It was still painful, those memories. He'd trained harder than anyone else, and it hadn't mattered. "If I defeated the sons of the host families, if I beat their times riding the shadows, or in any way bested them, it was never acknowledged, but the boys were punished and the hatred and bitterness grew for all the other riders training, in particular me and one other rider – a female. You can imagine what it was like to be a female rider there where the women were supposed to wait on their men and be subservient to them. She was never considered as good, and the boys were mean to her."
"What country was she from?" Vittorio asked.
Just his voice was soothing. Vittorio, the peacemaker. Vittorio, the brother who always seemed to bring calm and sense in the middle of any storm.
"That's the thing, she was from Japan. Right there. She was the daughter of a council member. I didn't stay with her family, none of the foreign riders did. Her mother had died and her father was a former rider, he didn't go out on any jobs anymore. Her grandmother was very mean and ugly with her and the other kids. She put our parents to shame."
"Name," Stefano said abruptly.
Of course he would get down to the facts immediately. Nothing was going to get by him. Nothing ever did.
"Her name was Akiko Tanaka."
Stefano nodded. "She came from a fierce line, but they're all gone now. She was killed in a car accident along with the last of that lineage, her father and grandmother. I think three other riders, sons of some of the best families there, died as well. One survived, but was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It was a horrible tragedy."
Ricco shook his head. "None of them died in a car accident. I killed the three riders and put the remaining one in the wheelchair." He dropped the bomb right into the middle of the room. No one moved. No one spoke. They all just stared at him, shocked. There was absolute truth in his voice, and he knew they all heard it.
He didn't take his eyes from Stefano. He loved his brother. He was mother, father and big brother all rolled into one. He was the family's measure of what it was to be a shadow rider, a Ferraro, someone to be respected. Killing other riders, especially young, untrained riders when they needed them so desperately, was the worst sin a rider could commit, so much so that it was forbidden and would bring a death sentence down on the perpetrator. Only an Archambault rider could bring justice to another shadow rider.
"Ricco," Emmanuelle whispered, her voice filled with a mixture of horror and compassion.
He didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on Stefano, waiting for judgment, waiting for condemnation. He should have known better.
"You wouldn't have done so without a good reason, Ricco," he said. "What happened to Akiko and her family?"
Ricco shook his head. There was no way to put himself in a good light. He couldn't spin it or leave out details. "There was a tournament that afternoon and Akiko defeated Nao Yamamoto. He was seventeen and considered the fastest of the shadow riders coming up in Japan. His family was extremely proud of him. According to everyone, he brought them great honor. But he was a terrible human being. He bullied everyone, including the boys who followed him. He had his own little gang. His buddies were seventeen and sixteen. If anyone ever slighted any of them, or in any way made them look bad, they would ride the shadows, go visit them and beat the holy hell out of them. They bragged to the rest of us that they visited girls they liked and did whatever they wanted."
"Oh my God," Emmanuelle said. "I hope you reported them."
"Several of us did the day before the attack took place, but the elders said it was merely boys bragging. That it wasn't the truth. We knew differently because we heard the truth when they were bragging. Nao and his pack beat the shit out of two of the other riders who reported them, and I was waiting for them when they came for me. All in all, I didn't do too bad against the four of them, and if I'm being strictly honest, Nao was hurting when he went into that tournament."
"Wait a minute," Stefano said. "I want you to be very clear on this. You reported what you'd overheard about these boys using their abilities to harm girls and beat up other riders and the council dismissed it as untrue?"
Ricco nodded. "Women aren't treated nearly the same there as they are here. We know we need them for the riders to survive, but there, they are less than a man. Outsiders are treated the same. The council was comprised of the fathers of these boys. Had it come out that such a thing was going on, their entire families would have been dishonored. They're very traditional and old-school."