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She pressed her other hand over the ring. “Maybe the ring is magic, and it will protect us. It feels as if it could be.”
“Let’s hope so.”
CHAPTER SIX
What the hell were you thinking, Taviano?” Stefano snapped, glaring at his youngest brother. “You could have killed her. Instead of sitting on the couch with you right now, you could be carrying her out of a tube in your arms dead.”
It was easy enough to see that the head of the Ferraro family was furious. Nicoletta curled closer into Taviano, uncertain whether she was doing so in order to protect him or have him protect her. She had seen Stefano angry, but never like this. His rage radiated throughout the room—not just the room, it filled the entire penthouse apartment. She was afraid even that gigantic space couldn’t possibly contain the fierce emotion and it would leak downstairs and affect the people staying in the Ferraro Hotel.
Taviano glanced down at her the moment she moved into his rib cage, and his arm dropped from the back of the couch to her shoulders. The heat from his body seeped into the cold of hers. He had a way of always calming her when she wanted to run. He didn’t seem that affected by his brother’s wrath, not the way she was. She wanted to find one of the shadows and try to hide herself, even knowing the toll it would take on her. That made her feel like a coward, but she didn’t like raised voices—especially men’s raised voices.
“He’s not angry with you, piccola,” Taviano explained, his voice gentle. He dipped his head so his lips were close to her ear. “Our brother Ettore didn’t make it out of the shadows. It was Stefano who found him. He has every right to be angry with me. The risk was very real.”
“But I’d done it before.” Nicoletta lifted her head, forcing herself to meet the fury in Stefano’s eyes.
It was difficult to be surrounded by all of the Ferraro brothers at once. Even though the room was very spacious and extremely luxurious, warm with Francesca’s homey touches, having all of Taviano’s brothers around her took discipline not to panic. She knew being in close proximity with too many men was still a trigger for her. She’d discussed it often with the counselor, and how she could best handle that and hopefully overcome it.
“When I was a child, I sort of played in the shadows, not riding them, or really hiding in them, but I was really drawn to them and would jump in and out of them, always feeling that weird pull on my body. That wasn’t the same, but I think maybe in a way it prepared my body for the feeling of being in the tube.”
She had played often, and even as she got older, she couldn’t stop herself from jumping in and out of the shadows, like a child playing hopscotch. She’d felt silly, but it had been a compulsion.
“Then, after my parents died and I was given to my step-uncles, when I was taking a shower and I heard one of them coming for me, I inadvertently found myself hidden from him. He called to the others and they hunted for me, but they couldn’t see me.”
She detested talking aloud to the entire group of Ferraros about what had happened to her. It was too personal. At the same time, she would do anything to make things right for Taviano.
“I didn’t realize that I could move in them, but I did it accidentally. Once that happened, I tried to do it deliberately.”
She detested that Taviano was being yelled at because of her. He didn’t show hurt or anger, nor did he try to defend himself, even when he knew his career was on the line. She wanted to defend him. At the same time, she could barely breathe.
She wanted to go home, get to Lucia and Amo. Emmanuelle was there, and Mariko sat quietly with her hands folded neatly the way she did, looking graceful and poised. Two women. That helped, but Nicoletta really wanted to be away from there. Away from all of them—even Taviano. Especially Taviano. She was beginning to sweat, although she felt cold and clammy.
There was silence after her statement. Stefano’s dark blue eyes seemed to pierce right through her skull into her mind, into her soul, where he could see things she didn’t want him to find. Taviano’s arm tightened around her, and she realized she was shaking. She hadn’t lost it in the shadows. She hadn’t lost it when there was gunfire. She couldn’t make a fool of herself and lose it with his family.
She’d been to this penthouse hundreds of times. She’d played with Stefano’s son. She’d worked out in his training hall with his brothers—all the men in this room that she was now so nervous with. What was wrong with her that she was so close to a full-blown panic attack? She knew them. She liked them all. They’d been good to her. Protected her.
She wiped at the sweat on her face and tried to take a breath, but her lungs felt raw and burning. Her vision blurred. There were too many men surrounding her. Too many of them.
Stefano leaned toward her, his dark eyes steady on her face. “What do you mean you’ve done it before? You actually went into the shadows deliberately, Nicoletta? You knew you could hide there? Not be seen?”
She nodded. Desperately drew in air, taking a deep, quick breath. The pressure in her chest increased, her heart pounding to the point that she was afraid it might burst. She pressed her hand hard against her breast and forced herself to answer. “Yes. When I was a teen, they came for me when I was showering, and I was terrified. The things they did to me …”
Now she couldn’t breathe. She could barely see. Her vision had tunneled until everything was going black with the exception of Stefano, who was straight in front of her. “Taviano.” She whispered his name, her fingers twisting in his shirt, gripping him tightly as she had in the shadows, terrified she would make a fool of herself, panicking in front of his family.
Instantly he was crouched in front of her, his forehead pressed against hers. “Just breathe with me, Nicoletta. It’s just you and me. Breathe. Tutti qui sono famiglia.”
She found herself looking into his eyes. Taviano. She loved him. She detested him. He wrapped her around his little finger. She adored him. He made her feel safe. She breathed with him because she would do anything for him, and he was asking her to breathe with him. She knew enough Italian to know he was saying everyone there was her family. She also realized he’d said it deliberately in Italian because he wanted her to distinguish between his family and the ones claiming to be her family who had been so abusive toward her.
Once she was able to breathe again, she slipped her arms around his neck and held him for a moment, gathering her strength before facing Stefano and his brothers. They were intimidating men when they were on their own, but together, they were a force. Taviano slipped back onto the couch beside her as if nothing had happened, his arm once again sliding around her shoulders.
Nicoletta lifted her chin. “I still have panic attacks when I’m in close confines with several men. I’m sorry, it just happens out of the blue and I can’t seem to control it. It doesn’t always happen, and I’ve worked on it, but my counselor says that it might continue to happen for the rest of my life. I’ll keep trying to get on top of it, but who knows if I’ll be able to.”
“It was probably Stefano and his God-awful temper,” Vittorio said.
Nicoletta sent him a small smile, not quite daring to look at Stefano to see how he took that little dig. She couldn’t control the color rising in her face. She was embarrassed that she had to admit she had panic attacks when the Ferraros seemed to be so perfect and confident. Apparently Taviano was going to be the one stuck with the “flawed” wife. Eloisa was going to have a field day with that one.
“Francesca is always on me about my temper,” Stefano admitted. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Nicoletta. Going into the shadows is dangerous. If you aren’t trained properly, it can take a toll on your body. More importantly, you can get lost there.”
She nodded. “I was well aware of that. The one time I did move accidentally, I was hiding from my step-uncles and I found myself from one side of the room to another place, and I didn’t know how I got there. It was very disorienting. They were angry with me when they found me, and the consequences w
ere very brutal, but I was so sick and feeling so lost, as if I wasn’t all there, that the things they were doing to me didn’t really register until afterward. In a way, the consequences were a blessing. I wasn’t as afraid as maybe I should have been.”
There was silence after her declaration, and she felt the rising tension in the room, that sudden flare of anger tamped down in Taviano and reflected in his brothers. She glanced up at his face for a sign of what she was supposed to say to ease the tension in the room. She was at a loss with all of them.
Taviano’s fingers found the nape of her neck and began a slow massage. She sat very still, not knowing exactly what to do. No one had ever touched her like that, and the feel of his fingers on her bare skin, pushing into her muscles and nerve endings, sent a heat wave through her. It was a kind of slow seduction of the senses. It was frightening and exhilarating at the same time.
“Relax, Tesoro. Stefano might choose to eat me, but you will go unscathed in all of this,” Taviano whispered into her ear, amusement in his voice.
The touch of his warm breath added to the feeling of seduction, and that little undertone of amusement created an intimacy between them. She imagined that was what it was like between two people who really were in love. His lips actually brushed against the lobe of her ear, feeling cool and firm, sending a roller coaster crashing through her stomach.
“Were you aware that we were shadow riders?” Stefano asked, his voice pitched very low. Again, his gaze was fixed on her face. He looked suspiciously very hawklike.
If Taviano’s strong fingers hadn’t chosen that moment to settle around her neck possessively, and there was no other word she could think of to describe the feeling, she might have run from the room. Stefano was expecting the truth. She was well aware that every one of the Ferraros was like her, they could hear lies.
“Yes, at least suspected,” she admitted. “I watched all of you and the way the shadows swallowed you up. The time the truck tried to run Ricco or me down, one of us, and he pushed me out of the way, he was so fast, too fast. I watched him quite a bit after that. I was fast like he was when I did things. I have a memory that few others have. I can hear lies. I have these strange gifts, and all of a sudden there were others that seemed to have them. Of course I paid attention. I saw whenever you disappeared into the shadows. And I remembered you taking me through one of the shadows to the plane when you were getting me away from my step-uncles.”
“And yet you said nothing,” Stefano said.
She ducked her head. “I loathed myself. And you. And Taviano. You knew what they’d done to me.” She whispered it, feeling the grasping hands on her body. The way they forced themselves on her, the pain of the intrusion. The laughter as they brutally used her again and again, switching places so casually.
Taviano stroked his fingers gently on her face. “Piccola, who is your man? Your compagno? Your marito? Look at me. See only me.” Very, very gently, he framed her face with both hands and turned her toward him. “Open your eyes, Nicoletta, and see me.”
She lifted her long lashes because she was used to doing what Taviano asked of her. He was the one man in the world she trusted when she wouldn’t trust any other. There he was with those dark blue eyes of his, looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world. She had no idea how he could do that—focus so completely on her—but he always did. She couldn’t help but smile at him. She couldn’t help the way her heart reacted with that instant joy. She adored Taviano. No matter how often she told herself she was going to get her heart broken if she didn’t protect herself, she couldn’t stop the overwhelming emotion he produced in her. It just spilled over, like some volcano welling up out of nowhere.
“This is going to be your life with me, you know that, don’t you?” She cupped the side of his face, hating that he had been forced to marry her. That he had known three years earlier and had been helpless to do anything about it. She had always wondered why he had been so angry. He’d been abrupt with her, those dark blue eyes so moody, his handsome face never quite facing her when all the other Ferraros did. Their shadows had twisted together, and he’d been caught in a trap, just as surely as men had been caught in years gone by when girls had purposely gotten pregnant. She hated that for him.
He leaned into her, covering those scant inches between them, and brushed a kiss across her lips, trailed more kisses down her cheek to her shoulder. Light. Gentle. Barely there. She felt his mouth like a hot promise. He might as well have pressed a fiery brand straight through skin and muscle and etched his name into her bones forever.
“Dio, Taviano,” Stefano snapped. “I’m supposed to be passing sentence here. You’re tying my hands.”
Taviano sank back against the leather couch, taking Nicoletta with him. She couldn’t help noticing the others smirking a little as they exchanged looks with one another. She didn’t quite understand what that all meant, but she knew those looks were at Stefano’s expense. He was both sibling and parent to his brothers and sister, and it wasn’t always the most enviable position to be in. Right now, she felt a little sorry for him.
“Nicoletta is famiglia.” Stefano pinned his youngest brother with a stern eye.
Immediately Nicoletta felt the difference in the room. All humor was gone. Whatever Stefano was about to say, he meant business; all of them were listening, and every single one of them, Taviano included, would abide by what he said. She slipped her hand into Taviano’s and tightened her fingers around his, willing to show him support as best she could.
“She’s loved by all of us. You claimed her three years ago, so yes, you have that first right to her, but she is famiglia. We do not fuck around with famiglia. We don’t take chances with famiglia. Never with our women. I will admit, there were extenuating circumstances I was unaware of. The fact that Nicoletta had already been in the shadows and was experimenting on her own—which, by the way, is extremely dangerous and is now forbidden to you, Nicoletta.”
Stefano turned the full impact of his deadly dark stare on her. “I hope you understand what I am saying to you. As head of this family and as the leader of the shadow riders of Chicago, you are forbidden to experiment on your own. You will be trained properly if Taviano and I agree that you can safely maneuver inside the shadows. But you will never try to do so alone. Is that understood?”
There was no way in hell she was going to defy Stefano Ferraro. She nodded. “I understand, Stefano. Absolutely.” She might not like that Taviano and Stefano had a say in what she could or couldn’t do, but she’d hear them out before she entered into an argument about whether or not she could go into the shadows again. She believed in Taviano, and he’d already told her his idea for his wife was to work with him.
Stefano turned his attention back to his youngest brother, and Nicoletta held her breath. Unknowingly, Taviano tightened his fingers around hers, nearly crushing her hand. She didn’t protest, realizing how difficult this was for him. He would accept whatever Stefano decreed, but being a rider was who and what Taviano was. If that was taken from him …
“I’m very aware your shadow had already tangled with Nicoletta’s. Everything about Nicoletta is unprecedented. Everything. Still, the rules we have are in place to protect the family. Telling her what we are and what we do and how we do it could have placed all of us in jeopardy.”
Ricco shook his head. “That’s not entirely true, Stefano. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Their shadows were already so merged by Nicoletta’s second year here, they might as well have been married. Taviano couldn’t have survived as a rider if she had left. We all talked about that. We knew if she married someone else, we would have had to dissolve them first. We’d lose Taviano as a rider at that time, there was no getting around it. No matter what, he was going to have to share information with her. If she agreed to marriage, she would know, and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t remember.”
Nicoletta avoided Taviano’s gaze. She couldn’t look at any of them. It felt more than ever as if she
’d trapped Taviano into marriage. Maybe it wasn’t her fault, but it was still the end result—he had to marry her. He didn’t marry her because he loved her, or even because he was so physically attracted to her, he couldn’t do without her. He had to marry her in order to continue his career as a shadow rider.
Her stomach lurched and she pressed a hand deep. Her life was a mess. She wanted to go home to Lucia and Amo. There was unconditional love there. She felt it every time she walked through their door. She mattered to them just because she was theirs. They were like that. It wasn’t because her shadow was different or that it happened to tangle with Taviano’s; they just loved her.
She realized she had started to rock herself, another bad habit she had developed that she’d been working on breaking. In the course of less than an hour in the company of the Ferraro family, she’d had panic attacks twice and was now rocking herself.
“Not all partners know what we do,” Stefano denied. “They don’t always want to know everything.”
“Nicoletta, obviously, is not one of those partners,” Vittorio said. “She already realized we were capable of disappearing into the shadows. Taviano had to get to her fast when she alerted him to the danger. He took her out of harm’s way, just as any of us would have done. She asked him to help get her friends free from the Demon gang members.”
“All of which, until that point, seems reasonable enough. At that point, no matter what she wanted, or said, he should have taken her back to the plane or had the cousins take her ass to the safe house and sit on her until he cleaned up the mess.”
Stefano made his opinion absolutely clear. There was no doubt in Nicoletta’s mind that he would have done exactly that. He wouldn’t have cared what she thought or felt. He would have taken her somewhere safe and forced her compliance. To him, there was no other reasonable course of action.
She flicked a quick glance at Taviano’s brothers. In spite of the fact that Ricco, Giovanni and Vittorio had stood up for him, it was clear from their expressions that they agreed with Stefano. Her heart sank. When she was younger, she’d often thought of Taviano as a dictator, a man who insisted on things his way, but as she had grown up, she’d realized he was looking out for her. Now, she could see he was different from his brothers in some ways. Many ways. This was one of them, and it was going to hurt him.