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Get to west exit. I’ll be there. There was no hesitation. None. He answered her as if he’d been waiting for an emergency.
She sent the thumbs-up emoji.
Could Taviano get there that fast? He hadn’t come to the concert. He was waiting on the plane. She had to believe him. She risked a quick glance to see the exit sign shining in green on the west wall. The distance seemed insurmountable, especially since Pia, Bianca and Clariss insisted on turning back as Kain and the band swung into one of his biggest hits.
“Nicoletta,” Pia wailed, “what are you doing?”
“Run,” Nicoletta said, pushing her again, pouring urgency into her voice.
She glanced over her shoulder. The two men who had been behind Armando were shoving women out of their way and coming after them. A few women screamed, but with the screaming of adoration for Kain up on the stage, it was impossible for security to tell that anything was wrong.
“I’m in heels,” Bianca complained. “What’s wrong?”
“Those men are after us and they’ll kill us,” Nicoletta hissed. “Before they do, they’ll rape and torture you. They’re members of the Demons gang. Now run.”
“Is this a joke?” Pia asked.
Bianca slipped off her heels but paused to look back at the two men coming toward them. One of them shoved a woman so hard using the flat of his hand between her shoulder blades that she went flying over the back of a seat. Bianca gasped and sprinted around Clariss to take the lead. She had no idea where she was going.
“The exit! The west exit!” Nicoletta shouted, trying to be heard above the music and the screaming of the crowd.
“Which way is west?” Pia asked, following her sister.
They were running straight down the aisle now, trying to avoid those standing and dancing. Weaving their way through the tight crowd was difficult and slowed them down. Pia, Bianca and Clariss were hesitant to push their way through. When Nicoletta glanced over her shoulder, the two men were closer. She could see their features now. One man was definitely younger, closer to Taviano’s age, and the other was around Armando’s age. Both looked scary and determined. She knew that if Benito asked for something and he didn’t get it, he was a very vindictive and dangerous man. If he got it, he always returned favors. They would want favors from the leader of their gang.
Abruptly, the three women in front of her stopped moving. The crowd was thick and refused to part to let them through. Bianca looked back at the two men, saw they were close and ran into one of the rows of seated people, pushing through, trying to get to the other side. She murmured, “Excuse me, excuse me,” over and over. Pia hesitated and then followed her sister.
“Bianca, Pia, no! Come back this way!” Nicoletta shouted. Neither even looked back. She doubted they heard her over the loud screams and the pounding beat of the music.
She made a grab for Clariss, who chose a different aisle to do the same thing, making her way toward the middle, where the three women hoped to run back toward the entrance doors.
Nicoletta had to make a choice: follow them, or make her way to the exit and get to Taviano. She inserted her shoulder between two women who seemed to be glued together and pushed between them, ignoring their angry outburst at her. She felt someone grab at her arm, but she pulled it through, keeping the two women between her and the men following her as she tried to get between several more women bunched together. They were jumping up and down, clutching one another and having fun, just as she’d been doing up front.
These women were much more aggressive, not wanting to move and angry that she would try to invade their space. She tried several different ways around them, and none would relent and give ground. She glanced back, and not only had the two men gotten past the first two women, but Armando was with them and he had a gun out. One of the women spotted the gun and his evil smile.
“What the hell? What do you think you’re doing with that? He after you, honey?” She waved behind her, stepping forward a few inches to give Nicoletta enough room to slip by her. Just like that, she’d gone from angry to protective. She was probably at a Kain concert because his music spoke to her—a survivor of some horrendous event as well.
Nicoletta could see the west exit sign. There were only a few people between her and where she needed to go. She didn’t see how it was possible for Taviano to reach the venue before she could reach that exit. The temptation to do as her friends had done and go toward the middle was huge, but she believed in the Ferraros. If Taviano said he’d be there, somehow, he would.
She threaded her way through the next group, this time two men and three women. She heard the gun go off and more screams. Her heart thudded, and she prayed Armando hadn’t shot the woman who had stood up for her. She didn’t look back. She pushed harder, shoving her way past the men and nearly knocking down one of the women. Just as she reached the shadow the light was throwing across the floor, Armando grabbed her by her hair, yanking her head back, and she immediately reached back to stab at his eyes with her thumbs, but he turned his head to the side.
“You little bitch. You’re going to pay for that,” he snarled.
She raked the heel of her boot down his shin and, at the same time, slapped both hands over his to force the hand holding her hair flat on her scalp. She dropped low and spun around and then stood up fast, hoping to break his wrist. He howled and let go of her hair. She tried kicking him in the groin but he jerked his body to the side.
“Behind me,” Taviano ordered, coming out of nowhere.
She didn’t hesitate. She leapt to get behind his body. As she did so, two guns fired almost simultaneously. Something hot buzzed past her head and hit the wall behind her. Gasping, she caught at the back of Taviano’s shirt as he staggered back.
“Are you crazy? Benito will kill you if you touch that girl,” Armando snapped. “Get her friends. Get the other bitches. She’ll come with us, won’t you, Nicoletta? When we cut them into pieces, she’ll beg to come with us.”
Taviano smashed his fist into Armando’s face and dropped him like a stone. Before either of the other two men could turn their guns on him again, Nicoletta stepped in front of him.
“Go ahead and shoot me. Benito will skin you alive and you know it. And then he’ll kill your families.”
Taviano’s arm snaked around her waist and he dragged her back toward the glaring light of the exit sign.
The men left Armando struggling to stand and took off after Pia, Bianca and Clariss. Nicoletta caught at Taviano and started toward the door. He stopped her.
“Not that way, piccolo. You’re my woman. You’re about to find out what it is to be a Ferraro. Step into the shadow and keep your body behind mine.”
She’d never liked the feeling of being in the shadows, and yet she’d always been drawn to them. They’d always made her feel as if her body were being torn apart, but she knew she could hide in them; she’d done so on several occasions, just not always successfully. “You’ve been shot, Taviano. You need help. We have to get you to one of the medical facilities.”
“We’ll get there. I want you to do exactly what I say.”
He turned to face her. When he did, she could see the blood splashed on his jacket. He wore that same immaculate, classy, very expensive charcoal pinstriped suit that his entire family wore. The tie was a darker charcoal and the shirt was lighter charcoal. The men and even Emmanuelle always looked so distinctive, but she had to admit, when they got close to the shadows, they seemed to fade into them.
He cupped her chin with his palm. “You have to trust me like you’ve never trusted me before. I’m going to ask you to do things that are going to frighten you, and you’re going to have to do them without question. Can you do that for me? We don’t have time for anything else.” He was whispering, his voice incredibly low, but she heard every word.
She didn’t hesitate. All she did was look at the blood on his jacket and into his eyes. The music had faded. Everything around her faded but Taviano and the blood.
“Take off everything you’re wearing. Everything including your underwear, Nicoletta. Your earrings are fine. Lucia gave them to you. I had them made for you and asked her to give them to you. My cousin made them. You’ll wear my shirt.” He was stripping off his jacket and, one-handed, removing his shirt as he spoke. He was fast, too.
She didn’t look at him and she knew he didn’t look away. It was her boots that gave her the most trouble, but she got them off and the shirt on in record time. She knew about hiding in the shadows naked. She’d done so. With her clothing on, she’d been found every single time.
“When we go farther into the shadows, you don’t let go of me, you understand? No matter how it feels, no matter what, you don’t let go. Keep your eyes closed tight. You’re going to feel sick and disoriented.”
She was already feeling sick and disoriented. Her body felt like it was in pieces, as if when she’d removed her clothes, the material had been the only thing holding her together. Now, with just his shirt, nothing would hold her skin on, and she was being pulled apart piece by piece. The feeling sickened her. It helped when she closed her eyes, but she was terrified she was going to vomit all over Taviano.
“I’ve got you, tesoro,” he whispered.
His mouth moved so close to her ear, she felt his lips brush her earlobe. He wrapped his arm around her and locked her to his side. She immediately put both of her arms around his waist as far as she could and held on as tightly as she could, pressing her head into his side. She had no idea what they were going to do, but somewhere in her mind, there was a vague recollection of being in a similar situation and feeling this exact sensation.
Then she was moving so fast it felt like she was on a speedway, the fastest bullet train or park ride. Faster even than that. Her stomach dropped and rolled and was somehow left behind, or she would have spilled the contents down his rib cage. She knew her arms were around his waist, but her flesh was literally peeling off the bone in tiny pieces and flying away. She couldn’t look because she knew she would see only a skeleton holding on to Taviano.
She wanted to scream, or at least call his name, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t make a sound. Not even open her mouth. She refused to open her eyes, and he’d said not to. If she did, she feared her eyes would be sucked out of her face, just like her flesh had been torn off. If she lived through this, if she was intact when he stopped, she was never, never doing this again.
Just as abruptly as they seemed to speed, they came to a halt. Taviano held her steady for another moment, and then his hands went to her shoulders. She wrenched away from him, stumbling, her stomach heaving. She threw up over and over, emptying the contents into the corner of the small, dark room. She was grateful it was dark and ashamed she couldn’t handle however they’d gotten there. She didn’t even want to know how they had.
When she turned back, he handed her a wet wipe and a bottle of water. He had already slipped off the jacket and she could see his upper body, the rock-hard abs and his thick chest that always took her breath away. Now, all she could really see were the shocking streaks of blood splattered across it, coming from his left arm.
“Taviano.” She whispered his name, horrified that she was vomiting while he was bleeding. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She could fix horrible gashes. The sensation of her body being torn apart must have been happening to him as well, and with a wound like the one he had, the traveling could only have made it worse.
He towered over her, looking down at her face, his eyes gentle. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. No. I honestly don’t know. Are you? What was that? How did we get here?” She waved her hand at him. “Don’t tell me.”
She looked around, half expecting to find that they were exactly where they had just been, because if they weren’t, how had they traveled somewhere else? And why would she think that was what they had done? And she did think that. They were at a first aid station. No one was in it. She hurried over to the shelves, looking to pull out a first aid kit. She opened the one she thought would have the items they would need.
This wasn’t her first time traveling in the shadows. She’d done this before alone in her room, by accident. And she half remembered another time with Stefano and Taviano. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t have time to process it yet.
Taviano came close to stand beside her. Just his scent drove her crazy. Masculine. So distinctive, sexy, even when it was mixed with the coppery scent of blood.
“I have to clean this wound and we have to get back to the airport immediately.”
He was all business, pulling out the items that he needed from the first aid kit. Whoever had shot at them missed her by quite a margin and had taken just a chunk of his skin from his arm. It looked like it hurt. He rummaged through the box, looking at the various threads to sew up his wounds with.
“What are you looking for?”
“Silk, it has to be silk, otherwise we’ll need to take thread from my shirt.”
In the end, that was what he did. She frowned, watching him. He was fast at it, too, as if he’d done it a million times. She took the needle from him after he’d cleaned up the blood and dosed the wound with antibiotics.
“They went after my friends, Taviano. They’re going to hurt them. I think Pia and Bianca may have gotten away, but Clariss was way behind the other two. I just left them. I ran straight to you.” She felt ashamed for leaving her friends, so much so that she concentrated on staring down at the stitches, keeping them tiny and even.
“Piccola, look at me.”
His voice was so gentle, it turned her heart over. He waited until her gaze met his. “You did exactly what I asked you to do. If they’d gotten their hands on all of you, they would have killed your friends in front of you.”
“Can you find them?”
“My first priority has to be you.”
She was watching him closely, and his blue eyes darkened and shifted for just the smallest moment, but it was enough. “You know where they’re going, don’t you?”
“Nicoletta.”
“You do, Taviano. You know. I don’t have a lot of friends. Pia and Bianca told me things tonight that made me very aware they are my friends. I’m not about to let them down. Clariss has always stood in my corner. Always. I know what those men will do to them, and so do you. Even if they weren’t my friends, I couldn’t leave them behind. I’m asking you to help me save them. I can’t live with myself or with you if we just go off and leave them and be safe back in Chicago.”
“You aren’t going to be safe in Chicago, Nicoletta. Neither are Lucia or Amo. I’ve already texted the family to get them to a safe place. The moment Benito Valdez finds out from his people here where you’ve been living, he’s going to be headed straight to Chicago, and he’s going to bring an army with him. Your friends have cell phones and IDs on them. It isn’t going to be difficult to get any information out of them about you that Benito wants.”
She hadn’t thought of that. She caught at Taviano’s arm, suddenly torn between trying to locate her friends and rushing back to help protect Lucia and Amo. “I never thought that they’d be in danger. What are we going to do?”
“One step at a time. Stefano and the others have that under control. We have to control the situation here. We need to get you back to the plane. Everyone there is on alert because, again, the girls will give up that location as well.”
She lifted her chin as sudden awareness dawned on her. “The hotel. They’ll go to the hotel. Especially if Pia and Bianca went to the hotel. That’s where they’ll go, isn’t it, Taviano?”
He sighed and slid his arm into the sleeve of his jacket. “Yes.”
“Then that’s where I’m going. And I’m going to kill Armando Lupez. You have no idea the terrible things he’s done. He deserves to die, Taviano. They rape girls so easily, young girls, destroying them even when they know the girls will take their own lives. They think women have no rights. They use us and then throw us away. They beat u
s and force us to do whatever they want and laugh while they do it. They force the girls to service their friends or other men for money and get them hooked on drugs so they can use them on the streets. They make them mules for carrying the drugs. These are bad men.” She made every effort to keep her voice under control, and it took effort when she wanted to scream at him to listen to her, to understand and believe her.
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. It was only when she put her head on his chest that she realized tears were running down her face. She didn’t cry. She never cried. She’d stopped doing that when she’d barely been fifteen, but once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop, and she didn’t have time to fall apart, not if she was going to save her friends. She needed to persuade Taviano that he had to help her because she couldn’t do it without him. If he thought she was too emotional, knowing him, he would take her straight to the plane and take her somewhere out of the country.
She lifted her head to look at him. “You said I never ask you for anything for myself.”
“Don’t, baby. Don’t ask this of me.”
“I have to.”
“Then I’ll get you to the plane, have Franco, our pilot, fly you the hell out of here somewhere safe and I’ll go back for your friends.”
“Not without me. I’m asking you, Taviano. This is what I’m asking. Give me this. I can do this with you. I know you and your brothers, even Emmanuelle, can do this. Let me. Teach me.”
He swore in Italian and pressed his forehead to hers. “Tesoro, this does not bode well for me for our future. If I agree to this, if we go to find your friends, Nicoletta, you have to do everything I say when I say it, just like before. That’s important. There’s no room for error. This is life or death. Do you understand me? You could die if you don’t. I could.”
She could tell by his voice he meant exactly what he said. With anyone else she might have dismissed the orders as melodramatic or a man wanting to control her or the situation, even with what was happening, but the Ferraros weren’t the type of men to cross. They said something, and you knew they meant it and spoke the truth.