Fire with Fire (New York Syndicate Book 1)

by Michelle St. James

  She watched him leave the room, trying to ignore the feeling that it was a very real warning.

  One that would bring very real consequences.

  6

  Damian parked the car next to the curb and headed down the darkened street. It had been five days since Farrell Black’s visit and he’ d used every available minute since running background on the men who headed up the new Syndicate.

  He’d gained precious few details for the hours he’d invested in the hunt. There was only one residence listed for Nico Vitale, and it was the corporate headquarters for MediaComm in New York. Vitale had founded the company, was still a majority shareholder, but his involvement in official business had tapered off years earlier when the war with Raneiro Donati began. Flight manifests had one of his private planes traveling frequently to Rome, which made sense given Farrell’s explanation of the Syndicate’s new leadership structure. Damian placed Vitale’s net worth well over a billion dollars, although even that was an estimate given the few details available about Nico’s finances.

  He’d had similar results on the other men — Farrell, Christophe, and Luca. All had a corporation as a place of residence, although Christophe Marchand had an old family estate on the island of Corsica that dated back to his family’s French title. They were all worth at least as much money as Damian, and probably a lot more given the hidden nature of their assets. Damian had a couple good men on retainer for cyber activity, but even they hadn’t been able to glean much about the new Syndicate leadership.

  In the end it hadn’t been the research he’d done on the Syndicate that had made up his mind — it had been his research on Primo Fiore and Malcolm Gatti.

  He’d done background on Primo before as part of his research on competitors. Several small-time organizations had cropped up in the time since Vitale abandoned New York, but the Fiore organization was the only one that came close to being a true rival for the criminal enterprise in New York and its surrounding territory. Fiore had always walked a fine line between business and activities that Damian considered too unseemly, even for a criminal, but he’d been surprised to realize it had gotten significantly worse in the six months since he’d last done background on the Fiore operation.

  By all accounts the ramp-up in activity Damian considered off limits was due to the increasing influence of Gatti, something Damian had been able to confirm by putting out feelers on the street.

  And word was that Primo was only a figurehead for Malcolm Gatti.

  Background on Gatti had been easier; whether due to ego or carelessness, he wasn’t a man concerned about hiding his tracks. He’d done two years for aggravated sexual assault eight years earlier plus a string of shorter stints for everything from petty theft to domestic abuse — and that didn’t include the times he’d been arrested only to have the charges mysteriously dropped before he could see the inside of a courtroom.

  Damian wasn’t easily shaken, but he’d felt sick reading the report. Had felt sick that he’d looked the other way while Fiore had gotten more powerful as a front man for a monster like Gatti. Damian had been too focused on his own world, his own business. Too focused on making sure his own side of the street was clean — or as clean as it could be in their business.

  Now he couldn’t help feeling responsible. With Gatti calling the shots, the Fiore organization had expanded their distribution of opioids to low-income areas of the city and had taken to charging “protection” fees even to nonprofits. Worst of all were indications that they’d established an expansive prostitution ring that bordered on sex trafficking.

  They were things Damian couldn’t let stand. He preferred to keep to himself, but he wasn’t oblivious to his responsibility as the city’s largest criminal shareholder.

  He came to a brick building with a narrow stairway and descended to a wood door on the basement level. When he opened the door, he was hit with the smell of simmering tomatoes and garlic, the faint scent of rising yeast and red wine.

  “Mr. Cavallo!” A portly, bald man with a wide smile tugged on his navy jacket as he hurried toward Damian. “So nice to see you!”

  Damian bent to let him kiss both his cheeks. “It’s been too long.”

  The man stepped back to study him, and Damian felt a smile spring to his lips. Giorgio Marconi had inherited the little underground restaurant from his father who had inherited it from his father who had immigrated to America from Sicily in the early 1900s. It was one of the few places that felt like home outside of the house in Westchester — and one of the few public spaces Damian trusted.

  “You are too thin,” Giorgio said. “Even busy men need to eat.”

  “That’s why I have you,” Damian said.

  “Your table is set.” He shook his head like Damian had presented a troubling problem. “But now that I see you, I’ll have the kitchen add some things to your usual order.”

  Damian laughed. “Thank you. Is Cole here?”

  “Already waiting.”

  Damian clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, then made his way through the nearly empty restaurant. It was a tiny hole in the wall, known only to those with intimate knowledge of Hell’s Kitchen. Candles flickered on traditional red and white checkered tablecloths and a gleaming bar ran almost the entire length of one side of the restaurant. The rest was paneled in deep mahogany. Damian felt himself relax as he reached a set of doors set with frosted glass at the back of the restaurant.

  Cole Grant was already on his feet inside the room, a half-full glass of red wine on the table along with a full bottle.

  “Got here early,” Cole said. “Hope you don’t mind that I got started.”

  Damian waved away the comment and took a seat at the table. He reached for the wine and poured himself a glass, then started on the warm bread in a basket at the center of the table. Food was an afterthought for him most of the time, but now that he was here, he realized he was starving.

  “How’d it go in Jersey?” Damian asked as Cole sat down across from him.

  “Like clockwork. Trucks picked up the shipment. Product is on its way out now.”

  Damian nodded. The sale and distribution of illegally obtained goods was a smaller portion of their business compared to the organized crime models of the past, but he’d found that having men on the street helped keep some of his rivals at bay. Contrary to what many people believed, theirs wasn’t a business of money.

  It was a business of power.

  It was true that power led to money, but it didn’t necessarily go the other way. Damian made more than enough money through their digital activities — corporate espionage, electronic theft, illegal data mining.

  But none of that meant anything on the street. If he wanted to maintain a presence there, if he wanted to hold down his turf in the New York territory, he needed to make sure his men were seen. He looked at operations like the one in Jersey as marketing-focused rather than revenue-driven.

  “Anything new from our friends in Singapore?” Damian asked.

  Cole opened his mouth to speak, then closed it when Giorgio opened the doors. A trio of waiters entered the room, each bearing a tray laden with covered dishes.

  “I hope you have brought your appetites,” Giorgio said as the servers set the dishes down on the table. “I’ve had Mario prepare a special menu just for you.”

  “Thank you,” Damian said as the waiters uncovered the dishes. “It looks delicious.”

  “I’ll judge your opinion based on the number of empty plates, my friend.” He grinned mischievously. “Although someday soon you’ll have to find a woman to cook for you at home. A man can’t live alone forever.”

  Damian chuckled. Giorgio was always trying to marry him off. “No time for a woman.”

  He used the singular intentionally. There were always plenty of women; his appetite for food was in no way indicative of his appetite for sex.

  But seeing a hundred women was easier than seeing just one. He didn’t have the time or energy for that kind of co
mplication.

  “Something we all say until we find the right woman, eh, Mr. Grant?” Giorgio asked, nudging Cole.

  Cole nodded in deference.

  “I’ll send someone in with another bottle of wine and leave you to the meal,” Giorgio said.

  He ducked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Damian busied himself with the food, loading his plate with fresh oysters, pasta with white clam sauce, chicken piccata, and thick slices of buffalo mozzarella that Giorgio made himself using his grandmother’s recipe.

  When Cole’s plate was similarly full, Damian spoke.

  “Set up the meeting with Fiore.”

  Cole looked up, his fork midway to his mouth. Damian had confided in him the day after his visit from Farrell, and Cole had helped coordinate the background they’d done on both the Syndicate and the Fiore organization in the days since.

  “When?” Cole asked.

  Damian saw the questions in his eyes, was grateful he didn’t verbalize them. It was one of the many reasons he valued the man who was his underboss. They’d been working together since Damian first dipped his toe into the waters of organized crime by fronting a bookmaking operation out of a tiny bar in Queens. Cole had been the bartender. What started as a partnership of convenience had evolved into friendship after Cole stepped in front of him during a rare physical altercation, taking a knife wound to the stomach that by all rights should have been inflicted on Damian.

  “As soon as possible,” Damian said. “I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

  Cole nodded. “Any guidelines?”

  Damian thought about it as he chewed a bite of the pasta, perfectly al dente, the clam sauce fresh and tangy.

  “They can choose the location,” Damian said. “Underbosses only. No weapons.”

  “No weapons will be hard to enforce if they choose the location,” Cole said.

  “I’m not worried,” Damian said.

  In his experience, people in their business relied too heavily on weapons. Damian could use them well enough when the occasion required, but it was foolish to become too dependent on them.

  Surprises were commonplace. Relying on weapons led to complacency.

  “All right,” Cole said. “Anything else?”

  “No,” Damian said.

  They ate in silence for a couple of minutes before Cole spoke again.

  “Are you going to do it?” he asked. “Merge with the Syndicate?”

  ““There’s a case to be made for it, but I want to see how things shake out with Fiore.” He met Cole's eyes. “Do you have thoughts you’d like to share on the matter?”

  “Not my place,” Cole said without hesitation.

  “No,” Damian said. “But I’m asking.”

  Cole took one of the oysters, washed it down with a drink of wine.

  “We could benefit from their resources,” he said.

  “But?”

  He shrugged. “I’d need to know more of the details. What would it mean for us organizationally? How much authority would they have over our operation? How much would it eat into our profits?”

  They were all questions Damian had wondered about in the days since his visit from Farrell Black — all except the last one. He had more money than he could ever spend in one lifetime.

  But he understood Cole’s concern. He hadn’t come from money like Damian, didn’t have the luxury of assuming there would always be plenty. Damian paid him well — overpaid him if the truth were known — but he knew as well as anyone that a man was haunted most by the things he’d never had.

  “I’ll get the details before I make a decision,” Damian said. “And you know I’ll see that you’re taken care of either way.”

  Cole shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  Damian put down his fork. “We started this together. We’ll see it through together.”

  “Should we start making preparations in case Fiore declines the buyout?”

  Damian wasn’t surprised by the sudden change of subject. Neither of them were the touchy-feely type.

  “Not necessary. I have some things in the works.” Damian didn’t expect Fiore to take them up on their offer of a buyout. Not with Gatti pulling the strings. “Let’s see how the meeting pans out.”

  “Will the girl become collateral damage?”

  Damian thought about it. A sister had turned up in his background of Fiore. By all accounts she was on the fringes of the organization — raised by Primo after their parents were killed in a fire, majored in psychology, volunteered in one of the city’s community gardens.

  “We’ll try to keep her out of it,” Damian said.

  It was impossible to think of anyone’s family as collateral damage in a turf war, but Aria Fiore was an adult. Her decision to live with her brother, to maintain ties to him in spite of his work, spoke volumes.

  Aria Fiore was no innocent. They would try to spare her.

  But there were no guarantees.

  7

  Aria busied herself at the bar as Primo and Malcolm made themselves comfortable at one of the tables in the sunken portion of the club reserved for their best customers. Everyone had been ordered to come in late, although Primo had installed Vinnie and two other men in one of the VIP rooms in the back. Aria didn’t know much about the impending meeting with Damian Cavallo, but she’d overheard Malcolm insist they hedge their bets with the added security in spite of the agreement they’d made with Cavallo that called only for the presence of underbosses.

  It was nearly seven p.m., and the club was empty without the employees who usually arrived early to set up for the night. Aria hadn’t planned to be there, but Primo had insisted for reasons she couldn’t understand. She wasn’t part of their business. Not in any way that mattered. She didn’t know the details behind the meeting with Cavallo, didn’t know anything about the man himself except what she’d overheard between Primo and Malcolm — that Damian Cavallo had commandeered an impressive portion of the city’s criminal enterprise, that he was a rich kid who’d decided to dabble in crime when he got bored playing with his family’s old money.

  He sounded like an asshole.

  She’d never tried to defend Primo’s business. It was illegal, much of it unseemly. She knew that. But they’d come to it out of necessity. Primo had dropped out of school after the first year, had never been able to hold down a job for long thanks to his mental illness. He’d been ill-suited to take charge of her upbringing. The business he’d built had saved them in more ways than one.

  Only time would tell if it would also destroy them.

  “Ari, bring us a bottle of that good vodka we got in today,” Primo said from across the room.

  She traveled the length of the bar, stopped at the box she was unloading from one of their suppliers. Then she stacked a tray with four glasses and carried it over to the table.

  Primo was nervous. She could tell from his rigid posture, the way he tapped his fingers on the tabletop. It stood in contrast to Malcolm who was slouched on the sofa that sat along one side of the table, his legs stretched out like it was just another day in the VIP room with Primo.

  She set the vodka and glasses down on the table and rested an arm on Primo’s shoulder. “Anything else?”

  He patted her hand. “No, thank you.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to leave?” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. She wanted to support him, but she had no desire to be sucked into the business. It was easier to pretend their income was generated legally through Platinum.

  She knew it made her a coward, but it was the only coping mechanism she had until she figured out a way to get Primo out from under Malcolm’s thumb.

  He squeezed her hand hard enough to be painful, but his face betrayed nothing. “Stay.”

  She nodded, made her way back to the bar, her stomach fluttering with nerves. The meeting was supposed to be a simple discussion, but she knew better than anyone that nothing was
assured with Primo. A wrong word or sudden movement could lead to an outburst — and an outburst with Primo and Malcolm and the three men hidden in the back room was sure to end badly even without taking into consideration the fact that Damian Cavallo was a criminal in his own right.

  She’d broken down the first box of liquor and was cutting the tape on another when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She stood, trying to look busy as the first man emerged from the narrow stairwell.

  He was tall and muscular, his blond hair cut surprisingly short and highlighting a slightly crooked nose and striking blue eyes. The whole effect was one of classical beauty — the kind of face sculptors had molded from clay for centuries.

  She was still reeling from her first impression of Damian Cavallo — a perfect kind of beauty she recognized that left her cold — when the second man followed him into the club.

  And there was nothing cold about this man.

  He was a few inches taller than the man who’d entered the club before him, and where the first man was blond and impassive, this one was dark and brooding, his hair as black as the feathers of a raven, long and falling over eyes like chips of onyx.

  His shoulders were broad, pulling at the midnight blue button-down that fit his upper body like it had been poured on him, hanging loosely over black jeans that did nothing to hide a significant bulge between his legs.

  He met her eyes across the bar, and she noticed with embarrassment the tidal wave moving through her body— the quickening pulse, the warmth of her cheeks, the heat between her legs.

  She turned away quickly, reorganizing the glasses at the bar just to escape the homing beacon of his gaze.

  The men made introductions behind her, their voices only confirming what she’d realized the moment the dark haired man stepped into the club.

  He was Damian Cavallo.

  She’d known as soon as she laid eyes on him that this wasn’t a man who took orders from anyone. He carried himself like a king, one who was certain of his place in the world. He’d prowled into the room like a predator — unhurried, sure of his eventual victory.