“Can I help you?” Damian asked.
The man looked up, his eyes wild. “Is she in there?” he demanded. “I know she’s in there. You can’t do this. It’s not right. She’s my wife!”
Damian’s hands worked into fists at his side. “You’re going to want to move along now.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” the man said, narrowing his eyes. “You have no right.”
“Let me say it another way,” Damian said. “If you stay here another minute, you’re going to get hurt.”
Damian knew the man was reaching inside his jacket before he’d fully lifted his arm. He’d seen it in the twitch of the man’s fingers, the angle of his elbow. He didn’t have time to raise it all the way before Damian kicked it out of his hand. Then he was hauling the man into the alley next to the shelter, propping him up against the brick to stabilize him while he threw punch after punch into the man’s face.
He didn’t see the man he was hitting. Not really. It was never his intended victim he saw when he fought. It was always another man, hard and cold, wielding power against Damian and his mother behind the opulent doors of their seemingly charmed life.
Damian didn’t hear the man’s protests. He was in another place now. In a big house with hand-painted murals and antique furniture. A house so far from anyone that the police never came.
By the time he looked down at the man’s face, he could barely make out his features behind the blood and the bruises already forming there. Damian shoved him to the ground and knelt over his body.
“Come back here and I’ll kill you. They don’t belong to you. They never did. Understand?”
The man nodded, then turned his head and spit out a tooth.
Damian straightened, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his hands. Then he headed back to his car and out of the city, the man already gone from his mind. It was always like that after he fought: the adrenaline high, the feeling that he was righting an old wrong followed by complete and utter release.
It was one of the only ways he could forget.
Traffic thinned as he traveled north, the trees growing thicker along the highway as he left the city behind. It was mid-October and the leaves were a riot of color as they dropped to the pavement, fluttering around the car in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t conduct business without being in the city most days of the week, but it never felt entirely comfortable to him. He’d grown used to the self-imposed isolation of life with his mother, their quiet dinners and long conversations. University had been uncomfortable for him at best, his social skills stunted by his strange upbringing, the feeling that he had nothing in common with the rich kids who surrounded him at Yale, the sense that he was keeping a dark and dangerous secret. He’d learned not to say too much, not to give anything away. It had served him well at home with his father.
Out in the real world, not so much.
Not socially anyway.
He exited the highway and continued through leafy, winding roads, past estates set back from the road and sheltered by trees and security gates. He hadn’t seen another property in over a mile when he finally slowed the car, pulled in front of another black iron gate.
Reaching through the open window, he keyed in the security code, waited for the gate to swing open. Then he pulled forward and continued up the long drive, trees towering on either side of the winding road.
He noticed the black car as soon as he’d cleared the drive, but it was the man leaning against it that made Damian open the glove compartment, remove the handgun he kept there. He set it in his lap, and came to a stop some distance away from the other car, keeping his eye on the other man.
Damian recognized him. Knew his reputation.
He also knew if the man wanted him dead, he’d probably be dead already. Either that or the man would have been inside the house, ready to end Damian’s life with a bullet to the back of the head and little ceremony.
Instead he’d breached the security gate to stand in plain sight. He was unmoving even as Damian exited his car and started toward him with the gun in his hand.
He stopped a few feet away, waited for the man to speak. He was even more imposing in person, the scar on his face adding an unnecessary air of menace to his massive frame, the empty eyes.
“Sorry about the gate.” He spoke in a clipped British accent. “I’m Farrell Black.”
“I know who you are,” Damian said.
“Good,” Farrell said. “Now that the introductions have been made, I think you should invite me in for a drink.”
Damian weighed his options, decided he didn’t have many that wouldn’t end in bloodshed.
And besides, he was curious.
He nodded, started for the house without speaking, Farrell’s boots crunching on the gravel behind him. He continued up the wide stone steps and unlocked the giant front door, stood aside to let the other man pass.
He started to step into the house, then stopped when he was next to Damian. When he glanced over, Damian was surprised to see a rakish smile on his face. He clamped a hand down on Damian’s shoulder, looked at the gun still in Damian’s hand.
“Won’t be needing that, mate.” He continued into the foyer. “Not this time anyway.”
3
Vinnie, one of the club’s bouncers, took in Aria’s soaked clothes as she stepped onto the club’s main floor. “You should have called. Someone would have come for you.”
The club wouldn’t open until ten p.m., but like a lot of her brother’s employees, Vinnie was there at all hours. Platinum was more than a money laundering operation for the illegal revenue generated by her brother’s increasingly powerful criminal enterprise; it was the organizational and social hub of the Fiore organization.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I wanted to walk.”
He shook his head, a motion that was barely visible given the thickness of his neck. She got the gist of it though; who in their right mind would want to walk in such dreary weather when a car could be dispatched at the drop of a hat?
“Where is he?” she asked.
Vinnie tipped his head toward the back of the club. “VIP.”
“Thanks.”
She continued into the club, lifting a hand in greeting to Robert, the head bartender, and two of the other bouncers as she passed.
She’d never wanted to own a nightclub, but she couldn’t help feeling a flush of pride as she moved through the space. Primo and Malcolm had taken care of the business plan, the inventory, the PR. But she'd been in charge of the decor, and she never stopped loving the dark wood floors, the plush velvet settees and chandeliers, the working marble fireplace that was tall enough to stand in and the purple lighting that lit up key areas like a spotlight from above. It was an elegant, old world space, and she sometimes came to the club in the mornings to sit with a cup of coffee when everyone else was still sleeping off their hangovers. It was the only time she could be there without walking on egg shells around Primo or trying to stay one step ahead of Malcolm.
She started up the steel suspension staircase at the back of the club, passed the loft area that overlooked the dance floor, and headed down a wide hall. Doorways stood on either side, velvet draperies pulled back to reveal the private VIP rooms that commanded a five-thousand dollar reservation fee. She didn’t stop until she reached the end of the hall. To her left was the closed door of Primo’s office. To her right, the extra large VIP room reserved 24/7 for Primo and his entourage.
She paused in front of the purple draperies and drew a deep breath before parting them.
The anxiety that existed as a constant undercurrent in her body fluttered to life when she saw Primo sitting next to Malcolm on one of the sofas, their heads bent together in conversation. They were alone, Malcolm no doubt taking advantage of the opportunity to plant seeds of chaos in Primo’s already-erratic mind.
Her brother looked up as she stepped into the room, his gaze clearing, as if her arrival had woken him out of a dream.
She stopped next to the sofa to drop a kiss on his cheek. “Here I am.”
“We were just talking about you,” Malcolm said.
She turned her eyes reluctantly to him. She always felt the urge to shiver when he looked at her. It was more than his appearance, the angular face that reminded her of an ax, the unblinking gaze. There was a kind of reptilian coldness in his eyes. An emptiness that made her wonder if there was anything behind them but the insatiable greed that drove him to push Primo into any profitable activity regardless of risk.
She gave him a practiced smile, resisted the urge to ask why they’d been talking about her. It was what Malcolm wanted.
To unsettle her. To make her as paranoid as Primo.
“How was the garden?” Primo asked.
“It was good,” she said, lowering herself to one of the chairs opposite the sofa. She ran her fingers over the silky silver upholstery, using the repetitive motion as a calming mechanism. “It will be too cold to work soon.”
He reached out, enveloped her smaller hand in his and squeezed gently. “I’m sorry, Ari. I know how you love it.”
The kindness in his words made her throat tighten with emotion. This was the Primo she knew and loved. The brother who protected her and would do anything for her. It was so much harder this way. So much harder when he could be caring, then turn on a dime, ranting and raving, pacing the room as he spouted conspiracy theories about imagined enemies, questioning even Aria’s loyalty.
He’d been mercurial even as a child, alternating between tenderness and an irrational meanness that sent her scurrying away from him, looking for a place to hide. They’d been close anyway, creating imaginary worlds from blankets and paper and anything else they could find, getting lost in a place that was far more magical than the dingy apartment they’d shared with their parents, their neighbors’ arguments and TV shows a kind of soundtrack that peppered the background of her memories.
Their childhood was utterly unremarkable until the fire that decimated the old apartment building and their lives. It wasn’t until they were on their own that she realized the full extent of her brother’s mental illness. They’d been okay at first. Aria developed techniques for talking him down when he got out of hand, for bringing him up when he couldn’t get out of bed.
But that was before Malcolm.
She always wondered if Malcolm had been able to spot her brother’s mental illness from the beginning or if he’d just gotten lucky. Whatever the genesis of their friendship, Malcolm had moved in quickly, forging a bond with Primo that surpassed even his reliance on Aria.
She squeezed his hand. “It’s alright. Spring will come again.”
She regretted the words as soon as she said them. It felt like tempting fate, as if even spring couldn’t be guaranteed in the company of Malcolm Gatti and his power over her brother.
The curtain parted and Vinnie stepped into the room. “Tony’s on the phone, boss.”
Primo looked up, a shadow passing over his features. “What does he want?”
Vinnie shifted nervously on his feet. It was a familiar response to Primo’s questioning, everyone on his crew tiptoeing around him, waiting to see if he would play the part of benevolent master or cruel overlord.
“Something about Cavallo moving in on a job in Rockaway. He’s swearing up a storm,” Vinnie said.
Primo rose with a sigh, touching Aria’s head gently as he passed. “Wait here and we’ll discuss the upgrades to the club.”
She tensed as he crossed the room, the curtains falling back over the doorway as he stepped into the hall with Vinnie. Normally she would have made an excuse to leave along with him to avoid being alone with Malcolm, but there was still work to do on the interior of the club, improvements Aria had designed that hadn't been included in the first round of renovations. She’d mentioned them to Primo when they’d had dinner alone last week, hoping for a project to keep her busy during the long winter months when she wouldn’t be able to work at the garden. Now she was Malcolm’s captive audience, forced to wait or issue an excuse that would make it obvious she was uncomfortable around him.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
She pulled out her phone in an effort to avoid making conversation, but she’d barely unlocked the screen when he spoke.
“I haven’t seen you in awhile,” he said. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”
She looked up, resisted the impulse to shrink away from his gaze. He looked at her like she was a piece of cake, something he may or may not want. Something he may savor or devour depending on his mood. Like it was all up to him, Aria just another item on the menu for him to consider.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. She was definitely not something on the menu for Malcolm Gatti, and she would die before she let him think she was.
“Here and there.” She kept her voice steady and cold, wanting to send the message that she wasn’t interested in making small talk with him. That she wasn’t interested in pretending they were friends.
He got up, walked to the bar against one wall and poured himself a drink. When he crossed back to his place on the sofa, he set a hand on her head. The gesture was meant to mimic the one Primo had made on his way out the door, but Malcolm’s hand lingered, his fingers sliding into the hair at the top of her head, pulling some of the strands so that she winced.
She remained still, waiting for him to pass. This was Malcolm’s game: testing her, seeing how far he could push before she lost her cool.
Before she told Primo.
But she couldn’t tell Primo, and he knew it. She loved her brother, knew Primo loved her in return. She also knew him well enough to know he would rebel against an ultimatum — especially one involving Malcolm, the one person capable of stroking his ego more effectively than Aria.
The moment went on too long, Aria forcing her breathing steady until he finally stepped away, lowering himself back to the sofa just as Primo re-entered the room.
“Took care of that bastard,” he muttered as he settled back into his place on the sofa. He looked from one to the other of them. “Have a nice chat while I was gone?”
The question was an innocent one, Primo seemingly unaware of any tension between them.
“Aria and I always have a nice time together, don’t we?” Malcolm continued without waiting for an answer, his eyes still on her. “In fact, now that she’s older I think we’re going to become very good friends.”
Aria forced a smile, the only cover she had for the sense of unease sinking through her stomach like a stone.
4
Damian passed Farrell in the foyer and led the way into the living room at the front of the house. He left the lights off, moving through the partially renovated house on instinct. He knew every inch of it, both from the years he’d spent there with his mother and the ones he’d spent renovating it since her death. He continued to the bar set against one wall and removed two glasses.
“What’s your poison?” he asked, not looking at the big man behind him.
“Whiskey if you have it,” Farrell said.
Damian poured whiskey into both glasses, then turned to hand one of them to Farrell. He was sitting in one of the wing chairs Damian had recently had reupholstered, his enormous frame dwarfing even the oversize chair.
Farrell lifted the glass. “Salut.”
Damian nodded and tossed back the whiskey in one long swallow. He watched as Farrell’s eyes scanned the room.
“Nice place,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Damian didn’t volunteer information about the house. His history with it was complicated: a prison when his father had been alive, a refuge after his death. But his mother had only ever had love for the place, for its long history and the architecture that was original to the 1920s when it had been built. Restoring it was a labor of love, and he was slowly working his way through the rooms, stripping old wallp
aper where it couldn’t be repaired, sanding the floors, gutting the kitchen. He did most of the work himself, found it therapeutic and simple when few things in the world were.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”
“I figured you’d get to it,” Damian said.
Farrell nodded, and Damian wondered if it was his imagination that he saw approval in Farrell’s eyes.
Not that he needed Farrell Black’s approval. As far as he knew, Farrell had never been part of the Syndicate’s New York operation. That had been Nico Vitale, but he’d abandoned the territory when Raneiro Donati turned on him. Word was Vitale was in Rome now, re-establishing the Syndicate’s presence in the city that had once belonged to Donati himself.
“It’s time we take back New York,” Farrell said. “And we want you to run it.”
Damian didn’t know what he’d expected. A demand that he stop his organization’s activities? An order to share his profits? A bullet in the head?
He didn’t know exactly, but it wasn’t this.
Damian sat on the sofa opposite Farrell. “I already run it.”
Farrell smiled indulgently. “Not for long,” he said. “Not if you insist on going it alone.”
“Is that a threat?”
Farrell shrugged. “A threat implies possibility. The Syndicate is back, and while we appreciate your holding down the fort, our return was always inevitable. The territory belongs to us.”
“Belonged,” Damian said. “Past tense.”
“We can argue semantics if you like,” Farrell said. “But I think we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
“Such as?”
“Primo Fiore,” Farrell said.
Damian stood, crossed the room and set his glass on the bar. “I’m not concerned about Fiore.”
“You should be,” Farrell said. “Not because of Primo, but because of Malcolm Gatti.”
Fire with Fire (New York Syndicate Book 1) Page 3
