Enzo, his brother, drove while Emilio sat in the back with her. “They all went. Every one of the riders,” Emilio said. “Not the cousins or Elie,” he corrected, “but all of Taviano’s brothers, Emmanuelle and Mariko. They aren’t supposed to do that.”
He sounded so annoyed and so mournful she thought he could have rivaled Eeyore in the movies and books. She had to hide a smile behind her hand. “Why can’t they all go? There’re fourteen Demons if you count Benito, and he’s armed to the teeth and every bit as lethal as any one of his men,” she pointed out. “If they all went, that’s still only seven of them.”
“They don’t ever go where they all could be killed, leaving no one behind to carry on the name,” Emilio said. “I suppose there’s Crispino, but he’s years out from being a rider. It’s bullshit for them to do this. Stefano has lost his mind. You should have seen Eloisa. I thought she was going to have some kind of a fit. She turned purple and started choking.”
Nicoletta might have imagined that there was satisfaction in his voice. She had never considered it before, but Emilio and Enzo were also related to Eloisa, and they must have heard the way she was with her children over the years.
Whatever terrible things had happened to her as a child, however she’d been raised, didn’t excuse her for the neglect and terrible decisions she’d made with her children, at least that was Nicoletta’s opinion. She didn’t mean to be harsh, but she would never get over what Taviano had told her, not in a million years.
She knew, someday soon, Stefano was going to ask his younger brother to talk to him about what had happened. She knew Taviano would, and it would be difficult for both men. Eloisa could have prevented the trauma now by dealing with it then. Or just never having it take place by sheltering her son a little better.
“Are you all right, Nicoletta?” Emilio asked.
She sat up straight, realizing she once again had tears swimming in her eyes. She loved her husband more than anything, and no matter the things that had happened to her, she found it almost harder to accept what had happened to him because he had a family that could have prevented it.
“I’m good,” she lied as the car cruised up to a walkway a good block from her foster parents’ home.
She stepped out of the car, Emilio pacing beside her. She knew the way home through the network of backyards. She’d taken that route numerous times. They were all connected, those massive parklike courtyards. They came across two bodies, both wearing Demon colors, by a wrought-iron bench that Lucia loved to sit on when she went to the koi pond. Both had their necks broken.
Emilio stepped in front of her and Enzo took up the rear, sandwiching her in between them. The next two Demons were right at the edge of the pool, one practically lying in the tall blue grasses Amo had planted because Lucia loved them. The other lay across the stone path, neck broken, staring up at the sky.
Nicoletta recognized all four men. These were the men closest to Benito. He never went anywhere without them. There was satisfaction in knowing she was getting close to him.
Two more bodies were just outside the Japanese maple garden, the one meticulously planted and cultivated for Amo’s beloved wife. Both Demons had their necks broken. One had been particularly brutal, and she remembered him laughing when Benito had beaten her.
There were two in the maple garden, and she really didn’t like that. In fact, it upset her so much that she almost asked Emilio to pull the bodies out of the garden. Lucia loved to have her morning tea there. Often, Nicoletta would sit with her and they would talk of nothing important, but that was where she first learned to trust her beloved foster mother. She forced herself to stay quiet and keep moving.
The Ferraro family was proving themselves to be silent, deadly assassins. She knew they had all come on her behalf. She was their family, and this man had hurt her. He had done despicable things to others, and they would have gone after him for his crimes had someone pointed them at him, but he had come at her, and she was theirs. She was a Ferraro. Family. Famiglia. That meant something wonderful. Beautiful. She hugged the knowledge to herself.
There were two more dead just on the side of the house, leading to the front, as if someone had tried to creep around without being seen. She had to step over their bodies to get to the corner of the house. At once she could see her family surrounding Benito Valdez and his three closest men. They were silent shadows, moving out of the shrubbery and flowers and back into them, barely noticeable.