Someone screamed. A bullet hit the glass door and John Balboni, owner of the hardware store, fell backward. He’d come to help and his gun was still clutched in his hand.

“Get down!” Taviano yelled, carrying Giovanni on through to the back room. “Angelina, I need you right now. It’s bad.”

Angelina left Emmanuelle’s side and rushed to help him. They eased Giovanni to the floor. Angelina calmly applied pressure to the wound while Giovanni swore over and over. Another bullet tore into the shop and someone screamed for help. It sounded like Claretta, Berardo Giordano’s wife. She yelled for someone to help her get John into the back room, that he was bleeding profusely.

“I’m getting that fucking bastard,” Taviano snarled. He didn’t care if the sniper was shooting into the shadows.

“No. Don’t go,” Emmanuelle pleaded. “We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

He bent to brush a kiss on her forehead. “You know I have to go, bella.” When he straightened, Val Saldi was there, his bodyguard, Dario, right behind him. They followed him out.

“What do you need, Taviano?” Val asked.

Dario was silent, his eyes on his enemy, probably ready to slit Taviano from groin to chest if he made one move on Val. Taviano wasn’t about to turn down a gift horse. “A distraction. Can you move your vehicles around that building? I don’t want anyone taking a chance of getting hit, but I want him worried. Packing up.” The shooter was probably already doing that.

Val didn’t answer him, but looked to his cousin. Dario immediately spoke into a radio and there was a flurry of activity instantly, cars starting up and taking off. Taviano took the opportunity to disappear. He ran around the corner, between the two buildings, back toward the main street, and stepped into a shadow. His body flew toward the buildings across the street.

The Saldi men surrounded the building front and back with their cars, the men leaping out to get under cover of the eaves so the sniper couldn’t see them. Taviano rushed past them and up the side of the building. Whoever had sent these men to attack his family had used their own sniper as bait. The men were shooting into the shadows as if someone had told them they needed to watch out for anything in or coming out of the shadows. A shadow rider. Their enemy had to be a shadow rider.

The sniper had finished breaking down his weapon and was putting it into a case. He turned toward the stairwell that would take him down into the attic of the shop below him. Taviano was on him in seconds and he was feeling mean. His brothers called him hotheaded and said he had a volcanic temper. Right now, he was ice-cold.

He stepped out of the shadows right in front of the sniper and caught him by the throat, the other hand in his crotch, twisting while his fingers cut off all air. “You had better believe me when I tell you I’m not playing games with you.”

The sniper coughed and struggled, turning gray, but he could barely reach the floor of the roof with the soles of his boots. Taviano was relentless. “Who the hell sent you after my family? I’m going to ease up on your throat and you answer me, or the pain is going to get a lot worse.” He stared into the sniper’s eyes, refusing to look away or allow him to look away.

He took a firmer grip on the groin, twisting that much harder while he eased his hold on the man’s throat. The shooter coughed and gasped, tried to shake his head. “Don’t know.”

Before he managed to get the last word fully out, Taviano’s fingers bit deeper into his throat and twisted his groin so hard the man managed to scream in agony despite the hand closing off his airway. Taviano didn’t so much as blink. “I can keep this up for hours. You want to hold out, it’s all the same to me. I’m going to fucking pull your cock off and shove it down your throat before we’re through. You think I can’t, you weren’t given the full facts about whom you are up against. Let’s try again.” He eased his hold on the man’s throat.

“Don’t know.” There was desperation in the sniper’s eyes. Truth in his voice.

Taviano heard scraping on the fire escape and caught sight of Valentino Saldi as his head came up over the roof. Val leaned on the ladder and regarded Taviano. “And they say my family is crazy. Get it done, Ferraro. Cops are swarming all over this place. They think there’s a war going on between the Saldis and Ferraros. Or that we’re banding together against another crime family.”

Taviano spun the sniper around, caught his head in a vicious grip and wrenched, snapping the neck. He let the body drop. “There’s going to be a war, all right,” he said, “and the cops don’t have a clue what’s coming.”

“They won’t let anyone leave. If you have some place to go, better go now before you’re seen here,” Val said. “Giovanni and Emme are being transported to the hospital. Gee’s in bad shape. Emmanuelle needs an orthopedic surgeon immediately. I’ll go as soon as I can and make certain they’re protected. In the meantime, I’ll send some of my men.”

“Stefano’s there.” Even as he said it, Taviano worried for his brother. The world had gone crazy.

“I’ll be at the hospital,” Val said decisively.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ricco caught up his T-shirt and brought it to Mariko. The marks of the ropes were on her body, diamond-shaped patterns marking her pale skin. He dragged the shirt over her head. He liked seeing them there, as if he still surrounded her, held her close – and safe. His fingers skimmed the lines as he pulled the shirt down over her body.

“We’re in for a fight. Emilio is watching on the security screens. He’ll let us know where the enemy is, but he’s saying there’s an army coming over the fence from every direction. I’ll need him to be our eyes.”

He watched her closely. She had to be exhausted. She sent him a faint smile. “I’m good. Stop looking at me like I’m about to break. I’m not porcelain.”

No, she wasn’t. She was the real deal. A woman. His warrior woman. She’d stand by his side and fight but… “I need to know if you trust me, Mariko. Implicitly. With your life.”

“Ricco, I let you tie me up.” She tilted her head to look up at him.

“It isn’t the same thing. I’m going to have you go outside while I’m inside. The house is built to protect the grounds as well as the interior.” While he talked, he turned to the wall and laid his palm along the intricate pattern. Panels slid silently aside.

Her breath caught. She stood up carefully, gripping the back of the chair. “You have an arsenal in there.”

“I believe in being prepared.” He opened a drawer and pulled out two small earpieces. “Wear one of these. It can go through the tube, just like our clothes. You have to get it in the ear. Emilio and Enzo will be our eyes and ears from the control room. I’ll be sitting up there.” He pointed toward the wing above the Japanese garden.