ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESCUE Read Free Page B

“They’re safe. And yes, we’re talking to them.”
    “They’ll tell you the same thing I will—we don’t know anything. We weren’t allowed to know anything. Women in the Giardino household were like furniture or children—to be seen and not heard.”
    “I’m surprised you put up with that kind of treatment.”
    Anger flared, putting color in her cheeks and life in her eyes. She looked more striking than ever. “You think I had a choice?”
    “You strike me as an outspoken, independent young woman. Not someone who’d let herself be bullied.” When she’d stepped out into the basement, the boy in her arms, she’d looked ready to take him on, despite the fact that she was unarmed.
    She looked away, but not before he caught a glimpse of sadness—or was it despair?—in her eyes. “If you lived in a household with men who thought nothing of cutting a man’s face off if he said something they didn’t like, would you be so eager to speak up?”
    “Are you saying the Giardinos threatened you?”
    “They didn’t think of them as threats. Call them promises.”
    “Did they physically abuse you?” His anger was a sharp, heavy blade at the back of his throat, surprising in its intensity.
    She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
    He shifted, wanting to put some distance between himself and this woman who unsettled him so. She was alternately cold and vulnerable, in turns innocent and calculating. He pretended to consult the file folder, though the words blurred before an image of Stacy, cowering before a faceless thug with a gun.
    “Does the name Senator Nordley mean anything to you?” he asked, forcing the disturbing image away.
    “He’s a senator from New York. What is this, a civics test?”
    “We believe the senator was at the house shortly before we broke in this afternoon.”
    “I didn’t see him.”
    “Did you see Sam Giardino with anyone in the past few days who was not a regular part of the household?”
    “No. I stayed as far away from Sam as I could.”
    “Why is that?”
    “He and my husband were fighting. I didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire. Literally.”
    “What were they fighting about?”
    “Control of the family. Sammy wanted his father to give him more say in day-to-day operations, but Sam refused.”
    “But Sam was the natural successor to his father, wasn’t he?”
    “Supposedly. But Sam used to taunt him. He’d threaten to pass over Sam and hand the reins over to his brother, Sammy’s Uncle Abel.”
    Patrick leafed through the folder. He found no mention of anyone named Abel. “Who was Uncle Abel?”
    “Sam’s younger brother. He was the black sheep no one ever talked about—because he wouldn’t go into the family business.”
    “But Sam threatened to turn things over to him instead of to Sammy?”
    “It was just his way of getting back at Sammy. Abel had nothing to do with the business and hadn’t for years.”
    “Where is Abel now?”
    “He and Sam’s mother—Sammy’s grandmother—live on a ranch somewhere in Colorado.”
    The hairs on the back of Patrick’s neck stood up. There was something to this Abel Giardino. Maybe the Colorado connection they’d been looking for. “Did you ever meet Abel?”
    “He and the grandmother came to our wedding. He looked like some old cowboy.”
    “And the mother?”
    “The mother was scarier than either of her sons. She didn’t approve of me and threatened to give me the evil eye if I wasn’t good to her only grandson.” Stacy shuddered, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “After meeting her, I know why Sam was so mean.”
    “All the more reason for us to offer you protection.”
    “I told you, I don’t want your protection!”
    At the sound of her raised voice, Carlo stirred and whimpered. She bent over him and made soothing noises. In that instance she transformed from cold and angry to warm and tender. The contrast struck him, made him feel sympathy for her, though he didn’t