“Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of asking Giuseppi too many questions. That might be the only way to get the answers you’re looking for, and I’m not willing to risk it,” Val said. “I’m not certain he has the answers anyway.”

“Why?” Stefano asked, steepling his fingers and regarding Val over the top of them.

Val shrugged. He loved his father. But. He’d grown up with him. He’d been with him, learned from him, seen and done things he didn’t want Emme to ever know about.

“He’s very old-school. I don’t altogether trust him when it comes to certain things regarding the business. Protecting Emmanuelle has to be my first priority where it wouldn’t be his. If he thought she could move through the shadows, he would be ruthless using her against his enemies. He might also think he could get away with blackmailing her by threatening her family. He doesn’t quite get that some women are capable of being just as ruthless when protecting their own as he is.”

Stefano’s expression didn’t change. Val hadn’t expected to be able to read him. He ruled his family with an iron fist, but he loved them fiercely—and he guarded Emmanuelle. All of her brothers did. Val knew he never would have gotten away with stealing her if she hadn’t allowed him to do so. That had been her youth. He’d taken full advantage.

When that first jolt of sexual awareness had hit him, he’d thought a firestorm had struck him. He’d known what those ropes tying her shadows to his meant, he just hadn’t believed it. He’d talked to her for a long time, calming her, forming a plan, deciding then on what he would do. He’d discarded his plan dozens of times, but the pull to her had been too strong to ignore.

Looking at Stefano, he could believe what he’d long suspected—her family was made up of lethal assassins. They did move through the shadows. That was another reason he didn’t want to let Giuseppi know about Emmanuelle. If his father was ever so irrational as to make a mistake and threaten her, her family could wipe them out and no one would be the wiser.

“How did you plan to get Emme to spy for you?”

“I never planned on using Emmanuelle to spy for me.” Valentino’s voice rang with truth because it was the truth.

For the first time, Stefano looked away from him to Ricco. The two brothers exchanged a long look Val couldn’t interpret.

“Why did you bind her to you so irrevocably if you had no intention of using her as an advantage for your business?” Stefano asked.

Val’s gut tightened. He kept his gaze from straying toward Dario. He should have sent him out of the room, not that he would have gone. Dario might have been considered his enforcer, his bodyguard, but Dario didn’t take any shit from him and never left his side if he thought he was in danger. Both of them were well aware the Ferraros were extremely dangerous. Dario hadn’t been happy allowing both brothers in the room along with Emmanuelle.

“Every chance you got, you placed more ropes on her shadow, until you knew it would be impossible to separate the two of you,” Stefano persisted. “You did so deliberately. Tell me why.”

They were either going to believe him or they weren’t. Valentino Saldi wasn’t a man with feelings. He was considered ruthless, merciless and brutal. In a way, binding Emme to him only served to show he was all of those things. He saw her. Wanted her. And he took her. He might have started out seducing her, unsure what their connected shadows meant and wanting to find out, but after spending a small amount of time in her company, he was like a drowning man needing oxygen. Emmanuelle was air to him. Sunshine. Everything good. He’d never laughed more. Never felt better than when he was with her.

“I fell in love with her, and I didn’t want to lose her. She was the only good thing I had in my life.”

How could he explain himself to a man like Stefano Ferraro, who didn’t appear to have a chink in his armor? He had to do things that required him to shut off his soul. To step out of his humanity. His own father required those things of him and then to go shower, change and join his mother for dinner as if nothing had taken place. He had been dead inside for so long until that party. Until Emmanuelle.

Emme managed to bring him back to life. To make him feel a spark of humanity. Each time he was with her, she brought out something better in him. He couldn’t give her up or he was lost. He knew it was selfish. He even knew he was risking both of them. He also knew he was that ruthless, merciless, cruel man who would kill for her without a qualm if anyone threatened her. And he had Dario. Dario would protect her the way he did Val.

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