.jpg)
“Thomas, Adan, go see what’s taking them so long. What’s got into everyone?” Ed demanded. “Is it just me? Carl? Is it just me?”
“Hasn’t been that long,” Adan muttered under his breath as he stomped out the door, Thomas behind him.
Geno rode the shadows and stalked them every step of the way. Thomas lagged behind, not wanting to bother going too far from the lights. He snapped his fingers at Adan and sent him toward the darker side of the building. The moment Adan disappeared, Thomas pulled out a joint and went to light it up. Geno was already on him, snapping his neck and lowering him to the ground before rounding the building and following Adan into the darkness.
Ed paced to the front door, took another healthy swig of tequila and handed the bottle to Carl. “Fuck it. Let’s play pool. Come on. Benja, you can watch these fools.”
Lucca and Salvatore were already waiting in the room. It was easy enough as Ed and Carl entered to get behind them as they stood staring, shocked, their alcohol-fueled brains unable to process what had actually happened to their friends. The two Demons dropped to the floor with broken necks as Benja stood with his back to them.
Salvatore gripped Benja’s head and wrenched. “Justice is served,” he murmured softly. Very carefully, knowing the three bartenders were most likely looking toward the poolroom, he pulled Benja inside and to the right of the doorway before laying him down on the floor.
He and Lucca caught a shadow to outside, where they joined Geno. The three shadow riders began the journey back to New York.
The bartenders washed glasses, waiting for the Demons to emerge from the poolroom. It was suspiciously silent. The music blared, but there was no more laughter or threats. No more loud conversation. They couldn’t hear the sound of pool balls striking together. They looked at one another, but it took another few minutes before they ventured out from behind the bar to go look. What they found was more terrifying than the Demons coming into their establishment had ever been.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Stefano is on his way here with two of our cousins from Los Angeles, Nicoletta,” Taviano announced. “Are you ready for this?”
“Why would the cousins from LA be coming here? Did something happen to my friends?” Nicoletta spun away from the plants she was inspecting.
Taviano had overgrown greenery everywhere. The windows allowed light to come in from so many directions that the houseplants grew easily. They climbed toward the ceiling, thick and heavy, leaves green and silvery. That was another passion they both shared. He had discovered very early on that Nicoletta really loved plants. She had gravitated toward working in Signora Vitale’s flower shop, much to his dismay.
Theresa Vitale’s grandson Bruno had taken over the shop for his grandmother. He’d always been a bit of a hell-raiser, and he’d begun to run drugs out of the store once he’d taken over as manager and was without supervision. Nicoletta had even been accosted by one of his friends when she’d worked there. Later, Bruno’s body had been found in a Dumpster, murdered, a victim of the ongoing feud between the Ferraro and the Saldi families.
An uneasy truce had continued over the last couple of years, but beneath the surface smoldered something deep and ugly only waiting for the lid to blow off. Both sides knew it, and both sides were preparing for war.
“Your friends are safe, amore mio,” he assured. “I don’t know why the cousins are here from LA. I’m sure they’ll tell us. I’ll put out some refreshments. We never serve alcohol before we work. We still have our run to make when Rigina or Rosina gives us the word.”
She followed him to the bar and watched as he put ice into a bucket and then put out soda water and various organic syrups to make refreshers.
“Pay attention to the energy in the house, Nicoletta. This time, I want you to warn me when someone gets close or comes in.”
She nodded and padded barefoot over to the window. She placed her palm on the glass, fingers spread wide. “Mom would give me a very bad time for getting my handprints on the glass.”
“I doubt my mother would have noticed if we put our hands on the glass. Stefano taught us to read energy by touching shadows, the floor, glass, the wall, whatever worked for us. Do you have your gloves close and your shoes, just in case we have to leave fast?”
“Everything is right over by the entrance you told me we were going to use to leave. I can put them on in seconds.” She didn’t turn around or move her hand.
Taviano was pleased to see she was concentrating on the house more than she was on their conversation. She would learn to read the energy around her all the time. It would become second nature, so that she could carry on conversations and still feel when something wasn’t right or know when someone was coming up on her.
“That’s my woman. Always be ready. Always have your gear ready. That’s the first lesson drilled into us.”
“No, it really isn’t, Taviano,” she said, still not turning her head to look at him. “Stefano is already playing games with Crispino. Francesca isn’t recognizing the movements, because she doesn’t ever see the signature kill, but he’s teaching him how to grip and snap a neck. He’s just not using a head yet. He’s just positioning his hands over and over on various objects. He’s having me do it. All of you are doing it. Emme is. Mariko is. He’s not even two and he’s already learning.”
“He isn’t learning to kill anyone, tesoro,” he said as gently as he possibly could. There was an ache in her voice, and he couldn’t blame her. None of them liked the idea of a child learning those techniques, but on the other hand, it was the way to keep them safe. The younger they learned, the better they would be at it and the safer they were.
“I understand, I really do. I wish I’d had the training that young, but our children …” She trailed off. “I don’t know, Taviano. It’s such a terrible legacy to give them. To decide for them before they’re born that they have no choice. They learn to kill, and if they can’t find a man or woman to love them, they live without love but marry anyway and produce children. What anchors them? What could keep a person sane when they have to live a life with no one to love them and bring them peace and happiness when they return home?”
She turned her head then and met his eyes. His heart stuttered at what he saw there. So much love he could drown in it. He was never going to have to live that way because he had her.
“I don’t want that for our children,” she whispered.
“Neither do I. Neither does Stefano, or any of our family. That’s what Eloisa fears the most. That’s what the older generation is so afraid of, that we’ll allow the riders to slowly dwindle out because we’re not tough enough on our children.” Taviano rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know the right answer, Nicoletta. I do know that I felt hopeless until you came along. You were so young, and I felt a little like a monster for making certain our shadows tangled together. I didn’t want you getting away from me. I knew the connection between us would grow stronger each time we were together, and truthfully, I couldn’t stay away.”
“I was very mean to you.”
“No, you weren’t,” he denied. “You were striking out against yourself, not at me. We both know that. You never sent me away.” He gave her a small smile. “You do realize that, don’t you? When you were so afraid, coming out of one of your terrible nightmares, fighting me, punching and kicking, you never sent me away.”
“They’re here, Taviano. I can feel them. Just now coming inside the door of the kitchen. Five people, four men and a woman. Stefano is one of them. And I could never send you away no matter how much I wanted to. You were always my anchor in the middle of the worst of everything. I was afraid if you left me, there wouldn’t be anything of the real me left to find.”
He understood what she meant. Nicoletta had been lost for a while. That strong woman her mother and adopted father had raised. That woman with a strong bloodline from both sides of her family. She was there, she just needed to fight her way to the surface again and remember who she was. He
had to do the same thing. He had to remember he was a Ferraro. It didn’t matter that his mother and father had rejected him. He knew, deep down, that Stefano, the one person in his life at the time that truly counted, would never turn his back on that boy.
“We’re in the living room, Stefano.” His voice carried, although he used a low tone.
There wasn’t so much as a whisper of sound, but Stefano entered, leading the way. Behind him, one man, tall with broad shoulders and a wealth of dark hair, the same piercing blue eyes that marked him as a Ferraro, followed. Severino, the oldest of his cousins from Los Angeles, was very reminiscent of Stefano in that he had taken over his family early. His parents were deceased, a terrible blow to riders everywhere, leaving Severino to care for his siblings at a young age. He had refused to allow other families to break them up. Like Stefano, he’d taken full responsibility.
Behind Severino came a beautiful woman, his youngest sibling, Velia. She was tall and elegant, looking every inch a supermodel. Her hair was braided in a thick long rope, but Taviano had seen it many times falling in dark waves to her waist. She had the inevitable curves of the women in their family, and the pinstriped suit emphasized her narrow waist and long legs. She flashed a smile at him in greeting and turned that radiant smile on his woman.
Behind her were two more of her brothers. Marzio, one of the toughest of the Ferraros, had a reputation among the riders for being someone ready to defend his family immediately. He was quiet, much like Vittorio, but he stepped in front of any of his brothers or his sister if there was trouble.
Beside Marzio was Tore. Taviano had known him all his life, yet he was the cousin he knew the least about. Tore stayed in the background, and he was no different now. He greeted them with a nod, acknowledging the introduction to Nicoletta, accepting the refresher and then stepping back into the corner, as if standing guard over all of them.
“Thank you for providing Nicoletta with clothes, Velia,” Taviano said. “We both really appreciated it.”
Nicoletta nodded, coming around to seat herself beside him. Taviano immediately took her hand and pressed her palm to his thigh.
“Yes, I was wearing only Taviano’s shirt, so I really needed them.”
Taviano was proud of the fact that she didn’t sound nervous. She seemed confident, a hostess in her own home. He liked that.
Velia smiled, looking somewhat amused. “I’ll bet you had to roll the pants up in order to walk in them.”
Nicoletta laughed. “That’s true. You are a bit taller. Otherwise, everything fit nicely.”
“I love the house, Taviano,” Velia said. “It’s different, but beautiful.”
“I’m not someone who wants to live in a city,” he admitted. “Fortunately, Nicoletta doesn’t mind escaping from all the noise and lights with me.”
“Let’s get down to business,” Severino said abruptly.
Velia heaved a sigh. “Seriously, Sev, you have to develop some kind of skills with people or you’ll never find a woman to put up with you. This is called being civil. We’re exchanging niceties.”
Marzio might have snickered. Stefano hid a smirk behind his hand.
“Well, exchange them another time,” Severino snapped, glaring at his sister.
She wasn’t in the least bit fazed. “Nicoletta will think you’re scary when you’re really a teddy bear.” She blew her brother a kiss.
He sent her a smoldering look, but Taviano could see that his dark eyes had softened when they rested on his sister.
“There appears to be a rift happening in the Demons with the leadership of the Valdez brothers,” Marzio explained when Severino nodded to him. “We have their main meeting house in LA wired, and we’ve picked up some interesting conversations. Tonio Valdez is president in LA, but he answers to Benito, just as all the brothers do. The brothers all have their own territories that they’ve worked hard at building up. It seems that every time they get ahead, making money for their own locals, Benito takes it. He says it is his due as the president of the Demons.”
Nicoletta inadvertently dug her fingers into Taviano’s leg every time Valdez was mentioned. He felt the tremor run through her body. He knew she was afraid of the brutish leader of the Demons. There was no way to prevent her from feeling that same terror she had felt when she was a teen and the president of the Demons was determined to have her as his “wife.”
“Nicoletta disappeared from the apartment, and the Demons had it completely surrounded,” Stefano said. “Benito had been watching to make certain she didn’t try to run from her step-uncles and him, so no one ever saw anyone going into the building or leaving it. No cameras or cells picked up anyone coming or going, yet all three of the Gomez brothers were dead from broken necks, and Nicoletta vanished. That left an impression.”
“Yes, it did,” Marzio agreed. “So, you can imagine what kind of craziness erupted when the same thing happened in LA, with Jorge running back to the warehouse and reporting that Armando Lupez, the man Benito sent out from New York and Tonio so graciously got tickets to the Kain Diakos concert for, was dead of a broken neck along with a member from LA.”
Taviano felt the little shiver that went through Nicoletta’s body. He didn’t want to call attention to her, but he shifted just a little to put his body between her and his cousins.
“Then the news came in about the warehouse,” Marzio continued. “Everyone dead, no Clariss and no explanation of what happened. No Nicoletta to hand over to Benito. The police never found a single body in the hotel where Jorge had claimed the others were killed. Now Jorge was dead in the warehouse as well. Tonio was going to have to tell his brother, and he knew Benito was going to be royally pissed and out for blood.”
Stefano met Taviano’s eyes. They had feared all along that Benito’s brothers would be a problem.
“Tonio seems to be the driving force behind a revolt he and his brothers have planned against Benito,” Marzio went on. “Benito’s leadership has suffered, in their opinion, ever since he got out of prison and then lost Nicoletta. He became obsessed with her, with finding out what happened to her and with getting her back.”
“What exactly is the revolt against Benito?” Nicoletta asked. “He’s a very vindictive man and wouldn’t hesitate for a minute killing his brothers and their families if they have them.”
“They don’t appear to have families at this time,” Severino said. “We checked. None of the brothers have indicated in any way that they are in opposition to Benito. In fact, they all sent men to support him getting you back. It’s just that the men they sent were their fuckups. The ones they have the most trouble with. It was discussed ahead of time which ones they didn’t mind losing. Those they thought would be loyal to Benito no matter what. Those were the ones sent to aid him.”
“What are the brothers planning?” There was apprehension in Nicoletta’s voice.
Taviano wrapped his arm around her and pulled her beneath his shoulder.
“They don’t want anything to do with Nicoletta,” Severino said. His voice was grim. “It seems that Tonio has much grander ideas. He believes that Benito was stupidly wasting his time on a whore with no money. What could she bring to them? Nothing but trouble. Benito was making money the hard way. Tonio, it seems, likes to look at magazines. He sends them to his brothers and circles all the photographs of what he calls the ‘useless’ celebrities. The ones with far too much money and nothing to spend it on but toys.”
Stefano and Taviano exchanged a long, puzzled look. Taviano shook his head. “What does that mean?”
“They watch reality television and the high life of the ‘useless’ celebrities,” Marzio said. “Tonio has convinced his other brothers that they can make a far better living that way rather than running after someone like Nicoletta. You may not know this, Velia, but women with too much money like men from gangs. It’s thrilling to bang men like them. Tonio thinks he’s in the right place to get a deal for a reality show. They can make all kinds of money that way and
put him in the path of the right kinds of bitches so they can have the kinds of toys where they can really have power. Not the kind of penny-ante shit Benito is into.”
“He wants a reality show?” Taviano echoed, shocked. Disbelieving.
Severino nodded slowly.
Stefano laughed. “He’d probably get one, too.”
“We could make it happen,” Severino said. “Or at least begin negotiations with him and distract him from what’s happening with his brother.”
“All of his brothers want Benito gone,” Marzio added. “His brother Thiago, president of the New Jersey Demons, is so sick of him insisting they take the fall for him and go to prison so he doesn’t have to when he screws up, which he does more and more because he’s drinking all the time now. Joaquin in Oklahoma City feels the same way. He told Tonio that he’s just about had it with Benito’s drinking, and he’s not taking the fall for him.”
“And there’s Leonardo from St. Louis,” Severino continued. “I think he despises big brother more than any of them. Benito took a couple of the women Leonardo’s crew had, and Leonardo couldn’t stop him without getting into it with his brother, and he wasn’t strong enough at the time to oppose him. That made him look weak in his crew’s eyes. They lost their women, and he lost their respect. He’s since got it back, but that really tainted his view of his brother.”
“Not a lot of love for Benito,” Stefano said.
“There’s a good reason,” Nicoletta agreed. “He’s a horrible man. Those women he took from St. Louis, where they were probably treated halfway decent, he most likely used in his trafficking ring. He didn’t want them for anything but to prove to his brother and everyone else that he could take them. He pours favors on those who help him and utterly wipes out those who resist him. He rules with fear.”
“Tonio lost some of the men he considers screwups,” Marzio continued his report. “He didn’t much care about them. And he was very happy that Benito’s men were killed and couldn’t tattle to big brother. He’s handpicked the contingency he’s sending to aid Benito. They’re all men he doesn’t trust. He figures they’re all in Benito’s pocket and have been paid to spy on him.”