Shadow Rider (Shadow Riders 1)

Stefano slid his burner phone out of his pocket. This was one of the very few times he would be vulnerable. He had to be out of the shadow's portal to make the call. That meant, if he didn't blend perfectly with the shadow, anyone could spot him. Like his brothers, he wore the signature three-piece suit--gray, pinstriped, the stripes giving the light-and-dark effect needed. At any given time, they were ready to enter a portal if necessary. The suit was synonymous with the Ferraro name, but it served a vital purpose.

He punched in the numbers and didn't give a greeting when the line was opened. "Do we have a go? Am in ready position." It was necessary to triple-check everything. The investigators continued to work even after they were certain. No one wanted a mistake. They also didn't do the work, if money was involved, until the client complied and paid.

The money would be deposited first into one of their offshore accounts. Once the money was there, it would be layered through several banking institutions the Ferraro family owned or had interest in, through several countries until the source was impossible to trace. The money came back to them through legitimate businesses the family owned. The family had managed their way for the last couple of centuries, the businesses growing along with their bank accounts.

Even now, with Stefano in place and his brothers partying it up, the transaction could be called off. He waited, uncaring of the outcome. It was a job, nothing more. He was good at what he did, but he could walk away easily if it came to that. The money had to be deposited before the job would be done. The investigators had to be completely satisfied that justice had to be served. No life could be taken lightly.

"It is a go."

There it was. He immediately slid back into the shadows. The phone would be broken and placed in a trash can at the other side of town, somewhere near the airport. He wore thin gray gloves, of course, never risking a print.

He studied the network of shadows and the tubes they provided. The pull was strong enough that his chest felt as if it were flying apart, his insides coming out. It was an uncomfortable sensation and one that he'd never gotten used to, no matter how many times he'd done this over the years.

Instinctively he chose the longer, narrower shadow, the one that led up onto the back porch and under the door. Inside, a faint light was on over the stove. He could use the shadows cast along the floor to find his next ride. The wrenching in his body was hard as the ride took him fast, nearly throwing him out of the portal and onto the kitchen floor. He stopped his forward momentum and took a moment to breathe and get his bearings. The narrow tunnels were always a difficult traveling experience because they acted like a slide, the body moving at such tremendous speeds. The strips of light and dark were fused closer together, providing a kind of rail that felt like greased lightning. He preferred the larger, darker shadows, and a slower, but more sustainable ride.

He stood very still just inside the tube, listening to the rhythm of the household. Every house sounded and felt different. Outside, chimes blew a soft melody into the night. A few insects made their presence known. Inside the house, it was eerily silent. The two daughters were teenagers and yet there was no television, no music. Just silence. He kept listening. Eventually, someone would make a noise. It was late, but he knew from the lights in the three rooms, that at least those rooms were occupied with someone awake.

A board creaked overhead. That would be in the smallest room upstairs. That one had a soft glowing light, as if a lamp rather than an overhead fixture illuminated the space. The footsteps were very light. The girls then. Not their bedroom, but the little room they used as a library.

He studied the shadows spreading out from the pale light source over the stove. Most were too short for what he needed, but two tubes went off in different directions. Stefano chose the one that reached toward the darkened hallway. It ended just by the stairs in the family room. Another portal took him up the stairs and beneath the door of the library, where Edgar's daughters were.

He expected them to be quietly reading. They weren't. One lay on a short couch, her face distorted with swelling. The other girl leaned over her, pushing back her hair with gentle fingers and applying ice. Neither made a sound. Silent tears tracked down both faces, but not a single sob escaped. He stood just inside the portal, waiting to get the ice back in his veins. Deliberately he flexed his fingers, keeping from rolling them into a tight fist. He'd seen countless such things, most much worse. He wouldn't be standing in the house if there weren't a good reason. He could only put down his unexpected reaction to the fact that his woman's shadow had touched his and made him more susceptible to emotion. He couldn't have that--not while he worked.

He found the place in him that was dead--a place inside that could look at two young girls and feel nothing at all. He needed that, needed balance. He didn't try to comfort them, or soothe away those hurts. He wasn't there to do that. He was there to make certain it didn't ever happen again. Warm feelings weren't wanted or needed. Only ice. Only dead space that couldn't ever be filled because that was what allowed him to retreat to the other side of the door and find the slide to the room where he was certain Edgar Sullivan sat behind his desk, feeling powerful now that he'd beat up his thirteen-year-old daughter.

The slide took him under the office door. It was a plush room. The furniture was good leather. Sullivan sat drinking whiskey out of a cut-crystal glass. It wasn't good whiskey, Stefano noted, but then Sullivan probably didn't care about the actual taste. His hand, wrapped around the glass, dripped blood from scraped knuckles. He looked over papers and muttered to himself, clearly not happy with whatever report he was reading.

The shadow tubes radiated through the room in a starburst pattern. The light overhead, as well as the lamp on the desk, threw shadows all over the floors, and more climbed up the walls. Two went directly behind Sullivan. Stefano chose the larger of the two and rode it through the room, past the desk, between the chair and the wall until he stood behind the man. He stepped out of the portal and caught Edgar's head in his hands.

"Justice is served," he whispered softly and wrenched hard. He heard the crack, but still he waited, making certain.

He dropped the body back into the chair and slid back into the portal. In a matter of minutes he was riding the shadows back outside the house. Only then did he emerge from the slide in order to make a call.

"It's done." He ended the call and was once again inside the portal, riding toward the airport.

His brothers would be apprised of the status of the job. Stefano would sleep on the plane and they would continue with their outrageous behavior, following through until they could safely get back to the plane and all three could return home.

Franco Mancini waited for him. The door to the plane was open, Franco inside, lying on one of the beds. He sat up the moment Stefano entered, his eyes moving over his cousin to ensure he was unharmed.

"Quiet tonight," he informed Stefano. "I haven't heard from your brothers."

"Don't expect to. Vittorio might show up around four or five, but Ricco is with the Lacey twins again. He'll be wallowing in his rope art and sex." Stefano didn't bother to keep the worry out of his voice. Ricco walked the edge of control lately and nothing his brother had said to him seemed to rein him in.

Franco was silent a moment as Stefano removed his shoes and sank down into a plush seat. Franco poured him a drink and handed it to him. "Ricco is careful. Always. I know he seems reckless, Stefano, but he's never failed to do his job. He's quick and clean and never has a high afterward."

Stefano sighed, pressing the glass of Scotch to his forehead. It was true. Ricco, when sent on a job, performed like the well-developed weapon he was. He didn't hesitate, and he certainly didn't fuck around. He got the job done. It wasn't about Ricco's work. It was about the way he played. That bordered on out of control.

Stefano couldn't help but worry. He knew what it was like to live in a world of unrelenting violence with no way out. They'd been born shadow riders. They'd been trained fo

r one thing from the time they were toddlers. There was nothing else for them, and there wouldn't be until they were too old to ride the shadows and perform their duties. They would be regulated to other jobs within the family. There was no way out for any of them.

"Stefano," Franco said, his tone clearly reluctant.

Stefano looked up quickly, his gaze moving over his cousin's face, recognizing that something was wrong and he wasn't going to like it. "Tell me."

"Emilio reported in." Franco deliberately poured himself a cup of coffee.

Stefano's heart nearly stopped. For a moment he could barely breathe. "You're stalling for time," Stefano accused. "Fucking just tell me." He could hear his heart pound. His mouth had gone dry. "Did something happen to Francesca?"

Franco winced. Stefano's tone cut like a whip. He nodded. "Emilio and Enzo took care of it, but she left our territory to go shopping with Joanna. They ran into a couple of punk-ass robbers and one held a knife to her throat. Emilio said he drew blood."

There was silence. The air vibrated with fury. Heated. Intense. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Stefano spat. "I had two teams on her. Two. Giovanni was supposed to be keeping an eye on her as well, and someone cuts her with a knife? What the hell? I thought I spelled out for them just who she is. What she is. Who she belongs to."

"They know, Stefano," Franco said, his voice low. "They protected her. She isn't really hurt."

"You just told me some fucking robber held my woman up at knifepoint and drew her blood." Stefano could taste his own fury. He had never been so enraged in his life. "Emilio had better have that fucker locked up and waiting for me."

"He does," Franco assured.

"Did Emilio take Francesca to a hospital?"

"It was a shallow cut."

"He doesn't know where that knife has been or even if the blade is clean, which it probably isn't. She could get an infection. How the hell did it happen on his watch?"

"Stefano, you told Emilio to hang back, not to get caught," Franco reminded. "The moment they realized she was in trouble, they shut that shit down."

"But not before she got cut. Where? Where did he cut her?"

Franco took a sip of the hot coffee, wishing he were anywhere but inside the aircraft. Danger shimmered in the air. It was stifling hot. Stefano could explode into violence in a heartbeat and when he did, it was always deadly.

"Her throat. But it was shallow, Stefano, barely there."

Stefano erupted into cursing. Franco poured more Scotch into his cousin's glass. Every member of the Ferraro family had their job to do. Always they lived for the good of the family. The shadow riders were absolutely necessary to the family's livelihood. They were rare, and when a couple could produce them, they were encouraged to have several children. Stefano never treated any family member as less than he was, but he was always in charge. Always.

The shadow riders kept the family's enemies from attacking them. No one outside the family knew just how Stefano and his brothers carried out their lethal work and because there were other branches of the family in other cities that also had a reputation for cleaning up messes, no one ever dared openly come after them.

In the underworld, where crime was a daily occurrence and enemies thrived on violence, no one ever dared to touch any member of the Ferraro family. Not gangs, not crime lords, not their bitterest enemy, the one they had a long-standing feud with dating back to the early 1900s in Sicily.

The Saldis had been the deadliest family in Sicily, and they soon realized that people went to the Ferraro family for aid against them. They had demanded the Ferraros join forces with them, and when their invitation was refused, they sent their soldiers to wipe out every man, woman and child in the family. Only a few escaped and went underground. Those who had managed to escape had been mainly shadow riders, and they vowed such a thing would never happen to any family member again.

Stefano was a throwback to those first men and women fighting so hard to keep their family alive. Maybe all the shadow riders were like him, with a will of iron and the guts to fight against impossible odds. That made them both dangerous and extraordinary.

"Stefano, she's all right," Franco reiterated. "We'll get you back as soon as possible and you'll be able to see for yourself."

Stefano couldn't break the rules and call Emilio directly. He was supposed to be in Chicago, not Los Angeles. Even for his own peace of mind over Francesca, he wouldn't take a chance. The rules had kept them all alive and away from law enforcement. Those guidelines were in place for a reason.

Most people believed they were mafia, members of organized crime. Many, many times, they had been investigated, but of course nothing could ever be found. No matter how many times the businesses were looked at, the Ferraro books were in order. They had never had an indictment against them.

Three times, undercover cops had managed to infiltrate deep enough to gain an audience with the greeters. All three times, the greeters had known they were being lied to and played their part beautifully, acting as if they had no idea what was being asked of them, suddenly realizing and immediately acting shocked, horrified and outraged. Each time the undercover cop had been sent on his way.

"There's no point in trying to call Ricco and Vittorio back early," Stefano said, a resigned sigh slipping out. "Francesca had better be all right, Franco, or Emilio and Enzo will be answering to me."

Franco sent him a faint grin. "Emilio and Enzo already know they're going to be answering to you. They aren't looking forward to it, but they expect it."

"I'm not that bad," Stefano lied. His eyes met his cousin's and he found himself smiling ruefully. "Okay, maybe I am."

He was silent a moment. "Did Emilio say what she was shopping for?" He was inexplicably pleased that she was using his money. He hadn't thought she would. He'd worried she would hand it all to Dina and the homeless woman would kill herself with alcohol poisoning.

"I believe it was shoes," Franco said.

Stefano nodded. Francesca needed a good pair of shoes--several of them, but he couldn't exactly buy her a new wardrobe right away. He'd had a hard enough time forcing his coat and the money on her. He had to be patient. In the same way he prepared for a job, he had to formulate a plan of attack. He was in for the greatest fight of his life, and he had to win. There was no other option.

"I'm thankful to Dina. She had a coat last week, and you know how she is, Franco: she loses one every month. Grazie Dio. I love that Francesca gave Dina her coat." He took another sip of Scotch. He especially loved knowing that Francesca was wrapped in his coat.

CHAPTER FOUR

Stefano stood very still, looking into the window of Masci's. Francesca was at the counter, smiling at old man Lozzi. She looked beautiful--and alive. Real. Not the fantasy he'd feared he'd made up in his mind. The tension, coiled so tightly in his gut, eased just a little. He had needed to see for himself that she was unharmed. The glass was tinted and he couldn't see details, but she moved easily. She was friendly, but she didn't actually engage in informative chatter.

"Satisfied?" Giovanni asked.

"Not yet." Stefano turned to face his brother, his features set and hard. "Let's go home. I want to see those fuckers and find out what the hell they thought they were doing."

Giovanni slid back behind the wheel of their Aston Martin while Stefano climbed in on the passenger side. Both were used to high-performance luxury and neither noticed the smooth, purring ride as the car glided from the curb and into traffic.

"Emilio said it's the same three-man crew we've been hunting again. We only have two of them. The third is in the wind, or maybe he wasn't there that night."

Stefano didn't reply. Instead, he stared out the window, his gut churning. They could have killed her. The three muggers were notorious for their violence and it was escalating with every robbery they committed. Vittorio had "talked" with two of them once already when they'd mugged a woman in their territory. He'd gotten her money back from them and made them pay for her injurie

s. He'd also extracted a promise that no member of the Ferraro community would ever be targeted. That was their one chance. The only chance.

"Are we looking for the other one, Gee?" Stefano asked, still staring out the window at the passing buildings. He loved their small village within the city. He loved the people there. Some he'd known almost from the first breath he'd taken. Others had moved in later, but he considered them all his. Under his protection.

"We're looking, but so far, nothing. They've been living off the grid so there's no trail at all. The last place they stayed was an abandoned building about three miles outside of Little Italy. We think the third one drives for them and is named Scott Bowen. He wasn't in the abandoned building. He must have gotten the hell out when he realized it was our family that took his friends. He was either there the night they mugged Francesca or he heard word on the street. But whatever the reason, he's gone."

The gates opened and the car slid up the private drive to their sprawling home. The moment they exited the car, Henry, their valet, was there to take the car keys. Both men moved away from the house, selected a shadow and made the ride to the warehouse owned by their family in the very heart of the city, far from their territory. They didn't want a camera at a stoplight to accidentally catch their car moving through the city.

Stefano jerked open the door and strode through the cavernous space. The smell of blood and fear hit him first. That didn't surprise him. Emilio and Enzo weren't known for their kindness to anyone who beat up women. They hadn't wanted Vittorio to allow the two muggers to walk away when they'd first encountered them. Technically, the two men hadn't crossed into Ferraro territory, but even if they had no idea Francesca belonged to Stefano, they had to know Joanna did, or they were just plain stupid, coming that close to Ferraro territory.

Tom Billings and Fargo Johnson stared up at him through swollen bloodshot eyes. Emilio had done a number on both of them. Terror entered their eyes when they saw who had walked in. Stefano stood in front of them, but didn't say a word. He merely reached for the file Enzo handed him. Seeing the thick papers, the two men looked at each other and instantly began fighting the ropes binding them. Stefano wasn't worried they'd get free. Emilio had mad skills when it came to tying knots. He didn't match Ricco's skill, but what he tied up stayed that way.