Is your lock on the outside?”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re alive. We’re alive. He’s going to marry you. You’ll be his wife.”
“For the cartel. He is using me to get to the cartel.”
“Doesn’t matter. It means something to him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it’s different than it was when it was Rinaldi. I know how Rinaldi was to you.”
I feel my face burn. Does he know what they did too? Did our uncle enlighten my kid brother to my humiliations? I scrub my hands over my face but when I open my eyes, I’m still here, in this little girl’s room. Still trapped in this nightmare.
“Cristiano, even the way he talks about you is different,” Noah goes on and it’s like we’re living in two different worlds.
“What do you mean when he talks about me?”
“Nothing.” He shrugs a shoulder. “When he told me about the wedding and all.”
My right hand moves to turn the engagement ring on my finger and my brother looks at it. He comes toward me, takes my hand.
“He gave you that?”
I look at it too and shrug a shoulder. “Please don’t tell me you’re impressed. A big diamond means nothing.”
“It’s not that,” he says, studying it.
“What is it then?”
“I was just downstairs. You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“It’s his mother’s ring.”
“What?”
“In the portrait in the living room. The one that looks like she’s staring right at you.”
“I know the portrait but I never noticed a ring.”
“I had some time to study it while Cristiano was in a meeting with his uncle. That guy’s a dick by the way.”
“Well, we agree on that.”
I look down at the ring anew and remember how he looked panicked when I had taken it off this morning. Why would he give me his mother’s engagement ring?
“See. He’s different than that douche, Rinaldi.”
I shake my head. “Don’t do that. He’s not better than Marcus or our brothers,” but even as I say it, I know it’s not true and his words ring in my ears and I want to shut them out. Shut him out.
“I need a friend, Scarlett. Just one friend.”
Crap.
I understand that need. Why did I push him? I know he’s hurt. I know he’s alone. I think Cerberus is truly his only friend and how sad is that?
“Are you wearing that to your wedding?” Noah asks.
I have to swipe the back of my hand over my eyes to clear away any stray tears before I look down at myself in this oversized robe. “I should. It’d serve him right.”
“He hasn’t hurt us, Sis. He probably has more right to than anyone else had but he hasn’t.”
I study my little brother, see him for the fifteen-year-old kid he is. Diego and Angel were the worst to him. Found him weak because he’s gentle. Because somehow, in our world, he manages not to be filled with hate.
“I’ll get dressed,” I say, going into the closet which can swallow up the various rooms I’ve been locked in whole.
The dress he chose is simple. Just a straight satin floor-length white silk gown that fits like a second skin. I actually like it. But I’m not wearing it. Right beside it is the one that’s more fitting.
Once I’m dressed, I walk out and stand in front of the full-length mirror.
“That’s the dress?” Noah asks, looking confused. He’s holding something in his hand. A toy or something. “I guess it’s prettier than what Marcus had you wearing.”
“Anything would be prettier than that disaster.” I finger comb my hair. I already decided to leave it down and I don’t plan on much makeup. Just a little mascara and lipstick.
“One day, when this is all over, you’ll actually fall in love.”
“No, I won’t. Love just isn’t in the cards for me.” I say, my throat closing up again. How am I ever going to make it through this ceremony?
“No veil?” Noah asks.
I glance at my mother’s veil. “I don’t want to get blood on it if things go wrong.” It’s a joke but in such poor taste even I wince.
“Well, you look really pretty,” he says. “Different than you did when it was Marcus.”
“Thanks. Hey, you’re walking me down the aisle, right?”
“What?” he asks, putting the toy down and picking up a framed photograph.
“You’ll walk me down the aisle?”’
“Someone has to or you’re going to trip over your own feet in those shoes,” he says, pointing to the pair of four-inch pumps that look like Cinderella’s glass slippers. He glances at the photo again. “Scarlett, do you know whose room this was?”
I come to glance at the photo of the little girl standing with some friends around a swimming pool, hair soaked, all with happy smiles on their faces. “Elizabeth. Cristiano’s sister.”
“Elizabeth?”
“Yeah. She was killed, too.”
“Do you know this one’s name?” he asks, pointing to the little blonde-haired girl next to Elizabeth.
I shake my head.
He turns the photo over and takes it out of the frame.
“Mara,” he says before turning it over to study her again.
“She was here too, apparently. She’s Lenore’s granddaughter. She disappeared. I don’t want to think about what they might have done to her.”
He nods, puts the photo down but seems preoccupied as he walks me out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
28
Cristiano
I check my watch, adjust my cuff link. She has four minutes.
It’s cooler today than it’s been, a storm rolling in. I watch the clouds as I think about the afternoon. My uncle is pissed I wouldn’t tell him where the wedding would take place.
I don’t want him there for a stupid reason. I don’t want him to see my mother’s ring on Scarlett’s finger.
Lenore must have mentioned that Father Michael would be performing the ceremony. He thought that was dramatic and unnecessary.
I told him I needed it to be done right. In a church with a priest. No city hall. I told him I didn’t want the cartel thinking it’s not a real marriage. Not that I really think they would. We’d be legally married in a ceremony at civil hall too.
“The men have secured the chapel, sir,” Antonio says to me.
I nod and the roof door opens.
“Still not sure why a justice of the peace wouldn’t have done it,” Dante notes.
I don’t comment. He doesn’t like Scarlett simply because she is a De La Cruz. I understand.