Shadow Keeper (Shadow Riders 3)

He kept walking with her. She couldn't stop shaking. "Is the bodyguard dead? What's his name? I didn't have a chance to meet him." Even her teeth were chattering.

"Raimondo Abatangelo. He's actually Cosimo's youngest brother. Cosimo and Tomas, the oldest of the Abatangelo brothers, were both shot during the attack on our family last year. This was the first assignment given to them since it happened. We thought it was going to be an easy one. Raimondo has a military background and trained for becoming a bodyguard, but you were also his first assignment."

"You didn't say if he is alive." She was terrified he was going to answer in the negative and she knew she'd never forgive herself.

"He's alive, but just barely."

"I should never have insisted on going home. If I hadn't, my stalker couldn't possibly have hurt him." Where was Giovanni? Stefano was holding her close, keeping her shaking, rubbery legs from letting her fall.

She didn't know how many people were putting out the fire, keeping it from spreading to the buildings on either side, but they seemed to have come from everywhere. She closed her eyes. "The deli is going to be ruined. There were flames on the floor of my apartment. It had to have burned through. And the smoke and water will ruin all of the food if the fire doesn't burn it to the ground. What am I going to tell Pietro?"

"We can rebuild," Stefano assured. He had walked her down the alley. Lucia, Amo and Nicoletta waited. All three immediately put their arms around her and all but dragged her toward the open back door of Lucia's Treasures.

Stefano shook his head. "I'd prefer all three of you to evacuate. Amo, my men are going to take you to the pizzeria. I've already asked Benito to open it. Taviano and Vittorio will go with you, and Giovanni's meeting you there."

"I don't understand why he wants me dead," Sasha said. It was true. What had she done that was so terrible to this unknown man? "What could I have done to set him off like this?"

"You haven't done anything, honey," Stefano assured. He glanced at his brother over her head, and Vittorio immediately put his arm around her. "Men like this, they're sick. They have paranoid fantasies. When you don't react the way their fantasies dictate, then they lose it."

"I don't want everyone around me," she said. "Not Lucia, Amo and Nicoletta. He could burn down Lucia's Treasures or harm them just because they're associating with me."

Sasha looked around her, suddenly afraid for everyone. "What if he has a gun? He could be about to shoot someone right now. He's got military training. All of you have said that." Even to herself, her voice edged toward hysteria. She didn't want to sound out of control because she wanted them taking her seriously. Everything she said was the truth and the threat was very real. Especially for Giovanni. "He can't come near me," she whispered. "I mean it, Stefano. You have to tell Giovanni to stay away from me. He's going to go after him next."

"There is nothing you or I can say to keep Giovanni away from you, Sasha," Stefano said. "If you know him at all, you'll know that."

She shook her head. What was there to say? Stefano was right about Giovanni. He wouldn't stay away, but she suddenly had a very bad feeling that everything her stalker had done was to bring Giovanni out in the open. The Ferraros protected their homes. Security was tight, and it wasn't as if someone could easily get close to the actual house where Giovanni resided. It was much easier to draw him out. What better way than to attack Sasha?

"He's going to go after him," she said. "Stefano, you have to listen to me on this. I think Giovanni is the real target."

"Maybe, but if you get to the pizzeria, honey, you'll find Giovanni isn't so easy to get to. Hurry up. Go with Vittorio and Taviano."

Vittorio tightened his arm around her. Taviano shepherded Lucia, Amo and Nicoletta. Around them, a tight shield of guards formed as they made their way quickly up the block to the pizzeria. Benito had the back door open, and they were swept inside.

"Helicopter will land on the roof," Benito said to Vittorio. "Use the attic stairs. There's a trapdoor. Wait inside the attic with her, Vittorio. The guards are going up to the roof now. It's flat and has plenty of room. They'll clear the surrounding rooftops. If he's up there on any of the buildings waiting with a rifle, he'll make a run for it. Giovanni's going to hunt him with the chopper first and then he'll bring it in to retrieve his woman."

Her heart jumped. Giovanni was going to hunt him with a helicopter? "Can't he bring down the helicopter?"

"It isn't as easy to do that as it looks in the movies," Vittorio explained, turning her away from the others so she could climb the narrow stairs leading to the attic. "He'd have to take out the pilot to bring it down, or make the shot of his life. Giovanni isn't going to make it easy to shoot him. There's going to be a hell of a bright spotlight sweeping the rooftops. If that gets in his eyes, he's not going to be able to see to shoot at the pilot."

"Wait, Giovanni is piloting the helicopter?"

Vittorio shrugged. "We were all trained to fly helicopters, planes, and drive fast cars. We have very specialized training. Flying a helicopter is very different than flying planes, I might add. We are required to maintain licenses for all three, and that includes very large trucks and motorcycles. In case you're worried about your man, we're also required to be more than proficient in hand-to-hand combat."

"The stalker beat up that guard and he was trained."

"We began training at the age of two, Sasha; granted, it was in the form of playing at first, but we still had to learn the moves. We've trained just about every day of our lives since. You know that friend of Giovanni's? The mixed martial arts fighter? He sparred with Giovanni, but Gee took it easy on him. Really easy. Giovanni's reflexes are like lightning. He's as strong as an ox, and when he hits you with power behind his punch or kick, you're going down, and most likely, he's broken something, your face or your arm, leg, ribs. If he hasn't broken something, it's because he was careful."

Sasha closed her eyes and wished she could just disappear. Giovanni was in the air searching for her stalker. "He figured out that he's the real target, didn't he?"

"Yes."

Her stomach lurched. "You're telling me how safe he is up there in that helicopter, but he's really setting himself up to draw him out, isn't he?" She waited, her heart pounding. Her mouth was dry. She knew. She wanted to punch Vittorio.

She pushed him hard, out of the way. It was the last thing he expected and he rocked back, giving her just enough room to squeak past him. He caught at the trench coat Stefano had put around her, and she let the coat fall from her shoulders. If she ran out onto the roof and waved her arms, the stalker would try to shoot her, and Giovanni might have his target without exposing himself to certain danger.

Vittorio caught her just before she managed to unlock the trapdoor leading to the roof. "What are you doing, crazy woman?"

"Let go." She tried to kick him off her, but he had her in some kind of a hold that wrapped her up so tightly she was like a mummy.

"Does Giovanni realize what a little hellion he has?" Vittorio asked. "Sheesh, woman. Stop struggling. It isn't like you're going to get away and this is a rather ... intimate hold for being with my future sister-in-law."

That brought her up short. She was locked against him, and it wasn't like she was wearing much in the way of clothes. She relaxed instantly, embarrassed that she'd put them both in such a weird position.

He pointed to the attic. Reluctantly, she went down the steps. He sat on the top one. "What exactly did you think you were going to do? Run out there and make yourself a target?"

She picked up the trench coat and wrapped it around her body. "Yes. Better me than Giovanni."

"If you were my woman, I'd turn you over my knee and spank you until your ass was raw." His voice was utterly calm, but it still sent a shiver down her spine because she had the feeling that calm, soothing Vittorio was capable of such a thing. "Are you insane? Do you think Giovanni would just let you get shot? He'd leap out of a helicopter to save your life. He'd do anything to

save you. Men like Giovanni protect their women. He's fine with you being whatever you want to be, and do whatever you want to do, but that ends when the cost could be your life."

"Has it occurred to you that I feel the same way about him?" she hissed.

"No. Frankly, I don't believe that."

Again, he spoke so calmly that at first she didn't understand what he said. And he meant it. He didn't believe she felt the same way about Giovanni as he did her.

"Why do you say that, Vittorio?"

"You're a highly intelligent woman, Sasha. You aren't blind or deaf. You're a planner. You take great care of your brother and it's clear you put him first. That adds up to a certain personality. If you loved my brother with the same intensity as he loves you, you would never have put him in the position he's in. You would have recognized the danger and avoided it. You wouldn't have gone to your house licking your wounds because some woman put her tongue in your man's mouth. You wanted out. You knew he was uncomfortable and wanted no part of Meredith Benson. You weren't jealous of her. I saw your face. You didn't get Giovanni out of the situation. You used it to remove yourself."

She had done all that. She had. She didn't like his world and she'd thought to remove herself. It was only when she was alone without him that she realized she loved Giovanni enough to face that world with him.

"You put yourself in danger. He loves you enough to let you because you're the type of woman to get angry and say it's your right to do that. And yeah"--he shrugged--"it is. Absolutely. But having a man like Giovanni means if you love him, you'll do the right thing and take the protection offered."

She almost protested. She had taken his protection. She'd been surrounded by guards. But she knew that wasn't what Vittorio was telling her. She knew there were all kinds of men in the world. Some of them wouldn't have cared what she did. If she wanted to go, she could go. There wouldn't have even been a discussion. With a man like Giovanni, her safety and the safety of her brother were real issues. When she took him on as a partner, she took that part of him on as well.

"I hear you, Vittorio," she said. "I won't be making that mistake again. I would like to see what's going on though. Is there a way to do that without putting us in danger?"

He nodded. "But you do what I tell you. I'm not like Giovanni." It was a warning. Gentle. Delivered in a mild voice, but again, a little shiver of awareness crept down her spine.

She was fairly certain he wasn't that gentle man they all thought he was. No one else seemed aware of this side of him. He was just so calm, but he was being calm now, just scary calm. Giovanni referred to him as the peacemaker. She suspected he was the peacemaker for a reason other than what the others thought.

"Have you heard anything about the fire?" She had been afraid to ask, afraid it would have jumped from her apartment to the buildings on either side of hers as well as Masci's.

"It's out already. It was out almost before the fire department got there. Why didn't the sprinklers go off? They were installed last year."

She hadn't thought of that. "The only thing I can think of is that when he got into the apartment the first time, he disrupted the line to them? I don't know how they work. I never thought about it, but he had to have done something. If he did it when he first got into my apartment, doesn't that mean that he planned on killing me all along?"

Vittorio nodded slowly. "So, if he really had planned to kill you, why didn't he just do it immediately? Why take all these chances?" He frowned as she started up the stairs. He began texting. "Sending a mass text to the family. They're pretty good at figuring things out."

"How much damage did the fire do?"

"Your apartment is a mess and so is the deli, but nothing else was touched. We'll get a work crew in the moment the investigation is complete and tear the building down and rebuild. The nice part is, Pietro has wanted to remodel for a couple of years now. His place has gotten popular for lunch, and he would like to expand the inside to include an area for more tables. Or have an outside court. Clearly that would have to be built in the back, but he's got all kinds of plans. Stefano will look them over and either approve or not."

"I don't know how you can make a fire sound like a good thing," she said. "As if Pietro is going to be happy."

"He will be. In the end. Besides, we can send him on a vacation to the home country. He's been wanting to go but claimed he couldn't because of his business. Right now, he's upset, but once he sees what Stefano is willing to do with that place, he'll be happy."

"Like what?" she asked suspiciously.

"That little apartment could be used for his offices. You'll be living with Giovanni." He grinned at her and reached up to cautiously lift the trapdoor. "Straight ahead is a thick railing. It's low, no more than three feet, so you're going to have to stay low. I mean it, Sasha. If you start to rise, expect to find me on top of you."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're annoying and bossy?"

She edged out of the attic, staying low, going to her hands and knees and even lower. She didn't want Vittorio flattening her.

"No. Everyone thinks I'm sweet. In fact, I think my reputation is sterling among my family members."

She would have rolled her eyes, but he couldn't see her. Light was already streaking through the dark as the sun began to rise. Working all night and then having a madman burn down her apartment and try to kill her made the hours pass fast. She made it to the railing and stayed low, waiting for instructions.

Vittorio annoyed her by putting a hand on the nape of her neck, so that even if she thought about lifting her head above the railing, it was impossible. She clenched her teeth. She was a woman of action, not someone to be pushed into a little room and guarded. Giovanni understood her. Vittorio did as well, but he didn't care. He would have locked her in that little room and let her be angry with him. Giovanni took the consequences of her actions.

She heard the helicopter. It sounded close. Every instinct was to rise up and look for herself. She wasn't certain what Vittorio was doing. He certainly was looking over the railing.

"Raimondo is a good fighter," he said suddenly. "Giovanni pointed that out in his texts. He isn't trained the way we are, but he's training with Emilio and Emilio is a hell of a fighter. He wouldn't have allowed Raimondo to go out on an assignment if he didn't think he was ready. He was beaten nearly to death."

Her stomach twisted into knots. "That's on me."

"He would have been guarding Giovanni's residence," Vittorio said. "I'm not certain you can claim that one. Giovanni thinks he was beaten deliberately."

"Aren't all beatings deliberate?"

Vittorio lifted his hand, and she turned, staying low, scooting even farther down in order to rest her back and head against the wall.

"Giovanni says only a seasoned fighter, someone with a great deal of experience in combat and martial arts, could have possibly beaten the kid to that extent. Raimondo got in a few good ones, his hands were damaged, but this man nearly beat him to death."

Her breath caught in her throat. "You think it was Aaron."

Vittorio shook his head. "I don't know what to think. Aaron's smart. If he wanted to do this, if he has some problem with Giovanni, and this looks as if it's aimed at Giovanni, he could easily make it look as if he's being set up. He took that picture of you and it was on his phone. No one else had it. It ended up being in the tabloids. Some of the material the bomb was made from was charged to a credit card he later reported stolen. He served in the military and has training in explosives."

"Don't you think that's all a little too neat?" Sasha thought it was. Aaron was smart, at least Giovanni always said he was. "He wouldn't stack the evidence against himself, would he?"

"It is all a little too neat, as if we're being handed Aaron with a bow tied neatly around the package. Don't you think a very intelligent person could pull that off? Make it look as if he's being framed?"

"What would be his purpose?" She didn't want to hear that little voice inside tha

t repeated Aaron's lie about Giovanni and him in competition over women, but it was there. He'd lied when there was no reason to.

Vittorio shrugged. "We've got a lot of money, Sasha. People think we live magical lives. They see us as wasted human beings with far too much money."

"You all play the part of playboys deliberately. You want people to think all you do is race cars and chase women."

He gave her a small smile. "Someone who lived a good deal of his life on the streets, struggling for every penny, can build up a great deal of resentment. Aaron may think everything has been handed to Giovanni. If he had his eye on you and Gee managed to grab you out from under him, he might tip over the edge."

"But Aaron never so much as asked me out."

"He sent you flowers, honey. On his phone, it turns out there are a number of photographs of you. Quite a few."

That brought her up short. She turned her head to look directly at him. Straight into his eyes because she had to know the truth. "What are you talking about? How could you possibly know something like that?"

Vittorio shrugged, looking casual. Calm. As if nothing ever ruffled him. "I know Giovanni told you about riding shadows. It isn't that difficult to get into someone's house and look through their things. If Aaron is a threat to my brother, then I'm going to remove that threat. If not me, one of my cousins or another brother. It's that simple."

Another shiver went down her spine. If Vittorio had been showing an intense emotion such as anger, she wouldn't have been so affected by the way he stated so calmly that Aaron was probably living on borrowed time. Clearly, if the Ferraros found out that he was behind all the threats, he didn't have long to live. She realized they carried out their work without passion. It was their job, and they didn't allow emotions to get in their way.

Vittorio was a mystery to her. He didn't appear to give off the aura of danger the others did, but somehow, spending a little time in his company, she was beginning to think he might be the most dangerous of all of the Ferraros. He reached out unexpectedly and put his hand on her shoulder. His touch was gentle, but she felt his strength.