Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  The marble was warm under bare feet. She leaned her arms against the cool granite and looking out over an open field that extended to a forest line of trees.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was scented with oranges and rosemary, the breeze soft and gentle against her naked skin. She didn’t know how long she stood there before she heard the sound of children’s voices on the breeze.

  She opened her eyes and returned to the bedroom, then ran a warm shower. After weeks of rushed washing in the dingy bathroom in Greece, always half-expecting one of the guards to bust in on her, she felt like she could shower three times a day for the rest of her life and never tire of the luxuries of time and privacy.

  When she was done, she dried off and slipped on the simple shift dress that was in the red shopping bag Damian had given her on the plane. It was strange to look at the things inside it and realize they were exactly her size. She wondered if Damian had chosen them himself or if he’d sent someone to get them for her.

  It didn’t matter. He’d come for her. He’d made sure she had what she needed when she was rescued. Most of all, he’d been there when she’d needed him.

  She left her hair down, wondering how soon she could get it cut, then found a pair of flat sandals in the bottom of the bag and slipped them on her feet on her way out the door.

  The hall was empty and quiet and she suddenly wondered if she’d be able to find her way back to the main part of the house. She’d been out of it when they’d arrived in the early hours of the morning. She had nothing more than a vague memory of crushed gravel, a fountain, a grand staircase, the kind woman named Jenna.

  She decided to start with the staircase. It took two wrong turns down halls similar to the one off her room before she emerged onto the landing overlooking the foyer she remembered from their arrival. By the time she was halfway down the staircase, she could hear voices coming from the back of the house.

  Following the giggle of a little girl’s laughter and a scolding, older voice speaking in Italian, she emerged into a massive sunlit kitchen, one whole wall open to a terrace that looked out over the same fields Aria had been able to see from her room. A plump woman with dark hair had her hands in the sink, shaking her head and muttering.

  “Hello,” Aria said quietly, not wanting to startle her.

  The woman looked over her shoulder. “Ah, good morning!” she said in accented English. “These children are making me deaf. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Aria smiled. “It’s all right. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”

  The woman dried her hands on a towel. “Nonsense! You must eat!”

  “Aria!” Aria turned toward the familiar smokey voice and found Jenna stepping in on bare feet from the terrace. “I didn’t expect you up for awhile yet.”

  “I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t even know what time it is,” Aria said. “Or what day it is.”

  “You poor thing,” Jenna said, rushing across the kitchen. “Let’s start you off with some coffee on the terrace. The fresh air will do you good.”

  She poured both and gave instructions to the woman washing dishes to bring Aria breakfast.

  Aria followed Jenna outside where two young girls were chasing each other through the grass beyond the terrace. Their laughter was as soothing as a wind chime and Aria found herself smiling in spite of herself.

  “Is that your daughter?” Aria asked, taking a seat at a rustic table.

  “On the days when I’ll claim her.” Jenna laughed but there was no doubt from the warmth in her voice that she adored her daughter. She called out. “Lily! Lessa! Come meet our guest.”

  They stopped running and looked toward the patio. They seemed to consider disobeying the order before they walked wearily across the grass.

  Aria knew right away which little girl was Jenna and Farrell’s daughter. She had Jenna’s glossy brown hair and green eyes, but there was something about the defiant tilt of her chin that recalled the man who had pulled Aria from the room in Athens.

  “This is Lily,” Jenna said, smoothing back the little girl’s hair. She turned to the other child, a riot of black curls creating an ebony halo around her cherubic face. “And this is Lessa, Carmen’s daughter.”

  Aria assumed Carmen was the woman in the kitchen. The little girl named Lessa was her miniature.

  “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Lily and Lessa,” Jenna said.

  “Girls…” Jenna prompted them.

  They both giggled. “It’s nice to meet you,” they said in unison.

  “Can we go to the barn, Mummy?” Lily asked, clearly on to more fascinating matters than a guest in the house.

  “I suppose,” Jenna said. “Tell Anthony you have to be back in time for lunch.”

  They raced down the patio steps and tore across the field, their shrieks snatched by the wind as they rounded the corner of the house.

  “Poor Anthony,” Jenna said, taking a seat next to Aria. “He’s the caretaker here and Carmen’s husband, but I’m thinking about paying him Mrs. Pendleton’s salary when she’s not here. The children follow him like shadows.”

  Aria felt like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole.

  A lovely, sun-drenched rabbit hole.

  “Mrs. Pendleton?”

  “Sorry!” Jenna laughed. “She’s Lily’s nanny. She’s with her son and daughter-in-law right now.”

  Aria nodded and took a sip of her coffee. She had to resist the urge to groan aloud as the dark, smokey liquid hit her tongue. It had been a long time since she’d had proper coffee.

  She had a flash of the dingy room, the greasy takeout containers, the thin mattress.

  She stuffed it down, into the dark places in her heart where she held things like the fire that had killed her parents and the worst moments of Primo’s mental illness.

  Carmen stepped onto the patio and set a plate in front of Aria.

  “It’s good?” she asked.

  Aria looked at the poached eggs sprinkled with crumbled goat cheese, the crusty bread and fresh butter, the olives and the small dish filled with orange sections and figs.

  “It’s wonderful,” Aria said, her stomach grumbling. “Thank you.”

  The woman smiled and refilled Aria’s coffee before disappearing into the house.

  “You’re not eating?” Aria asked Jenna.

  “I ate with the girls,” Jenna said. “Please, you must be starving.”

  It was an understatement. It hadn’t occurred to Aria to use the phone in her room to call the kitchen when she’d finished her bath last night. She’d wanted nothing but Damian’s skin on hers.

  Had wanted only to feel him inside her making her forget everything but him.

  “I am pretty hungry,” Aria admitted, picking up her fork.

  She savored the first bite of eggs, salty and warm, then dug into the food without an ounce of self-consciousness. They made small talk about the estate and about the life Jenna led moving between London, Cornwall, and Tuscany, with occasional trips to New York.

  By the time Aria finished eating, she felt like she’d known Jenna forever. She leaned back in her chair and polished off her third cup of coffee.

  “That was delicious,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Jenna waved away her thanks. “Carmen loves showing off her prowess in the kitchen, especially if it means showing up Mrs. Pendleton, who has her own ideas about what everyone should be eating.”

  Aria smiled. “A bit of a rivalry?"

  Jenna grinned. “Let’s call it healthy competition.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes before Jenna spoke again.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. “I mean, I know we’ve only just met, but Farrell and I went through some stuff a couple years back — nothing like what you’ve been through — but it was…” She took a deep breath. “It was hard. I was away from Lily for awhile, wondered if I’d ever make my way back to her, if Farrell and I would ever come through the other
side of it all.”

  Aria wondered what had happened, how the savage man who had saved her in Athens had come to love the kind woman next to her.

  But it would be rude to ask, and Aria didn’t want to talk about the past.

  She wanted to bury it.

  “It’s all right,” Aria said. “I just want to enjoy being free.” She looked around. “Being here with… well, I assume Damian is here somewhere!”

  Jenna laughed. “He’s with Farrell in the study.”

  Aria nodded. “I’m sorry for what you went through with Farrell. It must have been hard to be away from your daughter, for both of you.”

  “It was,” she said. “But we made it through stronger than ever.” She seemed to consider her words. “I heard you met Angel while you were in Italy.”

  Aria thought about the blond woman who had welcomed her into her home outside of Rome while Damian had talked to Nico. She remembered their conversation in the kitchen, Angel’s own daughter, Stella, playing nearby.

  “Was it worth it?” Aria had asked. “All the times when it wasn’t working out all right?”

  “Without question.”

  Aria had known beyond a shadow of a doubt it was true. She’d known from the shine in Angel’s eyes and from the love that seemed to vibrate between her and the unreadable man named Nico.

  “I did,” Aria said. “She was lovely.”

  Jenna turned the glass of iced tea in her hand. “It seems to be a right of passage.”

  “What does?” Aria asked.

  She looked up, smiled a little. “Finding our way to these crazy men of ours.”

  “It’s an unconventional life,” Aria said. “But I can’t even blame Damian. My brother’s business wasn’t exactly aboveboard.”

  “Still,” Jenna said, “it can be difficult in the beginning.”

  “Just the beginning?”

  She liked the fact that Jenna thought about the answer, that she didn’t rush to offer false reassurances.

  “Pretty much,” Jenna said. “I mean, I worry about Farrell, of course. I’m sure Angel and Charlotte — ”

  “Charlotte?”

  “Christophe’s wife,” Jenna said. “He was with you in Athens, I think.”

  Aria remembered the dark-eyed man with a subtle French accent and nodded.

  “Anyway, Angel and Charlotte both had their share of challenges in the beginning,” Jenna continued. “It takes awhile to get it all sorted, to find a way to live in such an extreme environment. But after awhile it really does feel normal. They go to work, sometimes they travel, then they come home.”

  Aria didn't ask the question at the back of her mind.

  What if one day they don’t come home?

  She let her gaze travel across the fields of swaying grass and tried to imagine herself in the future with Damian, in the place Jenna was where everything had been sorted.

  Where they could live in peace.

  It was too fragile a dream. There was still too much between them and any ending in which they would be at peace together. She didn’t know what was going on in New York, but she knew Damian wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d taken her brother’s territory.

  And Primo — and Malcolm — wouldn’t go without a fight.

  11

  Damian leaned back in the chair opposite Farrell’s desk and focused on the map on the monitor. New York City and its surrounding areas were magnified, red and blue dots scattered across the island and suburbs — red representing Fiore’s assets, blue for the Greeks.

  “You can see the territory is about evenly split between Fiore and Anastos,” Farrell said. “Fiore had the edge when we approached you a couple months ago, but Anastos took advantage of your hit on the Fiore assets following the fire at the shelter.”

  Damian could picture almost every location on the map — every restaurant, night club, bodega, liquor store. He knew the territory like the back of his hand.

  Farrell was right: the Greeks had gained ground over the past two months while he’d been preparing to get Aria back.

  He couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not with Aria safe instead of in the apartment in Athens. He would do it again a hundred times over, would sacrifice any asset, any amount of money, to have her in his arms.

  “What do we know about the weaknesses in Anastos’s operation?” Damian asked.

  “Not as much as we’d like,” Farrell said. “Their men are more tight-lipped than Fiore’s men.”

  It didn’t surprise Damian. You couldn’t scare people into being loyal. If you didn’t inspire them, any loyalty they showed you would be disposable.

  Farrell tabbed through some pictures on the computer and a series of photographs emerged — dark-haired men with thick faces and hulking shoulders, their eyes either downcast or hidden by sunglasses.

  “So I need to dig,” Damian said, looking at the men on the monitor. “Find out more about his top guys, see if we can push some of their buttons.”

  Even the most hardened criminals had weaknesses. Even fucking Farrell Black had a weakness — and she was somewhere in this very house.

  Hell, Damian had one of his own in the same house, much as he hated to admit it.

  Damian didn’t like using innocent people, but there were always other weaknesses to be exploited.

  “I’ll have my guys get on it,” Damian said.

  He felt clear-headed for the first time since Aria had disappeared over the edge of the balcony two months earlier. He couldn’t expect Farrell and the others to help him from here on out. They’d helped him get Aria back. It was more than he’d expected.

  Retaking the New York territory was his responsibility.

  He had acquired an impressive team of hackers since he’d established his business. Brute force was an option, but there would be heavy casualties. If they could establish the identity of Anastos’s top men, they could start looking for ways to pull the operation apart. At the very least, it would make the brute force portion of the takeover easier.

  “We got a jump on that in Paris,” Farrell said.

  Damian looked at him. “Paris?”

  “That’s where Christophe’s cyber lab is located,” Farrell said. “He’s expecting you. You should be able to find everything you need there — about the men and about the locations they’re using as strongholds. That should help you plan your assault.”

  Damian sat back, studied Farrell for a minute before speaking. “I don’t expect you to help me any further.”

  “Good,” Farrell said, leaning back in his own chair. “Because expecting me to help you is about the time I stop helping you.”

  Damian nodded. “I appreciate what you did for Aria. What all of you did for her.” He hesitated. “For me.”

  Farrell seemed to choose his words carefully. “Are you sure about this? About her?”

  Damian checked his instinct to be defensive about Aria. He’d heard stories about the men who now ran the Syndicate. They’d all taken risks for their women. Farrell wasn’t out of line to ask the question given what he’d done for Damian and Aria.

  “I’m sure,” Damian said. He opened his mouth to say something else, then decided against it and shook his head.

  “Care to add something?” Farrell asked.

  Damian sighed. Why the fuck did he have the urge to be straight with Farrell Black?

  “I was just going to say it wouldn’t matter even if I wasn't sure about her,” Damian said.

  Farrell raised his eyebrows. “That far gone?”

  Damian’s nod was slow. “I’m afraid so.”

  “All the more reason to be careful,” Farrell said. “What about the brother?”

  Damian appreciated that Farrell hadn’t judged him for his utter lack of reason when it came to Aria — not outwardly, anyway.

  “Still underground,” Damian said. “Aria said he never showed his face in Greece — only Gatti.”

  “Does she know?” Farrell asked. “About Primo’s involvement in her
kidnapping?”

  Damian shook his head. “Not yet. She’s still recovering.”

  He didn’t say the rest of it — that Aria had twitched and cried out in her sleep, that while she’d shown no sign of wanting to talk about what happened to her, Damian feared it would do lasting damage to keep such a traumatic experience bottled inside.

  That was for him and Aria.

  Farrell rubbed the five o’ clock shadow on his chin. There was concern in his eyes. “I understand, but the longer you wait to tell her the truth the more it will seem like you were lying to her.”

  “I know.” Damian wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. “Let me get her to Paris, give her a couple days to recover.”

  “And after Paris?” Farrell asked.

  It didn’t take Damian long to answer. After Paris, there was only one thing left to do.

  “After Paris I take back New York,” Damian said. “For all of us.”

  12

  Aria pulled the sweater Jenna had given her tighter around her shoulders as she and Damian stepped off the terrace steps. They started across the field in silence and Aria took advantage of the opportunity to drink in the beauty of the estate for the hundredth time that day.

  It was truly extraordinary, the house like some kind of old Italian villa, the Tuscan sun turning everything gold at all hours of the day, the waving grass stretching to the barn in one direction, the forest stretching in every other, the scented air. The sun had almost disappeared behind the hills in the distance. The sky was a wash of lavender.

  No wonder Jenna looked so happy. She was loved beyond measure by Farrell Black, sheltered by the compound used as a luxurious and homey refuge from the work he did to pay for it all.

  Aria tried to imagine it. Was it possible to ever feel truly protected after everything that had happened? Not just the kidnapping in Athens but the fire that had taken parents from her and Primo when Aria had been a teenager? The years that followed when Primo’s mental illness was like a gasoline-soaked fuse waiting for a match?

  “I should warn you that there are men in the woods,” Damian said.