Shadow Flight

by Christine Feehan

  Taviano could barely keep the grin from his face. His woman was no shrinking violet. She might not want to be rude to Lucia’s friend, his mother, but she wasn’t going to take Eloisa’s bullshit anymore, not after his revelations.

  The color drained from Eloisa’s face. “How dare you speak to me like that?”

  “Why? Because of your age? What have you ever done to earn my respect? Not one single thing. You haven’t shown any compassion toward me and what happened to me, but why would you when you couldn’t show it to your own child? You don’t have to like me, Eloisa. In fact, I don’t care one way or the other if you do. But you aren’t going to be rude to me in my own home. You aren’t going to be rude to me in front of Lucia and Amo anymore because it makes them uncomfortable, and when you leave, Lucia cries. You’re bitter and angry because you made very bad choices, and you refuse to stop making them, as if somehow that’s going to justify what you did. Here’s a news flash for you.” Nicoletta leaned forward, staring her mother-in-law straight in the eye. “There is no justification.”

  Eloisa’s face changed from icy hauteur to sheer hatred. She actually shrieked, her hand flashing out, fingers curved into a claw, long nails like hooks slashing at Nicoletta’s eyes. The sound of Taviano’s hand connecting with her wrist was loud as he slammed his mother’s arm away from Nicoletta, who had turned just enough and shockingly fast so that the claw barely missed her face. He’d hit his mother’s arm hard, so hard he was afraid he had bruised her at the very least, maybe even cracked a bone. He hadn’t had time to soften the block, fear for Nicoletta uppermost in his mind. Eloisa looked as shocked as Taviano felt. He’d never seen his mother lose control. She could have blinded Nicoletta.

  “I’m sorry,” Eloisa whispered, cradling her arm. “Really, Taviano, I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Let me look at your arm.”

  She shook her head and stepped back. “It’s all right. It was a mistake coming here. None of you listen anyway. You do what you want. What Stefano thinks is best. He always thinks he knows so much more than I do.”

  Nicoletta got up and went to the freezer without saying a word. Taviano pulled a chair out at the table and got his mother to sit. His woman handed him the ice pack as she sauntered back to her chair, not even pausing so that Eloisa didn’t seem to notice. He wrapped the pack around his mother’s arm.

  “We listen to you, Eloisa. Even Stefano listens. We’re loud and we argue, but we take what everyone says into consideration. It’s a generation thing. We’re noisy. In the end, we do what’s right for the family.”

  “Do you? Are you certain of that?” Eloisa asked.

  Taviano picked up his cell and texted Henry, the man who had taken care of their family the longest. He’d been in their lives as long as he could remember. He loved cars and kept theirs in perfect running order. He seemed to love Eloisa no matter how she acted. He would bring a car out to the estate to take Eloisa back. Taviano didn’t want her riding the shadows with an injured arm.

  He poured his mother a cup of coffee and added cream. She never took sugar in her coffee or tea, but always took cream. “Would you care for an omelet?”

  He glanced at Nicoletta to see if she was eating. She hadn’t been eating very much lately, and to him it was worrisome. Her nightmares tended to come in bouts, and he’d noticed patterns. She often stopped eating for days before the nightmares became severe. She was pushing the food around on her plate.

  Eloisa shook her head. “No, I ate earlier. I had some reports to finish and send to your aunt and uncle. Taviano . . .” She hesitated. “I thought we put all that behind us. You’re a grown man now.”

  Nicoletta sat up, her back ramrod straight. Taviano had to find a way to silence her. She was furious all over again. There was no way to “put it all behind them.” His mother couldn’t understand that. She never would. She didn’t want to understand it. He saw no reason to have it out with her.

  “Where are you going with this, Eloisa? Just come out and say it. You’re not one to beat around the bush. If you have something to say, just tell us.”

  “If you bring this up now, even after all these years, you know your brother. He’ll lose his mind. We already have enough to contend with, thanks to . . .” She trailed off and studiously looked out the window to the beautiful view of the woodlands and brush. “We just have enough going on right now without your brother getting crazy. I don’t know why you felt it necessary to tell her anything at all . . .”

  “You mean share my past with my wife?”

  Eloisa flinched. “Really, Taviano? Your wife? Who is she really? Do you even know?”

  “Yes, Eloisa. Like you, I did my homework. Stefano, you, the entire Ferraro family, from the lawyers to the Archambault family, no doubt, investigated her lineage.” Taviano couldn’t keep the sarcasm from creeping into his voice.

  He took several deep breaths to try to keep his temper from flaring. He wanted his mother safe, and that meant keeping her there until Henry arrived with the car. “Seriously? You know damn well who her mother was. She was Leora Aita, from a very respected family that in the old days, long before they were stamped out by the Saldis, produced riders. A few of the Aitas escaped that massacre, but no one heard of their children producing riders after that tragedy. Leora married Asce Archambault, a cousin of the riders of France. He died when Nicoletta was two. I know you have this information, Eloisa.”

  Sometimes his mother exasperated him on so many levels. She made no sense at all. She had protested every one of his brother’s wives, when all of them had come from good families and could produce riders for the Ferraro family. The only conclusion he could draw was that she objected to the fact that they were love matches rather than arranged marriages.

  Eloisa had the reports on Nicoletta’s birth mother and father. She knew as well as he did the family she came from. The Archambault family—riders or not—were renowned in their world for the strength of their psychic talents.

  Taviano glanced at Nicoletta’s face. She had gone unnaturally still. Her dark eyes were on him, not his mother. Again, when normally Nicoletta was an open book, now she was impossible to read. He didn’t like the fact that she was so withdrawn that when he shifted to connect their shadows, he didn’t feel the jolt of awareness that always slammed so hard and deep into him. She’d taken herself somewhere else, and it was deliberate. She was protecting herself, and it wasn’t from his mother—it was from him.

  “Yes, I’m very much aware that Leora had the good sense to marry an Archambault. I’m certain they directed her toward a cousin because she wasn’t a rider, but still, it was probably a good match. But when he died, she chose to marry far beneath her. That nasty family from New York. The Gomez family. They were all gangbangers.”

  Color swept into Nicoletta’s face and her knuckles turned white where she gripped the edge of the table.

  “Nicoletta was adopted by Desi Gomez and taken out of New York, far from his brothers and the gang he was born into. He stayed away from all of his relatives. He worked hard and built a good life for himself and his family. He was a good man, Eloisa. Everything said about him was good. Even the cops had good things to say about the man. It wasn’t his fault that he was killed in a car accident.”

  “It was their fault that they didn’t have anything prepared for their daughter just in case they died, so she wasn’t sent to his brothers, now, wasn’t it?” Eloisa demanded, her voice snide.

  Nicoletta stood up. “I suppose so, just as it was your fault that you sent your ten-year-old son to two horrible men against the warnings of the family he was with because you were too lazy to take care of him on your own, and then you were so selfish you didn’t get any help for him because you didn’t want your precious life disturbed in any way.”

  She ignored Taviano, not even looking at him as she slipped past and opened the kitchen door, controlled violence in
her movements as she closed it.

  “This isn’t going to work, Taviano. She’s going to say something in front of Stefano. You know she will.” Eloisa cradled her injured arm to her and shook her head. “What a mess. I knew she would be impossible to deal with.”

  “You think you can cow everyone by being ugly to them, Eloisa. You push everyone away and then wonder why you don’t see your grandson or have Emme around anymore. Nicoletta is my choice. She was my choice from the moment I saw her. I knew she was mine. You don’t have to like it any more than you have to like any of your other daughters-in-law, but you won’t talk about her parents like that in her home and upset her, not if you want to come here. You’re banned from Stefano’s and that’s a tragedy, when Francesca would always welcome you. You’re banned from Vittorio’s because you’re nasty to Grace.”

  Eloisa rolled her eyes. “Grace. She’s a doormat for Vittorio and he spoils her rotten.”

  “She’s not a doormat. If he spoils her, how can she be a doormat? That doesn’t even make sense. She loves him, and it’s their relationship. She likes pleasing him. He likes pleasing her. They work together. That’s how it’s done, Eloisa. People find other people that fit with them, the way Nicoletta fits with me.” He glanced down at the text message. “Henry is here with the car. I’ll be happy to walk you out.”

  “I don’t think she fits quite as well as you think she does,” Eloisa said, standing. She gave him a little smirk. “She wasn’t in the least bit happy you and the family investigated her. She doesn’t understand money, and she never will. Don’t bother. I found my way in. I can find my way out.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Taviano wound his way along the narrow path through the thick trees and brush into the deeper interior. The woods had been planted years earlier and had a good heavy growth. The vines creeping up the trunks gave off a perfumed lilac scent. Birds called to one another and he could hear the wings fluttering as they moved from branch to branch overhead. Instead of the lightness he normally felt when he took this trail, there was a heaviness that weighed on him.

  He took in several deep breaths not only to calm himself but to calm Nicoletta, knowing that the heaviness was coming from her. It was embedded into the path itself and he felt it with every step he took. He moved slowly, not wanting her to feel as if she were being chased. Nicoletta could be lethal. She was a runner. And she was hurt by the things his mother had said about her adopted father. Desi Gomez had raised her from the age of two until she was fifteen, and from everything Taviano had read in the reports, he’d been a good man and an even better father. Nicoletta loved him just as she loved her mother.

  He reached for her, for the connection between them. It was strong whether she liked it or not. That connection was forged in something very powerful. The shadows were tangled and knotted and merged because of what they shared, the ultimate ugliness that had created two strong warriors.

  “You loved your parents. I don’t know that I can say that. I may have loved the idea of parents, but I can’t say that I love mine. I want to. I want to say Phillip was worth something, but he wasn’t.”

  He didn’t raise his voice very loud. He didn’t have to. He was close to her. “Not to any of his children, and he treated Eloisa so horribly that it may as well be called abuse. He didn’t hit her, but it was emotional abuse. We all saw it. He knew her parents had drilled it into her that riding the shadows was her duty and that she had been born to do that and only that. It was her only worth. That gave him leave to do anything he wanted, and he took it. I detested him. All of us did. No, I can’t say that I ever loved him.”

  Silence met his declaration, but she heard him. He knew by the sudden stirring in his mind. It felt feminine. She’d been crying, and that broke his heart. “I don’t like that you choose to cry alone. When you cry, Nicoletta, I prefer that you do it with my arms around you.”

  Birds called back and forth, a loud noisy monologue that seemed to be over some kind of intruder the flock took exception to. The air would fill with small birds swooping and climbing high and then diving gracefully all together so they looked like one large shadowy machine chasing off a predator. He studied the images and knew she was doing the same thing.

  “Are you comparing those birds chasing off the hawk to you chasing off my mother?”

  There was the impression of a shrug. Their connection through their merged shadows was very strong and she wasn’t blocking it anymore. He was grateful for that, although he could feel her hurt and anger. Even her disdain. “Maybe not just your mother. Maybe you and your entire family with the way you treat people, Taviano. You’re so casual about your entitlements.”

  He kept walking. Quiet. Controlled. Padding along the path like the predator he was. She knew he was one. She knew his entire family had been born predators. They were raised to be very skilled at what they did, and they had grown into extremely lethal beings. She was right that there was a sense of entitlement to some of their ways. They always investigated anyone who came close to them. They didn’t think anything about it or what effect it might have on the person being investigated should they find out. They’d never much cared one way or the other. The investigation was always thorough and a fact of life.

  At times they offered a token resistance, but they always knew it was going to be done. When Nicoletta had been brought home to their family, there had been no question about doing an investigation, especially when they were asking Lucia and Amo to take her in. The Ferraro family was sponsoring her. They would mentor her, assume responsibility for her. Naturally, they would want to know everything they could about her.

  Once the anomalies had begun to show up, the fact that her reflexes had grown faster, her movements in the shadows had increased, not decreased, so many things with Nicoletta that all of them noticed when training with her, they’d investigated even further, going so far as to make inquiries into the families in Europe, specifically the Archambault riders as to what psychic abilities their cousin had possessed.

  “I suppose it seems that way, tesoro.” He moved steadily, right behind her, just out of her sight. The birds had settled back into the trees now that the hawk had been driven away.

  “It doesn’t seem that way, Taviano, it is that way. All of you do whatever you want to do. You walk over other people. If you want something, you just take it. Or buy it. And you’re so casual about it. Eloisa is so cutting, not just to me but to anyone she thinks is inferior to her. What makes her so much better? Her money? Money doesn’t make anyone better.”

  “No, piccola, it doesn’t.” He hated the sadness in her voice. Everything she said was true from her perspective and yet it wasn’t.

  “Grace is so amazing. She really is. She’s like Francesca. Truly nice, and yet Eloisa looks down on her like she’s nothing, just the way she does Francesca.”

  “Tell me why we’re having a discussion about Eloisa and her opinions on anyone.” He was too close now. He inhaled and closed his eyes as he took her scent into his lungs. He didn’t want to move up on her until she was ready to face him. “You shouldn’t care about her opinions.”

  “I don’t.”

  There was confusion in her voice, and he knew he needed to see her face. She’d stopped walking. “You do or you wouldn’t be so upset. You’re very upset.”

  He pushed aside the heavy heart-shaped leaves and fragrant clusters of flowers hanging from a basswood tree and she was sitting beneath it, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them tightly, gently rocking back and forth. She didn’t look up when he sank to the ground opposite her.

  “Nicoletta. Tell me why you’re so upset over the things Eloisa has to say about everyone.”

  She reached down and gathered up dirt in her hand, slowly letting it leak through her fingers to the ground. “You’re all different. You have to be. You can’t be like everyone else. I thought I could be like you, but it’s really not possible
. I’m never going to fit in. At first I wanted to blame it on the fact that I was raped.”

  She used the back of her hand to rub her forehead, as if she might have a headache. Taviano didn’t interrupt her, although he wanted to. He wanted to reassure her that she belonged with him no matter where they were or who he was. He forced himself to remain silent and hear her out.

  “I realized, when Eloisa was talking so disparagingly about my mother and father, that I remember the way my mother would take me through the neighborhood, and we’d go to the park or library and wave and say hello to everyone. She knew everyone by name. They knew her. She liked them. She laughed all the time. She didn’t talk behind their backs. Not ever. She would have been so angry with me if I had done so. She gave me those lessons, Taviano, from the time I was little. People mattered to her, not money.”

  “You mean the way they do to Francesca and Stefano? Or Grace and Vittorio? You aren’t as close with Giovanni and Sasha, but Sasha is just as down-to-earth as Francesca and Grace. Giovanni is the first man to look out for those less fortunate. Trust me, Sasha would box his ears if he ever got too pompous. Mariko doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, and Ricco is very kind. We work hard, Nicoletta, and most of what the public sees is so we can have alibis for what we don’t want them to see or know about our real business.”

  She nodded. “I understand that. On the other hand, it’s so easy to just get on your private plane and go to any hotel and buy out an entire floor or the entire hotel if you want.”

  “So, what you’re upset about is the fact that we have money.”

  “I’m upset because you married me, Taviano, for all the wrong reasons, and I let you. I just let you. That’s why I’m upset.”

  He studied her averted face. He could feel distress pouring off of her in waves. “You couldn’t care less about money. You didn’t marry me for that.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know why I married you. This is humiliating enough. The good thing is, we didn’t consummate the marriage. We can get it annulled.”