Emmanuelle could see that he was angry. She couldn’t blame him. He raised his voice, calling for his men to come back. He wanted whoever had killed those in the truck, but he also wanted his men to check in, and none of them had. She spotted Vittorio just to the right of the truck, stalking the three men. To the left was Elie.
The leader scowled and stepped around the hood of the truck almost directly into Vittorio’s path. Vittorio didn’t move a muscle. He just seemed to fade into the landscape. She’d seen him do it a million times, but it never failed to move her. She found her brothers extraordinary. They weren’t small men, but they could disappear when they needed to, simply become invisible.
How many times had Stefano drilled it into them that movement drew the eye and they needed to know how to be still? She had the worst time with that. She had developed a nervous habit of twisting her fingers together when she was upset. She’d worked hard at overcoming it, but sometimes it still got the better of her. It was a flaw, and she had so many. Her worst trait was being a poor judge of character when it came to men.
She watched as the brush behind one of the men came alive and Elie wrenched the neck of one of the Demons smoothly and efficiently, lowered him to the ground and disappeared. It was over in less than a second. She hadn’t even blinked. So fast. She admired him. Respected him. He was that good. That handsome. So sweet to her. She constantly looked to find what was wrong with him—because if she liked him, something had to be wrong with him.
The leader spun around, hands on his hips, shouting for his men. There was an ominous silence in answer. He snapped an order to the man who had stayed close to him. That one nodded and jogged around the hood, calling out for the one Elie had taken out. Instantly, Vittorio was on the leader, his hands expertly positioned for the signature kill.
Elie stalked the last one. As the leader fell to the ground, Elie was on the remaining man. It was going to take a few minutes to find decent shadows to start the long ride home, but as long as they were not seen on the way back, they were golden.CHAPTER FOURTEENSomething’s on your mind, piccola,” Taviano said. They stood together just inside his music studio. He wanted to share it with her, although he had to admit, he found the thought of doing so a little nerve-wracking.
Nicoletta shot him a glance from under her long lashes, something he found sexy and fascinating, but it also set off his warning radar. Whatever it was she was wrestling with was something big, not small. Her small teeth bit down on her lower lip. She shrugged and walked away from him to look out the window of the recording booth.
He didn’t push her. Nicoletta would tell him in her own time. If he pushed her, she’d close down. Right now, she was struggling, and that surprised him. He thought they’d gotten everything out between them. He picked up his guitar, sat on the stool he liked and ran his fingers over the familiar strings.
Once he had the instrument in his hands, he immediately felt different. He imagined Ricco felt the same when he moved rope through his fingers. His guitar felt a part of him. The music inside of him he heard all the time struggled to come out. The moment the guitar was in his hands, his mind quieted. His fingers moved. He tuned it automatically. He could hear the slightest error, anything off pitch. He was certain that was one of the reasons he’d been so drawn to Nicoletta from the very beginning. Her voice was so tuned, so perfectly pitched. He would always remember the way it felt when he’d first heard her. Like a key turning in his chest to unlock something deep, something that allowed him to feel emotion, to let the lyrics he needed pour out of him with the right notes.
He played, watching her through half-closed eyes. Whatever it was she had held back hurt like hell. He wasn’t going to like it, but he knew he had to hear it. He switched to a melody he’d written after he’d met her, when he’d first seen her, that warrior woman-child. Those men had torn her down until she had been forced to choose death over what life they chose for her. He saw her, so brave, so courageous, standing up to those brutes, refusing to let them make her choices. And then trusting in total strangers, determined to live, and trusting in herself to figure it out if that went bad. She’d been … magnificent. Nothing had changed his mind about her since.