Bound Together (Sea Haven/Sisters of the Heart 6)

Stefano blinked, his only reaction.

Ricco nodded. "I know what I do can't be protected in the kinds of clubs I'd have to frequent. Sooner or later the paparazzi would find out and it would be in every magazine from here to hell and back. But if I find a good rope model, one I can work with in the privacy of my home, I can photograph my art. I've always wanted to do that. I have my own darkroom and can develop the photographs myself. Eventually I can put them on canvas or in book form. I just have to find the right model. I'm hoping if I do, I'll feel a strong connection with her."

Stefano rubbed the bridge of his nose as the car slowed and then turned through the heavy throng of paparazzi standing on the sidewalk and nearly blocking the drive up to Ricco's home. Both men ignored them as Enzo inched the car through the crowd to the high iron gates protecting Ricco's home. "It's a risk, Ricco. Not the art. The woman."

Ricco nodded. "I'm aware of that. I want to find someone I can connect with on a more intimate level. Someone who could love me and maybe understand if I have to be with another woman."

"That's highly unlikely."

"I know. I know that. I just can't live like this anymore." Staying up all night, drinking himself into a stupor, or partying with multiple women at the same time until the sun came up. Never feeling anything. He watched as the gates swung open to allow them inside. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until they closed behind him, locking out the paparazzi.

"Someone threatened us, didn't they?"

Stefano asked it quietly--so quietly Ricco almost missed it and almost asked what he meant. Stefano said it like he already knew, that he was just confirming. Of course he would figure it out. Stefano had been the head of the family for years, since he was a teenager. He'd taken care of them all when he was even younger than that. He would know. He'd probably considered that possibility all along.

"I can't talk about it." That was confirmation and it wasn't.

Stefano swore, a long tirade of Italian. He kept his voice low, vicious, and Ricco heard the promise of retaliation there.

He shook his head. "Just let it go."

"Let it go?" Stefano looked at him as if he had grown two heads. "They threaten my brother, a fellow rider, and you want me to let it go? We have an international council . . ."

"Don't. I mean it, Stefano. Let it go. There are reasons."

"There are never reasons for one family of riders to threaten another family."

"It was a long time ago. I'm asking you to let it go." Ricco didn't allow desperation to show on his face, no matter that he was feeling it. Stefano would go to war in a heartbeat over him, but there was no way to know how many families in Japan would unite against them. Ricco wasn't willing to risk his brothers, sister or cousins.

Ricco had remained silent for years. They'd been long, hard years, always looking over his shoulder and training harder than ever. Often, when he couldn't sleep, he'd go to one of his family's homes and watch over them, paranoid that something might happen to them. After several years had gone by, he was certain they were safe, and he didn't want his brother to stir up trouble, but he still checked on them throughout the night.

"I think finding a partner for your art is a positive move, Ricco. Looking for a woman to be your partner when you know you'll have to walk away later is something else altogether."

Ricco already knew that, but he was losing too much of himself. Going too wild in a desperate attempt to feel something. Anything. He was already too far gone and didn't know if there was anyone who could bring him back. He'd deliberately separated himself from his family, spending less time in public with them and more time racing, or partying in the hopes that others would think he didn't care about them. He must have done a good job for Stefano to ask him if he cared.

Ricco dropped his hand to the door, needing to escape. Stefano shifted in his seat as if he might follow him. "I need to lie down," Ricco said, knowing his brother would hear the ring of truth. He did need a bed, and fast, or he was going to topple right over.

Stefano backed down. "Angelina Laconi is going to come check on you, and don't give me any trouble over it. She's a nurse."

"She makes eyes at me." Now she'd have excuses to touch him. Life sucked. He wasn't going to get out of having a nurse drop by; he could tell by Stefano's expression.

"Live with it. Emmanuelle made certain your fridge is stocked and Francesca made several meals for you. They're in the freezer. One's in the fridge."

"Please thank them for me." Ricco shoved open the door and forced his legs to work. It wasn't easy, but he had discipline in abundance, a trait every rider needed. He was very, very aware of Stefano's eyes on him as he made his way up to the door.

*

"FRANCESCA." Ricco bent his head to brush a kiss along his sister-in-law's cheek. The weeks of healing had helped. Pain didn't crash through him every time he took a step, and he'd begun training again, although Stefano watched him closely. His older brother was still unaware of the training hall Ricco had installed in his home a few years earlier. Most gatherings were in Stefano's penthouse in the Ferraro Hotel.

"Ricco." She flashed her amused smile, the one that mocked him a little for his greeting.

He rarely said hello or good-bye. He said her name and she responded by saying his. He loved that about her. He loved everything about her, mainly that she loved his brother more than anything or anyone.

He'd never really learned the art of relaxing. He could play his part out in public, but at home, with his brothers and sister, he had always been the one to pace around; to help Taviano, his youngest brother, in the kitchen; or to find his way to the training room and work out while the others conversed. Since the accident, he'd made attempts at being better.

"Smells good."

"I hope it tastes good. I've been working with a few new recipes for the artichoke sauce you said you liked and I think I've got it for you now. I'm serving homemade pasta with artichoke sauce, zucchini flan, guinea fowl and fried stuffed flowers. Oh, and for dessert, tiramisu."

"Nice. I've never had anything you've ever cooked that I didn't like." It was the truth. He wasn't into flattery, but Francesca was truly the nicest woman he'd ever met and she cooked like a dream. She loved and accepted all of them right along with her demanding husband. "Where's the boss?"

She laughed. "He only thinks he's the boss. I still have my job at the deli, don't I? You know how much he hates me working."

"Here's a little newsflash for you, honey," Ricco said. "We all hate you working. We've got enemies."

"I don't."

They'd taken care of her enemy. Permanently. "They can get to us through you," he pointed out. It was an old argument, and one he was certain Stefano had tried many times. Francesca might be the sweetest woman he knew, but she was no pushover.

The fact that Francesca still had her job surprised him about his eldest brother. He couldn't imagine allowing his woman to put herself in danger, and Stefano had no trouble bossing all of his siblings around.

Ricco shrugged out of his jacket and let her take it to hang up along with his tie. "Just us tonight?" He was already unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt.

"Yes." She made a face at him. "Family business."

He found himself relaxing. He was good at family business. Francesca would have told him if Eloisa was present. As a rule, his mother didn't show up for family events at Stefano's--which meant she was almost never present.

Taviano had come to him three weeks earlier with his findings. A casing had cracked on the shock absorber. The family had put out the word to other teams to stay away from that particular company for their casings. Stefano had yet to talk to him about it, so he was fairly certain that was what this night was all about. He didn't really care what it was that brought the family together, only that they were together.

"Stefano told me you're advertising for a rope model again," Francesca continued. "How's that coming?"

"There's a lot of fuck

ed-up women in the world," he said.

She laughed. "You're just finding that out?"

"Since meeting you, I had high hopes." That was partly true, but mostly he was teasing her. Something new for him with an outsider, although he'd never considered her that. Francesca fit right in with his brothers and Emmanuelle. She was family, and every one of them would lay down their lives for her.

She gave him another smile. She really was a beautiful woman. Stefano was lucky to find her. Not only was she sweet, intelligent and beautiful, but she also could have been a rider had she been found and trained from the time she was a child. She was rare. Very rare. She had accepted their way of life, shrouded in secrecy and living outside the accepted laws of the land.

Ricco sighed. He'd secretly hoped that by advertising for a rope model, the woman of his dreams would appear. She would be tall and blond, because he liked that look, with lots of curves, and she'd be very willing to accept him as the focus of her life. More, she would be an untrained rider, one who could give him children so his family would be happy. So far he'd gotten every body type, every hair color and a variety of curves, a lot of women willing to do kink and more who wanted money. A lot of money. He hadn't connected with any of them, not even physically--and that was a first for him.

He hadn't conducted the interviews, but he'd been there, in the shadows, watching where they couldn't see him. Trying to find one woman who aroused him at least emotionally, if not physically. But nothing happened. It was depressing.

He'd always liked women, especially when he came out of the tunnels after a job, but really all the time. He never connected with them on any level but physical. He never wanted to spend any time with them outside of having sex. He was adventurous sexually and surrounded himself with women who were the same way, but he played and he left. He always made that clear. He wasn't a man who stayed. Lately, even that was fading. He played with the Lacey twins occasionally, but he wasn't into it any longer, and hadn't been for some time.

Ricco envied Stefano his ability to have a relationship. He wasn't certain he could do it. Now that he'd been in on the interviews with the various women applying to be a rope model, he was fairly positive he would never be that man. He wanted it, but he just felt indifference or annoyance. None of the women knew who the rope master was, but they'd tried to find out, and several suspected it was a Ferraro--specifically Ricco, as more than once in magazines his love of rope art had been written up. He'd been careful to have Emilio conduct the interviews in a neutral location--the conference room of the Ferraro Hotel, where many interviews for various businesses took place.

"It's going to happen for you, Ricco," Francesca said, walking with him through the enormous open room toward the kitchen where the family usually gathered. "I know you don't think it will, but I feel it. She's close."

He glanced at her sharply. Francesca wasn't given to fantasy. He shook his head in denial. He'd given up that dream a long time ago. "Done too many things in my life to ever have a decent woman throw in with me."

"I'm a decent woman and I love you," Francesca said.

"Yeah, but you're my sister."

"I love you too." Emmanuelle joined them, slipping her arm around his waist as well. "But then, I'm your sister too, and it's well known by the lot of you that I have no sense."

Ricco couldn't help but laugh. Emmanuelle could always make him smile, no matter how bad his nights had been. She was a ray of sunshine to all of them.

Emmanuelle turned her face up to his, her eyes moving over his features, seeing things he didn't want her to see. At once the smile disappeared. "You aren't sleeping."

He shrugged, trying to look casual. "Never been good at sleeping, honey. Tell me what's happening in our neighborhood. I've been out of the loop for a while." Isolating himself as much as Stefano would allow it. He wanted to be with his family but had always considered that it could be dangerous for them.

"Francesca knows far more than any of us. Working at Masci's, she hears everything, don't you?"

Francesca went to the stove where Taviano was turning the guinea fowl in the frying pan. Using olive oil, he'd sauteed garlic and scallions and then placed the fowl skin-side down before adding sage. He glanced up and winked at Ricco. "She was just going to let this burn."

"She never burns anything," Giovanni objected. He mixed the homemade pasta noodles with the artichoke sauce. "Stefano scored big-time with this one. He just needs a few bambinos running around, with her pregnant and barefoot, and the man will be happy."

"He's already happy," Francesca said smugly.

"Well, I'd be happy," Giovanni clarified.

Francesca blew him a kiss and sat up on the bar stool between her brothers-in-law. "Lucia and Amos are having the time of their lives with their new daughter, Nicoletta. Extremely happy." Lucia and Amos Fausti owned Lucia's Treasures, a small boutique that Francesca and Emmanuelle often frequented.

"Is Nicoletta going to a regular school yet?" Stefano asked, coming up behind his wife and circling her around the waist with his arms.

Ricco had noticed Stefano couldn't get near Francesca without touching her. He envied his brother that and wanted it for himself. He just wanted to feel for someone. Connect with someone.

"She's smart," Vittorio said. He stabbed his fork into the pasta and took a bite, then held up his thumb, indicating it was good. "But she doesn't want to go to a regular school. Amos asked me to talk to her. I did, but I don't think she was impressed. She didn't say much, just looked at me. I don't envy them. The girl is gorgeous. Every young man from here to hell and back is going to be knocking at their door."

"Why do you all want her in a regular school?" Taviano asked. "More trouble, if you ask me. All those horny bastards leering at her. Do we really want that kind of problem? One of us would have to go scare the crap out of them, and then she'd be embarrassed or pissed and we'd get the blame. Keep her home. Locked up. It's for her own good."

"It's her last year of high school," Francesca said. "She deserves to have fun."

Ricco wasn't positive Francesca was right about sending the girl to the local high school. Nicoletta had come from New York from a terrible situation. She'd been brutally abused--physically, sexually and emotionally--by her three uncles, men belonging to the notorious Demons, one of New York's bloodiest gangs. Stefano and Taviano had rescued her, but the damage had been done and it had been severe. Ricco knew the girl, like him, didn't sleep. He knew because he often pulled guard duty.

Nicoletta was one of the rare potential riders, her shadow throwing out feeler tubes to connect with the other shadows around her. The riders all took turns watching over her. He took the night shift because it suited him, and she went out her bedroom window and sat on the rooftop listening to music. He kept watch, but he didn't interfere. She looked so young and alone, and he knew he'd just scare her if he suddenly appeared beside her.

"She likes being with Lucia and Amos," Stefano said. "I've talked to her often and she wants to stay with them."

"Who wouldn't want to be with them?" Taviano asked. "They'll spoil her rotten. She's good for them as well."

"It was a cracked casing, Ricco," Stefano said abruptly. "On the shock absorber. Not you, a cracked casing. The wrong metal alloy was used and passed off to us as the real deal. I've already informed the other racing teams and they are boycotting the company."

Ricco didn't look at his brother. That was the most Stefano was going to give him, when both knew that everything else that had been said between them still stood. He just nodded and sank down into the chair at the table beside Emmanuelle. It wasn't exactly news anyway. Taviano had come to him immediately a good three weeks earlier and told him. Taviano preferred to race Indy cars, and he was the one, along with Vittorio and Emmanuelle, who designed their engines. Stefano had been pulling extra jobs, taking Ricco's place in the rotation, and the family had been very, very busy.

"How are you coming along on your hunt for a partner?" Vittorio asked

, sliding into a chair at the long table.

Ricco shrugged. "I guess I've got to choose someone soon. I'm doing one more round of interviews and then I'll have to pick someone."

"Or not," Francesca said. "Seriously, hon, don't hook up with just anyone. It won't work."

He knew that, but he was determined to try. He had to if he was going to survive.