Shadow Reaper
Page 49

 
She’d left her phone on her nightstand. Purposely. She knew Phillip well enough to know exactly what he’d intended when he left. He was going to try to break it off with his latest mistress and she’d get the call to come and help him. She wasn’t doing it. Not again. Not ever again. Especially if the woman was twenty-five to her sixty.
 
“I know, Henry.”
 
“Damn it, Eloisa, you know better. And where the hell are your bodyguards?”
 
She’d dismissed them. She’d been worried about her children since Vittorio had been put in the hospital and she wanted them to double up on her sons. Tomas Abatangelo was to stay and guard her while his brother Cosimo went with Giovanni and Taviano. She had thought to stay in and decided it was better the two went with her sons instead. They were so shorthanded, all the bodyguards were floating around from rider to rider. She’d pulled rank and they’d complied, because if they hadn’t she would have been a real bitch and they knew it. She was good at that.
 
Stefano would have more leverage than ever against her now. He had decreed the entire family have bodyguards, but they were spread thin. Still, he was right. He was always right. She was proud of him, yet at the same time, she resented him, especially the way he was with his siblings. His warmth. Francesca. All of it. He’d been raised in the same cold environment she had, yet he’d turned out so different.
 
“Who else checked in?” She looked at Henry with stricken eyes.
 
“There hasn’t been time for any of them.” When she kept staring at him, her eyes wet, he sighed. “The one thing you did for certain was to teach your children how to survive. How to take care of themselves. You have to trust in that now. We should get this done, Eloisa. We have to phone it in and, before the cops get here, try to get all identifying marks.” He indicated one of the bodies and crouched beside another while he pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police now. We have to do this fast.”
 
“Phillip went to see that woman. He didn’t have bodyguards.” She had to say it, and the words clogged her throat. Humiliation turned her face red and she couldn’t look at Henry. She didn’t want to care. She really didn’t, but she didn’t want Phillip dead.
 
“Eloisa.” Henry’s voice went commanding. “Phillip chose his path. We have to get this done. He’ll come through this or he won’t, but we need to know who is attacking our family.”
 
She liked that. Liked that he thought of the Ferraro family as his own. His familiar bossy tone steadied her and she pushed aside the thought of her children or Phillip being in danger and went down beside one of the bodies.
 
They examined them for identifying markers. Their clothes, their wallets. Cigarettes. They took pictures of faces, of shoes, the patterns on the boots. They were meticulous gathering information. The family had members in all walks of life and face recognition software was available to them. They took fingerprints for the same reason.
 
“Enough,” she said. “I have to start cleaning you up, Henry, or the cops will wonder why I didn’t.” In truth, she couldn’t stand seeing him bloody and battered. But he’d come for her when she needed him. He always had.
 
Stefano Ferraro stretched. It had been a long night. Vittorio had lost a lot of blood. Just sitting in the chair beside his bed brought back very unpleasant memories of Ricco’s accident. He’d been there at the track. He’d watched his brother’s car go into the wall and break apart, metal flying everywhere, flames rising in every direction. He had lost his breath. For one moment the man who could never be anything but strong had lost his ability to move or think.
 
Ricco had survived, although he was still having headaches and vision problems. He tried to hide them, but Stefano knew him too well. The doctors had assured Stefano that Vittorio, at least, would be as good as new very soon. Behind his chair, Francesca put her hands on his shoulders and began a slow massage, easing the tension from him. She hadn’t asked him to go home and rest. She knew he wouldn’t. He’d been taking care of his younger siblings since he was a little boy himself and would never be able to rest until he knew they were out of danger and able to take care of themselves.
 
He’d been uneasy for the last few hours, and it bothered him. Mostly he’d been turning over and over in his mind the things Ricco had told him about his stay in Japan. Was that tied to the attack on Vittorio? Had the target been Nicoletta? It wasn’t Stefano’s way to sit idly by while someone attacked his family. He’d already sent for members of the International Council, laying out exactly what had happened to Ricco and the truth of the deaths of the Tanaka family as well as what he expected from the council. Still, the nagging in his gut just didn’t want to go away.
 
“I’m going to go for coffee,” he said. “Vittorio? Francesca?” The coffee was disgusting and both Vittorio and Francesca looked at him like he was crazy. Francesca stuck her head around his shoulder to give him her “are you nuts?” look.
 
He laughed, patted her hand and then stood and stretched. “It’s better than nothing.”
 
“No, it isn’t,” Francesca denied. “I think they deliberately make it that bad so no one wants to stick around.”
 
He leaned in to brush a kiss over her temple. Just looking at her made him happy. She could soothe him when he was raging, and had no problem letting him know when his innate bossiness was out of control. She was everything to him. Everything. He’d insisted she come with him to the hospital after the attack to keep her from going to work. It was underhanded, but that nagging feeling of unease in his gut had him taking extra precautions with his treasured and very necessary other half.
 
He walked to the door, stopped and turned back, deliberately going to the opposite side of the bed from his wife. She was already digging through her pack to get out the food for Vittorio she’d brought. She didn’t want him eating the hospital food. Vittorio raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word when Stefano leaned down and removed a concealed revolver from his boot and slid it under the covers into his brother’s hand.
 
He caught his brother around his neck and leaned in. “Love you, Torio. You guard her for me. You know what she is to me.”
 
“To us,” Vittorio corrected. “Love you, too, man.”
 
They had never had problems stating how they felt to one another. Stefano had initiated that early, when they were just children. He wasn’t about to let them enter the shadow tubes without knowing they were loved.
 
“Is something wrong?” Francesca asked, her eyes on his face.
 
She was intelligent and quick. She knew him. His every mood. He flashed her a smile because she always made him smile, even when she was as stubborn as hell. “No, baby, just taking precautions. You know me. Security is never good enough. I’m sending Drago into the room while I’m gone. I’ll take Demetrio with me.” Even as he stated it, he realized he wouldn’t. He hadn’t meant to lie to her. When he said it, he meant it, but that strange feeling in his gut was getting worse. He’d leave Demetrio at the door, just to be on the safe side.