Shadow Rider (7 page)

“Stefano,” Franco said, his tone clearly reluctant.

Stefano looked up quickly, his gaze moving over his cousin's face, recognizing that something was wrong and he wasn't going to like it. “Tell me.”

“Emilio reported in.” Franco deliberately poured himself a cup of coffee.

Stefano's heart nearly stopped. For a moment he could barely breathe. “You're stalling for time,” Stefano accused. “Fucking just tell me.” He could hear his heart pound. His mouth had gone dry. “Did something happen to Francesca?”

Franco winced. Stefano's tone cut like a whip. He nodded. “Emilio and Enzo took care of it, but she left our territory to go shopping with Joanna. They ran into a couple of punk-ass robbers and one held a knife to her throat. Emilio said he drew blood.”

There was silence. The air vibrated with fury. Heated. Intense. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Stefano spat. “I had two teams on her.
Two.
Giovanni was supposed to be keeping an eye on her as well, and someone
cuts
her with a knife? What the hell? I thought I spelled out for them just who she is. What she is. Who she belongs to.”

“They know, Stefano,” Franco said, his voice low. “They protected her. She isn't really hurt.”

“You just told me some fucking robber held my woman up at knifepoint and drew her blood.” Stefano could taste his
own fury. He had never been so enraged in his life. “Emilio had better have that fucker locked up and waiting for me.”

“He does,” Franco assured.

“Did Emilio take Francesca to a hospital?”

“It was a shallow cut.”

“He doesn't know where that knife has been or even if the blade is clean, which it probably isn't. She could get an infection. How the hell did it happen on his watch?”

“Stefano, you told Emilio to hang back, not to get caught,” Franco reminded. “The moment they realized she was in trouble, they shut that shit down.”

“But not before she got cut. Where? Where did he cut her?”

Franco took a sip of the hot coffee, wishing he were anywhere but inside the aircraft. Danger shimmered in the air. It was stifling hot. Stefano could explode into violence in a heartbeat and when he did, it was always deadly.

“Her throat. But it was shallow, Stefano, barely there.”

Stefano erupted into cursing. Franco poured more Scotch into his cousin's glass. Every member of the Ferraro family had their job to do. Always they lived for the good of the family. The shadow riders were absolutely necessary to the family's livelihood. They were rare, and when a couple could produce them, they were encouraged to have several children. Stefano never treated any family member as less than he was, but he was always in charge.
Always.

The shadow riders kept the family's enemies from attacking them. No one outside the family knew just how Stefano and his brothers carried out their lethal work and because there were other branches of the family in other cities that also had a reputation for cleaning up messes, no one ever dared openly come after them.

In the underworld, where crime was a daily occurrence and enemies thrived on violence, no one ever dared to touch any member of the Ferraro family. Not gangs, not crime lords, not their bitterest enemy, the one they had a long-standing feud with dating back to the early 1900s in Sicily.

The Saldis had been the deadliest family in Sicily, and
they soon realized that people went to the Ferraro family for aid against them. They had demanded the Ferraros join forces with them, and when their invitation was refused, they sent their soldiers to wipe out every man, woman and child in the family. Only a few escaped and went underground. Those who had managed to escape had been mainly shadow riders, and they vowed such a thing would never happen to any family member again.

Stefano was a throwback to those first men and women fighting so hard to keep their family alive. Maybe all the shadow riders were like him, with a will of iron and the guts to fight against impossible odds. That made them both dangerous and extraordinary.

“Stefano, she's all right,” Franco reiterated. “We'll get you back as soon as possible and you'll be able to see for yourself.”

Stefano couldn't break the rules and call Emilio directly. He was supposed to be in Chicago, not Los Angeles. Even for his own peace of mind over Francesca, he wouldn't take a chance. The rules had kept them all alive and away from law enforcement. Those guidelines were in place for a reason.

Most people believed they were mafia, members of organized crime. Many, many times, they had been investigated, but of course nothing could ever be found. No matter how many times the businesses were looked at, the Ferraro books were in order. They had never had an indictment against them.

Three times, undercover cops had managed to infiltrate deep enough to gain an audience with the greeters. All three times, the greeters had known they were being lied to and played their part beautifully, acting as if they had no idea what was being asked of them, suddenly realizing and immediately acting shocked, horrified and outraged. Each time the undercover cop had been sent on his way.

“There's no point in trying to call Ricco and Vittorio back early,” Stefano said, a resigned sigh slipping out. “Francesca had better be all right, Franco, or Emilio and Enzo will be answering to me.”

Franco sent him a faint grin. “Emilio and Enzo already know they're going to be answering to you. They aren't looking forward to it, but they expect it.”

“I'm not that bad,” Stefano lied. His eyes met his cousin's and he found himself smiling ruefully. “Okay, maybe I am.”

He was silent a moment. “Did Emilio say what she was shopping for?” He was inexplicably pleased that she was using his money. He hadn't thought she would. He'd worried she would hand it all to Dina and the homeless woman would kill herself with alcohol poisoning.

“I believe it was shoes,” Franco said.

Stefano nodded. Francesca needed a good pair of shoes—several of them, but he couldn't exactly buy her a new wardrobe right away. He'd had a hard enough time forcing his coat and the money on her. He had to be patient. In the same way he prepared for a job, he had to formulate a plan of attack. He was in for the greatest fight of his life, and he had to win. There was no other option.

“I'm thankful to Dina. She had a coat last week, and you know how she is, Franco: she loses one every month.
Grazie Dio.
I love that Francesca gave Dina her coat.” He took another sip of Scotch. He especially loved knowing that Francesca was wrapped in his coat.

S
tefano stood very still, looking into the window of Masci's. Francesca was at the counter, smiling at old man Lozzi. She looked beautiful—and alive. Real. Not the fantasy he'd feared he'd made up in his mind. The tension, coiled so tightly in his gut, eased just a little. He had needed to see for himself that she was unharmed. The glass was tinted and he couldn't see details, but she moved easily. She was friendly, but she didn't actually engage in informative chatter.

“Satisfied?” Giovanni asked.

“Not yet.” Stefano turned to face his brother, his features set and hard. “Let's go home. I want to see those fuckers and find out what the hell they thought they were doing.”

Giovanni slid back behind the wheel of their Aston Martin while Stefano climbed in on the passenger side. Both were used to high-performance luxury and neither noticed the smooth, purring ride as the car glided from the curb and into traffic.

“Emilio said it's the same three-man crew we've been hunting again. We only have two of them. The third is in the wind, or maybe he wasn't there that night.”

Stefano didn't reply. Instead, he stared out the window, his gut churning. They could have killed her. The three muggers were notorious for their violence and it was escalating with every robbery they committed. Vittorio had “talked” with two of them once already when they'd mugged a woman in their territory. He'd gotten her money back from them and
made them pay for her injuries. He'd also extracted a promise that no member of the Ferraro community would ever be targeted. That was their one chance. The only chance.

“Are we looking for the other one, Gee?” Stefano asked, still staring out the window at the passing buildings. He loved their small village within the city. He loved the people there. Some he'd known almost from the first breath he'd taken. Others had moved in later, but he considered them all his. Under his protection.

“We're looking, but so far, nothing. They've been living off the grid so there's no trail at all. The last place they stayed was an abandoned building about three miles outside of Little Italy. We think the third one drives for them and is named Scott Bowen. He wasn't in the abandoned building. He must have gotten the hell out when he realized it was our family that took his friends. He was either there the night they mugged Francesca or he heard word on the street. But whatever the reason, he's gone.”

The gates opened and the car slid up the private drive to their sprawling home. The moment they exited the car, Henry, their valet, was there to take the car keys. Both men moved away from the house, selected a shadow and made the ride to the warehouse owned by their family in the very heart of the city, far from their territory. They didn't want a camera at a stoplight to accidentally catch their car moving through the city.

Stefano jerked open the door and strode through the cavernous space. The smell of blood and fear hit him first. That didn't surprise him. Emilio and Enzo weren't known for their kindness to anyone who beat up women. They hadn't wanted Vittorio to allow the two muggers to walk away when they'd first encountered them. Technically, the two men hadn't crossed into Ferraro territory, but even if they had no idea Francesca belonged to Stefano, they had to know Joanna did, or they were just plain stupid, coming that close to Ferraro territory.

Tom Billings and Fargo Johnson stared up at him through
swollen bloodshot eyes. Emilio had done a number on both of them. Terror entered their eyes when they saw who had walked in. Stefano stood in front of them, but didn't say a word. He merely reached for the file Enzo handed him. Seeing the thick papers, the two men looked at each other and instantly began fighting the ropes binding them. Stefano wasn't worried they'd get free. Emilio had mad skills when it came to tying knots. He didn't match Ricco's skill, but what he tied up stayed that way.

His cousins had been busy, detailing the muggers' long history of crimes. Stefano took his time reading. He didn't skim. When he was deciding someone's fate, it was only fair to explore every detail, even when the men had put a knife to his woman's throat. He couldn't let it be personal, but he found it was. No matter how hard he tried to think clearly, he knew he couldn't make the decision on what would happen to the two muggers.

“Send for Vittorio and Ricco,” he told Giovanni. “Have them drop whatever they're doing and come immediately. Ask Taviano and Emmanuelle to come as well.” Giovanni nodded and took the file Stefano handed him. “All of you read that. I'll stand down from this one and you four make the decision. If there's an even split, have Eloisa cast the deciding vote.”

“Stefano . . .” Giovanni protested. “You have the right. She's your woman.”

“No way am I touching this one. Not when I want to rip their dicks off and shove them down their throats.”

Both muggers froze. Billings swallowed hard, shaking his head. “We didn't know who she was, Mr. Ferraro.”

The knots in Stefano's belly only coiled tighter. His breath hissed out of him. There was no way to suppress the rage roaring through him. “It shouldn't matter who the fuck she is, you coward. You don't put a knife to
any
woman's throat. It was just your bad luck that you chose her, but had I heard you did this to any woman again, I would have come after you. Vittorio let you off with a warning and you should have left the city or at least gone to the other side of it and stayed as far from us as you could get.”

He wanted to beat the holy hell out of both men, even though Emilio had already done it. There would have been great satisfaction in feeling his fists sinking into them, breaking bones and causing as much damage as possible, but that was against his rules. He lived in a violent world and he had to have a code. He had to live by that code, no matter how personal this was to him.

Not trusting himself, he stepped back, away from them. He would abide by the decision of his family. They had all the facts and as far as he could see, these men had spent years robbing and viciously beating others. Stefano knew that when a person was hungry or desperate, they might resort to theft, but these men had escalated what they did into savage beatings. Ninety percent of their victims had handed over wallets, money and jewelry and yet they still were beaten. Even had they not touched Francesca, Stefano would have decided to end them.

According to the files his investigators Romano and Renato Greco had compiled, the beatings had gotten steadily more vicious over the years and the last few months, the men had put several people in the hospital, two of them with severe knife wounds. Clearly, the violence was escalating and Stefano believed, sooner or later, they would kill. The thrill was getting harder to get, so they upped the ante. He was certain once they killed, they would continue to do so.

Ricco, Giovanni, Taviano and Emmanuelle walked over together and stood facing the two muggers after they'd consulted just inside the doors of the building. Vittorio came right up to stand beside Stefano. “This is my mistake, my mess. I let them off with a warning,” he said softly.

Billings shook his head hard. “We'll stay away. Leave town. Whatever you want us to do.”

Vittorio looked at him for a long while, the silence stretching out. “I should have ended you when I had the chance,” he said, no inflection in his voice. “It's on me, the other victims. The ones you hurt. The ones in the hospital. It's on me that you put a blade to my brother's woman's throat. You
cut into her skin and made her bleed. That's mine. I have to carry that burden for the rest of my life because I didn't do my job.”

Tom Billings screamed, his voice high-pitched. Behind him, a shadow stretched out. Reached. Ricco, dressed as always in a dark pin-striped suit, just as they all were, emerged directly behind him, his hands on either side of his skull. Vittorio leaned forward and caught Fargo Johnson's head in an implacable grip. Both men jerked hard. They'd been instructed practically since birth in this quick, hard motion. They were experts. Few people could snap a neck easily, but they knew the exact motion, the exact amount of power needed, the perfect angle.

Both men stepped away from the two muggers. “Justice is served,” Vittorio said.

Stefano took a deep breath and let it out. He had managed to maintain control even when it was the most personal job he had faced. Discipline had won out, although the anger still knotted his gut. Francesca had been cold and hungry when he'd first laid eyes on her. And terrified. Now a man had managed to slice into her throat and scare her, trying to rob her. The one person needing his protection the most and he'd let her down again.

“Hey, brother.” Emmanuelle curled an arm around his waist, tucked herself in close against his side and hugged him tightly the way she had from the time she was a toddler. “I'm so excited for you. We all are.” She didn't even glance at the two dead men slumped in the chairs.

Stefano didn't like her being there. He wrapped his arm around her and walked her back outside. From the beginning, when Emmanuelle had been born, he had known she would be trained. She was a shadow rider as well. The telltale feelers fed out of her shadow, seeking the shadows of others. He hadn't liked it then—and he'd been a young boy, nine years old, when she'd been born. He had tried protesting, as had his other brothers, hoping to spare her their life, but there were so few of the riders anymore that the family insisted she be trained.

Emmanuelle knew what he was doing, taking her out of that place of death, but she didn't protest. All of her brothers preferred to protect her. They had been raised to respect women. To treasure them. To protect them. They wanted her to have a life like all the other girls in the neighborhood, not one of violence and death. She had grown up with four big brothers always hovering close and she'd never protested or gotten angry with them. Instead, she'd developed a sense of humor and, much to their mortification, the ability to ignore them and do what she wanted anyway.

“I want to meet her.”

“You will,
bella bambina
, as soon as I have managed to make her mine. She has no idea. I have to go carefully.”

Her dark blue eyes moved over his face, the smile fading. “I want to help. I know this is going to be difficult for both of you, Stefano, but she will be my sister. She will make my brother very happy. She gives my other brothers and me hope. Surely, if she's new to our neighborhood, she needs a friend. I can do that.”

Stefano thought it over. Francesca only knew Joanna. He nodded slowly. “Her friend, Joanna Masci, asked her to come here to work for her uncle. Francesca is in some kind of trouble.”

Emmanuelle nodded. “Renato and Romano are working on finding out everything they can about her. Zia Rachele and Zio Alfeo are helping. I think they even have Rosina and Rigina helping. The entire Greco family.”

His aunt and uncle and their children were all investigators—and good ones. Powerful ones. Rosina worked with Renato and Romano most of the time, using the computer as a rule, and Rigina helped her parents doing the same thing. If they were looking into Francesca's past, he had no doubt they would uncover her every secret. For a moment he actually thought to stop them. It was insane, but if she had something to hide, maybe it was best for him to find out before anyone else. She wouldn't like her privacy torn apart in front of his entire family.

“Stefano,” Emmanuelle said softly. “We all want to help you. She's ours as well as yours. When she comes into
la famiglia
, she becomes our sister. A daughter to our parents. She has to fully embrace our life, be one of us. You know that. Let us all help you in whatever capacity we can. Give us that. You always take care of us. We've always counted on your strength and guidance. This time, let us be there for you.”

He looked around him. His brothers faced him in a loose semicircle. Ricco, Vittorio, Giovanni and Taviano. His cousins, Emilio and Enzo, stood shoulder to shoulder with his brothers.
La sua famiglia.
His family. He put his hand over his heart, pressing his palm deep into his chest.

“Grazie.”
He meant it. Sincerely. His heart aching and full. He tightened his arm around his sister. “Perhaps you and the cousins could befriend Francesca and Joanna and do a few things with them. Put her at ease and make her feel as if she's putting down a few roots. My schedule's fairly heavy. If a couple of you could lighten my load”—he looked at his brothers—“I would greatly appreciate the time to try to work things out with her.”

“Of course,” Ricco answered immediately. “We'll divide your jobs between us for the next few weeks.”

“And we'll keep our eyes on her,” Emilio said. “This time, much closer. She already knows you put a couple of teams on her so there's no use in hiding.”

“We could coach you,” Emmanuelle ventured. “In what
not
to do.”

He looked down at her upturned face. “I don't know if I want to ask you what the fuck that means.”

“It means you can't act all scary, like you do. I'm used to it so you don't intimidate me . . .” She cleared her throat. “
Much.
But that's my point. You can't scare her off while we're all trying to work on her.”

“You think I'm going to scare her off, then your job is to make her see me as a good guy, the white knight.”

Laughter broke out, his brothers first. He was fairly certain Ricco started it. Emilio and Enzo joined in and lastly,
Emmanuelle. The warm, fuzzy feeling in his heart disappeared and he glared at them. “Seriously?”

“No one is going to look at you that way,” Vittorio said. “You were born with that face and you came out of the womb as mean and bossy as a snake shedding his skin.”

He couldn't deny the charge because it was probably true. “Fuck off. All of you.” He turned to Emilio. “Call Zio Sal and tell him we need his cleaning service immediately. Tell him to bring clothes and shoes for Enzo and you. You know the drill—everything goes. Anything that can be traced back to you. Get rid of all of it. Give it to Zio Sal and let him and his boys do their thing. I want you showered and shaved, looking good and back out on the street where you're visible.”