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“Sooner or later, someone will come looking,” she whispered to Ricco, nuzzling his neck.
He stroked his fingers lovingly down her throat. “Said the spider to the fly.” He bent his head to brush a kiss into the shine of her blond hair. She had given him life back. She brought him to life. She made herself vulnerable to him and, in doing so, allowed him to do the same with her. She’d taught him how to love.
He kept his arm around her waist, breathing her in. That scent that was all Mariko. She had a taste that was unique to her. He would be able to find her in the dark, know her no matter how many other women were there with her. There was always an innocence about Mariko, and when he watched her perform her duties as a rider, he found her breathtaking. She was a double-edged sword, a beautiful, dangerous woman, and he wouldn’t have her any other way.
The door to the café was thrown open and a man stomped down the two cement stairs, but still held on to the door to keep it open. “Cleto, Emidio says to get your ass inside if you want to eat. He wants to be on the road in five minutes.”
Silence met his demand. He peered into the alley. The light was waning, and in the poorly lit alley, it was much darker. Light streamed from the café, but it only lit the fence. The waitress was still on her hands and knees, head down on the asphalt, wailing. Cleto lay on the ground behind her. The Demon member scowled and let go of the door to walk closer.
“Cleto, what the fuck are you doing? Emidio is pissed. You know how he gets.” He took two more steps.
Ricco glided up behind him and dropped him fast, not giving him a chance to turn around. There were five down and nine more to go. Now it was going to get tricky. If they were lucky, they might manage to get two more, maybe three, before someone realized there were dead bodies lying around and the Demons were under attack. It was extremely important that the two civilians not see Ricco or Mariko.
The waitress suddenly turned her head, no doubt shocked that Cleto hadn’t raped her. She realized he was lying on the ground behind her and even then, she stayed where she was, afraid to move, frozen with terror for a few more minutes. Very cautiously she turned around, still on her hands and knees, and shuffled forward until she could look closely at Cleto. She gasped and drew back, realizing he was dead.
“Oh my God,” she whispered and stood up abruptly. She flipped her skirt down and felt in her pockets for her keys. She looked wildly around and spotted the other bodies. She let out a high-pitched scream and ran for the tiny employee parking lot way in the back, where the alley opened up to four spaces.
Ricco and Mariko could hear her screaming the entire way to her car, which was a good distance away. They knew those inside the café and any of the neighboring businesses would put the screams down to whatever crimes were committed daily at the café. Women were often assaulted there, and no one cared.
The café door was flung open. At the same time, there was activity in the front of the café and more around the side lot. Emidio, the leader of the group headed to Chicago, had given the orders to leave, apparently with or without those in the alley. He must have sent others one last time to retrieve them.
“Cleto, Emidio is leaving now. He wants you in the fucking truck with him now.”
Two men stepped out together, providing a menacing appearance. Both wore weapons in plain sight, apparently to convince Cleto to come with them. They slammed the café door behind them, as if that might give them more authority, and stalked right up to the two men lying on the ground.
Ricco and Mariko followed, two wraiths, stepping in the exact footprints of those they stalked. As they did so, three more members of the Demons came around the front of the alley, sent by Emidio to aid the enforcers in retrieving the five men still in the alley. Cleto must have had a reputation as a troublemaker, but Emidio wouldn’t want to lose five men. He’d count on them to prove to Benito Valdez that the St. Louis chapter was worth more than any other.
Ricco and Mariko were in full sync when they performed their task, serving justice on the two enforcers, and then lowering them to the ground almost right on top of Cleto and the one who had been sent to find him.
“Seven down, farfallina mia. The odds are getting better,” Ricco whispered as they stepped into the closest shadow and rode it to the nearest tube that would take them toward the three members striding toward the fallen Demons.
The tube was fast, one of the small ones that felt like greased lightning. It shook one’s insides apart and ripped at the cells of the body until you didn’t feel as if you were human. It was disorienting, and a rider got to the end of the tube and was in danger of being spit out before feeling as if he or she was back together. Ricco had stepped protectively in front of Mariko so he would arrive at the end first, blocking it for her.
Ricco could see that these men would be more difficult for Mariko to take just due to their size, although she always got the job done. He glanced at her. She tipped her head back and met his eyes. As always, she looked serene, and inside him, where before there had been rage burning, she brought a sense of peace. Of calm. His center. He was always amazed at the depth of his emotions for her. Even now, in the middle of a difficult mission, when there were so many of the enemy, she generated a sense of well-being.
Mariko was his partner in every sense of the word. They normally each took a rotation alone. There were so few riders that when requests came in from anywhere in the world, a rider was sent. It was rare to work in pairs. Ricco was grateful for the chance to be able to shape more memories of his woman being a warrior.
He inhaled and took her scent into his lungs, taking her with him as he stepped out of the shadows directly behind the man who had fallen one step behind the other two. Mariko kept pace behind him, her feet shadowing his. He didn’t hear her, but he felt her energy, barely there, that vibration of feminine softness and steel. He matched the steps of the gang member exactly, his hands coming up in the classic kill. “Justice is served,” he murmured as he wrenched the neck and took him down to the ground.
Without missing a step, Mariko was in the shadow of the footsteps of one of the two men coming up on Don and Alejo. The two Demons stopped abruptly. She stopped with them, turning as they turned. Her much smaller figure clad in the pinstriped suit blended easily with the shadows. Night had fallen and the streaks of neon red and gold threw out strange, macabre shadows that blazed and crept across the asphalt. The stripes of the suit allowed her to simply disappear when the gray hit her.
Ricco admired the way his woman went so still. Movement drew the eye and she never so much as flickered an eyelash. The two men crouched low to examine the two bodies. One rose slowly. The other took his time but stood as well, both turning to face toward the café where the other bodies lay. They weren’t as visible, but neither man made a move to go search them out.
One pulled out his cell phone. “Emidio. Two are dead. Necks broken. No, I don’t know if Cleto did it. Alejo and Don. I don’t see the others.”
He looked at his partner and indicated to move forward. “He wants us to find Cleto.”
He shoved the phone into his pocket and the two men reluctantly started forward, this time at a snail’s pace. They both took out guns and pointed them straight ahead. Neither even considered that the danger might be coming from behind them. Ricco glanced at Mariko to ensure she was ready. She nodded without even looking at him. She always knew what he wanted from her; she was so tuned to him she felt his gaze on her. That was a by-product of Shibari. Or as he preferred to call it, Kinbaku—meaning “light binding.” No matter what it was called, it was erotic and beautiful when he practiced the art with his wife.
They moved up on the two men as one. It felt powerful and connective to be in step like that. He reached and she moved, leaping, her hands flying to the man’s head, positioning exactly while her legs wrapped him up. She wrenched, using her body weight, just as Ricco did the same with his hands. Audible cracks accompanied the whispers of “Justice is served.” Mariko was just
as graceful dismounting the body before it hit the ground as she was when she went flying through the air in her perfect attack.
Ricco locked his arm around her neck and dragged her to him, taking her mouth, because the combination of riding the shadows and seeing his woman in action was causing a powerful, intense reaction in his body. Every rider coming out of the shadows was desperate for sex. The drive was so brutal, they took care not to drink alcohol or go out in public until they could get themselves under control. He could feel the need, that terrible drive already on him, and they still had several shadows to maneuver and more tasks to complete before he could pay attention to the urgent demands of his body or those of his woman’s.
She tasted like she always did. To the rest of the world she was pure warrior, reserved, aloof, always in control. For Ricco, she was his woman, showing vulnerability, ceding control to him, allowing an exchange of power. Gifting him with her trust. She’d saved him when no one else could have. He loved her with every breath he took, and watching her in action strengthened his desire to make her life everything it should have been from the day she was born.
She’d never had a decent family life, and he wanted to give her that. Eloisa wasn’t the best, she certainly wasn’t ever going to be a great mother to her, but there were Stefano and Francesca—the true heads of the family—and they loved her. Giovanni and Sasha had become immediate friends. Now there was Vittorio and Grace. Nicoletta had always been a favorite of Mariko’s. She’d treated her as a younger sister. And Mariko loved Taviano as much as he would let her. Taviano wasn’t a man who let others really know him. Ricco had been the same way for so long, he hadn’t really seen that in anyone else. It had been Mariko who had pointed that out. Then there was Emmanuelle. Everyone loved Emmanuelle.
He had definitely surrounded Mariko with a large family, and they all loved her. They weren’t the only ones. He had an extended family that went on forever. Cousins. So many of them. They practically smothered the riders in protection. Mariko wasn’t used to so many people and so much attention, especially bodyguards following them everywhere when they went out to eat or to a club. He could tell they made her uncomfortable, even though she liked them.
Mariko rubbed her hand along his jaw. “What is it, Ricco?”
“I was just thinking how much I love you.”
“You were frowning. The thought of loving me makes you frown?” There was amusement in her voice.
Something about that soft laughter made his heart do a slow roll. “I was thinking how much you don’t like the bodyguards that always surround us. It will get worse if we have children. There’s very little I can do about it, and I promised you I’d do whatever it took to make you happy.”
“I am happy, Ricco.” She tugged on his hand. “Let’s finish this. I’d like to get the job done and go back to being us.”
He leaned down and nuzzled the suit jacket out of the way of her neck so he could kiss her pulse there. “You want to see what artwork I come up with on the rooftop, don’t you?”
“That, and I have to confess, one more shadow and I might jump you before we get to the artwork. This is crazy.”
He flashed a grin, took her hand and ducked back into the tube that would take them closest to the side parking lot, where the three vehicles had been left unattended. By now, Emidio had to have been told that none of them would start. There were four Demons left out of the fourteen that had come from St. Louis. Emidio had no idea what had happened to his men, and he would want to know.
The shadow was a long one, but fairly easy to ride. They paused just in the mouth of it, watching the Demons as they consulted together. Whispering. All of them were on their phones attempting to raise those not present. Emidio was furious. He punched the side of the truck, denting it, giving away the fact that he wore brass knuckles on his hand. He was prepared for a battle. He gestured toward the alley and indicated they all go armed together.
Ricco kissed Mariko and then indicated he would take the taller of the two men. Unfortunately, Emidio was very short. Mariko would have to serve justice on him, and he would be guarded by the other three. He would also be the wariest. Mariko simply nodded and waited for the four men to stalk past them.
Ricco caught the names of the two tall men. The one wearing a dark green shirt was called Juan, and the other Marcos. The shorter man pacing alongside Emidio was Carlos. Carlos was slim and wiry-looking. Ricco didn’t like the look of him and hoped that Mariko noticed that of all of Emidio’s soldiers, Carlos was the one most dangerous. That, Ricco decided, was the drawback to partnering with his wife. His attention was divided, even knowing she was excellent at her job. She’d trained from the time she was a toddler and excelled at her work, yet he still worried about her.
What of Nicoletta? She might be an anomaly. She had a fast learning curve, and he’d watched her. All of them had. They’d discussed the fact that she never had to be told something twice, that every week she was faster and deadlier on the training mats. That didn’t take away from the fact that Mariko had years of training on her and Ricco still worried. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like for Taviano if Stefano really gave the couple the go-ahead to work together as a pair.
Mariko fell into step behind Carlos, using the shadowing technique. Ricco couldn’t move on the taller men until they were out of sight of the two others. He stayed in the shadows, watching them, keeping close to them by moving from one shadow to the next, using the darkness when he had to come out in the open. Part of his attention was on Mariko as she stalked Emidio’s bodyguard.
“Stay close,” Carlos hissed at Emidio when he quickened his pace. Juan and Marcos had a fairly good lead on them, their longer strides putting distance between the men.
“I don’t want to get separated,” Emidio snapped, but he slowed, taking a firmer grip on his weapon. “Shit, Carlos. Bodies.”
Marcos and Juan had gotten to Alejo and Don. They went back-to-back and then Juan cautiously crouched down to examine the bodies.
Emidio halted a distance away when Carlos put a cautionary hand on his arm. “Who is it?” Emidio called out.
“Alejo and Don,” Marcos answered.
“Necks are broken,” Juan added, straightening. “They never saw it coming. Alejo was taking a piss.”
Emidio swore savagely. “You see Cleto anywhere? Did he do this?”
“A pro did this,” Juan said. “Someone who knew what they were doing.”
Ricco was surprised that Juan would recognize that. The man kept his cool when the three remaining Demons had to be a little panicked. He could understand why Emidio had kept these men close to him. Cleto was a wild card, probably useful in a fight but constantly a troublemaker. These three men were different, all business, and their business was to protect Emidio.
Mariko waited, her breath barely moving through her lungs, her energy so low nothing could possibly give her away. There was no warning to Carlos that danger stalked him. He might be the most lethal of the four men in the alley, but a beautiful woman wearing a pinstriped suit signifying she was a Ferraro, a bearer of justice, matched him footstep for footstep. He had one hand on Emidio’s arm, while the other fisted his gun, and he looked around carefully to ensure no one was close that could harm the man he protected.
Ricco watched, his heart pounding, his mouth dry, as Mariko made her move, uncaring that Carlos stood so close to Emidio. She caught his head from behind, wrenched his neck and whispered, “Justice is served.” Immediately she stepped into a shadow. She had chosen her moment based on the light coming and going from the gaudy neon signs overhead.
Ricco let his breath out in a long rush. She was beautiful. Magnificent. His body reacted, a rush of heat pumping through his veins, filling his groin with hot blood. She stepped out of the shadow directly behind Emidio as he turned to look at Carlos. Carlos’s hand had slipped from his arm and the body was falling backward toward the rocky asphalt.
Emidio took a step forward, frowning, unable to
believe his own eyes. He hadn’t heard a sound and had no idea why his bodyguard would be falling. As he stepped forward, Mariko timed her moment and caught his head, wrenching hard. The man dropped almost on top of his guard. Mariko uttered the classic words in her soft voice and once more disappeared into the shadows.
Ricco had only to wait for Marcos and Juan to notice that both men were down. When no orders were given, the two tall men stepped into the light to try to catch a better look at the man they took orders from. When they saw the two bodies lying on the ground, they ran right past Ricco to them. Again, it was Juan who examined them.
“Same kill method,” Juan said. “We’ve got to get out of here now.”
“I didn’t hear a sound,” Marcos said.
“Yeah. Like I said, we’ve got to get out of here.” Juan looked around carefully and then slowly straightened up. He indicated for Marcos to lead the way.
Marcos didn’t protest, simply taking the lead, using longer strides to make his way toward the other end of the alley. Juan came behind him, watching all sides and occasionally throwing a glance over his shoulder. Ricco used the one shadow that would take him ahead and to the right of the rapidly walking men. Marcos passed him.
Ricco fell into step behind Juan and without hesitation, caught his head between his hands and wrenched. The crack was loud in the silence of the night. Marcos spun around, his gun coming up, looking for a target, finger on the trigger. Mariko was on him before he could squeeze and get off a shot. She had wrapped him up with her legs and her hands were already in the perfect position. She gave the same wrench, and both of them simultaneously uttered the required line. “Justice is served.”