I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two Knight, Natasha (top 10 most read books in the world txt) 📖

sure if it was all the alcohol. If he was still drunk. If that’s why he retched so badly.

I wonder if it’s the deaths themselves or finding us like we were that did the most damage. I’d bet the latter.

He doesn’t talk about it. He’s never talked about it.

“Is Dante around?” Charlie asks. The timing strikes me considering my thoughts.

I shake my head. “He went to bed.”

“That’s good.” His face is grave. Charlie is Dante’s godfather. He’s always been good to him. To both of us. I know he worries, too, about Dante’s state of mind at having been the one to find us. Sometimes I wonder what he’ll do when this is over. When revenge is taken. What’s next for my little brother? Is there anything? Or is he like me? Like I had been until only very recently.

“Here you go,” I hand Charlie a tumbler and take my seat behind the desk.

He holds his glass up in a toast that I know isn’t a happy one. Charlie’s in his late forties now. His thick dark hair has a single, wide gray patch at his temple. He’s had it as long as I can remember, and it makes him look distinguished.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“No, you’re not.”

He opens the large envelope and pulls out the thick stack of papers inside. From here I can see bundles clipped together made up of photographs, sheets of paper and even some newspaper clippings.

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

He smiles but it’s half-hearted. He extends the pages out to me and I reluctantly take them. I only glance down quickly before shifting my gaze back to his.

I feel the tattoo I’d drunkenly carved onto my arm burn. I knew this was coming, didn’t I? It’s why I asked in the first place.

“Those are the names you asked me to look into.”

I breathe. Try to manage the tension growing inside me.

I know what he’s going to say. I’ve suspected it on some level. But I’m still not ready for it.

“Those people,” he gestures to the stack. “They all have exactly one thing in common.”

I remain silent still.

“They’d made an enemy of your uncle.”

I drop the stack and get to my feet, shaking my head. “You’re wrong.”

Turning to the window, I look out onto the water. I wish I could be out there. Out there with her. I wish I could hold her and listen to the waves with her and not have any of this other shit going on.

“You’re wrong,” I repeat, turning to face him again. Although I’ve never thought Charlie and David enemies, they are not friends. They never were.

“I’m not wrong and you know it. It’s taken me over a year to get this together. I’ve been diligent, considering who he is to you.”

I turn to him. “You hate him. It’s no secret.”

“No, that’s not a secret.”

“Why?”

“Look through it, Cristiano.”

I pick up my whiskey and swallow the contents of the glass, feel it burn down my throat.

“Go on,” he insists. “You suspected it. It’s why you asked me to look into it. Look at them,” he says.

“My uncle saved my life. He could have let me die.”

“He’s using you. He’s always used you.”

I slam a fist into the desk. “He saved my fucking life!”

He stands, leans over the desk to reach the pages, turns them so he can sort through them.

“I’ll start at the most recent,” he says, unperturbed. Charlie isn’t a violent man. He’s an attorney. But he’s not afraid of me.

I don’t look directly at the bundles as he lays them out but the first set of names I recognize at quick glance. The latest couple.

“They were in business with David for some years, but that business came to an abrupt end when they realized he was stealing from them. Just putting a little aside every month.”

“Why would he do that? He has enough money.”

“He’s greedy. He’s always been greedy. Always had his eye on what didn’t belong to him.”

“What does that mean?”

He exhales, looks away like maybe he’s said too much.

“Charlie. What does that mean?”

He turns back to me. Studies me. “You weren’t that young. You had to have seen it.”

“Seen what?”

Charlie’s expression changes, emotions he is so good at keeping hidden creeping to the surface. Sadness, then anger. I recognize both.

“How he looked at your mother.”

“My mother?”

He grits his teeth. I watch his struggle to maintain control. He never mentions missing her or missing the family. David does. He tells me often that he misses them. But I see it in Charlie sometimes. He hides it well, but now and again, I’ll catch him looking at a photo or a painting or something of mom’s especially, and it’s been happening more since I came back to the house.

Charlie and my mom had a special connection from the beginning. I remember my uncle’s sneer when Dante mentioned it. When he told me the story of their friendship.

Charlie and my mom were good friends from university days. And at the time in his life when he’d been coming out, she’d been a support to him. I’d never known whether my uncle’s dislike of Charlie had to do with his sexual preference or his close relationship with my mother.

“No,” I say. Because if I’d seen that, even if I can’t remember it, wouldn’t I have some sort of muscle memory, some instinct to warn me against David?

“The next man, Fred Barnaby, this one got a little uglier. He blackmailed your uncle. Or attempted to until you took care of him.”

I remember Barnaby. Remember the comment he’d made asking me if that cheat had sent me, his thug.

“I could go on,” he says. “But I think you’re intelligent enough to do this yourself. It’s time you opened your eyes, Cristiano. The stakes are higher now.” There’s a pause. “There’s Scarlett to consider. Her life is in danger.”

Am I so obvious to him? Who else sees right through me? Sees this vulnerability?

“She’s under your protection now. As is her brother.