All the control he’d forced himself to have for Aria’s sake in the hospital, the commands he’d given Cole and the other men at the house… it had all fallen away with the swing of his fists.
Now it was just him and Cole and Danny Galanos in an old warehouse by the water, the metal door creaking in the wind.
The bloodied man in front of him hadn’t armed the drone that had dropped the explosive on the Westchester house, but he’d ferried money to Gatti so he could.
“Damian… Maybe give it a rest for a second.”
Cole’s voice came to him as if from far away. He shook his head, turned to Cole and saw him flinch when he looked at Damian’s face.
Cole held up his hands. “I’m just saying you might want to give him a chance to talk before he passes out again.”
Damian stalked the area in front of the chair where they’d tied Galanos, trying to let loose some of the energy that still remained, that demanded to be released in the form of more violence.
When he thought he had himself under control, he stood over the beaten man, yanked his head back by his hair.
He was almost alarmed by the man’s condition.
Almost.
One eye was swollen shut, the other half-shut. He’d lost a few teeth along the way and his nose was bent, hanging on like it had been broken so many times it had finally given up clinging to his face.
Damian had left his body alone.
Mostly.
He needed some leverage for later if he couldn’t get the asshole to talk.
“Where is Gatti?” Damian kept his voice steady, forcing his rage into a silver stream of calm. “Tell me and I’ll spare the rest of you the same treatment I gave your face.”
“I… I don’t know,” Galanos said, the words distorted through his swollen lips. “I swear.”
Damian stared down at him. “That’s unfortunate. For you, I mean."
“I swear, I swear… I haven’t seen him for over a week.”
Damian raised his fist and the man cried out.
“Wait! I heard he might leave the country. That he was joining up with some other group.”
“Where?” Damian demanded.
“I… I don’t know,” Galanos said. “I don’t even know if it’s true, but that’s the word on the street.”
“Are you lying to me?” Damian asked.
“No! I swear!”
It fucking figured Gatti would be the coward who ran after he tried to kill Aria.
Damian straightened and paced back to Cole.
“Do we have anyone in Customs?” Damian asked quietly.
Cole thought about it, then nodded. “We’ve got a guy at JFK who can access the system for the right price.”
“Run it,” Damian said. He thought about Aria. He’d hate to leave her alone while he traveled overseas to track Gatti, but it would be easier to get it done while she was in the hospital. Once he brought her home to Nico’s apartment, she would be exposed to all of his planning, have the opportunity to overhear every phone call. She’d want to participate, would probably want to come with him even though she’d just been in the hospital. “Tell them to make it quick. And have our guys ask around about this theory. I want to know if Gatti’s said anything to anyone, if he made any mention of places he might go, made any plans that might point to a certain destination, if he’s been associating with foreign criminal elements besides Anastos.”
“What about him?” Cole asked, his gaze straying to Galanos, slumped over in the chair.
“Give him some water and get someone to watch him while we run down this lead,” Damian said. “If it pans out, cut him loose. He’ll be a cautionary tale.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Damian headed for the creaking door. “Then I’ll be back.”
Thirty-One
Aria was dozing when Damian stepped into the room with an armful of packages. She opened her eyes, wondering if she was imagining him, a dark god worshipping her with gifts.
“What’s all that?” she asked, pulling herself from sleep.
“Just a few things to tide you over,” he said, bending to kiss her.
He reached into the bag and pulled out an assortment of snacks and drinks, magazines, a book she’d never heard of, nail polish, a plush blanket, a notebook and pen.
Picking up the bag he’d set on the floor, he held it up to her nose. She caught the smell of ginger and tamarind and the faint scent of peanuts.
“Is that pad thai?” she asked.
“It is,” he said. “I was bringing food home for you when… well, when everything happened. I stopped for a fresh batch.”
She started to sit up, her mind still foggy with sleep, and he lay a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to eat it now. I talked to the nurse and she said she’d heat it up when you’re ready for it. I just didn’t want you to get stuck with hospital food.”
She smiled. “I’ll be home tomorrow.”
Technically, they would be in Nico and Angel’s home, but she’d learned that her home was always with Damian.
“I know,” he said. “You can bring everything with you when you come home.”
She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t have time to read magazines and paint her nails then, that she would be busy helping him find Malcolm, but she didn’t want to ruin his fun.
“I do have one more thing.” He reached into his jacket and removed a plush stuffed wolf. “Thought you could use a friend when I’m not around.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Where did you find it?”
She’d once told him a story about Mr. Wolf, a stuffed animal she’d had when she was a kid. She’d slept with it every night, had carried it everywhere until it had become dirty and limp. She’d packed it away when she’d become a teenager, but even then, knowing it was lame to still have stuffed animals, she’d felt sorrowful setting it on the top shelf of her closet.
She hadn’t slept with it again until after the death of her parents.
“Got lucky,” he said, tucking it in the crook of her arm. “I didn’t want you to be lonely while I’m gone.”
“What about you?” she asked.
He smiled sadly, smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “There’s no cure for my loneliness when I’m not with you.”
She reached for his hand and touched it to her lips. “Maybe you could bribe the nurses to let you stay.”
A shadow crossed his face. “I’d love nothing more, but we’re still running down Gatti.”
“Don’t do anything without me,” she said.
He sighed. “If we get a line on Gatti, we’ll have to move right away. We might not get another chance.”
She exhaled her frustration, trying to keep herself from lashing out at Damian. It wasn’t his fault she was in the hospital, and she would be home tomorrow. The likelihood of something important happening in the next twelve hours was slim anyway.
Besides, she was getting tired again. She didn’t want to fight with Damian on the one night they would have to sleep apart.
“Okay,” she said.
He bent over to kiss her as he caressed her face.
“I’ll miss you,” he said.
“I’ll miss you too.”
He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed her palm. “I’ll see you soon.”
“You’ll be here tomorrow morning to drive me home?” she asked.
“I’ll call the doctor to see what time they’re releasing you,” he said.
She nodded, her eyelids heavy. “I love you.”
He set her hand down and touched his lips to her forehead. “I love you, too. Now sleep.”
Thirty-Two
Damian stepped out of the hospital, feeling like a heel. He hadn’t lied — not exactly — but he’d told more than one lie of omission. The fact that it was to protect Aria hardly mattered.
She would be furious when she realized he’d left to get Gatti without her.
And he would be leavin
g. Cole had called as Damian was on his way into the hospital to tell him they’d gotten confirmation from their guy in Customs that Gatti had left that afternoon on a flight to Chiang Mai.
Wanting to see Aria before it got to be too late, he’d told Cole to meet him at the hospital. True to his word, he was leaning against Damian’s car when he started across the parking lot.
“What’s the word?” Damian asked when he was still a few feet away.
“Left on an Air Asia flight this afternoon at 3:02 p.m. If we leave within the next two hours, he’ll only be a few hours ahead of us,” Cole said.
“And we’re sure?” Damian asked.
“We’re sure,” Cole said. “Our guy sent me a screenshot of the manifest with Gatti’s name on it.”
“Any idea what he’s going to do in Thailand?” Damian asked.
“We have a few rumors,” Cole said. “We’re running them down now.”
Damian nodded. “Good.”
“What about Aria?” Cole asked.
Damian hesitated. He was tired of delivering bad news to Cole.
Tired of delivering bad news to everyone.
Reminding himself that it had only been six months since he was approached by Farrell to take back New York for the Syndicate did little to ease his frustration.
It felt like they’d been at war for a lifetime.
“I need you to stay,” Damian finally said.
Cole sighed, ran a hand through his hair as he turned away. Damian gave him a minute. Any other time, he would have laid down the law — brother or not, Cole worked for him.
It wasn’t Damian’s job to hold his hand.
But Cole had gone above and beyond the call of duty more than once in the past few months. He hadn’t signed onto a private security detail when he’d joined Damian in his bid for the New York territory — he’d signed on to be a soldier.
When he turned around to face Damian, his face was composed.
“Going to Chiang Mai alone is suicide.”
“I don’t think so,” Damian said.
“That's because I haven’t told you the details of some of the rumors we’re hearing on the street.”
“Which are?” Damian asked.
“One school of thought seems to be that Gatti is joining up with the Thai Mob,“ Cole said.
The words rang an alarm bell in Damian’s mind. Organized crime existed all over the world. Some of it was run like the Syndicate operations and Damian’s organization before he’d joined them. Others were small-time operations, unpredictable and dangerous, but without the organization and resources to do much damage.
And then there were territories like Thailand.
The Thai had never been under Syndicate rule, and Damian didn’t blame the Syndicate for steering clear — when it had been run by Raneiro Donati or now that it was run by Nico, Farrell, and the others.
The territory was profitable, but siezing it would be time consuming and deadly.
The Thai Mob was on the crazy side of unpredictable and the sadistic side of violent. They were isolated from organizations in other parts of the world, and except for a few minor conflicts, hadn’t posed a threat to those organizations.
They would kill an interloper without a second thought — even one like Damian who was connected to the Syndicate.
And it wouldn’t be a quick and painless death.
“That adds another element of danger,” Damian finally admitted.
“It’s more than danger,” Cole said. “You’ll be considered an emissary of the enemy. You’ll be dead as soon as they make you.”
Damian didn’t necessarily agree, but he needed to pick his battles.
“If that’s true, having one more person there won’t change anything,” he said. “But it will change something for Aria — it will leave her unprotected, and it will leave her alone if anything happens to me.”
“Dammit, Damian,” Cole muttered, pacing the blacktop. “This is crazy. Batshit insane.”
He’d never seen Cole so agitated. It wouldn’t do. Damian needed him calm and composed for Aria, because she was going to be royally pissed when she found out he’d gone to Thailand without her.
“Even so,” Damian said, “it has to be done.”
“Let me go,” Cole said. “You can stay here with Aria. I’ll take care of Gatti.”
Damian shook his head. “Can’t do it. It’s personal now. I need to see him dead myself. I need to be able to tell Aria that I saw it.”
“I think Aria would rather have you here and alive,” Cole said.
“Maybe on the surface,” Damian agreed. “But she’ll never really be able to move on until I can report personally on his death.”
He wasn’t entirely sure even his reporting would be enough for her. She was itching to see Malcolm die herself.
But Damian’s testimony was the closest thing they had to satisfactory.
Cole sighed. “I’ll do what you need me to do. You know that.”
Damian nodded. “I need you to stay here with Aria. I’d post you outside her room if I could get away with it, but it will draw too much attention from the nursing staff — attention we don’t need.”
“I’ll patrol out here, call in a couple other guys to watch the other entrances.”
It made Damian feel better to know Aria would be well covered, even though he doubted she was a target of Malcolm’s now that he was on his way to Thailand.
He rested a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “Thank you. I know you want to help. I need you to believe there’s no greater help you can provide right now than to keep Aria safe.”
Cole nodded. “When do you leave?”
Damian unlocked his car. “Now.”
Thirty-Three
Aria woke up suddenly, her mind teasing a problem she’d didn’t know she’d been working as she slept. At first, she thought it was a sound, and she sat up in the hospital bed and looked around, her heart racing as she watched the door.
After a couple minutes it became evident she hadn’t been woken by a sound but by something else.
A dream?
I didn’t want you to be lonely while I’m gone.
She lay back down, her head sinking into the pillow, and tried to reach for it, like trying to hold onto a word on the tip of her tongue or a memory that was just beyond the scope of her vision.
She scanned the room, the peonies, the magazines and other things Damian had brought, the wolf still nestled in the crook of her arm.
She closed her eyes, pictured Damian as he’d looked at her bedside a couple hours earlier.
He’d been worried. She could see it now in the memory of his furrowed brow, the downturn of his mouth, though at the time she hadn’t noticed anything unusual.
What had he said? Something about running down Malcolm’s whereabouts?
No, that wasn’t it. There was something else.
I didn’t want you to be lonely while I’m gone.
It wasn’t unusual for Damian to be considerate. In fact, it was just like him to want her to have company when she was alone in the hospital.
But the phrase ate at her.
You’ll be here tomorrow morning to drive me home?
I’ll call the doctor to see what time they’re releasing you…
She sat up.
He hadn’t answered her. Not really.
She replayed the conversation in her mind, this time more carefully, trying to catch some of the nuance she was sure was there.
They’d had a break in finding Malcolm. She could feel it in her bones.
But why would that keep Damian from bringing her home from the hospital tomorrow?
It wouldn’t. Nothing would keep him from taking her to Nico and Angel’s place, from making sure she was comfortable and safe.
Unless…
She picked up her phone and used the map app to check municipal airports near the city. If she was right — and she was almost positive she was — Damian was leaving tonight, and he wouldn’t
be back by morning, which meant he was traveling long-distance.
If that were the case, he would use one of the Cavallo Foundation jets, and he would use the closest of the smaller airports, one he could get out of quickly with a minimum of fuss and fewer records with air traffic control.
She looked up the municipal airports closest to the city and started with Teterboro airport, identifying herself as Daman Cavallo’s personal assistant confirming the flight scheduled for the company jet that night.
They had no record of a flight that night.
Next, she called the Westchester airport. They offered service to a handful of major airlines, but they were mostly used as a hub for charters and private flights.
She was put on hold several times and took the opportunity to look up the other possible airports, prepared to call every one of them, knowing Damian would avoid her call until he was in the air.
But it turned out she didn’t need them. When the service representative for the charter terminal in Westchester came on the line, it only took a couple minutes to confirm the Cavallo Foundation’s private flight to Chiang Mai, leaving in less than two hours.
Thailand.
Damian was going to Thailand without her, and that meant Malcolm was either already there or en route.
She didn’t think twice before removing the blood pressure clamp from her finger and moving to the cupboard where the nurses had stowed her personal effects.
They would think the blood pressure monitor had come loose and would be in to fix it before long. It didn’t matter. She was in the hospital of her own volition. She had every right to check herself out whenever she wanted. She would sign whatever waivers they wanted her to sign.
Then she would get a cab and hurry to Westchester. She might even beat Damian to the airport.
Thirty-Four
Damian stopped at Macy’s and bought a small duffel and change of clothes, then he made a quick trip into a drugstore to pick up toiletries. Based on the damage to the Westchester house he’d seen from outside, most of his personal effects — and Aria’s — were probably intact, but there was no time to make the trip.
Through the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 3) Page 13