“What does that mean?” she challenged.
“What the fuck do you think it means? Your loyalty has to be to this family. My duty is to protect it and every member in it. The Saldis nearly wiped out every member of our family …”
“That is ancient history. Long before any of us were born,” she snapped.
“The feud still exists to this day. Go to Sicily, Emmanuelle. You’ll learn fast enough. Valentino can’t be trusted. If he persists in using you to get to us, he’s going to disappear.”
Emmanuelle went white. She put down her napkin, her dark eyes never leaving her brother’s face. “I would never forgive you. Never, Stefano. I would disappear, and you would never find me. If you think I’m trying to scare you, I’m not. It’s the honest truth. I love you. I do. I love all of you. You have no right to harm Valentino when he hasn’t done one thing to any of us. He took our side and saved lives when we needed it. He had his men help us,” she reminded, almost pleading with her brother.
“I know he did, bella,” Stefano said. “I’m not saying Valentino isn’t a good man. I think he is, but he’s loyal to his family. He should be, just as we’re loyal to one another. It isn’t safe.”
“I’m safe with him.”
“You aren’t, Emmanuelle,” Stefano said. “He’s a very dangerous man. I’m telling you, I don’t want you to see him again. You’ll be safe. He’ll be safe. We can still be civil to one another. You know I’m right.”
She closed her eyes for a long minute. Giovanni wanted to put his arms around her and hold her tight. Something had happened between Valentino and Emmanuelle, something she refused to tell any of them. Most of the time she avoided him, and then there would be short times they would sneak off together. Those times never lasted long. Again, no one knew why.
“You don’t have to worry,” she said. “I’m not seeing him. I told Bruno, if Valentino called, he wasn’t to fill the order, that I’d compensate him for the loss.” She lifted her chin. “So, you have nothing to worry about other than my disloyalty to the family.”
“I never thought you were disloyal.”
“Of course you did. I must be giving away family secrets if I talk to him. I’m a woman, after all, and I can be persuaded by great sex.” There was bitterness in her voice, enough that every single member of her family protested at once.
“Emme.” Stefano heaved a sigh and pressed his fingers to his forehead as if to relieve a pain. “Honey, I have never treated you as less than you are, a shadow rider of equal value as every man seated at this table. Maybe I’m guilty of loving you too much and being worried every second of my life that something would happen to you. I do the same with Francesca and now, Mariko. I can’t help who I am. The obsessive-compulsive streak to surround everyone I love with a huge wall is a battle I fight every day. I don’t mean to smother you, Emme. I trust you as a rider. I know you can take care of yourself and that you won’t betray family secrets.”
“Then stop getting upset if I see Val,” she whispered.
Giovanni wanted to protest. He could see on his brothers’ faces that they wanted to as well. Valentino Saldi was a good man. They’d all watched him carefully. His family had secrets—but so did theirs. They both were guilty of criminal activities. The difference was, the Ferraro family considered themselves on the side of good. Val couldn’t say that. He wouldn’t leave Emmanuelle alone. More than once she’d made it clear she wasn’t seeing him, and he always seemed to talk her around.
“Honey, you think I don’t want to give that to you?” Stefano put his hand over his heart. “On my honor, Emme, with everything in me, I want to give you whatever your heart needs and it seems Val is your choice, but you can’t go there. Not with his family and not with yours.”
“I know that. I make it clear to him. I just don’t like you threatening him. I have to manage my own life, but”—she held up her hand to stop Stefano from interrupting her—“if I need you, any or all of you, to help me, I promise I’ll ask.”
Stefano sighed and shook his head but he didn’t persist. Giovanni wanted his older brother to lay down the law in no uncertain terms. They all knew Val was dangerous. Emmanuelle, by tacking on the last, made it clear that she thought there might come a time when she would be once again “making it clear” to Valentino Saldi that she wouldn’t date him.
“What are you planning to do about your little waitress?” Vittorio asked Giovanni. The peacemaker, changing the subject.
“I have no idea. She already probably thinks I’m the playboy from hell,” Giovanni admitted. “And she doesn’t like me.”
“What else did you do?” Stefano asked, his tone deceptively mild. He hadn’t gotten his way with Emmanuelle, so he was quite willing to battle it out with his brother.
Giovanni shrugged. “I did ask her to dance, and when she wouldn’t because of club policy, I offered to fire her and then rehire her after.”
Ricco groaned. “She had to think you were trying to make her part of that game you invented.”
“He invented the game?” Francesca echoed. “Giovanni. You didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” Giovanni wasn’t above acting. He hung his head. “Really sorry.” He was, now that Sasha had overheard him.
There was no explaining what their lives were like to someone who hadn’t been born a Ferraro. Someone whose financials weren’t plastered in every tabloid for all to see. Every kidnapper and money-hungry man or woman who thought they would have an easy ride.
“Salvatore thought he’d met a woman who really cared about him for him, not the money. They went on several dates together, and she seemed genuine. We can hear lies as you well know and everything pointed to the fact that their relationship was going in a good way.”
“Was she a rider?” Mariko asked, looking around the table. “I thought you could only be with a woman who was a rider.”
“Sometimes, we get tired of waiting,” Vittorio said. “It isn’t easy being alone and feeling as if you’re always going to be alone.”
“Go on,” Francesca encouraged Giovanni.
“She got up before he did and said she would dispose of the condom in the bathroom. She was lying, and he heard the lie. We all have had that trick played on us and nothing makes us angrier. It’s a cheap, low blow to have a woman try to get pregnant that way.”
There was a small silence. Mariko exchanged a long look with Francesca without comprehension. “I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t, farfallina mia,” Ricco said. “It wouldn’t occur to either of you, but some women, when they want to trap a very wealthy man, will try anything including putting holes in condoms, or as in this case, will try to use the sperm in the condom to get pregnant.”
“That’s disgusting. How could he know she planned to do that?” Francesca asked.
“She had a syringe on her, and when he questioned her, she admitted it, saying she loved him and just wanted his baby. That, by the way, was a lie as well. He heard that, too. She didn’t love him, nor did she really want his child. She wanted his money and the prestige of being his wife. It’s happened on too many occasions to all of us with a certain type of woman playing one too many tricks on us. So, yes, I invented the game, but it was only played with that type of woman. Certainly, not someone like Sasha,” Giovanni said.
“What do you know about her?” Stefano asked.
“She’s from Wyoming. A ranch.”
“Are you certain about her?” Stefano continued, glancing at Taviano, which meant he wanted the investigators set on her. “Ranch means cattle that are probably artificially inseminated.”
Giovanni shook his head. Taviano and Vittorio did the same. Still, it wouldn’t matter. Sasha would be investigated. Giovanni needed to know everything he could about her to win her. “I already sent everything that was in her work file to the investigators.”