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“Piccola, stay still. Let me see how much damage there is. How bad is the headache?” Thankfully the lights were dim, and the shields were down on the windows in the bedroom. She had her eyes closed and her hands over her face, but between her fingers he could see trickles of blood sliding down her face. “You’re going to have to move your hands.”
“I can’t.”
He wanted to smile at her protest, that soft little voice that came at him out of the dark. Very gently he laid his hand over hers. She didn’t try to stop him when he enclosed her smaller fingers and pried them loose, uncovering her face. Even so, it was difficult to see her pale face in the dim lighting of the plane.
The jet gave a shudder as it began to move on the runway. Franco spoke, telling them to prepare for takeoff. Demetrio Palagonia leaned in from the other side of the bed to hand Taviano a warm washcloth.
Taviano took it with a brief smile of thanks. This was supposed to be an easy, casual run to a concert, not a dangerous mission that put them all in jeopardy. They’d handled it, but Stefano wasn’t going to be happy. Taviano had left his phone on the plane. He couldn’t take it into the shadows, and he wasn’t going to see what his brother had to say to him yet.
By now, his LA cousins would have told him that Pia, Bianca and Clariss were safe and staying with them until given the word that they could go home. When Stefano asked why there was no mention of Nicoletta, he would be told that their sister had provided clothes for her to ride the shadows, so no worries on that score, and Stefano would lose his ever-loving mind. Taviano couldn’t blame him, but he didn’t want to hear about it, not yet.
The plane was in the air and Taviano breathed a sigh of relief as he wiped away the blood. Thankfully the twin trickles came from Nicoletta’s nose, not her eyes and ears. He had mostly been afraid of a brain bleed. She’d seemed to handle the last ride better than all the others put together. He wasn’t certain why, when this ride should have been the worst, but her body had moved with his, as if they’d been born to ride together.
He cracked an ice pack, wrapped it in a cloth and applied it to her forehead after sweeping back her hair. “Drago, there’s an eye mask in the drawer right beside the bed. Would you mind getting that out for me?”
“No problem.”
Drago pulled it out and helped lift Nicoletta’s head so Taviano could slip the mask over her head to cover her eyes.
“You’re good, il mio tesoro. Just relax. We’re in the air. Your friends are fine. You’ve got a small nosebleed but that’s all. Not as bad as before, and you weren’t even sick.”
“Don’t say the word sick,” she cautioned.
“I’ll be more careful,” he promised, exchanging a relieved grin with his cousins and nodding when they indicated they would leave him alone with her.
He waited until both left the room before he removed his shoes and slipped up onto the bed with her. He was damned tired, and it was going to be a very long night. He had some explaining to do.
“I can’t believe how fast you learned, Nicoletta.” There was pride in his voice. “The entire family has noted how quick you pick up technique and retain it, but riding the shadows is something we learn from the time we’re toddlers. We start with simple games and progress from there, but you were just thrown in at the deep end and acted like a pro.”
“I threw up over and over, Taviano. That’s hardly being a professional,” Nicoletta protested, a note of sarcasm creeping in, telling him she didn’t like praise she didn’t feel she deserved.
“You don’t understand. Some riders train for years and still can’t take being in the shadows. They end up not being able to do the work because it’s too difficult. You’re going to be twenty-one in a few weeks, Nicoletta, and you were able to ride four times in the same day without training. That’s unheard-of. No one, to my knowledge, or the knowledge of our family, has done such a thing. If I lose my fucking career over this, I want you to know I’m so damned proud of you, and it was my choice to do it.”
He meant it, too. It had been his choice to bring her with him. It had been a risk, but he’d needed to bring her. He would have to answer to Stefano, maybe even go before the counsel. If it went that far, if Stefano insisted he be brought before the counsel, then he would be banned from riding, but he knew he would have done it all over again, because Nicoletta needed him to give her what she asked for. He might be able to make himself explain it to Stefano, but never to the counsel, so he hoped it didn’t go that far.
There was a small silence. Nicoletta put her hand to her head and slowly drew the ice pack from her forehead and then removed the eye mask. He could just make out her eyelashes fluttering as she turned her head to look at him. Ignoring the light, restraining hand on her belly, she sat up.
He saw what that movement cost her. There was a momentary flash of pain on her face. Her body hadn’t recovered from the brutal travel in the shadows. It wouldn’t for a long while. Still, she turned on the bed, pulling her legs up under her as she faced him completely.
“What do you mean, lose your career?”
He winced. He still hadn’t recovered from riding the shadows, especially with a wound. He should have guarded his words more carefully.
“I promised you I would explain things to you, didn’t I?”
Her eyes searched his face and then she nodded.
“You may as well get comfortable. I’ll get you something to drink. Something icy cold. I know from experience your throat is feeling parched.” It was true, but there was a part of him that was stalling, and he knew it.
“Yes, I need something cold to drink, Taviano, but before anything else, you need to explain what you meant. Why would you lose your career because you helped my friends?”
“Not because I helped your friends, Nicoletta.” He got up and made his way to the small bar there in the bedroom. It was fully equipped, just like the one in the other room. He got her a cold water. Like him, Nicoletta didn’t drink alcohol anymore. “Because I allowed you to see what we do.”
“I already suspected what you did. I had done it myself,” she pointed out, taking the bottle from him. “Well, I hid, sort of. But I still suspected you did something in the shadows.”
“That’s beside the point. You didn’t have a clue how to ride them. There are rules that all riders follow, and for good reason. Those rules are in place to protect all riders. All of the families, not just ours. If you were to tell what you know to an outsider, you could ruin everyone.”
“Why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “Any number of reasons. Money comes to mind. People do all sorts of things when they’re angry or hurt or drinking, or just because they can. You and I both know things can take a very ugly turn very fast.”
She was silent, regarding him over the top of the bottle of water, her gaze thoughtful. “How do we keep you from getting into trouble, Taviano? I asked you to help my friends. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“Marry me.” He said it abruptly. Too abruptly. He knew the moment the words had left his mouth that he’d mangled the moment. He sounded harsh and implacable, much like Stefano when he was decreeing that the world had to do as he dictated.
She looked shocked. Even a little horrified. She blinked rapidly, and for a moment he thought her lashes looked wet, as if there might have been tears on them, but she turned her head away, shaking it and then putting the water bottle to her mouth.
He made every effort to soften the impact of what he was saying. “We’re heading to Vegas. If you’re willing, we can get married there. Me taking you into the shadows and explaining the family business to you will be more acceptable if you’re actually married to me. Stefano will be pissed as hell, but there’s a chance he’ll let me stay a rider.”
Dio. He’d always been good at talking his way out of anything. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t get the right words out for her? She was stiff, her shoulders set, her face angled away from him so her luxurious, th
ick, long black hair flowed down around her shoulders, hiding her expression from him.
“I see. How long will you have to keep up the pretense?”
“What pretense?”
“That we’re married.” Her voice was strictly neutral.
“What the hell does that mean? We’re going to Vegas. You just said you’d do whatever it takes to help me out. Marriage is marriage, Nicoletta. You don’t get married and then what? Get unmarried? Divorced? Once we’re married, we’re fucking married. There’s no pretense. I don’t lie to Stefano or to the family.”
“Lovely. Well, that just sounds lovely, then.”
He really had blown it big-time. He took a deep breath and shut down the infamous Ferraro temper. He was angry with himself, not with her. “Look, Nicoletta, I know you deserve the works, a big church wedding, and we can have that. We can make that happen when this is all over, one with everyone there. I want that for both of us, but I’m going to be honest about what’s happening here.”
She turned her head then and her dark eyes met his. He was older than her by several years, but right then she looked at him with too-old eyes. “Do be honest, Taviano. I would appreciate it.”
He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “When I first encountered you, a little over three years ago, our shadows touched. Maybe you didn’t feel it the way I did, but I knew then that we were connected.” He’d already told her that much. He tightened his hold when she tried to pull away. “Over the years, our shadows continued to entwine, and now they’re so tangled together, if you look at them, Nicoletta, you won’t be able to tell where one starts and the other lets off. They’re one and the same.”
She shook her head, but she stopped pulling away from him.
“When a rider marries and his partner accepts and comes into his or her world, she accepts the rules that govern that world. Their shadows twist together like ours have and make an unbreakable bond. It’s unusual for the shadows to do what ours have prior to a union, but everything about you has been unusual.”
She moistened her lips, frowning a little. “I don’t exactly understand. If you saw that our shadows were already tangling together, then you had to be worried that you would have to be my partner even back then. Now I can understand why you were always so angry with me. It makes so much more sense.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
She shook her head again and looked away from him.
He swore under his breath. “I was never angry with you, Nicoletta, only at what I couldn’t fix. Men want to fix things.”
“Just keep explaining.”
He wished he still drank alcohol. “Once married, there’s no divorce, no parting without severe consequences to both parties.”
Her eyes were back on his face. Unblinking. Watching him carefully. Taking in everything he said. She looked very sober. No expression. He couldn’t read her, and that was extremely unusual. As a rule, Taviano could read Nicoletta like an open book.
“Please explain ‘severe consequences.’”
He ran the pad of his thumb over the back of her hand. Stroking little caresses. He needed them more than she did. He needed to reestablish the connection he’d come to rely on. It had grown strong between them, but just that fast, she’d pulled away from him. He was used to her near adoration. She wasn’t adept at hiding it, although she tried.
He had waited to claim her until he felt she was old enough. She’d been through far too much, and sexually, he knew he was demanding. He’d spoken to counselors about what to expect, and every one of them had said to go slow, to let her set the pace. That meant not to claim her until she was older, to give her time. Waiting had been difficult, especially when she’d had another man declaring he was in the running.
Taviano wasn’t certain if Nicoletta even knew Dario Bosco had made his own claim on her. Taviano had shut that down hard, telling him and his family that Nicoletta was engaged to him. That had been two years earlier and no one had said one word to her, which was a good thing. She would have ripped his head off.
“Taviano, are you going to answer me?”
“Yes, I’m just trying to figure out the best way to tell you. I keep blurting shit out and saying it all wrong. I’m not doing this well, Nicoletta.”
“I’m getting the gist of what you’re telling me.”
She might be understanding the premise, but she wasn’t understanding him and the way he felt. “If shadows are merged so they become one and the two riders decide to part ways, the one who is the actual rider forfeits his or her ability to be able to ride. He can’t go into the shadows as he once did. It’s like living a half life. That would happen to me if we decided to end our marriage.”
“And me?”
“You would forget that you ever knew me. If we had children, you would forget you had them. If others pointed them out to you, you would have no feeling toward them. In some ways that is a protection for you, but it is also a kind of hell. I would always remember you.”
She stared at him for nearly a minute in total silence. Then her long, thick lashes fluttered, calling attention to the tips and the way they curved up at the ends. “This is insane. You just said our shadows are already merged together. It doesn’t matter if we’re married or not. It happened almost immediately.”
He nodded. That was the truth. It happened the moment he was in the same room with her, that first time in New York when Stefano was there to bring justice to her three step-uncles. He’d felt the jolt of that first connection. It had hit hard, and when he’d looked at the shadow, his hand already curled through hers, he had seen that first knot forming.
The second time had happened on the plane when he’d gone to the bedroom in case she’d woken up and was frightened. The light, as dim as it had been, cast their shadows on the wall. He remembered looking up in a kind of horror to see the two shadows weaving together, as if someone were using knitting needles to intricately tie them together.
He should have talked to Stefano about it, but he’d looked down at her face, that angelic face with the lashes lying like two thick crescents on her bruised skin, and he’d known he was born to be hers. She might have still been a child, but someday she would need more than she did right at that moment, and he would have the time to shape himself into the man she would not only need but hopefully want.
“So almost from the beginning, you knew that you would have to be with me, or you would lose your ability to ride the shadows.” She gave a delicate little shudder, as if she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to ride the shadows.
He nodded. “I knew. Each time we came in contact, our shadows merged, and the weave grew tighter. I felt it. I knew you did as well.”
“Why didn’t you stay away from me, if you knew it was happening? You came night after night, Taviano.”
“Our lives are different from others. We look as if we have freedom, but we don’t. If we can’t find the person we choose on our own to marry, the one we love, by a certain age, then a marriage is arranged, because it is necessary for a rider to produce children.”
She stared at him as if he’d grown two heads. “No one can force you to marry someone.”
“It’s done out of duty. We are born into a family that carries a heavy responsibility. Those of us who accept that responsibility will allow an arranged marriage if we can’t find a partner in the time allotted.”
“But my shadow snared yours, and you just let it. I suppose that’s kind of like an arranged marriage, isn’t it?” There was a touch of sarcasm, or maybe tears, in her voice.
He shrugged. “The point I’m making here, Nicoletta, is we’re here now, in this place. I took you into the shadows, which was strictly forbidden. I gave you a glimpse of the life we lead. I can bring you all the way in or leave you behind right now. You have to choose.”
She took a long pull from the water bottle and then pressed it against her throat. “Don’t be an ass, Taviano. I already told you I would do w
hatever it took to help out. I asked you for help with my friends. I insisted on going with you. All along you kept giving me an out. I kept going with you and asking for more. Every choice was mine. If we have to marry, you need to know you aren’t getting any bargain.”
She hesitated, moving the bottle from her throat to her forehead, pressing it there and then taking a breath to continue. “In spite of the fact that I threw myself at you when I was drunk, I haven’t been with a man since I was a teen and I was gang-raped repeatedly by my step-uncles. The only other man I’ve been with was Benito Valdez, and that was rape every single time. I fought and lost the battle. I don’t even know if I can have sex, let alone enjoy it. I don’t know if I can have children, if that’s what you’re looking for. I don’t know a lot of things that would be helpful when one is thinking about marriage.”
Taviano noted she avoided looking at him, when before she’d been so direct. “Tesoro, there is no need to worry. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“It’s a pretty big bridge. You cheat on me and we’re done. I’m not the kind of girl who puts up with that kind of thing. You knew what was happening and I didn’t. You could have stopped it, but you didn’t, so no matter what, those are the consequences.”
“I want you to be very clear on that, Nicoletta. I couldn’t have stopped it. Shadows are a force of nature. They connect. They twist together. I knew it was happening, and yes, I could have made an effort to stay away.” He hadn’t because he’d been so drawn to her. He had wanted—even needed—a closer connection with her.
“Just tell me about what it is you do. What the family does. How it all works and why you’re so secretive.”
He might as well. He’d already gone this far, and she had promised to marry him. If she didn’t, he had no choice. He would have to break it off with her, and that would destroy both of them. She would forget everything he told her.
“I’m sure, in the years you’ve lived with Lucia and Amo, you’ve heard the rumors about the Ferraro family.”