Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  It had made sense then, the reason a rich, educated man like Damian Cavallo would turn to organized crime. She’d understood why he would take the resources — both the money and the intelligence — he’d gained from his father and use it in a way that would have made his father ashamed.

  In Damian’s eyes, his work was more honest than the work done by his father, a well-connected financial trader who made his fortune buying and selling for wealthy investors. At first, Aria had thought he was rationalizing, but it had been hard to refute his logic.

  Most of all she remembered how she’d felt in his arms: safe.

  Safe and protected, like nothing in the world could touch her.

  It was a feeling she’d never experienced, not before her parent’s death and certainly not after when Primo took over her guardianship. He’d tried. She knew he’d tried. But he was unstable, probably in need of medication and therapy to manage what her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology told her was a serious mental illness.

  She’d gotten used to tiptoeing around him, steering clear of his mercurial moods, and later, the ruthless manipulations of Malcolm.

  Still, Primo was her brother. She couldn’t help wondering if he was okay. Was he looking for her? Or had he given up on her after she’d left him and run to Damian?

  Was Malcolm still using him? Aria almost hoped so. Primo didn’t know it, but he was only safe as long as he was useful to Malcolm. Aria hoped he would stay useful long enough for her to escape the tiny room. Maybe then they could find a way out of this mess for them.

  She tried for the thousandth time to figure that part out — getting Primo to sell his stake in the New York territory to Damian, getting Damian to agree to take it even after all that Primo had done.

  It was too complicated. Too difficult to imagine.

  She turned her thoughts back to Damian instead. Remember his hands on her body, his heartbeat under her ear, his arms tight around her shoulders.

  I’m here, Damian. I’m ready. Come for me.

  3

  Damian watched the city of Athens pass by on the other side of the window. Aria was out there. He could feel her. Could sense her waiting for him.

  I’m coming for you, Aria. I’m coming.

  After nearly two months, it was finally true.

  They’d landed in Tanagra well after dark and climbed into a waiting Range Rover already loaded with weapons. Damian didn’t ask questions. The members of the Syndicate were powerful men with resources all over the world.

  Clearly they were a well-oiled machine.

  He was in the backseat with Luca and Christophe, Farrell at the wheel as Nico sat in the passenger seat. Damian looked at Vitale in profile, comforted by the fact that the other man looked unperturbed by the coming mission. Then again, Damian had the feeling Nico could be standing on top of a powder keg and still be calm.

  The significance of the men in the car wasn’t lost on him. They’d reached a cruising altitude in one of the Syndicate’s private jets when Nico had lowered himself to the seat next to Damian. He hadn’t wasted time on small talk.

  “We’re all here,” he’d said. “We’re her for Aria. For you.”

  Damian had nodded. It was no small thing to have all four of the Syndicate’s leaders personally involved in the mission to rescue Aria. They were making a point — proving they meant what they said about brotherhood. However they felt about Damian’s involvement with Aria Fiore, she was his woman, and they were all in to get her back.

  But that was where their assistance would stop.

  Nico had clapped him on the shoulder. “After this you’re on your own until we get New York under control.”

  “I understand,” Damian said.

  And he did. They’d brought him in to retake New York. Rescuing Aria hadn’t been part of the bargain. They were coming through for him to give him a taste of what it meant to be part of the Syndicate’s brotherhood, but once Aria was safe, he would have to deliver on his end of the bargain to continue the partnership.

  Doing so would be more than a matter of honor for Damian. After what Primo and Malcolm had done to Aria, it would be a matter of principle to take them out.

  Stefano Anastos, too.

  He would worry about that later. After he had Aria back in his arms. Right now saving her was all that mattered. It was a realization he’d come to slowly over the past two months; the business he’d built, the money he’d made, even the fuck you to his father, meant nothing without her.

  Had he come to the realization at another moment in time, he might have fought it. He might have rebelled against the idea that a woman could mean more to him than proving a point to his dead father.

  As it was, there was no time for games — not even with himself. He’d accepted the truth as soon as it was made known to him.

  His life had been empty before her.

  He’d been going through the motions but that was all. He hadn't been truly alive until she’d touched him. Wouldn’t be alive again until she was safe.

  He returned his thoughts to the mission at hand. They’d made their way through the suburbs of Athens and had entered the dirtier, grittier streets of Omonoia. It reminded him of inner cities in the U.S., the storefronts populated by electronics stores and tiny groceries catering to a population that didn’t have access to larger markets. Trash lined the street and graffiti adorned the buildings in a riot of color. Damian knew from his research on the area that it was routinely targeted by the police, that it was a weekly occurrence of the department to conduct raids, loading up drug dealers and criminals only to return the following week for more of the same.

  Of course, he was betting Stefano Anastos’s men were immune to arrest. Damian knew how it worked, knew firsthand there was always someone willing to look the other way for a supplement to their meager police force paycheck.

  Police officers had to feed their families, too.

  “Half a mile,” Farrell said from the driver’s seat.

  “We’re sure they’re not expecting us?” Christophe asked next to Damian.

  “Better not to be sure of anything,” Nico said. “As far as we know, Anastos doesn’t have informants at the Tanagra airport, and the money we slipped to Customs should have kept our arrival quiet there, but it’s safer not to take anything for granted.”

  Damian wasn’t surprised by Nico’s advice. He was beginning to understand the various strengths and weaknesses of the Syndicate’s leaders. Nico was cautious and practical — except when it came to Angel. Farrell was violent and rash, and a hell of a lot smarter than he looked. Christophe was reserved, even a little cold, but calculating, where Luca was quiet and amenable, seemingly happy to let the others call the shots.

  “I’m going to pull up a block away,” Farrell said. “No reason to tip them off to visitors outside the building. Luca, you keep the car idling there and use comms to let us know if you have to move for any reason. As we discussed, I’ll take the back with Damian. Nico and Christophe will take the front.”

  “Will do,” Luca said.

  “Get your comms and weapons ready,” Nico said. “Damian’s sources have been paid to keep Anastos’s men busy, but not for long. We need to be on the move as soon as we stop.”

  Damian switched on the earpiece he’d been given when they exited the plane in Tanagra and Luca handed weapons to each of them.

  There was nothing more to say. Entering from two different locations would give them a chance if one of the entrances was being watched by Anastos’s men. They would meet at the bottom of the stairs and make their way to the fourth floor. They knew Aria was being kept in one of two apartments, but there was no way to further isolate her location without going in. That meant each team would have to take one apartment.

  Only one of them would have the right one and they would get Aria out by any means necessary.

  They would get themselves out the same way.

  Damian didn’t expect anything more concrete than what they had. Raids
were fluid. There was no telling what would be on the other side of the door. There was only the process: as covert an entry as possible, the clearing of the location room by room, the ability to eliminate any obstacle in the path of their objective — getting Aria out alive.

  Farrell pulled up to the curb outside a fast-food establishment and Nico handed him a semi-automatic weapon. Farrell checked the magazine and slammed it back into place.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Damian opened the door.

  They moved across the sidewalk, he and Farrell sprinting down a cramped alley toward the back of the building where Aria was being held while Nico and Christophe headed for the street that ran in front of it.

  Damian ignored the noise of the city around him, the curious eyes of passersby and store owners as they rushed forward in their tactical gear. With any luck, the citizens of Omonoia would assume they were with the police department.

  Either that or they were with Anastos.

  Damian didn’t care either way. He was focused on one thing and one thing only — getting Aria out alive.

  Whatever the cost.

  4

  Aria was asleep when she heard the first crash. She swam her way up from sleep, her face against the mattress, thinking maybe she’d imagined it.

  But no. The first crash was followed by a second and that one was followed by the unmistakable crack of gunfire.

  She shot out of bed in an instant and got onto the floor, her eye sweeping the room for anything she could use to help Damian when he got to her.

  Because she knew it was him. Knew he was coming for her.

  A burst of gunfire erupted from more than one location in the apartment. It was instinct to cover her head with her hands, to flatten herself against the floor as gunshots reverberated through the building.

  It didn’t take long to figure out there was nothing she could do to help but be ready to lunge for the door when Damian got to her. She considered crawling to the wall next to the door, then discarded the idea when more gunfire sounded, closer this time and followed by the sound of splintering wood and shattering plaster.

  The walls next to the door ran along the hall. She didn’t want to risk catching a stray bullet if the shoot-out continued into the hall that led to her room. She wouldn’t be any help to Damian if she was bleeding out as he tried to rescue her.

  She stayed put instead, away from the walls and the door, listening for anything that might give her a hint of what was going on beyond the walls of the room.

  It didn’t help. Silence had suddenly enveloped the apartment. She didn’t know how long it lasted before she caught the sound of flesh meeting flesh. It was close to her room, maybe right outside in the hallway, and she tuned her ears to the sound of grunting, the wet smack of a mallet hitting meat.

  More gunshots sounded from somewhere else in the apartment. Were there two men coming for her? Maybe Damian and Cole — one fighting the guards in the hall and the other holding the others off with gunfire elsewhere in the apartment?

  It was impossible to tell. Her mind, muddied by weeks alone in the little room, couldn’t get a handle on what she was hearing. Her heart thudded in her chest, adrenaline rushing her body. She fought the urge to run to the door, to bang on it and scream.

  It would be a mistake, temporary relief at the risk of her possible rescue. It would only take one bullet through the door to kill her.

  She bit down on her hand instead, forcing herself to focus on the pain of teeth in flesh in an effort to keep herself from screaming for Damian.

  He would find her.

  A break in the distant action was met by a crack at her door. Looking up to see the wood splintering, she backed away from the door while simultaneously preparing to rush it if it was Damian.

  A moment later the door burst open, the lock popping as it flew against the wall. She looked up to see a monster of a man, a long scar running down the left side of his face. Cowering was reflexive; he was more fearsome than any of the guards who had kept her prisoner so far.

  She scrambled away from him toward the safety of the bed.

  Strong arms lifted her off the floor as if she weighed no more than a feather.

  “It’s okay.” The voice was casual, as if it were an everyday occurrence for the man behind it to break down a door, to lift a woman off the floor in one fell swoop. “I’m with Damian.”

  She relaxed in his arms, let her feet find the floor.

  “Stay behind me and do exactly what I say,” the man said.

  He didn’t have to ask twice. She would do anything he said if he was with Damian. In fact, she would have been hard pressed to deny him even if he hadn’t been. He was so massive he could have split her in two with one hand.

  She stayed close to his back as he moved toward the door. He glanced into the hall and waved her forward. She’d no sooner stepped into it when a dark figure appeared at the end of it.

  All she saw was the weapon being raised in their direction.

  Farrell’s hand shot out, shoving her behind him as he used his other hand to raise his weapon. A line of gunfire ate into the wall at the end of the hall and the man at the other end of it fell to the floor like a bag of meat.

  “Let’s go,” the man said.

  She followed him down the hall, past the bathroom she’d used for the past few weeks, the furthest she’d ever gone beyond her room.

  They entered a dingy living room with worn carpet. An outdated kitchen stood beyond it, food spread out on the counter. The refrigerator was open, a dead man sprawled on the discolored linoleum with blood leaking from a bullet hole in his head.

  It was eerily quiet, the scene strangely surreal. All this time she’d been locked in the room this other space had existed around her. The guards had come and gone, prepared food from the refrigerator, watched the television that had been shattered by a bullet in the living room.

  “Aria.” The voice broke through her thoughts and she looked at the big man covering her with a gun. “Let’s go. Stay behind me.”

  She didn’t know who he was but he’d said he was with Damian. He knew her name. He had freed her from the room.

  She followed him, stepping over another dead body on their way to the door.

  They stepped onto a landing. Aria looked past the staircase winding below them to the four doors arranged around the landing. Three of them were open.

  “I’ve got her.”

  She jumped a little and wrapped her arms around her chest as the man shouted in the general direction of the open doors.

  A well of panic opened up inside her. What if the man had been lying? What if he was someone else trying to hurt her? To keep her from Damian?

  But that didn’t make sense. He’d gotten her out of the room. Had killed men to get to her.

  She was still trying to sort out the details when Damian hurried from one of the open doors. He froze for the briefest of seconds, like he couldn’t quite believe she was standing in front of him.

  Then he was rushing toward her, pulling her into his arms.

  Her feet went out from under her, the adrenaline that had propelled her through the apartment leaving her body in a rush.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” Damian said into her hair. “I’ve got you.”

  5

  Damian sat on the bed in the plane’s cabin while Aria washed up in the bathroom. They’d moved her out of the building in Athens just under the twenty minute deadline and had passed at least three unmarked cars headed toward the apartment on their way out of the city.

  Clearly Anastos’s men had been alerted to their presence.

  Nico and Christophe had kept an eye on the road behind them while Damian held Aria on his lap in the backseat of the Range Rover, her arms wrapped around his neck like a child. She’d been quiet since her rescue and he knew she was processing everything that had happened. Best case, she’d been locked up for almost two months, kept prisoner by Anastos’s men. Worst case…

&n
bsp; Well, he didn’t want to think about the worst case.

  A knock sounded at the door and Damian looked up. “Come in.”

  Christophe opened the door. “Can I get her anything?” he asked. “Tea? Water? Something to eat?”

  Damian shook his head. “Not right now.”

  Christophe hesitated. “Can I get you anything?”

  “I have everything I need,” Damian said.

  Christophe nodded and started to close the door.

  “Christophe?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you,” Damian said.

  He nodded. “We’ll be in Florence in a few hours. See if you can get her to rest until then.”

  The door closed behind him and Damian rose to his feet, pacing the tiny cabin. He’d waited until they reached cruising altitude to move Aria to the sleeping cabin, holding her hand as the plane nosed into the sky. She’d looked out the window without a word, watching Athens pass beneath them.

  He couldn’t think about the apartment in Omonoia. It was unbearable to imagine Aria, his beautiful Aria, kept in such conditions. He thought he’d taken out his rage on the men he’d mowed down on his way into the apartment occupied by Anastos’s men, but it had welled up like an underground spring the moment he’d seen her.

  He almost didn’t recognize her at first. She was so thin, her skin sallow and pale rather than flush with the healthy vitality he’d come to associate with her. In the end it was her eyes that had done it. As soon as she’d looked at him, he’d seen the same fierceness in their dark depths that he’d spotted that first day in Primo’s club.

  It was a fierceness that said she was still in there somewhere. That whatever she’d suffered, she would make it through to the other side.

  Which didn’t mean he wasn’t going to make everyone involved pay with their lives.