Eber played on his phone, eventually hunching to gain even more room, still uncomfortable. He straightened, spreading his knees wide as well as his elbows, head down, looking at his screen. The occupants in the front seat watched the road and discussed something she couldn’t catch above the pounding beat of the music, so Emmanuelle ignored them.
She rose up, caught Eber’s head between her palms and wrenched. The crack was satisfying. “Justice is served,” she whispered.
Shoving him to one side, she was over the seat and on the passenger before either he or the driver even knew she was there. She took out the man in the passenger seat without a problem. The driver fumbled for a gun, shouting profanities at her as he tried to bring it up from where he had placed it in the console between the seats.
Emmanuelle had one foot on the console, preventing him from pulling the gun out while she gripped his head in her hands. He fought by throwing himself around, but he had one hand on the box between the seats, still trying for his weapon, and one on the steering wheel. He could do little more than throw his head around. She simply used the leverage of her body and the technique she’d learned from the time she was a toddler and broke his neck. The moment she did, she pushed his body away from the wheel.
It took strength to drag him up and off the gas pedal and shove him against the driver’s side door, but she slid smoothly into the driver’s seat, so the exchange barely took seconds. She was grateful for all the upper body work she did every day. She could never have pushed that deadweight off the seat had she not worked out so hard for so long. It sucked that he was squished up against her as she drove, but it couldn’t be helped.
Fortunately, it was a fairly short distance before the lead vehicle was signaling to turn off the highway. At their destination, a small diner just on the edge of the city, she slowed as the other two vehicles pulled right up to the front. The 4Runner parked in the handicapped space. She didn’t pull into the lot. Instead, she deliberately positioned the truck so a shadow, thrown by the only overhead light, fell across the driver’s side door just to the right of the parking lot. Leaving the truck running, she opened the door, allowing the dead body of the driver to fall onto the ground into the brush. She hopped out, sliding straight into the shadow. It took her fast, shooting her up and over landscaping into a small patch of grass where an old dilapidated gazebo with the roof caving in sat on a cracked concrete slab, surrounded by rock and overgrown weeds.
“What the fuck, Brio!” a big man yelled as he stepped out of the 4Runner. “What are you doing?” He started toward the truck, and immediately, the others leaping out of the 4Runner surrounded him as he came purposefully across the parking lot.
Five more men wearing Demon colors joined them as they hurried toward the truck. The first man, obviously in charge, yanked open the door to Brio’s truck. The passenger spilled out, hanging obscenely upside down.
The men jumped back as if bitten, surrounding the truck, weapons drawn, as if somehow they were going to find the killer in the bed waiting for them. The leader pointed toward two men and sent them toward the gazebo. Two others were sent toward a dark row of shrubs. Two others went in the direction of the small grove of royal empress trees that decorated what had once been an outdoor eating area but now was overgrown with weeds. The leader kept the last two men with him to inspect the truck itself and the other three bodies in the back seat.
Vittorio signaled to Elie to take the two men headed toward the shrubs. Thick green leaves grew so close to one another it was nearly impossible to tell where one plant started and another ended. There had been an attempt to start a garden there at one time. Elie could see the faint stone path every now and then twisting through the thick shrubbery, partially broken in places by overgrown roots.
If the two men were trying to be quiet, they weren’t succeeding. He could hear their boots as they kicked up rocks and dirt and stumbled on the uneven, broken path. It was very dark, with the trees weeping overhead and the ominous clouds covering any light the moon might have provided. They were thorough in their search, splitting up, using their boots to kick under the shrubs when they couldn’t see beneath the thick branches. It was easy enough to find them, come up behind them and administer justice when they made so much noise.
Vittorio followed the two men into the grove of royal empresses. The men stayed close to each other, spoke little and when they had to sweep low, they went back-to-back. They were smart about their search. He was patient. There was always one moment, one second that gave an opportunity. He just had to be ready. He paced along with them, stalking them from only three feet away, sometimes less. One of them was uneasy, looking around, peering into the darkness, sometimes right at him, but he went still and never moved a muscle, and the man always looked away. The uneasy Demon stopped abruptly and retraced his footsteps, whispering to his partner to wait for one moment. He only went back five steps, but his partner had gone ahead an additional five. That was far too big of a gap for either of them to survive.
Vittorio had shadowed the nervous one, knowing the Demon was more likely to know something was wrong and not wait to discover if his partner was dead before making a run for safety. He delivered justice fast, and, as his partner turned back, alarmed that he didn’t answer, he killed him as well. Like Elie, he left the bodies where they fell.
Emmanuelle saw the two men headed her way. She didn’t have much cover from the overgrown weeds, but the shadow remained, thrown by the light in the parking lot. She stayed in the mouth of it and let the two men come to her. Cloud cover blocking out the moon cast darkness around the gazebo, so the strange shadow seemed bizarre, thrown like a grayish fog in a stripe over the ramshackle building.
One of the men peered inside before stepping in, beads of sweat gleaming on his face. His partner walked around the outside of the ruins. Emmanuelle waited until the man inside was close to her, his back to the shadow, his eyes on his partner. She delivered the signature kill, eased his body down and was back in the shadow all within two seconds, before his partner had time to turn his head.
“Ed?” His partner rushed inside, looking carefully around before dropping to one knee to feel for a pulse. “This is bullshit.” He turned his head to look around again.
Emmanuelle took him from behind, dropping his body on top of his friend’s. She stepped back into the shadow to ride it back to the parking lot, this time all the way to the pole where the lamp was, right in the middle of the lot. From the mouth of the shadow she could see Brio’s truck with three men just climbing out of it. They consulted briefly, one of them gesturing toward the 4Runner. The large man, clearly the leader, shook his head.
Emmanuelle could see that he was angry. She couldn’t blame him. He raised his voice, calling for his men to come back. He wanted whoever had killed those in the truck, but he also wanted his men to check in, and none of them had. She spotted Vittorio just to the right of the truck, stalking the three men. To the left was Elie.
The leader scowled and stepped around the hood of the truck almost directly into Vittorio’s path. Vittorio didn’t move a muscle. He just seemed to fade into the landscape. She’d seen him do it a million times, but it never failed to move her. She found her brothers extraordinary. They weren’t small men, but they could disappear when they needed to, simply become invisible.
How many times had Stefano drilled it into them that movement drew the eye and they needed to know how to be still? She had the worst time with that. She had developed a nervous habit of twisting her fingers together when she was upset. She’d worked hard at overcoming it, but sometimes it still got the better of her. It was a flaw, and she had so many. Her worst trait was being a poor judge of character when it came to men.
She watched as the brush behind one of the men came alive and Elie wrenched the neck of one of the Demons smoothly and efficiently, lowered him to the ground and disappeared. It was over in less than a second. She hadn’
t even blinked. So fast. She admired him. Respected him. He was that good. That handsome. So sweet to her. She constantly looked to find what was wrong with him—because if she liked him, something had to be wrong with him.
The leader spun around, hands on his hips, shouting for his men. There was an ominous silence in answer. He snapped an order to the man who had stayed close to him. That one nodded and jogged around the hood, calling out for the one Elie had taken out. Instantly, Vittorio was on the leader, his hands expertly positioned for the signature kill.
Elie stalked the last one. As the leader fell to the ground, Elie was on the remaining man. It was going to take a few minutes to find decent shadows to start the long ride home, but as long as they were not seen on the way back, they were golden.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Something’s on your mind, piccola,” Taviano said. They stood together just inside his music studio. He wanted to share it with her, although he had to admit, he found the thought of doing so a little nerve-wracking.
Nicoletta shot him a glance from under her long lashes, something he found sexy and fascinating, but it also set off his warning radar. Whatever it was she was wrestling with was something big, not small. Her small teeth bit down on her lower lip. She shrugged and walked away from him to look out the window of the recording booth.
He didn’t push her. Nicoletta would tell him in her own time. If he pushed her, she’d close down. Right now, she was struggling, and that surprised him. He thought they’d gotten everything out between them. He picked up his guitar, sat on the stool he liked and ran his fingers over the familiar strings.
Once he had the instrument in his hands, he immediately felt different. He imagined Ricco felt the same when he moved rope through his fingers. His guitar felt a part of him. The music inside of him he heard all the time struggled to come out. The moment the guitar was in his hands, his mind quieted. His fingers moved. He tuned it automatically. He could hear the slightest error, anything off pitch. He was certain that was one of the reasons he’d been so drawn to Nicoletta from the very beginning. Her voice was so tuned, so perfectly pitched. He would always remember the way it felt when he’d first heard her. Like a key turning in his chest to unlock something deep, something that allowed him to feel emotion, to let the lyrics he needed pour out of him with the right notes.
He played, watching her through half-closed eyes. Whatever it was she had held back hurt like hell. He wasn’t going to like it, but he knew he had to hear it. He switched to a melody he’d written after he’d met her, when he’d first seen her, that warrior woman-child. Those men had torn her down until she had been forced to choose death over what life they chose for her. He saw her, so brave, so courageous, standing up to those brutes, refusing to let them make her choices. And then trusting in total strangers, determined to live, and trusting in herself to figure it out if that went bad. She’d been . . . magnificent. Nothing had changed his mind about her since.
He played the melody and then sang it softly, the lyrics about the warrior, the woman-child, courageous, standing up to vicious monsters. Overcoming all odds. She was strong. She was everything a woman should be. She would grow into that woman and learn that no one would ever defeat her. She was beautiful. Brave. She was his world.
She drifted across the room to stand beside him. She touched him, her hand skimming his neck to settle on his shoulder. “Is that how you see me, Taviano?”
“Yes.” He kept his head down, his fingers moving lovingly over the strings.
“Even then, when I was so lost? You saw me like that?”
“You were still you, Nicoletta. I saw you. I always saw you. What happened to you threw you, just as what happened to me threw me. It didn’t define either one of us, nor did it defeat us.”
She ducked her head. “Benito Valdez raped me twice. It wasn’t just my step-uncles. When he got out of prison, he saw me on the street. He wanted me and I ran from him.” It came out in a rush. “I was so afraid. You’ve seen him. He’s a great brute of a man and he’s really mean. Especially to women. He really hurt me. And he told me he’d make my step-uncles give me to him. He decided I would provide him with children.”
Taviano continued to play without missing a beat. He detested the pain in her voice. He knew what it was like reliving experiences. Of course he knew. He’d read the reports. She didn’t have to tell him, but he knew she felt like she did. “Tesoro, this man is never going to get his hands on you again. Never again.”
He looked at her then, holding her gaze so she could see he was a Ferraro. He had been raised to be an assassin, a shadow rider. He didn’t like men such as Benito Valdez, and knowing how he treated women and children, he really despised him. Knowing what he’d done to Nicoletta made the man his number-one target. He wanted Nicoletta to see the killer in him. He was a predator. Benito Valdez was his prey—not just his but his entire family’s.
“Do you understand, Nicoletta? Can you see what I’m saying to you?” He didn’t stop playing, and never looked away from her.
She nodded her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I should have. I don’t know why it feels so much worse that he touched me, but it does. I didn’t want anyone to know, but then it felt like I wasn’t telling you the truth.”
“Thank you, amore mio. Everything you tell me feels like a gift.”
She rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “I know there was a very detailed report and you probably already knew it, but it didn’t come from me. I wanted it to come from me, not someone else. When I tell you things, Taviano, I feel like I’m letting them go.”
He didn’t deny that he already knew that Valdez had raped her. He’d read the reports the social worker had sent, her pleading letters, the recorded visit to the Ferraros in New York as well as the reports of the investigators in New York. The fact that he had found out three years earlier was the only reason he could find a way to distance himself from the crime enough to function at all. He wanted to wrap Nicoletta in a cocoon and protect her, but she wasn’t that kind of woman and she never would be. She wanted to be actively participating against Valdez, but she knew she wasn’t ready. This was more of a training exercise than anything else. She would stay in the shadows and Stefano would evaluate her ability to function.
He had utilized as much of their free time as possible in the meditation room, working with her on breathing techniques. That was more important than her self-defense skills at the moment, and she was already so good at that. She had to learn to handle the way the shadows ripped her body apart. The better she got at breathing her way through the pain and the way the ride screwed with imagination and feelings, the quicker she would learn to handle the pressure. Some riders never did. They had worked over and over at maneuvering through the house in the wider, easier shadows so her body had a chance to acclimate to the terrible toll riding took.
Taviano’s own father had been trained as a rider, but he was never able to be one. He used the shadows occasionally to go from one place to another, but never for work. That required too long of a time actually being in the tubes. He’d used them only for his affairs.
“I like your music, Taviano. You said you weren’t that good at playing, but that’s not the truth. You play better than many professionals.”
“I like your voice. You can sing, can’t you?” he countered.
She actually stepped back away from him, those long lashes fluttering. He found himself flashing a grin, his fingers finally stopping their movement on the strings.
“You can sing. You were just about to try to tell me a giant whopper.”
“I can’t. My mother could sing. She had a beautiful voice. She sang all the time. When she was alive, the house was always filled with music. She would break into song whenever anyone was grumpy.”
“Were you grumpy?” He set his guitar in its stand.
“Sometimes,” she admitted reluctantl
y. “In the morning. I’m not really a morning person.”
He found himself laughing. “I’ve seen you grumpy. I can tell I’m going to have to drag you out of bed in the mornings.”
She glared, trying to look tough. He thought she only looked adorable. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’m not above retaliation.”
He really laughed then and slung his arm around her neck, pulling her into him. “You’re a sweet only child, Nicoletta. I’m one of the youngest of seven. You learn fast to think of evil things to do to those who prank you.” He walked her out of his music studio.
She balked at the door, stopping him with a hand on his chest. “Your music is really good, Taviano. I suspect you already know that. Someone has to have told you, one of your friends. You know people in the industry. Don’t you even own companies that produce music and videos? I thought the Ferraros had their own label.”
“We’re silent partners, although not so silent anymore,” he admitted.
Some of the top musicians had jammed with him. They’d listened to his singles and wanted him to record the songs or allow the artists to record them. He’d refused. They were private, lyrics born of his private pain. Nicoletta’s private pain. Their struggles to overcome their feelings of inadequacy. Their growing strength, finding it first in themselves and then in each other. Each song was a record of something very personal, although no one would ever know that. Just Nicoletta.
“My songs are for you.”
She looked around the studio. It was as professional as it got. Then she looked up at him. He knew immediately, by the way her dark eyes glistened at him, that she got it. “You’re such a beautiful man, Taviano.” She put one hand over her heart. “I’ll learn to sing the songs if you really want me to, if they’re just for us. You gave me such an enormous, amazing gift. I want to hear every single thing you’ve ever written.”
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