“And they weren’t off the grid before?” Locke finally said, returning his eyes to Damian.
“No,” Damian said. “We were picking up a lot of chatter, intercepting emails and texts, shipments through customs…”
“That will help,” Locke said. “They’re not used to working off-grid. They’ll make mistakes.”
“We haven't caught any,” Cole said. “We’ve been too busy cleaning up after them.”
He’d been silent while Damian explained, but Cole was right: they’d been forced to play defense, their offense rendered impotent by their inability to find order in the New York attacks.
Locke nodded. “And what about Gatti and Anastos? Are they in New York?”
“It’s hard to say when we’re working blind,” Damian said. “But buzz from the few men we’ve been able to pick up is that Anastos, at least, is in Greece.”
“And Gatti?” Locke asked.
“He’s a ghost right now.” It was hard for Damian to admit. Malcolm wasn’t as erratic as Primo, and he wasn’t stupid.
He also wasn’t any kind of genius.
That Damian had been unable to track him was a source of frustration.
“Probably safe to assume Gatti is still in New York,” Locke said. “It’s his home turf. Anastos, on the other hand, is probably in Greece. New York will be one of many projects in his pocket.”
“I thought the same thing,” Damian said. “In fact, I’ve been wondering if he’s making similar plays for some of the other Syndicate territories, manipulating weaknesses in rogue organizations before they can reclaim the territory.”
Vegas is still a mess. We need to deal with it sooner rather than later…
The world was full of cities that either hadn’t had a strong Syndicate rule in the first place, or had spun into disarray in the aftermath of Raneiro Donati’s imprisonment and death.
Locke nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised, which means flushing him out is even more important. It sounds like Gatti would be at a severe disadvantage without Anastos. He should be our first priority.”
Damian had no idea when he’d gone from being skeptical about enlisting Locke Montgomery to being relieved by the implicit promise of his help.
“I agree,” Aria said. “Anastos first. Then Malcolm.”
Damian reached for her hand under the table. He knew how much she wanted Malcolm, knew she blamed him for manipulating Primo, leading him to his death like a lamb to slaughter.
But she was a smart woman. She understood that they couldn’t afford to be sidetracked by emotion. It was a weakness in a situation like this one. They had to be strategic — and that meant going after Anastos first.
“So how do we do it?” Cole asked. “We haven’t been able to find a trace of him.”
Locke stood, his eyes returning to the water below, the waves rolling faster onto the beach as the sun dipped toward the horizon. He headed for one of the boards, picked it up and started for the narrow set of stairs that descended to the private beach below.
“The only way to kill a rat is to smoke it out of its refuge,” he said, his eyes on the water. “We’ll leave for Greece in the morning. You can spend the night here.”
Five
Aria looked at the column of light cast by the moon on the water and tightened the blanket around her shoulders. It wasn’t exactly warm — the sand was cool enough for the cold to seep through her jeans — but compared to New York it was bearable.
And worth braving to sit on the beach.
They’d spent the afternoon getting settled at Locke’s. The house was a marvel of wood and glass balanced on the edge of a cliff. It reminded her of Capri, although there the water had crashed against the rocky cliff face. In La Jolla, the waves rolled onto the sandy beach of the private cove. It was gentle, minus the violence of the sea off the island where she’d been taken from Damian before Christmas. She remembered it now as an omen.
She should have known they’d find trouble there.
She set the memory aside, not because she couldn’t bear to think about Capri or her imprisonment in Greece, but because she’d made her peace with it to whatever degree possible.
The life growing inside her demanded that she focus only on the present and the future — and that meant getting Stefano Anastos.
And then Malcolm.
She'd been surprised and grateful to discover that Locke had a firing range on the property not unlike the one Damian had built in the basement of the Westchester house. An hour firing into the targets while Damian made plans with Locke and Cole had gone a long way to quieting her mind and preparing her for their trip to Greece.
And she was going to Greece. She didn’t know if Damian would try to talk her out of it or not, but it didn’t matter.
She was going.
“There you are.”
The voice came out of the darkness by the stairs and she looked up to find Damian stroll toward her across the sand.
“Here I am,” she said.
“Did I startle you?” he asked, resting a hand on the top of her head before lowering himself next to her.
She shook her head. Nothing startled her anymore.
“Good.” He looked at the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “Is there room for me in there?”
“Always.” She unwrapped one side of the blanket.
He opened his legs and patted the space between them. “I can offer you extra warmth if you’re interested.”
She grinned. “Always.”
He lifted the blanket from her shoulders and she moved between his legs, leaning back against the solidity of his chest. He wrapped the blanket around his back, tucking the edges tight around her so she was cocooned in the warmth of the wool, his body like a fire against her back.
“It’s nice here,” he said.
“It is.”
“It was the right move, coming to Locke.”
“You think so?” she asked.
He nodded. “He’s got some ideas for flushing out Anastos in Greece.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Hopefully it won’t take long and we can move onto Malcolm.”
Anastos was business — for both of them.
Malcolm was personal.
They watched the waves rolling onto the beach, receding back into the ocean with a frothy sigh.
“You could stay in Westchester while we go,” he finally said. “But with everything that’s going on, I don’t love the idea of you in New York.”
“I don’t love it either.” Her reasons were different from his, but that didn’t matter.
“Locke said you could stay here,” he said. “You’d be well protected. One of the women on his team used to be with the FBI. And she’s not the only one — she’s with another ex-agent who works with Locke.”
Aria craned her neck to look up at him. “Both of them were with the FBI?”
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
Crazy was an understatement. Primo had informants in the NYPD. Damian did too, and some of his best hackers were former FBI and NSA. That was dangerous enough, but sleeping with the enemy was a whole other level of risk.
“How does Locke know he can trust them?” Aria asked.
“How did Nico know he could trust Angel? How did the Syndicate know they could trust me? Or you for that matter?”
He had a point, but taking a chance on someone else in the criminal underworld seemed a lot less risky than taking a chance on a couple of former federal agents.
“I’m not staying here,” she said, sinking back into him. “I’m going with you, and I imagine you already know that.”
“I suspected.” He hesitated before continuing. “But Greece will be dangerous, and Malcolm probably isn’t there anyway. Locke and I can deal with Anastos and you and Nora — ”
“Nora?”
“The former FBI agent,” Damian said. “You can work together on locating Malcolm so we can hit him when we get back. Locke’s woman will be back tomorrow night. She can h
elp, too.”
“Locke has someone?” She didn’t know why it surprised her.
Damian nodded. “Apparently, she runs a bookstore nearby.”
Aria tried to imagine the kind of woman who could capture the heart of a free spirit like Lock Montgomery. She couldn’t, and she returned her thoughts to the possibility of staying in California while Damian went to Greece.
It would be more efficient, but there were more important things than efficiency.
Like seeing Stefano die.
Like knowing her child would be safe from him.
Like staying with Damian.
“No,” she said.
For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the waves rushing the beach, the feel of his breath moving through her own body as she leaned against him.
“I had to try,” he said.
“I know.”
He tightened his arms around her, like it might keep her on the beach in California. “Jesus, Aria… You scare the fuck out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
She meant it. Damian had saved her life more than once. He’d been her anchor when she was adrift at sea, the touchstone that reminded her she was real and human.
He didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve to worry about her.
But she’d hidden herself for too long. Had pretended to be docile and accommodating to pacify Primo. Had pretended even to herself.
She wasn’t going to pretend anymore.
“Don’t be,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
She leaned her head back to look up at him. “I hope you meant that, because I don’t think I’m capable of being any other way anymore.”
He looked into her eyes. “I mean it.”
“Good.”
Even as she said it, a note of dread rang through her body. Greece would be a turning point. Until now, her involvement had been mostly out of her control — the kidnapping in Capri, the shootout in Paris at Christophe Marchand’s cyber lab, Primo’s death at Velvet.
The last two months had been spent preparing in Westchester, practicing at the firing range, recouping her physical and mental strength after her time in Greece, Primo’s death, the gunshot that had almost killed her and their unborn child.
Returning to Greece would be a deliberate and irrevocable decision to involve herself — and her unborn child — in the mission to destroy Stefano Anastos and Malcolm.
She was glad all over again that she hadn’t told Damian about her pregnancy. Even she wouldn’t be able to convince him of the merit of her involvement if he knew.
It also meant she owned the decision and any harm that came to their child because of it.
She turned her head to touch her lips to his, willing him to forgive her if something went wrong, trying to tell him with her kiss that she was sorry, that she wished it could be different — that she wished she could be different.
His lips were soft and sensual on hers, his tongue mapping her mouth like a traveler returning home.
She had developed a kind of muscle memory for him, his proximity sparking a fire in her nerve endings, the memory of all the hours she’d spent in his arms, his fingers touching every secret treasure in her body, laying dormant under her skin.
The rush of heat to her core was no less overwhelming for its familiarity. Her body — cold only moments before — was the center of a throbbing, primal fire that radiated outward from her center.
He stroked her hair, blown by the breeze off the sea, his hand cradling her head as his tongue dove deeper into her mouth, his thumb stroking her bottom lip like he couldn’t get enough, like he wanted all of him inside of all of her.
She was sitting across his lap by the time his hand traveled down her neck, dropping kisses at the corners of her mouth, trailing fire across her jaw, nibbling at her ear.
She sighed as his lips moved down her throat, lingering at her collarbone.
His hand cupped one of her breasts and her nipple immediately rose to a peak as he thumbed it through her bra, pinching it gently but firmly between his fingers.
She moaned. Her nipples were more sensitive now than ever, and a thunderbolt of desire rushed to the space between her legs as he covered her mound with his mouth.
She reached under his shirt, desperate to feel him against her fingers.
“Let’s go to bed,” he murmured against her breast.
“No,” she said. “Here.”
“You’ll be cold,” he said.
“Trust me, I’m not cold.”
He flipped her onto her back in one smooth motion and stretched his body over hers. The blanket was under her now, his body a shelter against the wind.
He returned to her lips and kissed her slowly and deeply as he cupped her face with one hand. She opened her legs to him, relishing the sensation of his erection nestling against the cleft between her legs. Her body answered with another rush of wet heat.
She let her hands travel the length of his muscled back, down to the firm roundness of his ass, around to the button on his jeans. His zipper came next, and she slid her hand between their bodies and reached for him, her hand closing around the rigid shaft.
He pulsed in her hand, groaned as he lifted her shirt, pulled down the lace of her bra. For a split second, she was exposed to the night air, a delicious juxtaposition against the furnace raging in her body.
Then his mouth closed around her nipple, wrapping it in moist warmth as he sucked and lapped in time to the stroking of her hand on his cock. They fell into the rhythm easily, the dance of their bodies keeping perfect time.
He grew harder and bigger in her hand even as her breasts grew taut with desire. She was walking the thin red line between pleasure and pain, her nipples clamoring for more even as they throbbed with tenderness.
“Please,” she gasped. “I want you inside me.”
“Soon.” He licked her nipple tenderly, kissed her stomach so reverently she almost wondered if she’d let slip about their child growing there.
But no. This was just Damian, taking her with a mixture of exquisite tenderness and voracious need she didn’t take for granted.
He knelt between her legs, forcing her to let go of him as he slid her pants from her hips, pulling the panties along with them.
He looked down at her with concern. “Are you sure you’re not cold?”
“I am now.” She reached for him. “Come here.”
He stripped off his shirt and covered her body with his, his fevered skin imprinting itself on her own like a brand.
She was warm again by the time he kissed his way down to her navel.
He reached up and wrapped the blanket around her upper body, and she almost wept from the tenderness of the gesture, the concern that she would be cold without his body to warm her.
She looked up at the stars as he spread her legs with his hands.
He sighed and she looked at him, kneeling between her legs with an expression of rapture. “I’ll never get tired of looking at you, Aria. Never get used to your perfection.”
He touched his mouth to her inner thigh, kissing the soft flesh from her knee to the cleft between her legs. She sank further down when he ran a finger gently over the folds of her sex, her body instinctively reaching for his mouth like the roots of a tree to water.
Her moan was snatched by the wind when he ran his tongue up to her clit, his mouth closing around it all at once, a shock of pleasure racing through her body like a tripwire.
His fingers slid inside her while he circled the bundle of nerves with his tongue. She was already close to climax when he picked up a rhythm, pressing and lapping at the same time.
Her hips moved with the pressure of his mouth and fingers, her fingers entwined in his silky hair.
“Oh god, Damian…”
The pressure built in her belly, a volcano releasing precious little steam before its inevitable explosion. She didn’t want it to end even as she was already clamoring fo
r him to complete her, to feel him push through the engorged tissue of her pussy.
"Come for me, Aria."
He said the words against her clit, a vibration that only served to heighten the ripples of pleasure racing through her.
She pushed against his mouth, moving her hips faster as he picked up the pace on her clit, his fingers moving more vigorously in and out of her as the pressure became unbearable, her hold on reality slipping as she sank into the tether-less bliss on the precipice of release.
She hovered there for an interminable a moment, a moment she wanted both to prolong and bring to an end. Then she was stepping over it, letting the night air cradle her body as she fell into the light bursting behind her eyelids.
She felt every inch of his fingers inside her as she clamped down on them, her body shuddering in his hands, against his mouth, the contractions going on and on as she cried out, giving her pleasure to the waves, letting them carry it out to the deep blue sea.
Six
Damian rose to his knees and looked down at her. She was spread out before him, her body glimmering in the moonlight like a perfect pearl.
She opened her eyes slowly as the tremors subsided in her body and reached for his cock, throbbing with his need for her.
“Come inside me, Damian.”
He positioned himself at her entrance, vaguely aware that they were being reckless again. They’d been halfhearted about condoms, and neither of them had seen fit to address it in any significant way. The one time he’d brought it up after a particularly rigorous night of lovemaking, she’d silenced him with a kiss, told him she didn’t want to worry about being safe anymore.
That she’d been worried about safety her whole life.
She reached for his thighs, pulled herself closer so the head of his shaft was pressed against her entrance.
He leaned over her and plunged his tongue into her mouth, felt the taste of her desire mingle with their kiss.
Through the Fire Page 3
