Shadow Rider (48 page)

She didn't blink. Didn't look away. Inside, her heart stuttered dangerously, but she didn't give any visible sign that she was in any way worried. She wasn't about to give him that kind of satisfaction.

“You're so sure he'll save you,” Barry said bitterly. “Maybe it will be too late and he'll come in here and find your throat cut.” He stepped close to her and shoved a knife against her throat, the blade biting in.

She didn't pull back. “Like this hasn't been done a million times to me already, Barry. You need new material.” Francesca forced boredom into her voice. She even gave a slight yawn. “My first week or two here in Chicago, I had this happen to me twice.”

“You want new material?” Barry snarled. He pulled the blade away from her throat, his yellow slits for eyes reddening along with his face. “You want to see new material?” he repeated, his voice swinging out of control. High-pitched. Insane even. He gripped the knife in his fist and brought it down hard into her thigh.

She screamed as the blade tore through the outside of her thigh and came out the other side. The pain burned through her, leaving her breathless, raw, her heart pounding hard
enough to hear. Her blood roared in her ears. She'd heard of men being tortured, stoically not making a sound and she couldn't imagine how they did it. She couldn't catch her breath, or take her eyes from the knife handle sticking out of her thigh.

Barry pulled the knife free and wiped the blood on her jeans, grinning at her. “That new enough for you, bitch? Do you want more? I can show you more.” Hatred burned in his eyes. Maniacal glee. He got off on her fear. Her pain. She saw the truth in his eyes. He needed to see those things. She'd been too calm and hadn't given him his fix, or the respect he felt he deserved.

Mesmerized by the look on his grotesquely swollen face, and the red-yellow of his eyes, Francesca watched him touch the tip of the blade to her left shoulder. He placed one hand on the hilt of the knife, ready to drive it through her flesh there. All the while he smiled at her. George laughed. Harold cleared his throat. No one else made a sound, just waiting. All of them watching as mesmerized as she was, while Barry drew out the torment by forcing her to wait.

“Why is it that when a man doesn't like something a woman does, something he would do himself, he calls her a bitch?” Emmanuelle asked, her voice as calm as ever. “I've always wondered about that. Is it because you're such a little bitch, Barry? Always whining to Mommy when things don't go your way? I saw you at the racetrack when your car didn't win and you threw that little fit. That was bitch behavior. Did anyone call you a bitch then? Because I thought you were a total bitch. You moan and groan and complain, but act like a mean girl in high school. Petty and cruel just because you're one of the popular kids. But you really were only popular because Mommy and Daddy had money.”

Francesca risked a look around the room, her breath hitching in her throat. Emmanuelle was playing with fire. Barry would kill her for that. A blow to his pride would be worse to him than a physical beating. The men were all smirking, not daring to look at their boss, but obviously enjoying the fact that Emmanuelle had taunted Barry.

Barry turned his head slowly toward the shadows where Emme sat in the chair, her hands bound in front of her. He reminded Francesca of a snake with his red slits for eyes and his cold expression. She moistened her lips, terrified for Emmanuelle. Barry stepped back away from Francesca, never taking his eyes from Emme.

Francesca timed her moment, waiting until Barry was within five feet of Emmanuelle. “Actually, Emme,” she said. “He isn't a bitch—he's a pussy. You're really just a pussy, aren't you, Barry? You always have to have your big bad men around because you can't get it up yourself so you need them to take care of a woman while you can only watch.” She'd never said that word in her life. Not once. But she'd had to think of something to get his attention off Emme.

Her leg burned and blood stained her favorite pair of blue jeans, but she'd all but forgotten about the stab wound in her fear for Stefano's sister. Barry would kill her for certain.

Barry made a sound in his throat. A snarl. Like a dog might snarl at something or someone provoking it. He spun around, moving back toward Francesca. Lightning zigzagged across the sky, lighting the room for a second, throwing their shadows across the floor and up along the walls. The dull yellow lights flickered. All attention was on Barry. No one could look away, hypnotized by the crazed expression on his face. Two lines of shiny saliva hung in strings from either side of his mouth. He looked almost as if he was foaming at the mouth, like a rabid animal.

“You're dead. That sanctimonious son of a bitch is going to find his sister and his fiancée dead. And then I'm going to kill him.” He rushed toward Francesca.

“You can't kill Stefano, you moron,” Emmanuelle taunted. “I'm tied up, and you can't kill me. How do you think someone as inept as you could possibly best my brother?”

Barry spun around, this time only feet from Francesca. She could smell the sweat pouring from his body. Feel the heat of his anger. She looked toward the shadows where Emme sat, as
did everyone in the room. In the dim lighting Francesca could no longer see anything but the chair legs. The rest of the chair and even Emmanuelle's legs had disappeared into the shadows. Barry took three steps toward the other side of the room, desperately seeking to find Stefano's sister.

Francesca felt hands on her upper arms. Emmanuelle helped her up, forcing her to step forward right into the mouth of one of the shadows. There was a terrible wrenching sensation at her body, as if she was flying apart, and then Emme went still, arms around her.

“Don't move,” Emmanuelle said very softly in her ear. “They can't see you. Don't make a sound and don't move.”

Francesca nodded, clinging to her, afraid she'd fall, knowing Emmanuelle had taken her inside a portal. Her leg throbbed and burned. It felt like rubber, but she was determined to stay upright. The zip-ties were gone from Emme's hands, although Francesca's were still on, binding her wrists together, so she had to curl her fingers into Emmanuelle's jacket.

Barry rushed over to the chair where his men had shoved Emmanuelle Ferraro. The zip-ties lay on the floor and she was no longer there.

“Boss . . .” Harold said. Caution in his voice.

Barry spun around and to his horror, Francesca was gone as well. “Where are they?” he demanded, gripping the hilt of the knife, holding it in front of him as if he could defend himself against an unseen attacker. “Where the hell are they?”

His men shook their heads.

“Well, find them,” he screamed. “Find them right fucking now. If you don't bring them back here in five minutes I swear I'll cut your heads off.”

Harold, Arnold and George rushed toward the door. Larry remained leaning his weight against the bar, grinning like a maniac, not obeying a direct order. That was fine with Barry. He needed a target to take out his wrath on.

“I'll carve my fucking name in your throat,” he promised, and stalked across the room. The urge to kill was strong. No
one humiliated him and lived to tell about it. He was going to carve those women into little pieces, but first every one of his men was going to do them as many ways as possible and he'd film it all and make Stefano Ferraro watch the film before he died.

The Ferraros had always acted so high and mighty, everyone was afraid of them. Well, everyone feared the wrong man. He reached the bar and stepped around it, coming up on Larry's left side. The man hadn't moved a muscle. Hadn't looked at him, when he'd been staring so intently just moments earlier. Larry was
too
still. A chill went down Barry's spine and he stepped back. He could see that Larry's head was at a peculiar angle, as if his neck was broken. Barry backed away from the bar. The man was definitely dead. But how? No one had come into the room. No one had been close to Larry.

He'd heard rumors about the Ferraro family. Stupid, ridiculous,
impossible
rumors, about how they could make things happen to people without ever leaving their homes. That their enemies just died or disappeared. It was nonsense. They weren't part of any crime family. He'd had his connections check several times, just to be certain he wasn't stepping on toes when he'd gone after a couple of drivers on the track. He'd been assured they weren't in organized crime, although the rumors persisted.

Lightning lit up the room and almost simultaneously, thunder boomed, shaking the house again. It was a huge, well-built house and shouldn't be shaking. The rain lashed at it and the wind shrieked and howled. Shadows lengthened and grew, throwing out strange-looking tubes from every direction. The tubes looked like arms reaching for him. Out of the shadow a knife appeared, the tip biting deep into his forearm.

He screamed. Eloisa Ferraro was suddenly there. “You shouldn't have stabbed her, Barry,” she said, and then she was gone again, as if she'd never been. As if she was a ghost. A fucking phantom.

With an oath, he turned and ran toward the door, toward the safety of his men. Yanking the door open, he tripped over something heavy lying on the floor. He went down hard.
Very hard. His body rolled and with a sob of frustration he pushed himself to his hands and knees, looking quickly around to see where his crew was, to see if any of them had witnessed this further humiliation.

Marc sat on the floor across the doorway, his body tied in a web of intricate knots, his head drawn back at an impossible angle. It looked as if he'd struggled and the ropes around his neck had tightened until he'd strangled. The knots formed a strange, elaborate harness. Several feet from him, suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, was Jimmy. The knots formed what appeared to be long sleeves that went up his arms to his shoulders and formed a circle around his throat. Staring up in horror, Barry could see where Jimmy had held himself as long as possible, but then his strength gave out and he'd hung himself.

Barry swore and crawled backward, scrambling fast. He'd heard of such knots, but he'd always associated them with erotic bondage. He'd gone to a demonstration once, but it was an art he didn't have the patience to learn. During the demonstration, he'd heard a bit of history and knew the knots had originally been used to restrain prisoners and sometimes torture them. He hadn't listened too closely because he was only interested in watching the naked woman get tied up.

A shadow moved on the floor where the body swung and once again those strange feelers reached toward him like arms. A knife plunged into his thigh, a fist around the hilt. It emerged from the shadows just as the one before it.

Then Ricco was there, shaking his head. “Shouldn't have touched her with a knife, Barry. You're not going to be in one piece by the end of this.” Then he was gone.

Gone.
Disappeared. The knife was still in his leg, blood bubbling around the blade. Barry was afraid to pull it out, but it was grotesque there. He was losing his mind. There was no other explanation. Still, he was bleeding from two knife wounds, but shadows didn't come alive. That couldn't happen. Not in real life. Was he hallucinating?

“George! Arnold!” He called out for the two men who had been with him the longest other than Del. Del was a great lawyer and he loved to indulge himself with women, but he wasn't as good at kicking ass as George and Arnold.

No one answered him. Other than the howling wind and the sound of the piano, he couldn't hear a sound coming from any room. No one was coming to help him. He had to jerk the knife out of his leg on his own. Taking a deep breath, he wrapped his fingers firmly around the hilt and yanked hard. For a moment the world spun and was edged in black. The pain was excruciating, worse than when the blade had gone in.

Barry dropped the knife and ripped his shirt to wrap the wound up. It hurt like hell but there were no signs of arterial bleeding. The stupid son of a bitch couldn't even find an artery. How stupid were the Ferraro brothers anyway? Bringing a knife to a gunfight? He tossed Ricco's knife away and then his own to pull his gun from its holster under his arm. He'd all but forgotten it. He didn't generally do any of the strong-arm stuff—those were his men's jobs—but he could if he had to. This was a case of if he wanted the job done right, he'd have to do it himself.

Del. Del was close, in the next room. His lawyer didn't want any part of what was going to happen to Stefano. He didn't like getting his hands dirty. He claimed he was the law and he needed deniability, but he was a fucking coward. He liked to participate with the women. In fact, he was one of the worst, beating the crap out of them while he fucked them before going home to his wife and children. He especially liked young girls. Teens. More than once Barry's men had had to clean up his messes, but he was a damn good lawyer so Barry kept him around. This time, the bastard would use a gun.

Barry pushed himself to move. He was shaking and that just pissed him off more. The door to Del's room was open and he stepped inside. Del had draped himself on the bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. The rain slammed against the window so hard the window rattled. Shadows played along the walls and across the bed.

“Get up, you lazy fuck,” Barry snapped, impatient with the way Del always chose to stay out of the muck with the rest of them.

“He can't, Barry,” Emmanuelle's soft voice said in his ear. She was right behind him. Close. He could feel her breath against his neck. “He's dead. So sorry. His neck broke when he tried to rape me.”

Before he could turn, before he could make a move, a hot blade sank into his side. Low. Between his ribs. Fire flashed through him. His breath left his body in a concentrated rush or he would have screamed the house down.

“You shouldn't have stabbed Francesca, Barry. It was very stupid of you.”