Shadow Keeper

by Christine Feehan

  "It's harassment and you shouldn't have to take it." He wanted to punch the two men and shake her. He was going to have a word with security. More, he was assigning a bodyguard to her while she worked whether she liked it or not. "You should have told me immediately."

  "I'm sorry about Aaron, Giovanni. I know he meant something to you. He's jealous of you. He doesn't want to be, but he is. Truthfully, he has reason to be. You're so good-looking it hurts, and then there's all the rest of it. You have everything he wants. Money. Family. A life. I step in and out of shadows all night. You aren't reading him because you don't want to."

  That was probably true. Once they'd established a friendship, Giovanni didn't want to pry. He felt it was wrong to read emotions. If Aaron wanted him to know something, he'd tell him.

  His phone, sitting on the nightstand, vibrated. A color strobed for a moment, a soft green lighting the ceiling and then it was gone. He pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck again. "I've got something I have to do, Sasha. You go back to sleep."

  She rolled over and looked at him from under her lashes. She looked sleepy. Sexy. All his. He forced himself to let her go and sat up on the edge of the bed. She watched him dress without saying a word. He had set out his clothes. Not his suit this time. Old jeans. An old T-shirt. A sweatshirt to pull over the tee. Disposable clothes. Gloves. He had another set of clothes and shoes packed to go with him.

  She looked him over carefully, her eyes seeing too much. He wanted to kiss her for that. He loved that she was so intelligent and quick, even when she was sleepy.

  "What are you up to, Giovanni? It's five o'clock in the morning."

  "Got a call from Stefano. He needs my help with something." That was strictly the truth. Or maybe Giovanni needed Stefano's help. Either way, they had a lot to discuss. "Go back to sleep, baby. I'll be back soon and take you out to breakfast. Biagi's Cafe has the best breakfast around." He bent his head, brushed a kiss over her temple and backed away from the bed, watching her. It was difficult to leave her. He hadn't expected that. Her eyes followed him right to the door. "You'll be safe. The alarms are set and no one can get into the house. Sleep, Sasha. You're working again tonight and you need it."

  She didn't answer him, but those sapphire eyes of hers kept watching. He paused in the doorway, drinking her in, his heart doing the weird stuttering he was becoming familiar with. "I never expected to find you, Sasha. Never. You're like some gift that dropped out of the sky right into my lap. I can barely comprehend that you're here, in my bed, in my world. I know you're taking a huge chance on me. I know you're scared, but you have no reason to be. I'd very much like to see your brother this afternoon. I want to talk to him about letting me marry his sister."

  She half sat, forgetting to take the sheet with her. She was beautiful, with her curls escaping, wilder than ever, her full breasts and that expression on her face. Almost stunned. So pleased. He'd said the right thing.

  "Go to sleep, baby," he added softly. "I'll be back soon and we'll go to breakfast with the family." He looked at her one last time. His woman. That gift that was for him alone. Then he forced himself to turn and walk out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

  The moment Giovanni was walking down the hall and was certain Sasha couldn't overhear him, he contacted the security guards in the control room. "I'm leaving for a few. I want Sasha guarded at all times. Wake Drago if she gets up. She doesn't leave the safety of this house. Do you understand that command? She doesn't leave."

  There was a small silence and then a crackle before the young man on the other end spoke. "I understand, sir."

  "Stay alert, Leone. The threat to her is very real." He wanted to emphasize that so the kid would do his job. Giovanni knew he was a second cousin, a young man sent to be trained by Emilio as a bodyguard. Emilio always had the younger ones work in the control rooms while they were training as bodyguards.

  "Will do, Mr. Ferraro."

  Giovanni hurried down the hall to the door leading to the back of his house. His youngest brother, Taviano, waited in the car under the covered drive. He slipped in and settled against the leather. His brother immediately set the car in motion.

  "She asleep?" Taviano's voice was clipped.

  Giovanni glanced at him. "Not quite, but she'll settle quickly. She's too damned intelligent to get much over on. She knew I was going somewhere she might not like."

  "Just how much did you decide to tell her? How much do you think Stefano tells Francesca?"

  Giovanni shrugged. "I can't imagine Stefano tells Francesca much about any violence. He treats her with kid gloves and wants the world to do the same."

  Taviano laughed. "He demands the world to do the same. He adores that woman." He was silent a moment. "Of course, so do I. I know she's upset that she hasn't gotten pregnant. Eloisa didn't make the situation any easier."

  "Stefano had a private chat with her," Giovanni volunteered. The car raced through the streets, heading toward their family home. The men usually visited their mother, not the other way around. It was only Stefano's home Eloisa ever went to, and that was just fine with the others.

  Taviano looked at him, a slow smile spreading over his face. "I wish I'd been there. Stefano doesn't pull his punches when he's laying down the law in anything regarding Francesca. I'll bet Eloisa wishes she never confronted Francesca about why she couldn't get pregnant."

  "Something is going on with the entire pregnancy thing. Stefano and Francesca have both been sad and upset for months." Giovanni sighed. "Eloisa is a serious drawback to our chances with the right woman, Taviano. A serious one. We might have all the money in the world, but none of us want to be wanted for that reason, so what the hell else do we have to offer? Our reputations are shit. We have a legacy we can't get out of. We don't want to get out of," he corrected, needing to be strictly truthful. "So, she has to live with it, no matter what. And then there's our mother."

  Taviano pulled into the long drive leading to their family home. "You don't have to tell me. She's seriously screwed me, not that I already didn't do that for myself."

  Giovanni regarded his brother carefully. No one had said a word to Taviano, but all of them suspected. "Nicoletta is the one, isn't she?"

  Taviano parked the car and turned toward him. His face was partially in shadow, but Giovanni could make out the lines in his face, the stubble on his jaw that would make Eloisa want to scream. They all did it, just to be bastards, but right now, Taviano was hurting and Giovanni didn't much care whether or not they needled their mother.

  "You can talk about it, Taviano," he encouraged. "We're all behind you."

  He shook his head. "She wants no part of me. Of any of us. I fucked up bad this last time with her. I was drunk and I knew better than to be alone with her. I was so mad, seeing her with those friends of Bruno. She had no business being with them. She'd been drinking and she was ..." He shook his head. "It was bad, and I totally fucked up. She won't look at me. She won't talk to me. There's no way to make it right, and worse, she's a fucking baby. She's barely eighteen years old. She's not even out of school yet."

  Taviano rarely swore. He'd said the f-word three times. Whatever had happened between Nicoletta and him had to have been extremely bad. "Are you certain she's the one for you? Your shadows? The chest thing." Giovanni touched his own chest, right where Sasha had unlocked something deep inside him, allowing his emotions out, unchecked, the ones that told him Sasha was all his.

  "I'm absolutely positive. I like sex, Gee. Correction. I love sex. Sometimes, sex is the only thing that gets me through a day. I'm never attached. I don't want to be attached. I like sex a certain way. My way. I'm in control and I make certain my partner knows it. I've never wanted any kind of restrictions on me. I'm rough and I like it that way. My partners always know the score and they like it that way."

  Giovanni saw the problem and stayed silent. He had no advice for his brother, as much as he wanted to give it.

  "Suddenly, I'm there with Stefano, fa
cing three brutal men who raped a girl and are about to give her to the worst man they know, and it happens. In the midst of breaking necks and killing, I feel something give way in my chest. It opens, as if some lock preventing me from giving a damn about a woman is gone, and I just know that girl belongs to me. She's mine. She was born to belong to me. She's been beaten down for a good part of her life. What the fuck am I going to do with that? How do I even know how to be her man?" Taviano pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "This is the biggest mess."

  Giovanni shook his head, knowing exactly what Taviano was talking about when he described the lock. He'd felt that same sensation and knew only the woman truly meant to be his partner could do that for him. "All I can tell you, Taviano, is that every one of us will do whatever it is we need to do in order to help you."

  "Help me what? Change my personality? My needs? The way I was born?"

  "It's possible dominance comes with being a rider." Giovanni had speculated on that for some time. "In different degrees, but ..." He shrugged.

  "Emmanuelle doesn't seem to need to always be the one in control." Taviano sounded as if he wished he were like his sister.

  "I'm not certain exactly what's going on with Emme, but she isn't very happy."

  Taviano nodded. "I agree. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she just shook her head and looked as if she might burst into tears. Fucking Eloisa probably told her she better have fifty kids like tomorrow."

  It was back to Eloisa and the f-word. Taviano was really angry at their mother. "Eloisa hasn't actually talked to Nicoletta personally, has she?" Giovanni asked.

  "Of course she has. She's been very vocal that she shouldn't be living with Amo and Lucia."

  Giovanni wanted to swear himself. That was Eloisa, always interfering. "Maybe you need to tell her that Nicoletta is her future daughter-in-law."

  Taviano shook his head. "Nicoletta isn't going to agree to that."

  Giovanni stared him down. "She's yours, Tav. That means you step up and take control. You lose her to somebody that she shouldn't be with and neither of you is ever going to be happy."

  "She isn't going to be happy with me if I take away her choices since she hasn't had many to make in her life. And she sure as hell won't be happy with my brand of sex."

  Giovanni didn't say anything, but he knew Taviano well enough to know that if someone made a move on Nicoletta and his brother considered her his, the wrath of the demons from hell would fall on everything and everyone. Maybe it already had. Maybe that night when he'd been drinking and he'd seen Nicoletta with Bruno's friends, he'd already said or done something terrible. Taviano was certainly capable of it.

  "We've got to get inside," Taviano announced. "Talking about Nicoletta or Eloisa makes me want to beat the shit out of something--or someone. I'll do the 'talking' when it's needed."

  Giovanni ordinarily would do his own "talking" when someone tried to kill him, but if that's what his brother needed, well, it was the least he could do. "I hear you."

  They avoided the front door, winding around toward the back end of the massive garage. Once inside, they hurried across the end concealing the small door leading to the basement. In the basement, there was a hidden door, nearly impossible to find, in the wall. They stepped inside the tiny, claustrophobic closet and punched a code into the keypad. That opened another door to another stairwell. Both men hurried down to the last measure of protection. The staircase ended in a small room. That room had one other door. Giovanni bent down, allowing the scan to move over his eye, recognize it and unlock the door.

  Stefano, Vittorio, Ricco and Emme were already there with Emilio and Enzo, their cousins and head bodyguards. The man who had attacked Giovanni was seated in a chair. He had a black eye and swollen jaw. His nose was broken, but the dripping blood had ceased. His mouth was swollen and his front teeth were jagged. He looked up as Giovanni and Taviano entered. Recognizing Giovanni, he half rose, revealing that no one had bothered to tie him.

  Giovanni went right over to him. Stefano handed the report to him. His cousins had done a good job of finding out about the man in the short time they had.

  "Giles Newborn. Forty-eight. You're a freelance hit man."

  Newborn shook his head, groaned and looked at Giovanni through his one good eye. "Part-time. Nothing permanent."

  "Yeah, I can see you're not one hundred percent committed to your career. If you were, I'd most likely be dead. You're shit at your job."

  Newborn glared at him, looking a little like a cyclops. Now that he was closer and the lightbulb overhead spotlighted their prisoner, Giovanni could see the massive bumps that had formed all over his face from the beating he'd taken.

  "I nearly got you and the bitch."

  Giovanni went very still. Newborn hadn't gotten near Sasha, but if Giovanni hadn't seen him coming, hadn't noticed the arm swinging toward him with something held tightly in the fist, and the knife had come across his body, it very well would have gone across Sasha as well. He leaned close. "The hit was on both of us? Her, too?"

  Newborn shook his head. "You. I was supposed to scare her. Extra in it for me if I fucked her up a little."

  The tension eased in Giovanni's gut and air slipped back into his lungs. He stepped back, handed the report to Taviano and went back to his questions. He kept his voice mild. Casual even. Not in any way threatening. "Who paid you?"

  Newborn shrugged. "Don't know. I was contacted via email. Don't know how he got a hold of that."

  "Must be your extraordinary reputation," Giovanni said.

  The man scowled. "You're being sarcastic, but you know you almost bought it."

  Giovanni shrugged. "Almost doesn't count in your business, Newborn. Hasn't anyone ever told you that?"

  Newborn spat at Giovanni's feet.

  Taviano hit him. Hard. He used blurring speed, snapping the would-be assassin's head back and planting his fist in the mess that had been his nose. Newborn's chair went over backward and the back of his head bounced on the concrete. He screamed. Wailed. Drummed the heels of his boots on the floor.

  Giovanni waited, drifting over to Stefano. "Eloisa is becoming a real problem with Nicoletta. She got better for a few weeks after Phillip's death." He referred to his father. "Now she's back to interfering in everyone's lives. What's wrong with her?"

  The rest of the family looked at Stefano expectantly. He shrugged. "Whoever knows what's wrong with Eloisa? If she's having a bad day, she tends to take it out on everyone around her, especially Francesca. Mariko doesn't react, so she doesn't bother, but Francesca wants to repair the damage between us all. She sees good in Eloisa and keeps trying to bring it out."

  Giovanni frowned, shaking his head. "She's too kindhearted."

  "I had a talk with Eloisa. I think I scared her enough that she'll leave Francesca alone. If she doesn't, as head of the family, I'm going to take drastic action, and I told her so." Stefano clapped his hand on Giovanni's shoulder. "I like your woman. She isn't going to take shit off anyone, not even our mother." He grinned. "Of course, that means she won't off you, either."

  Giovanni flipped his brother off, even as his answering grin began to form as he drifted back to the man on the floor. He loved Francesca. Loved her as a sister. He would give his life for her. She would never suit him. He loved Mariko the same way, but she was perfect for Ricco, not him and not Stefano. Sasha, his sassy, sweet, independent woman, would never suit either of his brothers or Taviano, but she was exactly what Giovanni needed.

  He reached down and straightened the chair. He caught Newborn under his arms and lifted him easily, planting his butt in the chair. Deliberately, he paid the man no attention, wanting it to sink in that he was strong and he didn't really give a damn one way or the other about Newborn or his comfort.

  "Regarding what we were talking about earlier," he said, facing Taviano and turning his back to the prisoner. "It has come to my attention that once that lock is opened"--he held his hand over his chest so his brother would kno
w what he was referring to--"it is only opened by the perfect partner, the one holding the key. She has to be perfect in every way, or it's impossible to be the right one."

  He turned back to face Newborn. "How were you paid?"

  Newborn's eyes darted from man to man, as if for the first time realizing these men might not let him go. He glanced toward the door then back up at Giovanni. "He left money in a Dumpster behind a store just a few blocks from the club. If I got you, there would be more."

  "When did he contact you?"

  "Yesterday morning."

  "What's his name?" Giovanni's shadow was connected with Newborn's, the light overhead providing really strong shadows of both men. He needed to hear the truth.

  Newborn shook his head repeatedly. "I don't know. He never told me. I didn't want to know."

  "How were you going to fuck up the woman?"

  "I wasn't going to," Newborn said hastily.

  Giovanni didn't need shadows to hear the lie. Evidently, neither did Taviano. He hit the man square in the face. Once again, the punch was so hard it sent Newborn flying backward out of the chair. The chair flew several feet away and landed upside down.

  Giovanni walked around the writhing, screaming man, back to his brothers and Emme. Taviano came with him. "You want to tell Stefano what's going on?" Giovanni asked his youngest brother.

  Taviano shrugged. "Pretty certain all of you know Nicoletta was supposed to be my woman."

  No one looked surprised. They nodded, but Stefano just stared at his youngest brother. Nothing ever got past him. "Was supposed to be your woman? What the fuck does that mean? She is your woman. You don't have many chances as a rider to find a woman who is your partner. She was made for you. She's everything you need, Taviano. I explained how this works. You can find a woman compatible that you will feel affection over time for. That's what Salvatore was hoping would happen, but you're not capable of loving her. Not really loving her. Nicoletta is that woman you will love with everything in you, deep down in your soul. She'll own you. She'll be everything to you."