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“Tell him, sweetheart. He needs to know for the others. You’ve always kept them safe. They don’t know the things you do for them. They don’t know about the night patrols. You need to at least let Stefano know.” His voice was very gentle but extremely firm.
Severino raised an eyebrow at Stefano. Stefano kept his gaze fixed on his mother’s face. She was always such an enigma to him. A complete mystery. She seemed an utter contradiction, as if she were two people at constant war with herself. She hated her children and yet loved them.
“The headaches started years ago. I don’t remember how far back they go,” Eloisa said.
“The first time I found her in the garage, she was in tears, rocking back and forth, holding her head. I thought she had a migraine,” Henry said. “It was just after Emmanuelle was born. Days after.”
“My parents had quit riding after you were born, Stefano. My mother didn’t want to ride, so my father retired and insisted I take over for both of them because Phillip wouldn’t take a shift. He said riding made him sick and he never trained properly. His family hadn’t provided that information to my parents when they looked for a husband for me,” Eloisa said. “In any case, I was expected to resume taking my rotations immediately after giving birth. My mother told my father I really didn’t need any time off.”
Stefano leaned forward in his chair. “You’re telling me after giving birth to your children, you were immediately sent out to work?”
“Yes. There was no one else. There weren’t many riders, Stefano. That’s why they were always pushing for children.”
“And when you had Ettore?”
“I was sent all over the country. Even to Europe.” She looked down at her hands. “I didn’t ever go against my parents the way you did against Phillip and me.” She rubbed her head again as if it really hurt. “It wasn’t done. I think I’m going to be sick. If you’ll excuse me.” She got up and hurried out of the room.
Stefano turned his attention to Henry. “How much of this did you know?”
“I’ve worked for this family for years, Stefano. I’ve been in love with Eloisa since she was a teenager. Your grandparents were madly in love, but they had no time for her or any of their children. Life was very different when she was growing up. I didn’t have a clue about shadow riding then, but as I worked over the years, I began to get a sense of things and guessed more and more of what was happening. Especially after Eloisa married Phillip and he had affairs. He wasn’t exactly discreet with his comings and goings. I watched him, more than once, disappear into a shadow.”
“Good old Phillip,” Stefano said.
“He made it worse for your mother. Her headaches seemed like they were all the time. She would have to lie down, and I would see she would get nosebleeds, and sometimes she would bleed from her ears. Phillip knew, but he didn’t care. I wanted her to tell you. I threatened to tell you, but she said if I did, she would never forgive me, and she’d never speak to me again. You know Eloisa. Even if it was for her own good, she would carry out that threat. I couldn’t risk for her to be completely alone, without anyone to look after her.”
“Has she been to a neurologist?”
Henry shook his head. “After seeing Sandlin, I think it scared her.”
“It isn’t the same thing.”
“Head trauma is head trauma. Even at a facility where your family contributes millions of dollars, someone still leaked Sandlin’s personal information, and the media was a circus there for a while. Can you imagine if Eloisa’s information was leaked? Because she can.”
“We can get ahead of that, Henry,” Stefano said. “Every second she waits, more damage can be done. And she’s still using the shadows. If every time she goes in, just to visit, just to speed up going from one place to another, she’s damaging her brain more, then we have to know. We have to know how much is too much. We have to know if we all should be getting scans and comparing them year to year. Henry, this is huge.”
“It also explains a lot,” Severino said. “People with brain trauma can have unexpected outbursts of rage. If she goes into the shadows and it triggers that reaction in her, it’s possible Aunt Eloisa has been having brain damage occurring for a while and no one has suspected.”
Stefano steepled his fingers again. “All of us have bad tempers, Severino, including you. It’s an unfortunate Ferraro trait.”
“Great, we’re going to have to have scans every other week.”
“That’s about the truth of it.” The smile faded from Stefano’s face. “I think we’ll have to be stricter on the rotations and send out a caution to the board. Let them know that there might be a problem and the families should be careful about how much time is spent in the shadows overall. The only time I’ve ever had headaches or bleeds was at first, when my body was getting used to it. I’m trying to adapt Crispino slowly by letting him play in and out of the shadows without him getting sucked in. I never let a shadow touch him without his clothes on, and I’ve cautioned Francesca.”
Eloisa returned to the room, her face pale. She slipped into the chair again. It was obvious she had tried to compose herself and put her mask back in place. She looked both haughty and regal. Stefano wasn’t having any of it.
“Eloisa, I need you to go to the trauma facility with Henry and ask Dr. Elliot to do a scan on you immediately. I’ll have all the boys and Emmanuelle do the same. We need baselines for all of us. You may have saved all the riders, and for that I have to thank you. The world of riders will owe you a huge thank-you. No one has ever considered the toll what we do might take on our bodies.”
She had been shaking her head, but she stopped when he kept talking, as if he didn’t see her resistance.
“It always amazes me that the Ferraro family seems to pioneer the leaps in our businesses and the way we do things,” Severino said, “and thanks to you, Aunt Eloisa, we’re still going to be the family in the forefront. I’ll have my riders go in for scans. We’ll use your facility as well, Aunt Eloisa. You’ll have to tell us who the best doctor is, and how best to avoid any unwanted publicity. We’ll need someone to handle that end of things, Stefano.”
Eloisa made a little face. “That’s easy enough. Dr. Elliot is a pioneer in the field of head trauma. And Grace is our answer on how best to handle this. She puts on all kinds of charity events for the Ferraro family, Severino. We can make it a huge event and invite the New York branch as well to participate. We’ll do something with brain trauma, or PTSD awareness. Wearing helmets when riding motorcycles, maybe all of it.”
Her face lit up. “We can put a large event together and then show scans of brains before injuries and after. We can say we volunteered to be scanned as well, showing brains that haven’t been injured as opposed to those that have been, along with the various types of injuries. Naturally they won’t label whose brain is whose.”
She looked at Henry and then Stefano and Severino. “This is good. We could raise a lot of money for brain trauma centers all over. I like this idea. Trauma centers really need money.”
“That’s your forte, Eloisa,” Stefano said. “Please, I’m asking you, stay out of the shadows until we get this cleared up. I need you for this. Let’s keep all riders safe, Eloisa. It isn’t just our family we have to consider. It’s all of them. We’re going to have to figure out if it is a problem and then how best to counteract it. I’ll need your input for that. You can’t take chances by slipping up and going in anymore. First thing tomorrow, call Dr. Elliot and tell him you need to get in, that it’s an emergency. I want to know as soon as you do so he can call me in for the results.” He poured authority into his voice.
Eloisa nodded. “I will.”
“We’ve got to go. Taviano and I still have a job tonight. Benito Valdez is on his way to Chicago. I want the job done before he manages to get here. The hope is, we find his location before he makes his way here. We’ve stopped his army, so he’ll be alone with whoever he brings with him. Nicoletta has Archambault bloodlines, and i
t’s definitely showing when she’s in the shadows. She’s faster than anyone I’ve ever trained. He can’t have her. Her children are going to be amazing riders.”
Eloisa started to say something and then closed her mouth, pressing her lips together tightly. She just nodded.
The night air was cool on Taviano’s skin. He threaded his fingers through Nicoletta’s and stepped behind the dilapidated warehouse where the small band of Demons had tried to establish themselves. Stefano was on the other side of her, making certain she was always close to a shadow she could just slip into the mouth of and they would know she was safe while they positioned themselves where they could hear what was being said inside.
Nicoletta hadn’t been in the least sick as they rode the shadows fast through Chicago to get to the part of town where the investigators had indicated the Demons appeared to have a small group ready to support Benito when he came to Ferraro territory. She moved easily with Taviano, as if she’d been doing it for years. She breathed easily; the few extra practices they’d gotten in helped, as if they’d practiced together from the time she was very young. Those trips in the shadows moving through the house had clearly helped her as well.
Stefano indicated for Nicoletta to remain silent while they moved into position, and she did so, staying still. Taviano knew that was one of the most difficult things for her. It was for all of the riders. Still, she was quiet, none of her usual fidgeting, and he was proud of her. It was all he could do not to send his older brother a grin of pure pride.
It wasn’t difficult to see or hear what was going on inside the warehouse. Half a wall had crumbled away on one side, leaving steel rebar hanging and the two-by-four framework exposed, along with drywall and brick. There was no glass in any of the windows. Mold and weeds grew on the remaining walls. Water dripped steadily from somewhere inside and a greenish-brown sludge oozed from inside the torn wall to form an ugly puddle, mixing with the dirt just outside the crumbled walls.
The Demons didn’t have much of a foothold yet in Chicago. The territory they tried to claim was already taken by a much larger, well-established street gang, which didn’t want to give up a single block. That left the few men Benito had sent out, demanding they fight for a piece of Chicago, in a very bad position.
They’d started out with thirty men, and in two weeks had gone down to twenty-two. Three weeks later, they had retreated to the warehouse with nothing left, not even the vehicles they’d arrived in, and they had fourteen men left. Three of the fourteen were wounded. One of those was dying. Bario, the head of the Demons, had stopped checking on the wounded man because he smelled so bad it made him want to puke every time he got near him.
Bario paced back and forth, feeling like a rat in a cage. He swore they were being watched every second. He would have gotten out of there if he could, but stepping one foot out of the warehouse meant certain death. If they didn’t leave, they were going to starve or die of thirst or Benito fucking Valdez was going to kill them all for not obeying orders. His cell phone rang continually, and when it wasn’t ringing, it buzzed with persistent text messages from Benito, threatening to cut off his balls if he didn’t respond. If he was dead, he couldn’t very well respond, now, could he?
“Who do we have on the roof, Alan?”
“Hector and Angel. They’re watching in case those bastards try to come back. We’re going to have to find a ride out of here.”
“I know,” Bario snapped. He made an effort to calm his voice, glanced toward the three wounded lying in the corner along the wall. “I know. We can call for a van, shoot the driver and take it over. That’s the best idea I’ve got. We might be able to take them with us, but not all of them. We won’t have the room.”
Alan looked at him and then pulled a gun out of his waistband and stalked over to the wounded. He lifted the barrel, aimed and squeezed the trigger without hesitation three times. He stalked back. “Problem solved.”
Bario laughed. “You’re such a fuckin’ bastard.”
“Someone’s got to be. Call for a van.”
Taviano indicated for Nicoletta to slip into the mouth of the shadow, and he slid into one that would take him up to the rooftop. This was the most difficult part of having Nicoletta with him, and he knew he would have to get used to it if she was going to partner with him. He would have to reach a point where he knew she could take care of herself, the way Ricco knew Mariko could. His attention couldn’t be divided. He had to be solely focused on his prey.
“Angel, did you hear shots?” the man who had to be Hector whispered, overly loud.
Angel was lying on the roof, facing the street. He was more difficult to spot than Hector, who faced toward the cross street, one much busier than the other side, which appeared more residential than business.
“Yeah, I heard them. They didn’t come from the street, so just do your job.” Angel didn’t turn around.
Taviano was okay with that. He simply walked from the shadow right up behind Hector, bent down, caught his head in his hands and wrenched. “Justice is served,” he murmured and stepped into the nearest shadow.
Angel turned slightly to glance back toward Hector. All he could see was Hector lying prone, staring out toward the street, just like he was supposed to do. He nodded his head, but it was clear he was uneasy. That was the way sometimes. Some people seemed to have a sixth sense about them. Taviano knew psychic gifts were real. His family certainly had them in abundance. That meant others could have various gifts as well.
He waited until Angel turned back toward the street and then he moved into place behind him. He used stealth, the freeze-frame stalk taught in childhood games, of large animals hunting prey. This was the leopard stalking the unsuspecting antelope. He was already playing the game with Crispino, who always wanted to make animal noises that had Taviano collapsing into laughter when his nephew leapt on him, baby hands curved into claws, dark blue eyes dancing with mirth, and growls emerging from his little throat.
The two would roll around on the thick carpet in Stefano’s beautiful penthouse, laughing and making all sorts of animal noises until Stefano came in and stood over them with his hands on his hips, doing his best to frown at Taviano. Crispino and Taviano would sober for a moment and look at each other and then laugh again, Taviano hugging his nephew tight. Stefano always ended up smiling and shaking his head, declaring that the boy was never going to learn anything, but both knew that Crispino was already advanced in his games.
Taviano was just behind Angel when the man suddenly turned, rearing up, his gun swinging around with him, his radar clearly going off in full alarm. Taviano simply moved with him, like a dancer, staying behind him, his hands catching the man’s head and wrenching. It was more difficult when Angel was in motion, but again, Taviano was ready for every type of reaction from his prey. He was gentle with Angel as he laid him on the roof. The man was a warrior, even if he didn’t have any respect for women and children, working for a man like Benito Valdez.
Taviano rode the shadow back down to the small strip of overgrown weeds behind the warehouse where Nicoletta waited with Stefano. Her gaze quickly moved over him, inspecting him for damage, relief showing briefly before she managed to school her expression. He wanted to kiss her but just sent her a small smile before turning to his brother.
“Let’s do this fast. The one called Bario has called a van. We want it done before the van gets here. They intend to kill the driver and take possession of the vehicle,” Stefano informed him.
Taviano nodded. There were two men at the very ends of either side of the warehouse, clearly lookouts. All of the Demons were nervous. The attacks on them had been instantaneous when they showed themselves. The local street gang knew where they had retreated and had eyes on them. The fear was that they would be attacked there in the warehouse. They had no food and no clean water and no real cover inside. They couldn’t stay. For the first time, the predators had been turned into prey, and they didn’t like the feeling.
“Any
thing, Felix? Ivan?” Bario demanded.
The two men watching the northern street turned toward him. “It’s quiet,” one reported.
“Elias? Luis?” Bario snapped out.
The two on the west end turned around and shook their heads. “Nothing. Not even headlights.”
Taviano and Stefano slipped into the warehouse. There were fewer shadows inside because there was no electricity. The streetlights cast eerie streaks of gray through the empty holes where the windows had once been. Someone had attempted to board them up at some point, but the boards had long since been kicked out, and only a few broken, jagged pieces remained. Stefano immediately went toward the west and Elias and Luis, leaving Taviano to take the south end, the farthest from them, but one of the gray streaks was near and would allow him to get closer to the two men without the risk Stefano would have.
Taviano stepped into the shadow. It was wide and slow, an easy ride, ending just behind the two men. Neither so much as turned their heads at his approach. He was more concerned with Bario and Alan, who paced in opposite directions, casting looks around the warehouse and out the windows constantly. Because they kept looking into the lights of the streets and then into the warehouse, it was difficult for their eyes to adjust in the time given. Neither saw the four sentries go down or even noticed when they were no longer standing but were lying on the floor, tucked in close to the wall.
Taviano rode the shadow back toward the window where the gray streak originated. One man peered out the window there. Twice, the man called Alan had snapped orders at him, identifying him as Pablo. Taviano stayed in the mouth of the shadow, just waiting a few seconds. Pablo was nervous and he’d pop up, look out and then crouch low again. The moment the sentry crouched low, directly in front of Taviano, he stepped out of the shadow, crouching as he did so, gripped the Demon’s head and delivered the signature kill. Immediately, as he laid the body down, he stepped back into the shadow.
Stefano stalked another of the remaining Demons, called Omar, into the dark, where he was relieving himself, one hand on the wall, muttering to himself, trying to give himself courage. Stefano dropped his body right there.