“It’s necessary, Eloisa, but it doesn’t have to be at the hands of brutal trainers. Cruelty has no place in what we do, so those of us who ride shouldn’t be subjected to vicious trainers just for the sake of inflicting pain for their pleasure.”

Eloisa gasped. Her hand crept defensively up her throat. “Is that what you think? That I sent all of you to them so they could be cruel to you?”

“You are our parent. It was your job to protect us.” Stefano made it an accusation.

Francesca pressed closer to him, under his shoulder, her body warm and soft and giving. Comforting him when he hadn’t known that was what he needed most. The memories of his childhood were close—too close. Of his sister screaming night after night with night terrors. Of his brothers returning from other countries cold and hardened, with hell in their eyes. Of carrying Ettore’s body through the shadows. Rage moved in him and he tightened his arm around Francesca to help keep it at bay.

“I followed tradition, Stefano, just like every other parent of a rider. I sent all of you to the best trainers around the world. I went, and every other rider goes. When you were away from me here in the States, I went to ensure there was no cruelty, but I couldn’t go to Europe with all of you.” Eloisa’s voice was low. Choked. Strangled.

“You knew what would happen, Eloisa, or you wouldn’t have gone to the trainers here in the States.”

“It’s tradition.” Eloisa all but shouted it, but there were tears in her voice.

“Years ago, the women were nothing, Eloisa. They had no rights. They couldn’t own property. They were property. That changed because it wasn’t right. Children were beaten regularly by parents. That changed because it wasn’t right. Just because something is tradition, handed down from one generation to the next, doesn’t make it right.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I learned that when Ricco came back from Japan and he was so changed? There’s death in his eyes. There’s emptiness when before there was such life. All of them came back changed. Even you, and you’re so strong, Stefano.” Her voice broke.

“All of them are strong, Eloisa. Every single one of them. Dump Phillip. We can take care of one another in the shadows. Let yourself live. Let yourself enjoy your children instead of making yourself crazy, trying to protect us when we no longer need it.”

Eloisa took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’ll think about it. I can see you’re tired, Stefano, so I’ll go now and let you get some sleep.” She shook her head and stood, raising a hand to keep either of them from giving her sympathy of any kind.

Stefano stood as well, taking Francesca with him, locking her tightly to his side. She immediately pressed her palm to his abdomen so that her warmth burned right through his thin shirt and into his skin. It went deeper still, so that her heat spread through his body, making him very aware of how lucky he was to have her. To have found her. His mother was a shell. She presented a cold, calculating woman with little emotion to the rest of the world and even he had believed it. Instead, she was a woman with dreams of being loved. She had been forced into a loveless marriage with a man who cared only for the power of shadow riding. Of the ability it gave him to carry on his affairs. She’d sacrificed the love of her children in order to carry on the traditions her parents had forced on her.

Stefano looked down at Francesca as the elevator doors slid closed. “Our children will know love, dolce cuore. If I become too harsh in their training, I need your word that you’ll stop me.”

She smiled up at him. “I would hit you over the head and knock sense into you if you dared to be too harsh with our children.”

She was smiling at him, but there was truth in her eyes, honesty in her voice and steel in her spine. He had no doubts that she meant what she said.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said, turning her toward the bedroom. He wanted to lie down and just hold her. “That was a surprise. Eloisa has never talked about her feelings. Not once. She’s never showed emotion, not even when Ettore died.” His death was too close. Far too close. He felt as if the walls were pressing in on him.

“What she said about Ricco. The training. What was that?”

He stripped, tossing his clothes aside and then stretching out on top of the sheets, hands behind his head as he watched her take her clothes off. When she reached for one of the many sexy camisoles he’d bought her, he shook his head. “Not tonight, Francesca. I don’t want anything between us. Not even something that gives me great pleasure in taking off. Just come to bed.”