“Don’t move,” Emmanuelle said very softly in her ear. “They can’t see you. Don’t make a sound and don’t move.”

Francesca nodded, clinging to her, afraid she’d fall, knowing Emmanuelle had taken her inside a portal. Her leg throbbed and burned. It felt like rubber, but she was determined to stay upright. The zip-ties were gone from Emme’s hands, although Francesca’s were still on, binding her wrists together, so she had to curl her fingers into Emmanuelle’s jacket.

Barry rushed over to the chair where his men had shoved Emmanuelle Ferraro. The zip-ties lay on the floor and she was no longer there.

“Boss . . .” Harold said. Caution in his voice.

Barry spun around and to his horror, Francesca was gone as well. “Where are they?” he demanded, gripping the hilt of the knife, holding it in front of him as if he could defend himself against an unseen attacker. “Where the hell are they?”

His men shook their heads.

“Well, find them,” he screamed. “Find them right fucking now. If you don’t bring them back here in five minutes I swear I’ll cut your heads off.”

Harold, Arnold and George rushed toward the door. Larry remained leaning his weight against the bar, grinning like a maniac, not obeying a direct order. That was fine with Barry. He needed a target to take out his wrath on.

“I’ll carve my fucking name in your throat,” he promised, and stalked across the room. The urge to kill was strong. No one humiliated him and lived to tell about it. He was going to carve those women into little pieces, but first every one of his men was going to do them as many ways as possible and he’d film it all and make Stefano Ferraro watch the film before he died.

The Ferraros had always acted so high and mighty, everyone was afraid of them. Well, everyone feared the wrong man. He reached the bar and stepped around it, coming up on Larry’s left side. The man hadn’t moved a muscle. Hadn’t looked at him, when he’d been staring so intently just moments earlier. Larry was too still. A chill went down Barry’s spine and he stepped back. He could see that Larry’s head was at a peculiar angle, as if his neck was broken. Barry backed away from the bar. The man was definitely dead. But how? No one had come into the room. No one had been close to Larry.

He’d heard rumors about the Ferraro family. Stupid, ridiculous, impossible rumors, about how they could make things happen to people without ever leaving their homes. That their enemies just died or disappeared. It was nonsense. They weren’t part of any crime family. He’d had his connections check several times, just to be certain he wasn’t stepping on toes when he’d gone after a couple of drivers on the track. He’d been assured they weren’t in organized crime, although the rumors persisted.

Lightning lit up the room and almost simultaneously, thunder boomed, shaking the house again. It was a huge, well-built house and shouldn’t be shaking. The rain lashed at it and the wind shrieked and howled. Shadows lengthened and grew, throwing out strange-looking tubes from every direction. The tubes looked like arms reaching for him. Out of the shadow a knife appeared, the tip biting deep into his forearm.

He screamed. Eloisa Ferraro was suddenly there. “You shouldn’t have stabbed her, Barry,” she said, and then she was gone again, as if she’d never been. As if she was a ghost. A fucking phantom.

With an oath, he turned and ran toward the door, toward the safety of his men. Yanking the door open, he tripped over something heavy lying on the floor. He went down hard. Very hard. His body rolled and with a sob of frustration he pushed himself to his hands and knees, looking quickly around to see where his crew was, to see if any of them had witnessed this further humiliation.

Marc sat on the floor across the doorway, his body tied in a web of intricate knots, his head drawn back at an impossible angle. It looked as if he’d struggled and the ropes around his neck had tightened until he’d strangled. The knots formed a strange, elaborate harness. Several feet from him, suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, was Jimmy. The knots formed what appeared to be long sleeves that went up his arms to his shoulders and formed a circle around his throat. Staring up in horror, Barry could see where Jimmy had held himself as long as possible, but then his strength gave out and he’d hung himself.

Barry swore and crawled backward, scrambling fast. He’d heard of such knots, but he’d always associated them with erotic bondage. He’d gone to a demonstration once, but it was an art he didn’t have the patience to learn. During the demonstration, he’d heard a bit of history and knew the knots had originally been used to restrain prisoners and sometimes torture them. He hadn’t listened too closely because he was only interested in watching the naked woman get tied up.