“Is it hard to load them?” she asked.
“Not once you learn,” he said.
She hesitated, turning to face him. He knew from the determination on her face that he wouldn’t like what she said next.
“Teach me.”
28
Aria poured two cups of coffee and watched Cole, tapping on his laptop at the table in the kitchen. Damian had gone up to shower after spending most of the night overseeing the operation to disrupt Primo's strategy with the Greeks.
She'd learned more about the business in the week they’d been back from Paris than she'd learned in all the years living with Primo. At first, Damian had been hesitant to include her in the details, but after she explained how important it was for her to have a sense of control over the life she was living — the life she was choosing — he’d loosened his reigns on the information.
She wasn’t surprised by the genius of his plan. He wasn’t a talker — he was a thinker. She was beginning to understand that his mind was like a state-of-the-art computer, constantly running scenarios and algorithms that were off the radar of most people — even most smart people.
It had been no accident that he’d built such a powerful presence in New York or that the Syndicate had chosen him to run it.
He was brilliant.
He and Cole had set up a cascading web of disruption that had started the morning before with an ATF raid on a container full of illegal weapons brought in by Anastos. It was followed with the detainment of several men on their way in from Greece, all of them suddenly on the no-fly list, thanks to Damian’s hackers, and the NYPD shakedown of low-level soldiers reporting to both Primo and Anastos.
Aria didn't feel bad about any of it. The weapons shouldn’t be in the States, the men were violent and indiscriminate criminals in their home country, and once Damian took over, the low-level soldiers would have to make a choice between serving Primo and Anastos or slinking quietly into the night anyway. They should thank him for getting them off the street before the war truly began tomorrow.
She took the coffee to the table and set one down in front of Cole. He tore his eyes away from the computer, surprise flashing across his features as she took the seat across from him.
He’d been in and out of the house since they arrived from Paris, and while Damian was never one to advertise his feelings, it was obvious Cole was more than an employee. Aria had become curious about the icy, blue-eyed man who was every bit as unreadable as the man she loved.
“How's it going?” Aria asked him.
He looked up, suspicion shading his eyes. “It’s going.”
She held his gaze. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
“Whether I like someone has little to do with anything,” he said.
She smiled. “I don’t think that’s true. Damian cares very much about your opinion.”
He leaned back in the chair. “Is that why you care whether I like you?”
“No,” she said. “Damian cares what you think — but not about me.”
There was no point blowing sunshine up Cole Grant’s ass. He would only lose respect for her and it wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway. Damian loved her like she loved him. Cole’s opinion wouldn’t change that for either of them.
His gaze sharpened, like he was seeing something he hadn’t seen before in her face. “You’re right there.”
“I’d just like to know for my own benefit,” she said. “Why you don’t like me, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I don’t dislike you, but you’re Primo Fiore’s sister — and in case you didn’t notice, we’re at war with Primo Fiore.”
“So you don’t trust me,” she said.
“Don’t take it personally,” he said, taking a drink of coffee. “I don’t trust anyone.”
“Except Damian.”
“Except Damian,” he agreed.
“Can I ask why?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have to ask?”
“I know why I trust him,” she said. “I want to know why you do.”
He hesitated. “I was just a bartender when I met Damian,” he said. “Didn’t think he was anything special at first, just another trust fund baby, slumming it to get his kicks.”
“What happened?” she asked. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and she couldn’t help wondering if he was only answering her questions because he feared Damian. Because he felt like she was somehow his boss by virtue of her relationship with Damian. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
“I know,” he said. “But I will.”
Touché.
“He started making plays I thought were mistakes,” Cole said. “Until I realized they weren’t. It was subtle at first, little things that didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme but that later turned out to be important. Moves on a chessboard no one could see but him.”
She thought about the plan to disrupt the preparations made by Fiore and Anastos. She couldn't speak to any of the other bosses, but if Primo had been in Damian’s position, the plan would have been all reckless force — shock and awe with no purpose other than to demonstrate his power.
Like the fire at the Franklin Street shelter.
“It made you respect him,” she said.
Cole seemed to think about it. “Before I met Damian, I was just a street thug like everyone else in my circle,” he said. “I begged, borrowed, and stole to get what I need. What I wanted. If someone said no, I beat the shit out of them until they said yes.”
She smiled a little. “Probably effective a lot of the time.”
He nodded. “But Damian showed me another way. He saw things in me I didn’t know were there, and because he saw them, I started to see them too.”
“He changed you,” she said.
Cole nodded.
“I know the feeling,” she said.
He sat up a little straighter, like he’d caught himself saying more than he’d intended and planned to rectify the mistake.
“Anyway, we started working together, developed a strategy for building an off-the-books operation using the same strategies businesses use to increase market share and revenue.” He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
“And it worked,” she said.
“You could say that.”
“You feel like you owe him,” she said.
He met her eyes. “If it wan’t for Damian I’d still be serving drinks in that shitty little dive bar, kicking the shit out of people and getting the shit kicked out of me to get by. So yeah, you could say I owe him.”
She nodded. “He respects you,” she said. “I can see it in his face, in the way he trusts you.”
Cole studied her. “He respects you too,” he said. “Trusts you.”
She smiled. “I guess that means we’re kind of stuck with each other, huh?”
She thought she caught the faintest of smiles at the corners of his mouth but it happened so fast she couldn’t be sure. He’d given her an anesthetized version of his life before Damian — she had a feeling it was a lot messier than he’d let on — but he’d already told her more than she deserved.
She pushed back from the table, picked up his empty coffee cup, and headed for the kitchen.
“Aria?”
She turned around. “Yeah?”
“Hurt him and I’ll kill you myself,” he said.
She met his eyes before resuming her path to the kitchen. “Ditto.”
29
Damian stepped out of the shower, dried off, and padded barefoot into the bedroom. It was still dark out, but when he tuned his eyes to the bed, Aria wasn’t there.
He dressed in a hurry, fighting panic as he pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and headed downstairs.
Relief flooded his body as he turned the corner into the kitchen and spotted her near the coffee pot, pouring coffee into two cups. He leaned against the door, enjoying the view of her from behind even though she was in loose paja
ma pants and a white T-shirt. She preferred to sleep naked, was unselfconscious about walking around bare-assed when they were alone.
He was glad she’d stifled the preference in recent days. The number of guards in and around the house had increased exponentially in preparation for the raids on the Fiore and Anastos territories, and god knows he’d have to kill any man who dared to look at her naked.
“You’re up early,” he finally said.
She turned around slowly, like she’d already known he was there.
“I wanted to see you off,” she said, bringing him one of the cups.
“I wanted to see you sleeping,” he said.
She kissed him lightly on the lips. He caught the smell of sleep and sex on her skin. “That’s a little creepy, Damian Cavallo.”
He laughed and took one of the cups, drinking some of the dark brew as he watched her cross back to the counter for her own coffee. The house was still quiet, a cocoon of warmth against the cold outside, against the coming war.
“I fucking hate leaving you here alone,” he said.
“I’m hardly going to be alone.”
She was right. He wouldn’t leave Cole — that would be an insult to his underboss on the day of the raid on strongholds belonging to Fiore and Anastos — but he was leaving six of his best men to guard the house.
To guard her.
“You know what I mean,” he said.
She smiled. “You could always take me with you.”
“You’re funny,” he said, setting down his cup and going to her.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, savored the feel of her arms going around his neck, the softness of her body pressed against his.
They’d already talked about the possibility of her coming with him — and it had been a hard no. He’d been surprised she didn’t fight harder.
Surprised and relieved.
Since they’d arrived at the house in Westchester, she’d spent a significant amount of her free time not in the greenhouse as he’d expected, but at the firing range. She’d tried a wide variety of weapons, timing herself as she loaded them, taking pride in the punctured silhouettes of the targets once they’d made their way up the lane.
It had unnerved him at first. This was a different side to her — a different side to the woman who had loved nothing more than sinking her hands into fertile soil.
But he understood. She’d been in Capri when Anastos’s men had shot at them, forced to cower while Damian tried to fight off five other men. She’d been helpless in the apartment in Athens.
She didn’t want to be helpless anymore.
He didn’t want her to feel helpless either, which was why he’d spent so much time setting her up in the firing range, showing her the different weapons, staying until she got comfortable and competent enough to handle them on her own.
He reached a hand to her face and brushed his knuckles against her satiny cheek. “I’ll miss you.”
Her expression was serious. “I’ll miss you too. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I’ll be as careful as I can while putting an end to this.” He wasn’t going to lie to her. Which brought him to the other subject he’d been avoiding. “I can’t promise you Primo’s safety, Aria.”
He didn’t speak the words lurking in his mind: that he wanted Primo dead, that he was willing to pull the trigger himself if it came to it because she would never truly be safe as long as Primo was alive.
“I know.”
“I want to make sure we’ll survive whatever happens today,” he said.
It was the simple truth. He wanted Primo dead, but nothing mattered more to him than Aria, than knowing they would share their lives when this was all over.
She kissed him, lingering over his lips, proving that she knew what was at stake with every sweep of her tongue in his mouth.
“We’ll survive,” she said, her breath sweet against his lips.
He kissed her one more time, pulling away just as Cole entered the kitchen. He glanced briefly at Aria before turning his attention to Damian.
“Ready, boss?”
Damian stepped away from Aria. He already missed the heat of her body, but that’s what today was about, what it had become about.
Not about the Syndicate or the New York territory or money or power.
It was about her. About keeping her safe, about building a world for her where she would never have to be afraid again.
He turned away from her, toward Cole and the war that would define his future with Aria.
“Let’s do this.”
30
Aria took her time getting ready. She made two pots of coffee for the guards, followed by breakfast. She took a shower, changed into stretchy black jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a jacket she could remove if it impeded her movement. Slipping the new phone Damian had given her into the jeans, she pulled on thick socks and flat boots. The boots were too nice for the day she had planned, but they were the best she could do given her shopping trip with Damian in Paris, which hadn’t exactly been practical.
When she was done dressing, she spent a couple hours reading on the sofa in the study, letting the guards glance into the room on their patrol. She made them platters of sandwiches for lunch and then told Rocco, the guard on duty inside the house, that she was going down to the firing range before taking a nap.
With any luck the explanation would buy her a few hours. Checking on her in the study was one thing; she was betting none of them would be too eager to peek into the private master suite on the second floor of the house.
She opened the door to the basement and made her way past the gym to the firing range. She plucked the 9mm Luger from the row of weapons carefully shelved next to the range. She’d tried a lot of different weapons in the last week but the 9mm was her favorite. It was light and thin, easy for her small hands to manage. She’d used it almost exclusively in her target practice over the last couple days, reloading the magazine and firing over and over again until the weapon felt like an extension of her hand.
She slid it into her jeans and added a couple seven-round magazines, then headed for the wood door leading to the tunnel Damian had mentioned.
She hesitated at the door, wondering if the tunnel would be dirty or wet. Damian hadn’t made mention of it being used since Prohibition.
Still, part of her wan’t surprised when she opened the door and found a modern light switch on the wall, or when the light illuminated a surprisingly wide and clean pathway into the dark.
Damian may not have used the tunnel recently, but he’d obviously kept it clean and in good order in case the need arose.
She stepped into the tunnel with more confidence and shut the door behind her, the smell of damp stone and dirt a strangely comforting accompaniment to the sound of her footsteps as she began walking.
The lights mounted on the walls of the tunnel seemed to stretch into infinity. She had to focus on her breathing to stop the dread that seeped into her bones as the door disappeared behind her. She focused on the unexpected sense of spaciousness afforded by the high ceiling and concentrated on breathing in and out.
The smell disappeared as she became more accustomed to it, her footsteps growing faster as her confidence increased. She checked her phone and was surprised to realize she’d only been walking for ten minutes. She had the sense of falling through a wormhole, of the world above ceasing to exist, of time morphing into something slow and liquid.
She was beginning to wonder if it was a trick, if the tunnel really did stretch to infinity, when she turned a corner and saw the lights stop up ahead.
She looked back to make sure the lights behind her were still lit in case she found a locked door at the other end. They were, and she continued forward more slowly, hesitating as she came closer to the dark place up ahead.
She came not to a wooden door like the one she’d left behind in the basement of the house, but to a narrow metal staircase leading upward.
Grabbing the rail
ing, she started climbing. There was no light from above, nothing to indicate the steps actually led anywhere. When she reached the top, she lay her palm flat against the wall and felt the soft, cool patina of worn wood under her fingertips.
After a few seconds of feeling around, she found an old-fashioned latch and pushed.
The light on the other side was dim and shadowed. She hesitated on the threshold, letting her eyes take in the layout of the old carriage house. It wasn’t as clean as the tunnels. In fact, it was a mess, fallen beams littering the place, making her second-guess the merit of making her way through it to the grounds.
She thought about Malcolm and the way he’d hit her in Athens, the way he’d leered at her when promising the punishment he would enact on her later. She thought of Anastos and the fact that he’d lent his men, his operation, to keeping her prisoner just to satisfy Primo’s sick desire for revenge.
Most of all she thought of Primo, who cared nothing for her beyond the pride of owning her, of making sure she didn’t escape the prison of his madness.
Damian was going to deal with them.
He was probably going to kill them all himself.
She knew it intellectually, but the part of her that was still being pulled over the terrace on Capri, the part of her that was still back in the apartment in Greece, needed to know for sure.
She wasn’t going to interfere. She would let Damian do what he needed to do.
But she needed to know. Needed to see it for herself.
This was the way. Her only way out.
She stepped carefully onto the floor of the carriage house and closed the door behind her. Making her way across the expansive room meant traversing a minefield of rotted floorboards and debris, fallen beams and mouse droppings. She had no idea how she and Damian would eventually make use of the carriage house, but she vowed to make cleaning it up a priority when this was all over.
The winter light got brighter as she approached the old-fashioned garage door hanging on rusted hinges. She hesitated, peering out of the gap between them, looking for the guards.
Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2) Page 14