She frowned, getting to her feet immediately. “Did anyone check on Giuseppi? Reassure him his father and Dario are okay?”
“Of course.”
Emmanuelle stepped into the shadow tube, the pull on her body vicious, wrenching at her until she felt completely pulled apart and disoriented. She stepped from one shadow to the next, letting this one carry her inside the house. Taking a deep breath, she let herself have a moment for her body to catch up with the reality of her mind, and then she straightened her shoulders and strode into the master bedroom.
The moment she pushed open the door, Valentino’s vivid green eyes were on her, hot with anger. He was sitting up, bandages covering his arm, shoulder and chest, stark white against his olive skin. He had more muscles than most men had, and even sitting in bed covered in bandages, he appeared threatening. Those eyes of his were on her face, a gathering, threatening storm, just as fierce as the one outside.
“I take it you can handle this, Emme,” Stefano said. “We’ll leave you to it.”
Emme stepped away from the door, her gaze on Val. He was clearly spoiling for a fight. That was good. Better than him trying to pretend he was sweet. Stefano and Vittorio went out of the room without a backward glance. Emmanuelle was very grateful her older brothers didn’t treat her as if she were a little child they had to protect. Instead, they made it seem as if Val was the one throwing the tantrum and she had been brought in to calm him down.
They stared at each other for a long time. For what seemed forever. Emmanuelle struggled not to fall into those brilliant green eyes. She kept her features composed, her back to the door, her eyes on the man who had trapped her into something she knew was very explosive but equally as wrong.
Before, she would have been the first to speak. She was so much younger than Val, always seeking his approval, so afraid of losing him. Now she waited. She’d learned patience over these last two years. She’d learned humility. She’d learned many other useful things. She kept her gaze on his.
“I don’t like his fucking hands on you, Princess.”
That was the last thing she expected Val to say. For a moment she couldn’t process it, or the raw jealousy in his voice. She blinked rapidly, turning his statement over and over in her mind as if she could change it. Frowning.
“For the last two years, all I’ve seen is that man with you, sitting with you, eating with you, arm around you. Making you laugh. Taking you to the club. Dancing with you. Your fucking mother loves him, and she hates everyone. He’s always pushing your hair out of your eyes. Thought about killing the son of a bitch so many times, Emme. You have no idea. You fucking have no idea how many ways I thought about killing him. I can be inventive.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea to try, Val. Not everyone is so easy to kill.” She kept her voice very mild, but a part of her was in a state of near panic. What if Valentino had really tried to kill Elie? Elie Archambault was one of the fastest shadow riders she’d ever met. Few could best Elie, and Val was not a shadow rider, trained from birth as an assassin.
“The point is not whether or not I would kill an innocent, Emme, and the answer is, I would not, but that I’m damn sick of you letting him put his hands on you. Even now, when you know I can feel him doing it.”
She let herself breathe. Valentino wouldn’t kill an innocent. She kept her eyes on his. “What does it mean when your shadow throws all those ties around mine until you tie my shadow so tight, I can’t get loose?”
“What do you think it means, Emmanuelle? You feel it every time we’re together.”
“It’s more than that. Tell me what more there is, Val. When I was sixteen years old and we were at that party, you saw our shadows on the wall and the way your shadow reacted to mine. You saw it then. It wasn’t just about sexual attraction. What happens when we’re tied together like this?”
“Come over here and sit on the bed.”
She shook her head. She didn’t dare get that close to him. “I’m fine right here.”
“You want to talk about this, then you come over and sit on the bed right next to me.”
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “It shouldn’t make any difference where I am, Val. This doesn’t change anything between us. My family is still going to protect your father, Dario and you from Miceli and his army. It’s what we do.”
“You want to know these answers, Princess, you get over here and sit next to me, otherwise we can talk about your friend Elie.”
Valentino was as stubborn as hell. She knew when he made up his mind to do something there was no stopping him. She needed answers. The fact that Dario had looked at Nicoletta and Grace had been in danger of being kidnapped by Miceli worried her. She knew it was rumored that ancestors in the past had married into the Saldi family. If that was so, had the shadow rider genetics been passed on, or at least something similar? Did the Saldi family have something of their own that meshed with Ferraro genetics?
Reluctantly, Emmanuelle crossed the room and slid onto the bed beside Val. She kept as much of a distance as possible. Fortunately, the bed was king-sized, so there was plenty of space, and she stayed right on the edge. She didn’t like getting close to Val for self-preservation’s sake. He probably knew that.
“So, talk, Val.”
“Thanks for coming. I told Dario not to send for you, but he doesn’t listen to me. Your family coming, that’s huge. Knowing Giuseppi’s safe. Thanks for that.”
That voice. Up close, his voice was like an actual caress smoothing over her skin. He brought every nerve ending alive with his voice. She tried not to shiver, tried not to let one single response to him slip where he could see, but already, she knew those nerve endings connecting them like sins would tell him everything he needed to know.
She lifted her chin. She refused to hide away like a child. There was nowhere to run. He had tied them together in a way she didn’t understand. Only he did. In order to get free, she had to know what he had done to her, why and how it worked. Pretending he didn’t affect her was just plain silly. So shivering or getting goose bumps, well, that was just part of what happened when she was close to him.
“No problem, Val. I’m sitting here, close. You recognized something in me when I was a teen and you saw my shadow. I saw it on your face quite a few times. You always managed to distract me with kisses when I was getting worried. I’m asking for answers. What did you see, Val?” She forced herself to look into those brilliant green eyes, even though they made her heart beat too fast and her stomach melt.
“I want you to actually listen to me all the way for a change, Emme. You never let me finish anything. You get hurt and then you rush off and I don’t have a chance at explaining. You’re going to be hurt.”
She nodded. “I’m kind of used to that now. Breathing your name equates with being hurt. I’ve asked for this explanation, and I do want it, so I’ll listen all the way through.” She just didn’t want to look at him while he told her about another betrayal.
The silence was so long she almost lifted her gaze to his again, but she couldn’t make herself do it. She sat with her back to the headboard and took long, deep breaths, contemplating the toes of her boots.