Through the Fire

by Michelle St. James

  According to Damian, Malcolm and Stefano had gone dark. Even with the combined capabilities of Damian’s and Christophe’s cyber labs, they hadn’t been able to detect any digital communications to shed light on the plans or location of the high-profile players pulling strings on the other side.

  Aria had done her best to help, pouring over the reports that were submitted to Damian by Cole while Damian was at work. She hadn’t really expected to come up with an answer. Damian’s mind was like a supercomputer; if he couldn’t find reason in the madness, she wasn’t naive enough to think she could do it.

  Still, it was frustrating. She was only a little over two months pregnant, but she was anxious to put the past behind them. To truly move into the future with Damian and their child, to build a home for them in Westchester.

  To rule New York at Damian’s side.

  None of it could happen with Malcolm and Stefano walking around.

  “I’ve never wanted to freeze time as much as I do right now.”

  The voice made her jump, and she turned around to see Damian, leaning against the door with his trademark slouch, his dark eyes liquid with love and desire.

  Her heart still skipped a beat when she looked at him: the dark hair that fell over his forehead when it got too long, the lips that had traveled every inch of her body, the strong arms that could scoop her up as if she weighed nothing at all.

  She shook her head and crossed the room, slid her hands around his neck and pressed her body to his. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’m filthy.”

  He grinned. “I like you dirty.”

  She shook her head, laughing a little as she stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

  He reached for one of her hands, kissed the top of it and brought it to his nose. “You smell like the earth in summer.”

  “Liar,” she said. “I smell like potting soil, otherwise known as dirt.”

  He scowled a little. “It doesn’t sound nearly as romantic when you say it.”

  She kissed him again. “I’ll take the truth over romance any day.”

  She meant it. She’d lived a lie for too long with Primo, hiding behind the luxury of their apartment in the Financial District, behind her willingness to pretend they were just like everyone else.

  It had gotten her nothing but loss and sadness.

  Now she was ready to live in the light of truth. Sometimes that light would be harsh and bright, illuminating shadows she once would have pretended not to see.

  She would take it all.

  Something sad crowded into his eyes. “You deserve both,” he said. “Romance and truth.”

  She smiled. “I certainly won’t turn down a little romance — as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of the truth.”

  “Deal.” He took her hand. “Let’s start with dinner. I’ll tell you about the meeting today while we cook.”

  Two

  Damian lowered his nose to Aria’s hair and inhaled the musky scent of her shampoo. She was nestled between his legs on the sofa in the study, a fire roaring in the massive stone fireplace. They hadn’t spoken in awhile, the crackling flames the only sound in the room where they’d settled after dinner.

  It was times like these when Damian was most afraid, when he realized how much he had to lose. He’d been so alone before Aria and he hadn’t even known it. She’d blown into his heart like a fresh breeze through the windows of a long-abandoned home.

  It wasn’t always accompanied by sunshine. Sometimes she was as angry as a summer storm, as powerful as the wind that blew through the forest surrounding the house.

  It didn’t matter. He hadn’t realized how dead he was before her. Sometimes he had to brace himself against the onslaught of emotion she inspired in him — the frustration when she was stubborn, the tenderness when he watched her sleep at night, the gratitude when he looked down to find her in his arms.

  He’d almost lost her twice, and while instinct told him to lock her down in the Westchester house, she would never submit to a cage — even a gilded one.

  She’d made it clear that she would stand by his side or not at all. He’d been tempted to test her resolve more times than he could count, but he always came back to the fact that doing so might cost him her love for good.

  And that he could not risk.

  He spent every day thinking about her safety. Hired more guards for the house, made sure when she was driven to the city it was in an SUV armored to the teeth, practiced with her in the shooting range until she was as good a shot as him, until she could reload a weapon just as fast.

  There might still come a day when he would have to insist she step back. He would build up his goodwill for that day, show her he was willing to be her partner in all but the most dangerous of circumstances in the hopes that when those circumstances arose, she would relent.

  She sighed and sunk further into his body. “I’m getting sleepy.”

  He chuckled. “Did I overfeed you?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  They’d spent an hour in the kitchen making dinner while Damian had filled her in on his meeting with the Syndicate leaders. It had become one of his favorite times of day, the companionable hour in the kitchen standing in stark contrast to the weeks Aria was missing when he would eat standing at the counter, the time before her when he’d done nothing but work at the Westchester house.

  They still had a lot to do, but it already felt like home.

  They’d eaten by candlelight at the small table in the kitchen, the winter wind whipping the trees beyond the windows. They’d had dinners at fancy restaurants all over the world, but he wouldn’t have traded a single one for their nights in the old kitchen outside of the city.

  “Let’s go to bed,” he said.

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’m so comfortable.”

  “Five minutes then,” he said.

  She’d physically recovered from the gunshot she’d taken at Velvet the night of Primo’s death, but the emotional trauma would take longer to heal. He knew it was true even though she looked healthier than ever, even though she’d regained the weight she’d lost when she’d been held prisoner in Greece, even though the wound near her shoulder was healing to a smooth scar.

  She didn’t speak often about what had happened and Damian didn’t push. The words usually came after a long stretch of silence on one of their walks through the woods surrounding the property or during quiet moments when she lay in his arms in the dark. Then she would talk haltingly about her memories of Primo as a child, about the good and bad memories she had of him as a man.

  She always returned to the thing that hurt the most — the fact that Primo had died alone. That he’d been betrayed and abandoned by Malcolm Gatti in his hour of need.

  Damian let her talk, asked questions about the details, laughed when the story was funny, held her closer when her sadness drifted through the air like ether.

  He never mentioned it afterwards. She was processing her grief her way — turning over everything that had happened in her mind, trying to find reason in it, practicing at the firing range as a way to feel safer, nurturing her optimism for the future in the greenhouse.

  His job was to be there. To be there when she needed him and when she wasn’t willing to say she needed him. To hold her and cook her dinner, to make her laugh and keep her safe.

  He was going to do it for the rest of his life.

  But there was still business to take care of. He had to finish bringing New York under control, a task made exponentially harder by the unpredictable strategy currently being executed by Malcolm and Stefano Anastos.

  And he needed to eliminate both men, if only to make sure Aria could rest easy.

  He reached for his phone as it buzzed from the coffee table and tried not to disturb Aria.

  It was Cole.

  “What’s up?” Damian asked.

  Cole didn’t mince words. “There’s been an explosion at the Tribeca apartment.”

  Damian eased Aria off him as he s
at up. “Tribeca? The whole building or just my unit?”

  “Just your unit.”

  “Injuries?” Damian asked.

  “No. It was carefully constructed to be contained,” Cole said.

  Damian stood. “A message.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Security pick anything up on the cameras?” Damian asked.

  “They’re pulling the footage now,” Cole said. “But… well, I hate to say it, the apartment is a loss.”

  Damian didn’t give a fuck about the apartment. He hadn’t stayed there once since the night of Primo’s death. He assumed Malcolm and Stefano knew that, which made the hit even more ominous.

  The message was clear: I’m going to hit you where you live.

  An attack on Westchester would be next.

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” Damian said, hanging up the phone.

  Aria was sitting up on the couch, her eyes bright. “What happened?”

  He didn’t even think about keeping the details from her. “Someone hit the Tribeca apartment.”

  “Someone?” She lifted her eyebrows. “You mean Malcolm and Anastos.”

  He nodded and paced the room. He hadn’t expected them to come for an apartment he didn’t live in anymore, which was exactly why he should have expected it. Every attack they’d perpetrated over the past six weeks had been unexpected.

  He should have known better. Should have left the place guarded in spite of his absence. Someone in the building could have been killed.

  But hindsight was bullshit, a waste of time. The only thing that made sense was to look forward, to ensure something like this didn’t happen again, to make sure they didn’t come for Westchester.

  For Aria.

  He thought about the meeting that morning at the Syndicate’s New York headquarters.

  He didn’t want to bring anyone else into his operation. It was already pissing him off that he hadn’t finished the job in New York, that Farrell and Nico and the others were still trying to bring New York under control when word was, Vegas needed their attention.

  He was a fucking professional.

  And this was not professional.

  “What are we going to do?” Aria asked.

  “I’m going to make a call,” Damian said. “Then we’re going to Tribeca.”

  She stood. “I’ll get my coat.”

  He waited for her to leave to dial Farrell.

  “I just heard,” Farrell said without preamble. “What do you need?”

  “Locke Montgomery’s phone number.”

  Three

  Aria looked out the window, her gaze stretching to the horizon on the Pacific, stretched as far as the eye could see. The beach shimmered gold, surfers dotting the surface of the water. After the sepia-tinted backdrop of New York in winter, it was almost too bright. She reached inside her bag, catching a glimpse of Cole in the backseat, and put on her sunglasses.

  She glanced over at Damian as he navigated the car toward La Jolla, a small beach town south of Los Angeles. His hands were loose on the steering wheel, his eyes shaded by aviators as he drove. His white button-down was open just enough to give her a glimpse of the smooth skin at the top of his chest, his jeans just tight enough to remind her of his muscled thighs.

  She had a sudden image of him moving over her, felt the sculpted expanse of his chest under her palms, his legs intertwined with hers as he thrust inside her.

  Just looking at him ignited the blood in her veins like the wick on a stick of dynamite.

  He glanced over at her with a smile, seemingly oblivious to what he did to her.

  “Almost there,” he said. “You okay?”

  She nodded as they started up a road that wound its way up a hill lined with eucalyptus and jasmine. She was better than okay. She was in California with Damian, breathing in the fragrant air, feeling the sun on her face when she tipped it to the window.

  She’d expected him to ask her to stay in New York, to double down on the guards that patrolled the property, the men that were stationed in the house when he wasn’t home.

  But he’d said the sunshine would be good for her after the long winter in New York. Now, looking out over the glittering expanse of the sea, she couldn’t disagree. She didn’t even mind that Cole had come along. He still didn’t talk much, but he’d been warmer to her since the shooting at Velvet, like she’d finally proven herself to his satisfaction.

  He’d visited her in the hospital several times, always bringing food or flowers or books. He never stayed long, but she knew it had been a kind of blessing, maybe even an apology for questioning her loyalty, subtle though the questioning had been.

  She’d gotten used to his presence, had come to see his quiet strength as a safety net she never had to question.

  “This is it,” Damian said, coming to a stop at a black iron gate with a peaceful Buddha at the center.

  Interesting.

  Damian rolled down his window next to the intercom but he never got a chance to say anything; the gate opened without a sound.

  He pulled through and they started up a narrow drive lined with arroyo willows, their gray bark twisted and beautiful against silvery-green leaves.

  They emerged into a courtyard, a Spanish style villa with a red tile roof merging with the hill and the surrounding brush as if it had grown there organically. Damian pulled the car next to a black Humvee as Aria took note of the other cars parked there — a bottle green Jaguar, a silver Porsche, another Humvee, this one yellow.

  She didn’t know much about Locke Montgomery, only what Damian had told her — that he was a mercenary who had worked with the Syndicate in the past, that he might be able to help them figure out what Malcolm and Stefano were up to.

  They exited the car and headed across the gravel courtyard to a set of wide front steps leading to a massive wooden door. The air was dry and warm, without any of the humidity that marked the warmer months in New York.

  Damian removed his sunglasses and knocked on the door. A few seconds later it opened to reveal a tall man in surf shorts and a T-shirt. A Buddha pendant identical to the one on the gate glinted on a piece of rope around his neck. His hair was wet, as if he’d just stepped out of the ocean to answer the door.

  He looked Damian over. “Cavallo?”

  Damian nodded and held out his hand. “I’m Damian. This is Aria Fiore and Cole Grant.”

  Locke let his gaze travel to Cole, then Aria felt his eyes on hers. It was a strange sensation. All inquiry, no judgement.

  “Nico didn't say you were bringing company,” Locke said.

  “We can leave if you want.”

  Damian was making it clear Aria and Cole were non-negotiable.

  Locke returned his eyes to her, lingering on her face as if he would find the answer to her trustworthiness written on it.

  He stepped back and opened the door. “If Nico trusts you, I trust you.”

  Four

  Damian started at the beginning. He didn’t know how much Locke knew, how much he’d been told by Nico and the other Syndicate leaders, and he wanted the other man to be in possession of all the facts.

  Locke asked the occasional question, but other than that, he listened without comment as Damian took him through everything that had happened. He glossed over his relationship with Aria, but he’d seen the flicker of interest in the other man’s eyes when Damian mentioned that she was Primo Fiore’s sister.

  He wasn’t crazy about the fact that Aria had to sit in on the conversation — the last thing she needed was to relive everything that had happened in the previous months. But he hadn’t even tried to convince her to stay in New York. She wouldn’t have agreed, and the truth was, he didn’t feel safe leaving her there with everything that was going on with Malcolm and Stefano.

  Not after what had happened on Capri.

  It was one thing to leave her well-guarded while he was less than an hour away, but another thing entirely to leave her on one side of the country while he travele
d to the other.

  The hit on the Tribeca apartment had been too close for comfort. It hadn’t been under guard like the house in Westchester, but he wasn’t taking any chances when it came to Aria’s safety.

  And he hadn’t been lying — the sunshine would do her good.

  Still, he hated having to explain her kidnapping to Locke, having to tell him that Primo had been in on it from the beginning. He hated even more to relive the night of Aria’s shooting. Just saying it out loud produced a traumatic response in his body — the image of her stepping in front of him after Primo fired the gun, the horror blooming through his chest as she fell to the ground.

  It was still too fresh. Too close.

  He said it anyway. If Locke was going to help them, he needed to know it all.

  When he was done talking, Locke’s gaze travel to the Pacific, stretching out beyond the edge of the terrace.

  Damian took advantage of the opportunity to study the other man while he processed everything Damian had told him.

  Even Damian’s impressive cyber capabilities hadn’t been unable to turn up a photo of Locke Montgomery, but when Nico and the others had used the word “mercenary”, Damian had immediately conjured the kind of gung-ho, ex-military who usually went into that line of work. They were typically beefy and bearded, unmitigated testosterone seeping from their pores like booze from a drunk the night after a bender.

  No wonder he was surprised.

  Locke was lean and muscled, with the physique of a world-class athlete. Even without the boards lining the terrace, Damian would have assumed Locke was a surfer. He had that look about him, a combination of ease and recklessness that spoke of rogue waves and long days in the sun.

  The Buddha pendant around his neck was another piece of an already strange puzzle. Damian should have had doubts. He was a New Yorker through and through. He believed in violence and muscle, in intellect and strategy.

  A meditative surfer shouldn't inspire his confidence.

  And yet there was something about Locke Montgomery that did inspire confidence. It was a barely contained, chaotic energy that made Damian think of a hurricane; it looked like any storm when you were in the middle of it, but seen from above, a structure emerged that was designed for maximum destruction.