She was suddenly worried about Primo.
Her hands shook as she unloaded the bottles from the box, set them on the shelves behind the bar, her eyes on the mirror that reflected the room behind her. The men waited quietly as Primo poured vodka into the glasses, followed by the clink of a wordless toast.
She didn’t turn around until she heard Primo’s voice.
“You asked for the meeting,” he said. “Here we are.”
Damian Cavallo nodded, held out a hand to the blond man she now knew was Cole Grant, his underboss.
Cole handed a folder to Damian. He opened it, pulled out a stack of papers, and gave them to Primo. Then he leaned back in the banquette, his affect somehow even easier than Malcolm’s in spite of the fact that he was in enemy territory.
Aria had gotten used to the posturing of men. Had gotten used to the mannerisms and ticks that spoke to insecurity and fear.
She knew Damian Cavallo felt none of those things, and she was suddenly sure that even if Primo’s hidden men came out with guns blazing, Damian would end them in a heartbeat and walk out without a speck of blood on his perfectly tailored slacks.
The knowledge sent a rush of heat to her sex, and she rested her hands on the bar, then poured herself a shot of bourbon to calm her nerves.
She glanced at Malcolm, recognized the tightness of his features, the narrowed eyes as he took in Damian Cavallo’s relaxed demeanor. Fear was the highest compliment you could pay Malcolm. Anything else was an insult.
Primo flipped through the papers, threw them onto the table that sat between him and Damian.
“You should have had your man tell us when he set up the meeting,” Primo said. “I could have saved you the trip.”
“It’s a good offer,” Damian said.
“Maybe if I were accepting offers,” Primo said. “But I’m not.”
A ghost of a smile touched Damian’s lips, and Aria was immediately afraid. Not for him. He seemed impenetrable, a fortress unto himself.
But few things set Primo off like being mocked. Cavallo was holding a lit match near an oil drum. Once it caught fire, Primo would be on a collision course with a man who wouldn’t let him leave the room breathing, and she had a feeling even Malcolm wouldn’t be able to save her brother then.
“Do you find this funny?” Primo’s voice had gone up an octave the way it did when he was losing control, when he was dangerously close to the precipice of reason.
Aria grabbed another bottle of vodka and rounded the bar, hurrying toward the table, hoping to distract Primo long enough for the danger to pass. She was almost to the table when a hand clamped down on her wrist.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Malcolm said.
“Just keeping you in the liquid courage.” Aria stared him down, daring him to make a scene in front of Cavallo and his underboss. “In case you need it, I mean.”
It was a slight she wouldn’t have dared if they’d been alone, but here in the same room with Damian Cavallo she suddenly felt bold.
Go ahead and hurt me, she thought. Show them what a coward you really are.
His jaw grew tight as he clamped his mouth into a thin line and she wrenched her wrist free of his grasp. She set the bottle of vodka on the table, touched Primo’s arm.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked softly.
He shook his head, too intent on the man across from him to be concerned with the altercation between Aria and Malcolm. But when Aria glanced at the men across the table from Primo, she was surprised to find Damian glaring at Malcolm, his eyes like black ice. She was even more surprised when he spoke.
“Where I come from we don’t manhandle women,” he said.
Malcolm tossed back the vodka in his glass and refilled it. “Lucky for me, we’re not on your turf.”
Damian narrowed his eyes, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. It was a smile that said he wouldn’t forget.
A smile that said he was going to enjoy hurting Malcolm when the time came.
If Malcolm had been anyone else, she would have felt sorry for him.
Damian turned his gaze on Aria, and she had to resist the urge to look away. His eyes were like a spotlight on her soul. She felt illuminated.
Seen.
“Aria, is it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Thank you for the hospitality, Aria.”
“You’re welcome.”
She had to fight to free herself from his gaze. When she finally managed to look away, she couldn’t get back to the bar fast enough. She poured another shot of bourbon, drank it down and chased it with ice water. She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation now resuming across the room.
“My business isn’t for sale,” Primo said. “I’m sorry you wasted your time.”
There was a long pause as Damian seemed to consider his words.
“One of us will be out of business by this time next year,” Damian said. “At least this way you’re compensated for the work you’ve put into the territory.”
“You must be referring to the Syndicate,” Primo said.
Damian nodded. Aria noticed he hadn’t touched his drink. “They’re reclaiming the territory now that Vitale is back in charge. They’ve authorized me to make an offer to buy you out before they take it by force.”
“So is this your offer or theirs?” Primo asked.
“Irrelevant,” Damian said. “The offer is what it is. You take the money and you walk away. It’s the only opportunity you’ll have to do so.”
“What about you? Have they made you an offer as well?” Primo asked.
“Also irrelevant,” Damian said.
Aria couldn’t help being impressed even as she held her breath. It would have been easier to believe he was stupid than brave if she hadn’t looked into his eyes. If she hadn't seen what lurked there for herself.
But she had, and there was nothing stupid about him. Which left a kind of bravery she’d never been witness to as an observer of Primo’s organization. His men were thugs. They talked big when they had a gun in their hand, when they were bigger than the person they were facing down, when they outnumbered an opponent.
This was something else.
She almost wondered if Damian Cavallo had a death wish.
Damian stood, and the other men quickly followed suit.
“Thank you for listening to our offer,” Damian said. “I’ll leave it open for the next twenty-four hours in case you change your mind. After that it’s off the table for good.”
He’d already turned to leave when Primo picked up the folder and tossed it at him. The papers inside fluttered out, drifted around Damian’s shoulders. He paused and headed for the stairs without looking back, his underboss in tow.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. The rigid spine and wide shoulders, the slow amble toward the staircase that said he wasn’t at all concerned about the outcome of their meeting, although it couldn’t have been the one he’d hoped for. He had one foot on the step when he surprised her by turning around, his eyes finding hers across the room.
She thought he might say something, anything, to break the intensity of the moment. Instead he just looked at her, a question in his eyes she couldn’t define, the answer even further from her grasp.
The moment seemed to stretch between them. Then he was turning back around, heading up the stairs with the blond man covering his back.
8
“Back to Westchester?” Cole asked as they returned to the car.
“No,” Damian said. “I think I’ll stay in the city tonight.”
He was silent in the back seat as Cole navigated through traffic, the streets clogged with commuters who’d been stuck late at the office. He should have been thinking about Primo. About the man’s arrogance and carelessness and how best to combat it when they came to blows.
And they would come to blows. He was almost certain of it. Had seen the flare of ego in Primo’s eyes, the stubbornness that would prevent him from doing wh
at was best for him and his men. That allowed him to be controlled by Malcolm Gatti. But it wasn’t Primo Fiore who dominated his thoughts.
It was the girl. Aria.
Damian hadn’t done any serious digging on her after he’d realized she wasn’t an active member of the Fiore organization. Now he realized it was an oversight, not because she was more involved than he’d imagined but because she was more intriguing.
In fact, intriguing was too mild a word for the rumble that had rocked his body when she’d come into view. He’d known she was younger than Primo, that she existed on the outskirts of his business, but he hadn’t expected her to be so beautiful.
No, that wasn’t right. Beautiful was too mild a word for the delicate features and high cheekbones, the full mouth that would have monopolized her face if it hadn’t been balanced by the big eyes fringed with thick lashes.
Heartbreaking was the word that came to mind. She had the kind of face that broke your heart and pieced it back together again all at once.
Then she’d come around the bar to bring the vodka for the table and he’d gotten a look at the rest of her, had had to force his eyes away from the full breasts straining under her T-shirt, the narrow waist that flared to full hips. She’d held his attention like a forest fire, and he’d been surprised by the breadth of his rage when Gatti had grabbed her slender wrist.
It had been more than his knee-jerk response to violence against women, ingrained deep in his psyche, an inherent injustice. This had felt personal, and he’d had to clench his fists to keep from reaching across the table, pulling the other man over by the front of his shirt and pummeling him until he had an idea what it felt like to be dominated by someone bigger and stronger.
Except he had the feeling Malcolm wasn’t really strong at all. He’d put his money on Aria Fiore in a contest of will between them. On the defiant lift of her chin and the way she’d hurried over from the bar to keep things from escalating even when it meant putting herself in the line of fire.
No, Malcolm Gatti was a bully.
His gut told him Aria was a secret warrior.
Cole pulled to a stop outside his building, and Damian reached for the door.
“Prepare the men for backlash from Fiore,” he said. “And shore up the security protocols around our on-the-ground operations.”
“You got it, boss.” Cole met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Anything else?”
“Nothing to do but wait. Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Damian opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the building that housed his apartment. His mother had owned a place on Central Park West with a doorman and a concierge, but Damian had never been comfortable there. The sprawling loft a few blocks from his office in Tribeca had been his first real estate acquisition, and he’d bought it precisely because it was nothing like the steel and glass box his mother occupied when she wasn’t in Westchester.
Now he opened the door and crossed the modest lobby, complete with its original marble floors and black and white subway tile, to the old elevator. The doors were closing when he spotted a diminutive elderly woman holding a dog and tottering toward the half-closed doors in heels.
He stuck his hand out, stopping the forward motion of the doors, and waited while she caught up.
“Thank you, Mr. Cavallo!” She stepped into the elevator car and the little dog immediately started barking at Damian, the high-pitched yips echoing off the elevator walls as it slowly rose. “Oh, stop now Harvey! You know Mr. Cavallo.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Weaver,” Damian said. “Harvey and I have an understanding; he barks and I look the other way.”
She giggled girlishly and reached out to squeeze his arm. “You are a card, Mr. Cavallo.”
“So I’ve been told,” he said.
The elevator came to a stop and Mrs. Weaver reluctantly exited the car. “Thank you for holding the doors. You’re a dear.”
“Not a problem.”
Harvey was still barking as the doors closed. He leaned his head back against the car as it ascended, an image of Aria Fiore as she’d looked when he’d left Platinum still etched in his mind.
The elevator stopped on the top floor, and relief washed over him as he opened the door to the penthouse loft. It wasn’t the house in Westchester, but it was a close second, a large, open space with exposed brick and a wall of glass overlooking the neighborhood. It was an appealing alternative when making the drive north was impractical, and he set his keys on the console table by the door and made his way to the fridge where he grabbed a beer.
He leaned against the counter for a couple minutes, savoring the quiet, then wandered over to the big windows. The city had fallen to night, the darkness illuminated by the lights of surrounding buildings. Traffic was a low hum punctuated by the occasional horn and a siren in the distance. People hurried across the streets below, making their way home from work or to whatever plans they had for the evening.
It should have felt strange to feel so alone in a city with so many people, but somewhere along the way loneliness had become a default setting. It was impossible to imagine filling his time with anyone but the men under his command, the few employees he kept on staff at the Foundation. He was beginning to wonder if he was even capable of forming attachments to anyone or if the violence and secrecy of his childhood had broken something fundamental inside him.
He set down his beer and pulled out his phone in disgust. He wasn’t usually contemplative. Reason was his touchtone, logic his northern star. He lived to strategize, to grow the criminal empire that was the best way to issue a big fuck you to his dead father. The best way to delegitimize the work his father had so carefully used as a front for his cowardice.
He flipped through the names in his phone, thinking about each woman as her name passed under his fingers. There was the redhead with beautiful breasts and a warm laugh, the lithe runway model who moved with the grace of an animal, the brunette with lush curves ripe for the nip of his teeth, the lick of his tongue.
He suddenly didn’t want any of them. Couldn’t see any of them in his mind’s eye.
Instead he saw a small but fiery girl, the deep burgundy of her hair like the fire he’d seen burning at her center. He saw the flash of her dark eyes, the straight line of her spine, the sway of her hips that made it too easy to know how she would move under him.
Or over him.
He shoved his phone back in his pocket with a grunt of annoyance and stalked across the room for his keys. It wasn’t a woman he needed but a good workout in the gym at headquarters, a sparring partner, something to remind him of his purpose.
Then maybe he’d be ready for a woman.
Preferably one who wasn't his enemy’s sister.
9
Aria lingered in the garden, dreaming up things to do that didn’t really need doing. She had maybe one more day’s work there before everything was truly put to bed for the winter. She was trying to make it last.
She’d spent the afternoon harvesting the last of the autumn gourds. They weren’t perfect — most of the pretty ones had been collected the month before — but they would be welcome at the Lafayette Street shelter. Once she’d scoured the vines for every last specimen, she’d laid newspaper down on the remaining beds. She could have cleaned and oiled the tools, but she decided to save the job for next time, buying her one more day at the garden.
Mary O’Rourke had been there for an hour earlier in the day, and she and Aria had discussed plans to expand the garden. The board had submitted three different proposals to the city council after the first set had been rejected, and they were both hopeful the last one would make it through the approval process. The prospect made Aria’s heart lift a little with hope. The extra space would allow them to expand their donations of fruits and vegetables to area shelters. That it would also give Aria more to do was just a bonus.
She’d ushered Mary to the curb where her grandson, Theo, was already waiting. He’
d lingered, offering Aria a ride in spite of the warm fall day, but she’d made a quick exit. If getting to know him was a bad idea before, it was an epically bad idea now. She’d headed back to the garden and stayed for another hour in the quiet before locking up.
She headed downtown, her mind returning to Primo’s meeting with Damian Cavallo the night before. She hadn’t had time in the immediate aftermath to replay the moment between them when he’d left. There hadn’t been room around Primo’s rage, Malcolm’s mission to coax him into an increasingly dangerous state of agitation. Aria had watched, helpless, trying to stay out of the way while strategizing a way out.
The world was full of men who raged. They were easy to control because they were motivated by something tangible. It might be ego or greed or lust or any number of other things. In the end, it didn’t matter. Once you knew what a man wanted, what drove him, it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to make him hurt.
Damian Cavallo was a different kind of man.
Primo had always had enemies — you didn’t burn bridges like he did without making enemies. But Aria had a feeling making an enemy of Damian Cavallo would be the biggest mistake of her brother’s life.
She’d gotten good at observing. Had learned to bide her time, watching, collecting information, sifting through it for a strategy that would allow her to escape volatile situations unscathed, that would allow Primo to escape them.
But if Damian was motivated by anything, she hadn’t been able to see it, and if she couldn’t see it, she doubted Primo would be able to do so through the red veil of rage behind his eyes. Malcolm might have been able to see it, but she didn’t think so. He was like Primo — motivated by power instead of ego but motivated nonetheless.
The smart thing to do would be to take Damian’s offer — whatever it was — but convincing Primo would be an uphill battle and trying to sway Malcolm would be pointless. Neither of them would see past their own desire to the truth.
She was still trying to figure out how to approach the subject with Primo when she descended the stairs into the subway. Her worry for him was an ever-present loop in her mind, but there was a lingering echo underneath it, the image of Damian Cavallo turning on the stairs as he left the club, his long stare hitting her like a freight train in all the parts of her body she’d feared were permanently asleep.
Fire with Fire: New York Syndicate Book One Page 6