Shadow Flight

by Christine Feehan

  She shook her head. “Taviano, you just don’t make any sense. And when you say the family’s money, are you including the cousins as well?”

  “Each part of the family makes their own money and builds their own financial empire, so to speak, but we contribute to the overall family wealth as well. That is overseen by a board consisting of a representative from each branch of the family.”

  “That’s so crazy. How do you all get along?”

  “We have a branch of the family that polices everyone. They make certain everyone does their jobs. The penalty for cheating or lying or doing the kinds of things that happened in Mariko’s family, once found out, is extreme.”

  “I see.”

  Taviano was certain she didn’t, but he didn’t want to explain to her how things worked in their family when riders—or anyone else—went wrong. That would be for another time. Right now, he wanted their time together to be as smooth as possible.

  * * *

  * * *

  Salvatore Ferraro stood in the shadow surveying the men wearing the colors of the Demons. Already drinking heavily, they didn’t look like men on a mission to back up their president. They looked more like men determined to get drunk and push the locals around. The locals had, for the most part, already gotten wise and left for the night. The bartenders, three of them, were old hands in the business, and clearly knew they were in for a long night of broken glass and little pay.

  Salvatore noted Lucca on the other side of the bar, just to the right of the flashing neon sign that proclaimed the best beer in town. Since the bartenders were pulling the beer out of a small refrigerator in the back rather than having it on tap, Salvatore doubted the sign was true. The leader of this crew of Demons was a man named Ed, and he was flanked by two others, Carl and Thomas. The three seemed more interested in where the women were. Several times they demanded the bartenders get on the phone and call some whores down to the bar so they could have some action.

  “Get it done,” Ed snarled, pounding his fist on the bar. “Otherwise, you’ll be the one on your knees.”

  The other Demons erupted into laughter, one pointing to a bottle of tequila, and when the bartender tried to pour it into a shot glass, he snatched it out of his hands and just drank from the bottle.

  “Pass it over, Adan,” Ed demanded. He snagged it, drank and passed the bottle to Carl.

  The Ferraros didn’t want the bartender to call prostitutes. They didn’t need more witnesses to work around. Two of the Demons headed toward the men’s room. Lucca stepped into a shadow that took him directly ahead of the men sauntering toward the restrooms. He entered first and waited for them just inside the door.

  One came in first, looked around, opened the doors to the stalls to make certain they were alone and then the two men immediately laid out lines of cocaine on the bathroom sink. The sink was unwashed. The bathroom smelled of urine and mold. It looked to Lucca as if it hadn’t been cleaned in the last century, but then his standards were much higher. He told himself he might be considered a snob.

  One of the two men leaned down to sniff the line up his nose. As he did, Lucca appeared behind the other one and very gently took his head in his hands, snapped his neck and murmured the appropriate phrase as he lowered him to the floor. He was gone before the other Demon straightened. The Demon giggled and then looked around, looked surprised, giggled again and then toed his friend.

  “Get up, Moe. Stop fooling around.” As he bent down, Lucca came up behind him and delivered the signature kill of the Ferraros. He left the cocaine on the sink untouched and once more slid outside the door to wait until someone noticed they hadn’t returned.

  Three of the Demons snagged beers and stepped outside to ensure no cops were around. They each took a separate direction to walk around the building. Geno slipped out behind them. He shadowed one man with long stringy hair. It smelled as if the Demon hadn’t bathed in several days. Stringy hair walked briskly around the corner, not once looking behind him. If he was their best sentry, Geno thought they were in real trouble. He simply matched steps, caught his head, snapped his neck and lowered him to the ground with the appropriate phrase.

  Geno took a shadow tube, a fast one, that shot him around the building to the other side, nearly dumping him out to the right of his next victim. This Demon was a little more aware of his surroundings, taking his duties seriously. The fence was on this side, and he had actually climbed up to peer over it. Geno stepped behind him and as he came down, simply broke his neck and left him where he lay.

  The third man was just rounding the corner toward where the first victim lay on the ground. He halted, staring, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was dark on the side of the building, but the bar had neon signs on top of it, giving off light that cast shadows across the ground. The Demon could see his friend lying there, his beer spilled on the ground.

  “Deke, you hurt?” he called out and then sprinted toward his friend.

  Geno broke his neck and let his body fall over Deke’s just as the man was pulling out his phone to call his boss and inform him of the loss. He rode a shadow back inside and waited for Ed and the others to notice that no one had come back in from sentry duty.

  Ed paced back and forth, drinking more tequila and demanding “bitches and whores” be called. He wanted food. The bartenders put out peanuts and chips.

  Two Demons, ones Salvatore overheard referred to as Berto and David, snagged several bags of the chips and moved to the back of the room to eat. Ed threw the empty bottle of tequila after them. Glass shattered and sprayed across the floor, but neither Demon seemed to care, which told Salvatore that they were used to Ed’s tantrums. He found it interesting that these were the men sent to back up Benito Valdez. They seemed to be screwups. No matter. In the darkness and privacy of the booth where Berto and David had retreated to eat, they died quietly.

  Four men headed toward the back room to play pool, although Salvatore was more inclined to think they were escaping from Ed’s continual rants against the bartenders. He was drinking from his second bottle of tequila and passing it to Carl and Thomas, still demanding women and more food.

  Salvatore and Geno followed the pool players into the back room. One of the men racked the balls on one table while another did so on a second table. The other two men hefted pool cues and then chalked the tips.

  While those bent over the tables were concentrating their attention away from the men with the pool sticks, Geno took one of them and Salvatore the other. Both were eased to the floor with broken necks. They were on the two other men in seconds, so there was no possible way either would have time to call out a warning to those in the other room. They left all four men dead on the floor.

  Ed glanced around and frowned. “Hugo, tell Moe and Boz to quit snortin’ and get their asses back in here.” He waved his hand toward the men’s room.

  Hugo sighed, put down his beer and stomped purposefully toward the restroom. He didn’t like being an errand boy and he made that clear. He shoved open the door and took three steps in. The door closed behind him just as he spotted the two men lying on the floor. His first thought was a bad batch of cocaine finally got them. Then there was a wrenching pain.

  Lucca dropped the third body over the other two. There was no point in blocking the door. If he was lucky, maybe Ed would check on his men himself. He had to have drunk so much by now, he was going to have to visit the men’s room soon anyway.

  Ed paced back and forth, glaring toward the booth in the back and then at the poolroom. He snapped his fingers for the bottle of tequila, took a long pull at it and then jerked his chin toward the front door.

  “Thomas, Adan, go see what’s taking them so long. What’s got into everyone?” Ed demanded. “Is it just me? Carl? Is it just me?”

  “Hasn’t been that long,” Adan muttered under his breath as he stomped out the door, Thomas behind him.

&nbs
p; Geno rode the shadows and stalked them every step of the way. Thomas lagged behind, not wanting to bother going too far from the lights. He snapped his fingers at Adan and sent him toward the darker side of the building. The moment Adan disappeared, Thomas pulled out a joint and went to light it up. Geno was already on him, snapping his neck and lowering him to the ground before rounding the building and following Adan into the darkness.

  Ed paced to the front door, took another healthy swig of tequila and handed the bottle to Carl. “Fuck it. Let’s play pool. Come on. Benja, you can watch these fools.”

  Lucca and Salvatore were already waiting in the room. It was easy enough as Ed and Carl entered to get behind them as they stood staring, shocked, their alcohol-fueled brains unable to process what had actually happened to their friends. The two Demons dropped to the floor with broken necks as Benja stood with his back to them.

  Salvatore gripped Benja’s head and wrenched. “Justice is served,” he murmured softly. Very carefully, knowing the three bartenders were most likely looking toward the poolroom, he pulled Benja inside and to the right of the doorway before laying him down on the floor.

  He and Lucca caught a shadow to outside, where they joined Geno. The three shadow riders began the journey back to New York.

  The bartenders washed glasses, waiting for the Demons to emerge from the poolroom. It was suspiciously silent. The music blared, but there was no more laughter or threats. No more loud conversation. They couldn’t hear the sound of pool balls striking together. They looked at one another, but it took another few minutes before they ventured out from behind the bar to go look. What they found was more terrifying than the Demons coming into their establishment had ever been.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Stefano is on his way here with two of our cousins from Los Angeles, Nicoletta,” Taviano announced. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Why would the cousins from LA be coming here? Did something happen to my friends?” Nicoletta spun away from the plants she was inspecting.

  Taviano had overgrown greenery everywhere. The windows allowed light to come in from so many directions that the houseplants grew easily. They climbed toward the ceiling, thick and heavy, leaves green and silvery. That was another passion they both shared. He had discovered very early on that Nicoletta really loved plants. She had gravitated toward working in Signora Vitale’s flower shop, much to his dismay.

  Theresa Vitale’s grandson Bruno had taken over the shop for his grandmother. He’d always been a bit of a hell-raiser, and he’d begun to run drugs out of the store once he’d taken over as manager and was without supervision. Nicoletta had even been accosted by one of his friends when she’d worked there. Later, Bruno’s body had been found in a Dumpster, murdered, a victim of the ongoing feud between the Ferraro and the Saldi families.

  An uneasy truce had continued over the last couple of years, but beneath the surface smoldered something deep and ugly only waiting for the lid to blow off. Both sides knew it, and both sides were preparing for war.

  “Your friends are safe, amore mio,” he assured. “I don’t know why the cousins are here from LA. I’m sure they’ll tell us. I’ll put out some refreshments. We never serve alcohol before we work. We still have our run to make when Rigina or Rosina gives us the word.”

  She followed him to the bar and watched as he put ice into a bucket and then put out soda water and various organic syrups to make refreshers.

  “Pay attention to the energy in the house, Nicoletta. This time, I want you to warn me when someone gets close or comes in.”

  She nodded and padded barefoot over to the window. She placed her palm on the glass, fingers spread wide. “Mom would give me a very bad time for getting my handprints on the glass.”

  “I doubt my mother would have noticed if we put our hands on the glass. Stefano taught us to read energy by touching shadows, the floor, glass, the wall, whatever worked for us. Do you have your gloves close and your shoes, just in case we have to leave fast?”

  “Everything is right over by the entrance you told me we were going to use to leave. I can put them on in seconds.” She didn’t turn around or move her hand.

  Taviano was pleased to see she was concentrating on the house more than she was on their conversation. She would learn to read the energy around her all the time. It would become second nature, so that she could carry on conversations and still feel when something wasn’t right or know when someone was coming up on her.

  “That’s my woman. Always be ready. Always have your gear ready. That’s the first lesson drilled into us.”

  “No, it really isn’t, Taviano,” she said, still not turning her head to look at him. “Stefano is already playing games with Crispino. Francesca isn’t recognizing the movements, because she doesn’t ever see the signature kill, but he’s teaching him how to grip and snap a neck. He’s just not using a head yet. He’s just positioning his hands over and over on various objects. He’s having me do it. All of you are doing it. Emme is. Mariko is. He’s not even two and he’s already learning.”

  “He isn’t learning to kill anyone, tesoro,” he said as gently as he possibly could. There was an ache in her voice, and he couldn’t blame her. None of them liked the idea of a child learning those techniques, but on the other hand, it was the way to keep them safe. The younger they learned, the better they would be at it and the safer they were.

  “I understand, I really do. I wish I’d had the training that young, but our children . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t know, Taviano. It’s such a terrible legacy to give them. To decide for them before they’re born that they have no choice. They learn to kill, and if they can’t find a man or woman to love them, they live without love but marry anyway and produce children. What anchors them? What could keep a person sane when they have to live a life with no one to love them and bring them peace and happiness when they return home?”

  She turned her head then and met his eyes. His heart stuttered at what he saw there. So much love he could drown in it. He was never going to have to live that way because he had her.

  “I don’t want that for our children,” she whispered.

  “Neither do I. Neither does Stefano, or any of our family. That’s what Eloisa fears the most. That’s what the older generation is so afraid of, that we’ll allow the riders to slowly dwindle out because we’re not tough enough on our children.” Taviano rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know the right answer, Nicoletta. I do know that I felt hopeless until you came along. You were so young, and I felt a little like a monster for making certain our shadows tangled together. I didn’t want you getting away from me. I knew the connection between us would grow stronger each time we were together, and truthfully, I couldn’t stay away.”

  “I was very mean to you.”

  “No, you weren’t,” he denied. “You were striking out against yourself, not at me. We both know that. You never sent me away.” He gave her a small smile. “You do realize that, don’t you? When you were so afraid, coming out of one of your terrible nightmares, fighting me, punching and kicking, you never sent me away.”

  “They’re here, Taviano. I can feel them. Just now coming inside the door of the kitchen. Five people, four men and a woman. Stefano is one of them. And I could never send you away no matter how much I wanted to. You were always my anchor in the middle of the worst of everything. I was afraid if you left me, there wouldn’t be anything of the real me left to find.”

  He understood what she meant. Nicoletta had been lost for a while. That strong woman her mother and adopted father had raised. That woman with a strong bloodline from both sides of her family. She was there, she just needed to fight her way to the surface again and remember who she was. He had to do the same thing. He had to remember he was a Ferraro. It didn’t matter that his mother and father had rejected him. He knew, deep down, that Stefano, the one person in his life at the time that truly counted
, would never turn his back on that boy.

  “We’re in the living room, Stefano.” His voice carried, although he used a low tone.

  There wasn’t so much as a whisper of sound, but Stefano entered, leading the way. Behind him, one man, tall with broad shoulders and a wealth of dark hair, the same piercing blue eyes that marked him as a Ferraro, followed. Severino, the oldest of his cousins from Los Angeles, was very reminiscent of Stefano in that he had taken over his family early. His parents were deceased, a terrible blow to riders everywhere, leaving Severino to care for his siblings at a young age. He had refused to allow other families to break them up. Like Stefano, he’d taken full responsibility.

  Behind Severino came a beautiful woman, his youngest sibling, Velia. She was tall and elegant, looking every inch a supermodel. Her hair was braided in a thick long rope, but Taviano had seen it many times falling in dark waves to her waist. She had the inevitable curves of the women in their family, and the pinstriped suit emphasized her narrow waist and long legs. She flashed a smile at him in greeting and turned that radiant smile on his woman.

  Behind her were two more of her brothers. Marzio, one of the toughest of the Ferraros, had a reputation among the riders for being someone ready to defend his family immediately. He was quiet, much like Vittorio, but he stepped in front of any of his brothers or his sister if there was trouble.

  Beside Marzio was Tore. Taviano had known him all his life, yet he was the cousin he knew the least about. Tore stayed in the background, and he was no different now. He greeted them with a nod, acknowledging the introduction to Nicoletta, accepting the refresher and then stepping back into the corner, as if standing guard over all of them.

  “Thank you for providing Nicoletta with clothes, Velia,” Taviano said. “We both really appreciated it.”