Stefano stepped into the mouth of the tube and allowed it to absorb him. The pull was tremendous, that terrible pulling and twisting as his body was literally wrenched into the shadow. Then he was moving, sliding fast, thinking of Francesca. He didn’t want this for her. She was capable. Her shadow proved that, but he didn’t want her to be a rider. He wanted her to be safe. He wanted a life for her. Most of all he wanted her to make a home for him and his children.

New York City flew by. He didn’t try to see the events happening around him as he moved from shadow to shadow. He couldn’t save the world. That wasn’t his job. He could only help a select few. Only when asked. Only when they were certain. He was certain about this girl, and on some level, Francesca had recognized that the situation was dire. She didn’t flinch when he kissed her good-bye and left her, knowing Barry Anthon was in town.

His mother had been born a Ferraro, a shadow rider. She was trained from the time she was two, just as he had been, just as his children would be. She hadn’t found the man she could love and her marriage had been arranged. Her partner had been a rider as well, from Sicily, but he’d never been trained. The moment he found out about his wife’s legacy, he thought riding the shadows was glamorous, a powerful skill he was determined to acquire.

Phillip took the Ferraro name, caring nothing for the strict code they were taught. He had no intention of building a home with Eloisa. He married her thinking to acquire power and money. Eventually, he came to understand what the family was about, but that didn’t make him want to stay home with his children or participate in their lives or training in any way. The shadows allowed him to keep his affairs discreet, although Eloisa knew what he did.

Their marriage deteriorated even more after their youngest son, Ettore, died while riding a shadow. Phillip spent less and less time at home, and Eloisa wrapped herself up in charity events and stayed away from everyone but her sisters and brothers.

Stefano couldn’t understand why her children never interested her. She always demanded a report the instant they returned from a job. She made certain she was involved in every aspect of the family business and she and Phillip had taken over the job of greeters after her parents died.

Neither Eloisa nor Phillip wanted a divorce. In their world, once two shadows were connected and totally interwoven, breaking those shadows apart was a frightening prospect. The riders would lose all ability to ride the shadows and the departing non-Ferraro partner would lose all memory of the family and what they did.

It was imperative that Stefano have Francesca’s full commitment. If she left him after finding out what they did, if they were already connected, their shadows tightly interwoven, she wouldn’t suffer because she wouldn’t remember loving him. But he would. He would never ride again—something he was born to do—and he wouldn’t forget her and the love he had for her. He wouldn’t forget what it was like to ride inside a portal. Interwoven shadows couldn’t just be ripped apart without consequences, once they were joined together. Stefano was born a rider. It was a hard life, but it was who he was. What he was. He couldn’t imagine living a half-life, remembering, but without the ability. He knew the few riders who had lost their partners that way had suicided or disappeared, unable to stay around the family.

Stefano changed tubes again, this time in the Bronx, finding the one that would get him closest to the home of Diego, Alejo, and Cruz Gomez, the uncles of Nicoletta. Nicoletta’s mother and father were both from Sicily. Nicoletta’s father died when she was two and her mother remarried when she was four. Her husband, Desi Gomez, adopted Nicoletta. When she was fifteen, her parents were killed in a car accident and she was sent to live with her three uncles. Her life had turned into a nightmare.

Diego, Alejo, and Cruz were all members of a very violent gang. The gang was notorious among law enforcement for running drugs, prostitution and human trafficking. They fought turf wars continuously, always looking to expand and to swallow other gangs. A young, innocent girl from a completely different way of life had no business being thrown to the wolves.

The sad part was, he knew he was already probably too late to really save her. Nicoletta had been living a nightmare for two years. That would take its toll and there was no going back from those kinds of scars. The investigators’ report had been long, listing the numerous beatings, the suspected rapes and abuse the girl had received at the hands of her three stepuncles. How was she supposed to recover from that?

The tube brought him nearly to the very side of the house where a narrow strip of weeds separated the Gomez home from the one next door. The houses all along the street were run-down, paint faded and chipped. The front steps were sagging. There were bars on all the windows and bullet holes in the siding. The front porch had old, worn furniture covered in sheets and blankets on it. A couch. Two chairs. A lawn chair.