Damian stood. “I understand.”
Nico came around the desk, shook Damian’s hand, held his gaze. “Be careful, Cavallo. I have a feeling your life has already changed in ways you don’t understand.”
There was something knowing in the other man’s eyes, and Damian thought about Aria. About the surprising ways she’d moved him during their time on Capri, her voice in the bedroom when they lay in bed at night talking, the way his body flipped on like a switch when he saw her, smelled her, so much as thought about her.
“I have a feeling you’re right.”
31
Aria was still thinking about her conversation with Angel when she and Damian returned to the house on Capri. The Vitales weren’t what she expected. In many ways they were a more normal family than she and Primo, and she tried to imagine herself with Damian, living in a house with children and lemonade and sunshine.
It wasn’t as difficult as it should have been.
She’d spent so long convincing herself that the problem between her and Primo was his business. That his line of work was the only thing standing between her and a normal life. Now it was impossible not to realize the error of her thinking.
Primo was the way he was. He had been that way before their parents died and he was still that way. Malcolm may have exacerbated Primo’s tendencies, but he hadn’t created them.
Neither had Primo’s business.
The things he did were still against the law, but Damian wasn’t wrong; in some ways it was more honest than a lot of things.
She shook her head as they stood on the roof, watching Nico Vitale’s helicopter rise into the night sky. Maybe she was just rationalizing, making excuses because she was beginning to realize what Damian meant to her. Because her other life was beginning to feel further and further away.
Because living without him was starting to seem like an impossibility.
When the chopper was just a twinkle in the sky, Damian looked down at her. “Nightcap on the terrace?”
She smiled. “Yes, please.”
She would start with what she knew. And she knew she loved him, even if she couldn’t tell him that yet.
They descended the iron stairs from the roof to the main part of the house, and she waited on the terrace while he poured their drinks. He took the chair next to her, reached for her hand.
She drank from her glass, a knot forming in her stomach at the serious expression on his face. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Sick of me already?”
He lifted her hand, brushed his mouth against her skin. “I’ve already reconciled myself to the fact that I’ll never be sick of you, my love.”
The term of endearment flushed through her like a warm wind, but it didn’t banish the feeling that he was going to say something she wouldn’t like.
He rubbed her hand. “It’s because I need you that I’m going to leave you here for awhile.”
“Leave me here?”
“I have to get back to New York. The city is mostly cleared of Primo’s men, but we’re not done yet. Primo and Malcolm are still in hiding, and there are still some trouble spots that have to be dealt with. It’s not safe for you there.”
She lifted her chin. “Then it’s not safe for you either.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said.
She set down her drink. “So can I. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“That was different,” he said. “You weren’t Primo’s enemy then. Now he’s going to see you as a traitor.”
“I can handle Primo.” Even as she said it, she wasn’t so sure.
He reached out, touched her face where Malcolm had hit her. “And Malcolm?”
She stood, unable to lie to his face, and walked to the edge of the terrace. Below them the water was dark, the moon hidden behind clouds.
“You can’t just leave me here.”
She felt his hands on her shoulders. “It’s temporary. I just need a few days to flush out Primo and Gatti. Once I get that done, I’ll come for you myself.”
It was a reminder that Primo was his enemy. That he would essentially be a prisoner of their war.
She turned to face him. “And what will you do with my brother once you find him?”
“I’ll offer him another chance at running,” he said. “I’ll do that for you.”
“And if he doesn’t take it?”
His eyes were unreadable. “I don’t know.”
She crossed her arms over her body. “I can’t live with you killing him.”
He nodded. “I know.”
This had always been between them. She’d been a fool to think otherwise.
“So I’m just supposed to wait here while you put yourself in danger? While you hunt my brother?”
The questions didn’t make sense. How could she be worried about both Damian and Primo when they were on opposite sides?
Her conflict was reflected in Damian’s eyes. “I don’t know what to say, Aria. This has gone too far. Even if I hadn’t come for Primo, Nico and the Syndicate would have. The only way to the other side of this is through it.” He pulled her into his arms. “The one thing I’m sure of is that I need you in my life. We’ll have to work through the rest of it together. Can we do that?”
She was getting ready to answer — to tell him she didn’t have a choice because she needed him too — when the lights flickered on the patio. A moment later, they went out. Damian was already reaching for his gun as they both looked back toward the house.
It was dark too.
There was a split second of silence. Then shattered glass and the sound of boots making their way up the stairs from the water.
32
He pushed Aria behind him, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he tried to get a handle on the men coming toward them. He counted four on the stairs, maybe five. He didn’t hear anyone else, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more out there.
How had Primo’s men found them?
He barely had time to register the question in his mind before his training took over. He had only two directives: keep Aria safe and destroy the men who had dared breach their refuge.
The men were almost to the main floor of the house. He had less than ten seconds to secure his position. There was nowhere for Aria to go that wouldn’t put her in the path of the men coming for them, which meant Damian had to cut them off at the pass.
“Stay down,” he said. “Don’t come into the house until I give you the all clear.”
“No, please…” She tugged at his arm.
He shook her off and started forward.
* * *
Panic clawed at her throat as he slipped from her grasp. She couldn’t help feeling that it was the last time she would touch him. The last time she would feel him next to her.
No. He would fight them. He would kill them. He would come back to her.
She had to believe it. Anything else was unimaginable.
She forced herself to breathe, then crouched down, working her way behind one of the stucco pillars of the terrace. The best way to help him was follow to his instructions.
She’d barely reached cover when gunshots erupted through the house.
* * *
He’d used the pillars of the terrace to make his way into the darkened house, but by the time he reached the doors there was no other cover. He listened as the men emerged into the living room and tried to calculate their final positions. As near as he could tell there was a man still in place at the top of the staircase blocking the exit, one at the entrance to the kitchen, one somewhere near the terrace, and another against the wall in the living room.
His heart told him to go for the patio and the man closest to Aria, everything in his body screaming to protect her at all costs.
More than that, he wanted to kill the motherfucker who dared to come for her.
He forced himself to breathe, to think four moves ahead. Going to the terrace would offer him the short-term security of knowing he could put himself in front
of a bullet heading for Aria, but there was no way out from there, only the rocky cliff face leading to the water far below. It would be too easy for Primo’s men to corner them.
And he was no good to Aria dead.
He ducked low and dove for the sofa in the living room instead. Guns flared in the darkness around him.
* * *
Aria’s heart was pounding like a war drum in her chest, her ears ringing from the gunfire. The moon had emerged for a split second, offering her flashes of the scene around her — the shadowy figure of the man positioned near the kitchen, one too close for comfort near the terrace, Damian ducking for the cover of the sofa — before everything went dark again.
She felt exposed in spite of the pillar, unable to see if the man she’d spotted on the patio had seen her, if he’d moved any closer under the cover of darkness. She was debating the merit of trying to move when something came at her from behind, one hand on her mouth, an arm snaking around her body and arms like a vise.
She tried to scream as he dragged her back toward the edge of the terrace.
* * *
Damian fired at the men once he reached cover, if only to keep them on their toes while he regrouped from his new position. He was mentally calculating his remaining ammo when the men shouted to each other in a language he didn’t immediately recognize. He listened more closely, trying to place it.
Greek?
What the fuck…?
A moment later a scuffle sounded from the terrace, followed by a muffled scream that could only mean someone had his hands on Aria.
White hot rage flashed behind his eyes, the image of someone hurting her — someone putting their hands on her — making him want to stand and shoot blindly at anyone and everyone who might be between them.
His need to get to her, to feel her safe in his arms, was overwhelming, but he didn’t have enough ammunition left for his liking and that meant getting his hands on one of their guns. It only took him a second to decide on a strategy,
He aimed his body in the general direction of the man closest to him and dove for the ground, hoping to find the man’s feet. Another burst of gunfire erupted behind him, a bullet biting into his back as his arms closed around someone’s legs.
Then they were on the ground, fighting for dominance, Damian all too aware of the ticking clock under Aria on the terrace.
* * *
Her scream was futile, nothing but a series of muffled sounds emerging behind the hand clamped firmly over her mouth. She tried kicking her legs, but they came up against a body so solidly built it was like trying to kick down a giant oak. The arms around her were immovable, their progress toward the edge of the patio inevitable.
Her heart clutched in her chest as more gunfire sounded from the house. Damian was somewhere in there, and although she didn’t know how many men had come for them, she knew they were outnumbered.
Knew he was outnumbered.
The gunfire fell silent, and she heard s scuffling on the floor of the house followed by the sound of wet flesh and grunting, somebody obviously fighting. She kicked harder, desperate to get to Damian even as she had no idea how she would help him.
“Stop it, bitch.”
The voice behind her was guttural and accented. She was relieved to feel the arm around her chest loosen, but her relief was short-lived when she felt something being clipped around her chest, the sound of metal clicking into place followed by more metal dropping near her feet.
She looked down in time to see a giant hook attached to the railing of the terrace.
The man holding her was going to rappel over the side of the cliff.
And he was going to take her with him.
* * *
Damian had finally managed to get on top of the man. He wanted nothing more than to punch the man into oblivion, to pulverize his face until he stopped breathing.
But Aria was out there. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew she was in danger.
It was all the incentive he needed to quell his instinct to kill the man under him with his bare hands. He put a bullet in the man instead, then took his gun and stood, warm blood leaking across his back from the hit he’d taken earlier.
The time for sneaking and crouching was over. One man was dead and one was busy with Aria. That meant there were only two left.
Two to one in a house he knew like the back of his hand? He would take those odds.
He stood and aimed at the man by the stairs, saw him fall by the light of his gunfire, watched him topple backward as another bullet burrowed into Damian’s skin, this time into his bicep.
He turned his gun on the man near the kitchen and kept moving toward him as he fired. He had a glimpse of a dark beard and black eyes as the man’s body ricocheted off the counter and onto the ground.
Then he was stalking toward the terrace and the woman who had, against all odds, come to own him.
* * *
Aria was helpless as she was hauled over the railing. She understood now that she was clipped to the man behind her, that he was going to take her away from Damian by way of the cliff face and that there was nothing she could do about it. Even if she managed to unclip herself — a long shot at best — she would fall to her death.
She went still, trying to think of something — anything — she could do to help Damian get to her.
She shouted his name, hoping he would find her in the darkness.
* * *
Her voice tore through the night, the fear and panic in it ripping through him like a machete. He raised his gun, but it was too difficult to see, too difficult to sort Aria from the hulking mass behind her, pulling her over the edge of the terrace.
At first he thought the man was going to jump, kill them both.
Then he saw the hook and repelling line. She would live if they made it to the bottom, but Damian would have to beat them there. He was turning for the stairs when the man holding her fired. He saw it come at him as if in slow motion, tried to move, felt the sting of it in his chest.
He tried to stay on his feet through sheer force of will, through his desperation to save her, but his body collapsed under him anyway. He noted it with a kind of dispassion. How strange that in the end he would have no control over his body. That he would fold like a piece of paper in spite of the rage coursing through him.
In spite of the knowledge that the only thing that mattered to him was in danger.
She screamed as he fell. “No!”
He wanted to tell her it was okay. That he was going numb and didn’t feel anything except his heart breaking as the man leapt from the terrace. But he couldn’t get any words out, and he watched as she disappeared below the edge of the terrace, his name and her sobs echoing off the rock below.
He lost consciousness for a moment. There was her scream, and then he was opening his eyes, staring up at the clouds clearing, the moon finally shining onto the patio as the sound of a boat receded in the distance.
He rolled over, left a trail of blood as he crawled to one of the pillars.
He propped himself up and reached for his phone.
33
Damian raised the gun, fired into the target at the end of the lane. The motion was automatic, his feel for the target instinctual. He’d had the firing range installed at the Westchester property while he’d been in the hospital recovering.
It was the best investment he’d ever made.
He’d checked himself out of the hospital well in advance of doctor’s recommendations with vague assertions of the work he had to do. He couldn't tell them the only work he had in mind was finding Aria and killing the men who had taken her from him — Primo himself if necessary,
He would happily accept Aria’s wrath — even her hatred — over her death.
It had been three weeks since the shootout on Capri. Three weeks of blood and surgery. Three weeks of wondering what she was doing every moment of every day.
He emptied the chamber of the gun and pushed the button to b
ring the target up the lane. There were several holes in the silhouette’s head.
He lowered the weapon, wincing as pain shot through his chest.
He welcomed it.
Blood was seeping through his bandage again, another useful reminder of what Malcolm Gatti had done to him and Aria. And he was sure Malcolm had been behind it. There were rumors that Stefano Anastos had gone underground — too much of a coincidence given the language spoken by he men who had taken Aria.
Anastos had been a small time player in the organized crime families vying for business after the fall of the Syndicate. It made sense that he would join forces with what was left of Primo’s organization.
But Primo wasn’t strategic enough to enlist their help — that had Malcolm Gatti written all over it, a belief that was validated when Damian found a tracking device in the bag Aria had left behind in the house on Capri.
Damian’s fingers itched for a trigger at the thought of Malcolm and Stefano holding Aria. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about what they might be doing to her.
That was a recipe for madness.
He started cleaning his weapon and thought instead about what he would do to them when he caught them.
And he would catch them.
He’d brought New York under control for the time being and had officially accepted the Syndicate’s offer of partnership. He was still getting used to the idea of the brotherhood, and they’d given him a wide berth in consideration.
Farrell had visited him once in the hospital, as had Nico, accompanied by Angel. Damian had been surprised how happy he’d been to see them, although of course, he hadn’t let on.
In the end accepting their offer had been easy. He was going to get Aria back if it was the last thing he did, and he would accept any and all terms to see it done. Nico and Farrell had agreed to offer him the full breadth of the Syndicate’s resources. They’d said it was a matter of honor — an attack on one was an attack on all — but seeing the way Nico looked at Angel made Damian think it was about something else as well.
Fire with Fire: New York Syndicate Book One Page 16
