Her dark blue eyes moved over his face, the smile fading. “I want to help. I know this is going to be difficult for both of you, Stefano, but she will be my sister. She will make my brother very happy. She gives my other brothers and me hope. Surely, if she’s new to our neighborhood, she needs a friend. I can do that.”

Stefano thought it over. Francesca only knew Joanna. He nodded slowly. “Her friend, Joanna Masci, asked her to come here to work for her uncle. Francesca is in some kind of trouble.”

Emmanuelle nodded. “Renato and Romano are working on finding out everything they can about her. Zia Rachele and Zio Alfeo are helping. I think they even have Rosina and Rigina helping. The entire Greco family.”

His aunt and uncle and their children were all investigators—and good ones. Powerful ones. Rosina worked with Renato and Romano most of the time, using the computer as a rule, and Rigina helped her parents doing the same thing. If they were looking into Francesca’s past, he had no doubt they would uncover her every secret. For a moment he actually thought to stop them. It was insane, but if she had something to hide, maybe it was best for him to find out before anyone else. She wouldn’t like her privacy torn apart in front of his entire family.

“Stefano,” Emmanuelle said softly. “We all want to help you. She’s ours as well as yours. When she comes into la famiglia, she becomes our sister. A daughter to our parents. She has to fully embrace our life, be one of us. You know that. Let us all help you in whatever capacity we can. Give us that. You always take care of us. We’ve always counted on your strength and guidance. This time, let us be there for you.”

He looked around him. His brothers faced him in a loose semicircle. Ricco, Vittorio, Giovanni and Taviano. His cousins, Emilio and Enzo, stood shoulder to shoulder with his brothers. La sua famiglia. His family. He put his hand over his heart, pressing his palm deep into his chest.

“Grazie.” He meant it. Sincerely. His heart aching and full. He tightened his arm around his sister. “Perhaps you and the cousins could befriend Francesca and Joanna and do a few things with them. Put her at ease and make her feel as if she’s putting down a few roots. My schedule’s fairly heavy. If a couple of you could lighten my load”—he looked at his brothers—“I would greatly appreciate the time to try to work things out with her.”

“Of course,” Ricco answered immediately. “We’ll divide your jobs between us for the next few weeks.”

“And we’ll keep our eyes on her,” Emilio said. “This time, much closer. She already knows you put a couple of teams on her so there’s no use in hiding.”

“We could coach you,” Emmanuelle ventured. “In what not to do.”

He looked down at her upturned face. “I don’t know if I want to ask you what the fuck that means.”

“It means you can’t act all scary, like you do. I’m used to it so you don’t intimidate me . . .” She cleared her throat. “Much. But that’s my point. You can’t scare her off while we’re all trying to work on her.”

“You think I’m going to scare her off, then your job is to make her see me as a good guy, the white knight.”

Laughter broke out, his brothers first. He was fairly certain Ricco started it. Emilio and Enzo joined in and lastly, Emmanuelle. The warm, fuzzy feeling in his heart disappeared and he glared at them. “Seriously?”

“No one is going to look at you that way,” Vittorio said. “You were born with that face and you came out of the womb as mean and bossy as a snake shedding his skin.”

He couldn’t deny the charge because it was probably true. “Fuck off. All of you.” He turned to Emilio. “Call Zio Sal and tell him we need his cleaning service immediately. Tell him to bring clothes and shoes for Enzo and you. You know the drill—everything goes. Anything that can be traced back to you. Get rid of all of it. Give it to Zio Sal and let him and his boys do their thing. I want you showered and shaved, looking good and back out on the street where you’re visible.”

Emilio nodded. “Will do. You all need to be away from here.”

His brothers and Emmanuelle turned toward the shadows to make their way back home. Stefano was anxious to go to Francesca, but it took a while to make his report to his parents—well, to his mother—his father never actually was there to hear a report, a necessary evil. He believed it was necessary just so Eloisa could look her child over and make certain no harm had come to him.

He drove from the main home where his parents resided to the hotel where he stayed and then walked from there to the store where Francesca worked. Each of his brothers and his sister had their own wing in the main house, but they all maintained a personal space outside of the Ferraro estate. He had a penthouse at the hotel they owned. The suite was enormous, taking up the entire top floor. He had a private elevator that went straight to his floor and another private entrance very few knew of.