She was in Paris. That meant Damian was in Paris too.
And anyone with a working knowledge of the Syndicate and its leaders could have guessed Damian was collaborating with Christophe Marchand, head of the Syndicate’s Paris territory.
It would have been far too difficult to launch an attack on the apartment in the ritzy area of Saint Germain du Pres. The apartment was heavily guarded by Christophe’s men and surrounded by private homes.
But the cyber lab was the perfect target for the kind of cowardly attack that had been perpetrated on them earlier in the day — a molotov cocktail thrown into the second story window followed by a round of semiautomatic gunfire from across the street.
The lab itself had enviable security — a locked front door with palm scans and an intercom, a bulletproof lobby that acted as a buffer to the interior of the building, the powerful servers for the lab locked behind fortified walls, the staff ensconced on the second floor.
It would have been difficult to actually breach the facility, but sending a message — a gangland hit and run — was just a matter of launching the explosive device through the windows and peppering the exterior walls with gunfire.
And it was all her fault.
She looked up as Charlotte came into the room bearing a tray of toast and a fresh pot of tea.
“I know you don’t feel like eating,” Charlotte said, “but I thought I’d bring you something in case you change your mind.”
Aria’s stomach turned over at the thought of food. “Thank you.”
Charlotte sat down next to her. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Please, you’ve done enough,” Aria said. She set down the cup of tea and shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
Charlotte reached for her hand. “You’ve apologized too many times already.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Aria said.
Charlotte seemed to choose her words carefully. “Ours is a mad world,” she said. “We do the best we can, but we all make mistakes from time to time, especially when it comes to family.”
Aria had vague memories of spilling her guts to Charlotte after the attack, the words emerging unchecked from her mouth as she explained Primo and her meeting with him in Paris. Charlotte had listened with sympathetic eyes, consoling Aria with assurances that no one blamed her for what had happened.
She’d only seen Damian briefly before he and Christophe had piled Aria and Charlotte into a car bound for the apartment. He’d said little, looking carefully at her face as if checking her for injury, wrapping her in his arms.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”
She knew he was trying to tell her he understood — that Primo might have targeted the lab because of her but that he didn’t blame her.
It was a minor consolation in the face of the bloodied employee named Mac as he was loaded into the ambulance, the expression of shock on the faces of Christophe’s employees as they’d started cleaning up the debris in the lab and checking the systems to see how much data they’d lost.
“Is everyone really okay?” Aria asked Charlotte for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Everyone is fine,” Charlotte said firmly. “Every one of Christophe’s employees in the lab is trained — and not in cyber operations — before they’re brought on. They look like your average data engineer, but trust me when I say they’re every bit as capable and prepared as any of the Syndicate’s street soldiers.”
It was the first time she’d directly referenced the nature of the Syndicate’s business. There was something subversive in the reference to street soldiers emerging from the elegant woman next to her.
Aria tried to imagine it — highly specialized hackers undergoing the same kind of tactical training demanded of the Syndicate’s soldiers. It was yet another reminder that Primo had been outmatched from the beginning. The Syndicate’s operation was seamless and astute, all the big-picture strategy of a modern tech company combined with the ruthless violence required of anyone who was a member of organized crime.
Of course, now he had Anastos on his side, and while she didn’t imagine Anastos brought much to the table in terms of finesse, it appeared what he lacked in that department he made up for with violent determination.
Anastos and Malcolm — they were the engineers of the attack on the cyber lab.
She was sure of it.
It didn’t absolve Primo, but she didn’t believe for a minute he was stable enough to send a message to someone as powerful as Christophe backed by the even more powerful Syndicate.
That kind of move had Malcolm’s fingerprints all over it.
The front door of the apartment opened and closed, followed by the sound of murmured voices, heavy footsteps in the hall. A moment later, Christophe and Damian stepped into the room.
Aria stood, her hands shaking as she looked at them.
Their faces were drawn but determined. The last time she’d seen them, Damian’s face had been smudged with blood and soot, Christophe’s hair uncharacteristically disheveled. Now they looked clean and composed, like they’d just returned home from an average day at work.
Charlotte crossed the room to Christophe, kissing his cheek and taking off his jacket. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll pour you a drink.”
He followed her instructions without comment and Damian crossed the room to stand in front of Aria. He smoothed her hair, rubbed his thumb across her cheek.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
She nodded. “Are you?”
“Other than wanting to kill them all with my bare hands, I’m fine,” he said.
He lifted a hand to her hairline and she winced as his fingers brushed her skin. “You’ve got a bump,” he said. “I’m going to get you some aspirin and a change of clothes.”
“Don’t leave.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, some of her residual panic from the days after her rescue resurfacing.
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I had Cole bring your things from the hotel.”
She exhaled her relief and watched as he left the room.
“I’m going to see about some food,” Charlotte said, rising from the sofa.
Aria was left alone with Christophe and the strange feeling that it hadn’t been an accident.
“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly, looking at her hands.
He didn’t answer at first and she braced herself for his wrath. She deserved it. She deserved anything he chose to dish out. She’d put him at risk, had put his wife and his operation at risk.
It took him a minute to respond.
“I like to think of myself as a careful man, but every mistake I’ve ever made can be attributed to family.” She looked up in surprise as he continued. His gaze was on the doorway, as if he could still see Charlotte disappearing into the hall. “I’d say some of them have been made for love, but the truth is, I’d make those a hundred times over.”
Aria drew in a breath. “The fact that Primo is my family is no excuse. I know what he is. I know his weaknesses better than he knows them himself. I should have known I couldn’t trust him.”
Christophe looked into the amber liquid in his glass, finished it in one swallow and set it on the coffee table. “I had a brother once,” he said. “He tried to kill me.”
Aria had trouble catching her breath to speak. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
“He’s dead now.” He said the words simply, but Aria caught his pain before he covered it behind the expressionless facade she’d grown used to seeing on his face.
“Was he… in the business?” Aria asked. She got the feeling Christophe didn’t open up often. She didn’t know why he was opening up to her, but she thought it might be because they had something in common.
“He was the enemy,” Christophe said. “He made himself the enemy by threatening the woman I love, the people who matter to me.”
“Was it hard?” It was a stupid question on its face, but she needed to know sh
e wasn’t the only one who grappled with the warring emotions of love, duty, and principle.
He seemed to think about it. “It was hard at first because I thought I could still save him. I’d been saving him since we were children, you see.”
She thought about all the times she’d talked Primo down, all the times she’d covered for him when he’d been too sick to show his face without compromising his leadership, all the times she’d nursed him back to some semblance of sanity only to have him return to madness days — or even hours — later.
“I understand,” she said. “Sometimes I think I’m sick, too. I must be to have held out hope for him for so long.”
“No.” The strength of the single word took her by surprise. “You must never think that. It isn’t sick to want to help the people you love — not while there’s still hope of helping them.”
“How do you know?” she asked. “How do you know when there’s no help for them?”
“You know,” he said firmly. “Sometimes we lie to ourselves for awhile, but I knew Bruno was lost long before I admitted it to myself.” He met her eyes. “The question is whether you can be honest with yourself.”
She swallowed and nodded. “I can.”
“Then there’s only one question left to ask,” he said.
She drew in a breath. “Which is?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
She nodded slowly. She’d already asked herself the question. She asked herself after her meeting with Primo in Paris, after she’d found out that he’d been involved in her kidnapping.
It seemed there would be no end to the number of times Primo would make her disavow him — as if the universe itself was giving her yet another opportunity to be weak.
The universe would be disappointed.
“I’m going to apologize again for putting you and Charlotte at risk,” she said. “Then I’m going to stand by Damian’s side while he fights my brother.”
Christophe nodded and stood. He rested a gentle hand on Aria’s shoulder. “There is no more need for apology. All is well between us.”
“Here you go.” They both turned to Damian as he re-entered the room. “Aspirin and some fresh clothes from your bag. Charlotte insists you make use of one of the guest bedrooms and private baths upstairs.”
“Thank you.” Christophe’s words echoed through her mind as she took the aspirin and clothes from Damian’s hands.
What are you going to do about it?
Christophe and Charlotte had been overly generous in light of everything that had happened, but it was time for her to face the inevitable. It was time to deal with Primo and Malcolm and the Greeks.
Time to end the madness once and for all.
“I’m going to shower and change,” she said. “Then I think it’s time for us to go back to New York.”
27
Damian opened the door to the house in Westchester and stood back while Aria stepped into the foyer. It had been strange to drive up the long path leading to the house with Aria by his side. The last time he’d been home, she’d been in Greece. He hadn’t been sure this moment would ever come, and he had to resist the urge to feel like he’d somehow cheated fate.
Aria was his fate. Bringing her home was the fulfillment of their destiny.
He followed her into the house and turned on the chandelier that lit the entry, its crystals casting thousands of luminescent teardrops on the walls.
Damian set their bags down and leaned against the wall while she surveyed the marble floors, the soaring ceilings, the curved staircase and thick mahogany balustrade leading to the second floor.
Cole had met them at the airport, but Damian had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He wanted it to be private. Wanted to remember the moment when Aria first stepped into the home where they would build their future together.
“It’s so beautiful,” Aria said, turning to him. “You grew up here?”
He nodded. “I should warn you that it still needs some work. My mother and I stayed in the city most of the time after my father died.”
He didn’t have to tell her that the memories had been too much for them to bear here. That he had been slowly exorcising them from the house as he sanded and stripped wallpaper and repaired windows and stained wood.
Somehow he knew she understood.
She stood before him, wrapped her hands around his neck, kissed him tenderly on the lips. “We’ll finish the work together.”
He nodded. “Are you hungry?”
She shook her head. “I want to see the house.”
He smiled. “Now?”
They’d cleaned up in Paris and left immediately for New York. He’d wanted to stay the night, to give Aria time to rest after what had happened in Marchand’s cyber lab, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d insisted she was fine, and the fire in her eyes hadn’t left any room for argument. They’d headed straight for the airport after profusely thanking Christophe and Charlotte and promising to return once everything was settled in New York.
She kissed him again and stepped away. “I think I should see it if it’s going to be my home, don’t you?”
The words sent a thrill of possession through him. A thrill of belonging.
He was going to make her his wife when this was all over. He was going to make her his wife and they were going to fill this dark, old house with light and the laughter of their children.
He couldn’t remember who had said you can’t go home again, but they’d been wrong.
He could. He would.
And he would do it with Aria by his side.
He took her hand. “Come on then,” he said. “We can’t have you getting lost on your way to the kitchen.”
He led her through the front parlor, its Art Deco mural still intact, and down the long hall. He showed her the study he’d renovated first, remembering all the nights he’d spent on the leather sofa when Aria had been missing, all the drinks he’d poured from the bar to try and forget long enough to sleep.
They continued to the cavernous kitchen, the original soapstone counters still intact. The windows that looked out over the fields that led to the woods were dark but he knew she’d be thrilled with the view in the morning. He showed her the giant mud room and laundry room where there had once been four washers and dryers to handle all the linens required for all the entertaining his parents — and his grandparents — had done back when large gatherings were still held in family estates like this one.
They were preparing to leave the kitchen when she hesitated at the door to the cellar. “What’s this?”
He had a flash of the shooting range, the home gym lined with weapons he’d used to train when he’d been planning Aria’s rescue.
“A basement with a shooting range,” he admitted. “And a gym.” He took her hand. “I want to show you the greenhouse.”
He didn’t want to show her sad or violent things. He wanted her to see only the best of the house, only the best of him, the best of the life they would have together.
“I’ll see the greenhouse tomorrow when the sun comes up,” she said, opening the door. “Show me the basement.”
He wanted to argue but he knew there would be no point. Something resolute had crept into her voice since the attack on the cyber lab in Paris. She was on a mission, and she wouldn’t be deterred.
It worried him — but it was also sexy as hell.
He turned on the light and led her down the stairs. They emerged onto the polished floor of the home gym and Aria crossed the room, pausing to touch the sheathed knives and other weaponry lined up on the shelving next to the wall.
He smiled as she gave the heavy bag a little punch, her eyes straying to the cuts in the bag and the sand that had collected on the floor.
“This is no ordinary basement, Damian Cavallo.”
He shrugged.
“Show me the shooting range,” she said.
He pushed off the wall and led the way down another hall, turning o
n the lights as he went.
“What’s that?” she asked when they passed the old wood door.
“It’s a tunnel,” he said.
“Planning an escape?” she asked, her voice teasing.
“It was installed during Prohibition to ferry alcohol into the house,” he said. “Lots of these old estates have them.”
“And it’s intact?”
He heard the surprise in her voice.
“It is.”
He didn’t tell her the rest: that he’d had it reinforced when he’d first started his business, that it had always been a backup plan in the unlikely event of an unrecoverable assault on the estate.
“Where does it lead?” she asked.
“To the old carriage house in the back.” He opened the door to the shooting range and turned on the lights, watching them gradually illuminate the two lanes.
“Wow…” She entered the room, her gaze traveling down the long rows with targets at the end. “I’ve never been to a shooting range, but this is exactly what I would have pictured — just not in a basement.”
“We’re a half hour away from the nearest public range,” he said. “It makes sense to save the travel time by doing target practice here.”
It was one of the only ways I could forget. One of the only things that soothed my thirst for blood while you were gone. One of the only things I could do to pass the time that didn’t involve drinking myself to death.
He left the words unsaid. It didn’t matter now. She was here.
She walked to the wall lined with metal shelving. Firearms were cleaned and put away, ready for the next time Damian would use them. With any luck, it would be awhile. He would finish the business with Fiore and Anastos and bring New York back under the Syndicate’s control. After that he would spend more time walking the grounds with Aira and less time in the gym plotting the death of their enemies, more time watching her in the greenhouse and less time at the firing range.
“Are they loaded?” she asked, her eyes still on the weapons.
He chuckled. “No. Its not protocol to shelve loaded weapons.”
Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2) Page 13
