Fire with Fire (New York Syndicate Book 1)

by Michelle St. James

  Damian kept his face impassive, but the name sent a surge of anger into his gut. Damian had only communicated with Primo Fiore through Cole, his second in command, but he had the impression Fiore was malleable in spite of rumors about his mental illness. Malcolm Gatti had a different reputation. One that included all the income generators Damian wouldn’t touch.

  Human trafficking, dealing to kids, even kiddie porn. None of it was off limits for Malcolm Gatti. It set Damian’s blood boiling if he thought about it too much, so he’d kept his head down, focused on building his own organization, reasoning that a strong Cavallo enterprise would enable him to squeeze out Fiore — and Gatti — eventually.

  “He’s not the boss,“ Damian said.

  “He might as well be,” Farrell said. “And I think you know that.”

  His posture in the chair was relaxed, like they were old friends, but Damian had the feeling Black could be on his feet and across the room in seconds. Damian didn’t fear him — he didn’t fear much — but that didn’t mean he was looking for a fight.

  “Not my concern,” Damian said. “They have their business. I have mine.”

  “How long do you think that will last?”

  The question wasn’t unexpected. There had been warning signs — stolen shipments, low-level guys who’d been roughed up on the streets, attempts to expand the Fiore territory — but they’d been small so far and easy to swat away.

  Still, it would have been foolish to think it would last forever.

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  “Exactly.” Farrell rose to his feet and walked to the big arched window that overlooked the sweeping lawn around the property. “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can always ask.”

  “Why do you do it?” Farrell asked.

  Damian wondered what he was looking at through the window. Night had fallen hard and fast; Farrell wouldn’t be able to see anything but darkness.

  “Why do I do what?”

  Farrell turned to face him, waved a hand dismissively. “This.”

  “Why do you do it?” Damian asked.

  “I like to hurt people who deserve it,” he said simply. “But you don’t strike me as someone who enjoys violence for the sake of violence. And you’re rich as fuck.”

  “So are you.”

  Farrell didn’t look surprised. “You did your homework.”

  “Part of the job,” Damian said.

  “So?” Farrell prompted.

  Damian considered his response. He was used to being alone. To keeping his own counsel. On the rare occasions when he wanted another opinion, he consulted Cole, but never about anything personal. He didn’t talk about his parents. Didn’t talk about his mother or his childhood. He didn’t talk about the house he was restoring or the long nights when he prowled its corridors, wondering what it was all for when no one but him would ever be around to enjoy it.

  But Farrell’s answer had felt sincere, and he was surprised to find that he wanted to return the favor.

  “The work is honest,” Damian said.

  He didn’t say the rest. That he hated the way his father had made a living, shuffling other people’s money around, taking his fees even when he cheated them out of their savings and retirement. That he hated the front his father had maintained for the rest of the world. Hated that everyone thought he was respectable and admirable when he was a cowardly wife-beater behind closed doors.

  Damian was a thief and a criminal but at least he was willing to own it.

  Farrell’s expression was thoughtful. “We have more in common than you might think.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m sure you know the Syndicate is being rebuilt,” Farrell said. “What you might not know is that it’s being rebuilt with a new honor code — no hurting women, no pushing to kids. Honor, respect, all that other bullshit.”

  “If you think it’s bullshit, why are you doing it?” Damian asked.

  “It’s just good business. We can’t move the organization into the twenty-first century with an outdated model. And I’ve never sanctioned the hurting of women and children.”

  HIs tone turned hard and flat with the last sentence, and Damian had a feeling it was an understatement.

  “Makes sense,” Damian said. “But what does it have to do with me?"

  “Vitale’s in Rome now. It’s an important location in terms of tradition. Makes everyone feel like the Syndicate is in good hands and still represented by old school leadership. I’m in London. We have representation in Miami and Paris and in a few other territories. But after Rome, New York is the most important. Always has been.”

  “And?”

  “And we think you’re the man for the job,” Farrell said.

  Damian laughed. “I’m not.”

  “Why don’t you let us be the judge of that.”

  Damian leveled his gaze at the other man. “I don’t think so.”

  Farrell studied him for a long moment before speaking. “I understand working alone,” he finally said. “I worked alone for a long time.”

  “What happened?”

  “I learned that some things are easier with help.”

  “Some things are harder,” Damian countered.

  “You may be right, but this isn’t one of them,” Farrell said.

  “By this you mean…?”

  “Our business,” Farrell said. “Fiore is already pushing you, testing your boundaries. That’s only going to get worse. Eventually you won’t be able to ignore it. You’ll be in an all-out war with the Fiore organization. Innocent people will die, as innocent people always do in a war.”

  “Joining forces with you isn’t going to change that,” Damian said. “If you’re right, Fiore will come anyway.”

  Farrell’s nod was slow. “But he’ll have to get through us, and our resources are not insignificant.”

  Damian had no interest whatsoever in the Syndicate’s resources. Not as they applied to his business. But getting rid of Primo Fiore and Malcolm Gatti was another story entirely.

  He’d known he would have to deal with them eventually. Had known that day was swiftly approaching. He believed he had the edge — more men, smarter and more rational men, a business plan and financial analysis that made it possible to allocate funds to streams of income with maximum ROI.

  He still believed it, but Farrell was right; Malcolm Gatti was the wild card.

  The guy had a record a mile long, and while Fiore was reported to be unstable, Gatti was notoriously cruel. Dispensing with him would bring the entire Fiore organization down on Damian and his men. They might win, but Farrell was right.

  It wouldn’t be a cake walk.

  “What kind of resources?” Damian asked.

  Farrell gave a small shrug. “Men, weapons, a cyber operation that rivals the NSA.”

  “I’m not willing to commit to a group of men I don’t know,” Damian said. “But I’d be willing to consider the Fiore takedown as a trial run.”

  Farrell raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t offer a trial run.”

  “I know.”

  They stared each other down across the darkness of the room.

  “What’s in a trial run for us?” Farrell asked.

  “You get to test me out too,” Damian said. “If we succeed and I decline your offer, there’s one less rival for you to defeat to take back the territory. But either way, I retain the option to walk away. No harm, no foul.”

  He had no intention of walking away from his business. Unlike the money he’d inherited from his father and the Foundation that had existed since before he was born, Damian had built the Cavallo criminal organization with his own two hands. He’d learned the business the hard way — by getting the shit kicked out of him when getting the shit kicked out of him was what he’d needed. By losing money before he made it back times a hundred.

  By dealing with scum like Malcolm Gatti.

  But they were playing chess, and the name of the game was removing
pawns from the board, exploiting the strengths and weaknesses of his opponents until he could pick them off. This was the best play he had right now. He would make it and see what the game revealed along the way.

  “No one walks away from our business,” Farrell said. “You know that.”

  “Vitale did.”

  A flicker of interest passed over Farrell’s face in the moment before he crossed the room, passed Damian without comment. He was halfway through the door when his voice drifted back to Damian.

  “I’ll take your offer to the others. In the meantime, I’d suggest watching your back.”

  5

  The apartment was quiet when Aria walked in after running errands. She was still spending time at the community garden, but with less and less to do there she was already remembering how difficult it was to fill her time during the off months. She’d spent the morning shopping for groceries and choosing a wedding gift for one of the men who was getting married. She’d set everything up to be delivered, then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Brooklyn flea. Primo would never let her use any of the things she found there — his tastes ran to glass and steel, chrome and concrete — but she loved running her hands over the worn wood of old furniture, checking the markings on vintage china to see if she could place them, holding old crystal up to the autumn light. She was lucky she’d talked Primo into the apartment in the financial district. With its prewar architecture, it was more her style than his. She considered the antiseptic nature of his chosen decor a compromise.

  She set down her bag and made her way toward the living room.

  It was after five and the electronic shades that covered the big windows overlooking the river were already drawn, casting the expansive room in shadow. It took her a few moments to notice the figure stretched out on the couch, one arm folded over a sheath of papers on his chest. She crossed the room quietly, coming to a stop when she reached the sofa.

  Primo’s face looked different in repose. Softer and younger. He still slept with abandon, one arm suspended over the wood floors as if he’d fallen asleep while reaching for something on the coffee table. She used to watch him like this when they were kids, hoping for a glimpse into the enigma that was his mind. It hadn’t helped. He was as much a mystery to her asleep as when he was awake.

  The papers on his chest were face down, sliding toward the floor. She reached down, pulled them out from under his arm. When she turned them over in her hand, she saw that they were maps of the city, some neighborhoods circled in red. She was still trying to figure out their meaning when Primo stirred.

  “You’re back,” he said.

  She smiled, set the papers down on the coffee table. “Just got in.”

  He pulled up his legs, making room for her on the other end of the couch. “Sit, bella. I missed you today.”

  She lowered herself to the couch and lifted his feet into her lap. He’d used the term of endearment often when she was a teenager still reeling from the death of their parents. His kindness had appeared more often then, and they’d spent every Friday night ordering in Chinese and watching movies, always her choice. He’d been indulgent and tender with her. Had made her feel safe at a time when feeling safe was next to impossible.

  She rested her hands on his feet, still in her lap. “You can always come with me, you know.”

  She said it in spite of the fact that she couldn’t imagine spending that kind of time with Primo anymore. Wandering the flea market, laughing over the ridiculously expensive wedding gifts at Tiffany… it all seemed beyond him now. A world that existed on a shore far from the island of Primo’s madness.

  His transformation from protective older brother had been so subtle she hadn’t noticed the breadth of it until it was too late. She hadn’t been a child when he’d taken over her care. Had known even then he was getting into some shady activity.

  But it had been for her. For them.

  He’d struggled to support them at first, and she’d been too willing to look the other way, to make excuses for him and what he was doing in the interest of her own survival. Her worry had been overshadowed by relief that they could pay the rent without worry, that there was always food in the fridge, that she could afford to go to college. Going to school in the city and living at home instead of the dorms hadn’t even felt like a sacrifice.

  The four years she’d spent studying, majoring in psychology, had made it easy to ignore the implications of their increasingly lavish lifestyle. Before she knew it, she’d graduated and Primo had moved them to the luxury apartment downtown. By then Malcolm had already been on the scene, her place as Primo’s number one confidant usurped by a man even Primo seemed to know little about.

  “I had work to do,” he said, glancing at his chest as if he’d just remembered the papers he’d been reading when he fell asleep.

  “I set them on the coffee table,” she said. “They were on their way to the floor.”

  “Did you read them?”

  He looked at her through narrowed eyes and her heart clutched in her chest. She knew the expression well. It meant that the switch inside him was on the verge of flipping. That he was perilously close to morphing from her brother Primo to Primo the erratic and dangerous criminal.

  She suspected bipolar disorder, and possibly a personality disorder. She’d tried to suggest the benefits of professional help during his more vulnerable and honest moments, but they were always met with a breathtaking anger she recognized as denial. There was no point in having the conversation under those circumstances; people who didn’t want help rarely benefitted from having it pushed on them unless they were hospitalized against their will.

  And that was something she could never do to him.

  “I just glanced at them when I put them down,” she said. “Why are you looking at maps of the city?”

  He seemed to relax back into the sofa. “It’s business, bella. Don’t worry.”

  She hesitated, not wanting to break the peace that felt increasingly fragile between them for reasons she couldn’t decipher.

  “I do worry," she finally said.

  He met her eyes across the gray light of the living room. “Don’t.”

  She searched her mind for the words that would explain without setting him off.

  “I know what we do isn’t legal.” Her use of the pronoun wasn’t an accident. She might not commit the crimes, but she did more than look the other way when they were committed. She provided support and shelter to the organization that allowed for their perpetuation, for the man who commanded they be done. “I just don’t want to lose you, Primo.”

  She held her breath, exhaled in relief when he reached for her hand. “Nothing will happen, Ari. Everything is under control.”

  “Don’t you ever miss the old days?” she asked him. “The nights when we ate ramen and scrounged change from the sofa for ice cream?”

  His eyes turned steely. “No.”

  She swallowed her unease and looked around the living room, her eyes skimming the expensive real estate, the wall of windows with a multimillion-dollar view of the city, the designer furnishings.

  “I just want you to know that I don’t need all of this,” she said. “You’re my brother. All that matters to me is you.”

  “But it's a good life we’ve made, isn’t it?” Pride was evident in his voice.

  “Of course. I would have been lost without you all these years, Primo. You know how grateful I am.”

  He squeezed her hand. “There is no gratitude between us. We’re family.”

  She smiled. “Always. I’ve just been thinking…”

  “What is it?”

  “We have money now, don’t we?” she asked. “Money set aside?”

  His expression grew guarded. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I know,” she said. “But what if we put it into something legitimate? A restaurant or real estate or some other business.”

  “We have a business.”

  “I kno
w we do.” She said it quickly, walking the tightrope between his moods. “But if we went into something legitimate, I wouldn’t worry so much about you.”

  “We don’t have to worry about the law,” he said. “You know that.”

  She did. There were plenty of police officers and detectives, even a judge, on the Fiore payroll. But there were never any guarantees, and as much as she worried about the law, Malcolm had become an even bigger concern in the days since her strange conversation with him at the club.

  “You’ve done a wonderful job of protecting us,” she said. “But it isn’t only the law I’m worried about.”

  There was a long moment when he seemed to weigh her words. Then he sat up, rose to his feet, paced to the window.

  “Why do you do this, bella?” he asked softly, his back still turned to her.

  She stood, crossed the room and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know his friendship means a lot to you,” she said. “I understand that. I just worry that he’s reckless. That he pushes you to do things that are dangerous for us all.”

  “You don’t think I make my own decisions?”

  His voice had turned cold. A warning sign if there ever was one. But it was too late now. She knew from experience that he wouldn’t let her back away from the argument now that she’d started it.

  “Of course you do,” she said. “But Malcolm is your underboss. That carries weight, and I don’t think he shows your level of wisdom in making decisions.”

  It was a gamble. Sometimes stroking Primo’s ego worked.

  Other times it just made everything worse.

  He turned to face her. “If I’m so wise, you would trust me.”

  “I do,” she said. “You know I do.”

  “No.” He shook his head, and a trace of childhood petulance settled behind the mask of his adulthood. “If you did, you wouldn’t question my decisions.”

  She sighed. “I trust you, Primo. It’s Malcolm I don’t trust.”

  “They’re one and the same. If you question Malcolm, you’re questioning me.” He pushed past her and she reached out to touch his arm. He shook her off, turned around, his eyes flashing. “Don’t do it again. Please don’t do it again.”