She knew there was despair in her voice because there was in her heart. She’d thought about the scenario so many times. If she didn’t do her duty to the shadow rider world and produce children, she was just compounding her sins.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Emmanuelle,” Stefano said. “Way ahead of yourself. We take one step at a time. The very first step is with you and Val. It’s easy enough to call his family criminals and say we’re not, yet we kill as often, if not more. We tell ourselves we’re the good guys, but every now and then, I have to look at myself in the mirror when I put my son to bed, knowing I’ve been teaching him how to kill, and he’s just a baby.”
There was another long silence. Giovanni sighed, the first to break the mutual stillness. “It is all in the perspective, isn’t it?”
Vittorio nodded and finished off the Scotch in his glass. “I agree with Stefano on first things first. We have to find out how far this thing has gone between the two of your shadows, Emme. Let’s get you together and take a look. Does Dario know?”
“Yes. Dario knows everything, but for some reason, Valentino doesn’t want Giuseppi to know. He’s been careful, and even tonight, when he was telling me the story, he said he hadn’t told his father. I was still upset because when he was talking with Marge—the blonde in his bedroom that night—he said his father ordered him to seduce me. I told him in a way it was the truth. The story was all about finding someone with my kind of shadow and seducing her. Right? I met the right criteria, and he did exactly what his father wanted him to do.”
There was bitterness in her voice. She felt that same silly burning behind her eyes and fought against it. “His choosing me had nothing to do with me. After I was legally of age, I would meet him at the lake house. I was so happy. He was this amazing, wonderful, caring man. Later, looking back, I realized every time I started to question the weird phenomenon of his shadow binding mine, he would kiss me until I couldn’t think. He knew what he was doing by then, and he controlled the situation.”
“Emme.” Stefano said her name very gently.
“Don’t. I know you’re going to defend him. I can tell. You’re going to try to make me feel better, but it won’t work. I was stupid. I was all the things Eloisa said I was, with the exception of betraying our family. I never once talked about us or riding shadows. I didn’t know about his family’s myths. I had no idea they had any way of binding a rider to them and using them to spy or go into the shadows or if they can tie a rider permanently to them. Still, for all that, I saw our shadows. I saw the ties. I felt them. I felt our connection growing. Sometimes I even saw the look on his face of pure satisfaction when he looked at our shadows. It made me uneasy, and I still didn’t stop seeing him. I went to his house that night to tell him I’d give up everything for him. And I would have. I would have given up being a rider for him.”
“You love him that much?” Vittorio asked, his voice soft.
“Absolutely, I do.” Her voice rang with conviction.
“Is he aware you’re a shadow rider? That all of us are shadow riders? Does he know what that is?” Stefano persisted.
Emmanuelle was very careful. She was on shaky ground now. To know the secret of the Ferraro family could get someone killed. That was one of the reasons she had asked Stefano not to include Elie in their meeting. He was an Archambault. She’d revealed a little too much to him already, passing it off as being a young girl who’d had too much to drink, but still, it might have gotten him thinking, especially when she was so connected to Valentino. Elie Archambault could make one call and get the authority to take out a rider, let alone a civilian who threatened an entire community of riders. She hadn’t wanted Eloisa there because her mother would have taken malicious joy in making the call to the council.
“He doesn’t know. He may suspect. There is the story of the woman, the spy moving in shadows, the tether binding her to her man so she can’t escape him. I’m not even certain how it works because we didn’t have much time for him to explain it in detail. I said nothing to him. Dario asked me how I entered Valentino’s home without his guards catching me, but I didn’t answer him. Val never asked me a question about my family, and I never asked questions about his. It was one of the things that made me believe he really cared about me.”