Shadow Storm (Shadow Riders 6)

She had to find a way to disentangle herself from Val, and then she could warn the riders of the dangers the Saldi family presented. Someone had to have known. That story had to have been told at some point in the past. It needed to be told to children in every family, in every country, to protect the riders.

“Did I want that woman’s mouth on me, Emme? Did I show one single sign a man would have with a naked woman crawling all around the floor, willing and eager, that I wanted her? You know damn well I didn’t. I wanted to find out about the trafficking ring. I wanted to protect you. And I wanted to make your family as safe as I could.”

Emmanuelle forced herself to look past the woman to Valentino’s body. His body was superb. Muscles on muscles. Tattoos drifting over his chest, back and arms, each one as beautiful as he was. He didn’t do colored ink; it was black and white. He had a little memorial wall tattooed on his body for his mother and father. Now Greta was there as well.

Emmanuelle’s name was inked on his chest in a nest of knotted ropes. Tied to his name. Bound to him. A captive in those ropes. Couldn’t Marge see Emme’s name tattooed there? It was intricate, letters swirling in the ropes; maybe Marge hadn’t cared enough to look or Val had given her an explanation she’d bought.

She rubbed her temples with her free hand. He still hadn’t let her wrist go, and she hadn’t fought too hard to break free. The pad of his thumb felt soothing on her inner wrist, and she needed it. She felt the burn of the tears she refused to shed.

He did have his cock in his hand. Caging it. Almost as if he were protecting it. And no, it wasn’t the beast it normally was. He had a wide girth as a rule. She knew because it was difficult to take him in her mouth. He was long as well, adding to the difficulty, but he’d been patient when he was first with her. He always bottomed out, and sometimes that hurt, making her sore. That had made his accusations of her knowing nothing about sex all the worse, because damn it all, she hadn’t known anything. He’d taught her everything she did know. She’d practiced, worked hard to learn to do the things that brought him the most pleasure.

“Maybe, Val, you’re not the best instructor when it comes to sex,” she muttered, scowling down at the blank screen of her phone, not wanting to think she had misjudged him for two years. Could she have gotten it so wrong?

Val pulled her hand to his chest. Over the bandages. “Finally, you’re starting to believe the truth. I didn’t let her touch me. I didn’t mean those things. My father doesn’t know about our shadows being tied together. No one does but Dario. Only the three of us.”

He brought her knuckles to his mouth. “You didn’t talk to me for so long. I couldn’t find a way to make things right between us, and Miceli was getting bolder. He was recruiting the younger members in our territory, promising them more money, and I kept hearing rumors of young girls being taken off the streets, but I couldn’t track them down. Then in your club, and in some of your businesses, things started to go wrong, and I knew it was Miceli, but again, there was no way to prove it. After the kidnapping attempt on Grace, I was worried that Miceli, Angelo or Tommaso had seen her shadow. The people murdered in Ferraro territory definitely were a very big message to me to back off. Miceli wanted to take the territories in one direction and Giuseppi in another. There was war brewing between them. I knew that. And your family was right in the middle.”

She snapped her head up and looked directly at him, eyes wide. Her family had thought the Saldis wanted to go to war with them. Not with each other. Valentino was saying that Giuseppi and Val had tried to protect the Ferraros. At least, to her, it sounded that way.

“Why didn’t you go to Stefano and talk to him, Val?”

Val shook his head. “Your brother made it very clear he would like to see me dead, not that I blame him. You were so young, Emme. I had no right to you, but once I met you, I couldn’t stay away. I did try. I want you to know that. I did try.”

“You never told me how we can undo the bindings on the shadows,” Emmanuelle persisted. It was important, and she had to keep to that if she was going to save his life.