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.
She nodded. In any case, this was Taviano. For whatever reason, she would follow him to the ends of the earth.
“We don’t seek revenge because someone hurts us. We seek justice. We mete out justice. You have to learn to push emotion from your mind. It won’t be easy, but you have to do it. Can you?”
She wasn’t certain she could actually do that. Could anyone when it was so personal? She had seen Armando Lupez rape young girls. Very young girls. He had beaten them and given them to others in his gang. He had trafficked them and used them up. She despised him with every breath she took. How did one keep from being emotional? She couldn’t lie to Taviano. She wouldn’t.
“I’ll try, Taviano, but the things I saw … The things Benito Valdez and my step-uncles did to me and I saw Armando doing to others, I just can’t forget what that was like. I can’t. I’m not going to tell you that I can. I want him dead. I never want him to be able to do those things to another girl. He has to be stopped.”
“Ordinarily, a complete investigation is done, and it is proven that he is guilty. Investigations are always carried out by two separate teams, and they are very thorough so that there are no possible mistakes. We never take a chance that an innocent person is ever accidentally taken.”
She pulled back. “Do you think I’m lying to you about Armando? I saw him. He did those things in front of me. They were lessons for us. To keep us in line.”
“No, piccola, I don’t think you’re lying, I’m explaining how the system works. You need to know. You’re getting a crash course.”
He sounded very patient, and she was ashamed that she’d jumped down his throat. He was giving her what she’d asked for, and she wasn’t even really listening to him. She realized he was really giving her something huge, a crash course in the family business. Secrets no one knew. No one else would ever know. They had always treated her like family, and Taviano was putting his faith in her.
Nicoletta took a deep breath and swallowed her screaming demons. The ones that visited her in the middle of the night and whispered to her when any man came too close. She forced herself to look at Taviano, the one man she did trust. The one she believed in. He was a Ferraro, and he had saved her when no one else had even noticed she was being eaten by the wolves.
“I’m sorry, Taviano, I’m listening. I’m a little freaked out, but I’ll catch up.”
“I know you will. We just don’t have any time. You want to do this, we have to move now, if we’re going to beat them to the hotel. They’ll be getting the information out of Clariss fast and moving on it. All they need is the keycard, and she’ll tell them everything they want to know immediately. Hopefully, they’ll bring her with them. If they do, and Pia and Bianca got away and are there already, we’re good. If not, we’re going to have to find her. That might be more problematic.”