He played the melody and then sang it softly, the lyrics about the warrior, the woman-child, courageous, standing up to vicious monsters. Overcoming all odds. She was strong. She was everything a woman should be. She would grow into that woman and learn that no one would ever defeat her. She was beautiful. Brave. She was his world.
She drifted across the room to stand beside him. She touched him, her hand skimming his neck to settle on his shoulder. “Is that how you see me, Taviano?”
“Yes.” He kept his head down, his fingers moving lovingly over the strings.
“Even then, when I was so lost? You saw me like that?”
“You were still you, Nicoletta. I saw you. I always saw you. What happened to you threw you, just as what happened to me threw me. It didn’t define either one of us, nor did it defeat us.”
She ducked her head. “Benito Valdez raped me twice. It wasn’t just my step-uncles. When he got out of prison, he saw me on the street. He wanted me and I ran from him.” It came out in a rush. “I was so afraid. You’ve seen him. He’s a great brute of a man and he’s really mean. Especially to women. He really hurt me. And he told me he’d make my step-uncles give me to him. He decided I would provide him with children.”
Taviano continued to play without missing a beat. He detested the pain in her voice. He knew what it was like reliving experiences. Of course he knew. He’d read the reports. She didn’t have to tell him, but he knew she felt like she did. “Tesoro, this man is never going to get his hands on you again. Never again.”
He looked at her then, holding her gaze so she could see he was a Ferraro. He had been raised to be an assassin, a shadow rider. He didn’t like men such as Benito Valdez, and knowing how he treated women and children, he really despised him. Knowing what he’d done to Nicoletta made the man his number-one target. He wanted Nicoletta to see the killer in him. He was a predator. Benito Valdez was his prey—not just his but his entire family’s.
“Do you understand, Nicoletta? Can you see what I’m saying to you?” He didn’t stop playing, and never looked away from her.
She nodded her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I should have. I don’t know why it feels so much worse that he touched me, but it does. I didn’t want anyone to know, but then it felt like I wasn’t telling you the truth.”
“Thank you, amore mio. Everything you tell me feels like a gift.”
She rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “I know there was a very detailed report and you probably already knew it, but it didn’t come from me. I wanted it to come from me, not someone else. When I tell you things, Taviano, I feel like I’m letting them go.”
He didn’t deny that he already knew that Valdez had raped her. He’d read the reports the social worker had sent, her pleading letters, the recorded visit to the Ferraros in New York as well as the reports of the investigators in New York. The fact that he had found out three years earlier was the only reason he could find a way to distance himself from the crime enough to function at all. He wanted to wrap Nicoletta in a cocoon and protect her, but she wasn’t that kind of woman and she never would be. She wanted to be actively participating against Valdez, but she knew she wasn’t ready. This was more of a training exercise than anything else. She would stay in the shadows and Stefano would evaluate her ability to function.
He had utilized as much of their free time as possible in the meditation room, working with her on breathing techniques. That was more important than her self-defense skills at the moment, and she was already so good at that. She had to learn to handle the way the shadows ripped her body apart. The better she got at breathing her way through the pain and the way the ride screwed with imagination and feelings, the quicker she would learn to handle the pressure. Some riders never did. They had worked over and over at maneuvering through the house in the wider, easier shadows so her body had a chance to acclimate to the terrible toll riding took.
Taviano’s own father had been trained as a rider, but he was never able to be one. He used the shadows occasionally to go from one place to another, but never for work. That required too long of a time actually being in the tubes. He’d used them only for his affairs.
“I like your music, Taviano. You said you weren’t that good at playing, but that’s not the truth. You play better than many professionals.”