Through the Fire

by Michelle St. James

  “Only Stefano gets to hurt his girls,” she said bitterly. “Is what he says.”

  Damian tried to suffocate the anger that sprang to life inside him. Watching his father abuse his mother hadn’t made Damian the most even-keeled person on the subject.

  He gave her the rest of the money. “Don’t tell anyone you talked to me.” He hesitated. “Wait a few days, then use this money to get out of here.”

  He hated the warning in his voice. Hated that women still needed those kinds of warnings. That humanity hadn’t moved past exploiting them.

  But he knew what happened to girls who stayed in places like Omonia, knew what happened to people who got caught snitching on someone like Stefano Anastos.

  She nodded and waved at the street beyond the alley. “You go.”

  He sauntered casually out of the alley like he might have been in there taking a leak, then hurried for the SUV, hoping the girl would wait a few minutes before she exited the alley behind him.

  When he got to the car, he pulled out his phone and called Locke.

  “I have a tip,” he said. “I think it’s good.”

  Fifteen

  Aria was arranging a platter of olives and feta when she felt arms slide around her waist. She turned her head and Damian nuzzled her neck.

  “I came to see if you needed help,” he said.

  She laughed. “Are you sure that’s why you came?”

  He grinned. “One of the reasons.”

  She touched her lips to his, letting his tongue slide into her mouth as his hands slid down her stomach, gathering the skirt of her dress in one hand and sliding the other between her thighs.

  Her head fell back against his shoulder as they moved upward, his lips setting fire to her neck. It took effort to playfully swat his hands away. She was already wet for him.

  Ready for him.

  She turned around and reached for the platter. “There are four hungry people on the terrace waiting for this food.” Her face felt flushed, her body fevered, just from a few seconds of his touch. “If you want to help you can take it out.”

  He grinned. “If you insist. Personally, I think they could wait a few minutes. Or hours.”

  “So can you,” she said, swatting his ass as he turned around.

  When he disappeared onto the terrace, she turned around and poured water from the faucet into a glass, hoping to cool herself down. She would have liked to blame her raging libido on her pregnancy, but it would have been a cop-out.

  She’d desperately wanted Damian since the moment she’d laid eyes on him. It hadn’t lessened an iota. She was beginning to resign herself to living in a constant state of arousal. Her only consolation was knowing he was suffering alongside her.

  “Can I help?” She turned to find Nora entering the kitchen from the terrace. “I think Damian meant to come back in but you know how they are — they get distracted when they’re around each other.”

  She laughed. It was true; if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought Damian and Cole had known Locke and Derek for ages. They’d become fast friends during the week they’d been in Greece, and Aria had delighted in watching Damian relax a little when they returned from Athens each day.

  Of course, tonight there was cause for celebration: they’d finally gotten what appeared to be a solid tip on Stefano Anastos’ whereabouts.

  “Absolutely.” Aria pointed to the eggplant she’d just taken out of the oven. “Want to arrange that on one of the platters?”

  “You got it.”

  Nora went to work and Aria continued stuffing the grape leaves she’d been working on when Damian had sidetracked her with his hands and mouth.

  Nora had only been there since that morning, but Aria had quickly grown used to her company. She was smart and straightforward, and while she didn’t have the same peaceful quality Aria had noted in Angel, Jenna, and Charlotte, Aria found her directness refreshing.

  Nora wasn’t part of the Syndicate, but from what Damian had said about Locke’s operation, it wasn’t very different; Locke’s targets were just more personal.

  That even Nora Murphy — an ex-FBI agent — could find a place for herself there was comforting. It made Aria think there would be room for her in the Syndicate even if she chose to engage more actively in the business than the Syndicate wives.

  And she would be engaged to some degree. Damian had been open with her about the business, looping her in on decisions about adding resources on the street and the various methods for protecting their assets from detection by law enforcement. She’d been surprised to find that she enjoyed the strategy of it all. In fact, she’d spent much of the evening thinking about the tip on Stefano Anastos’ whereabouts, contemplating the ways they might be able to breach what was surely significant protection around him.

  “Do you think this tip is a sure thing?” Aria asked Nora.

  “As sure as anything can be in this situation,” Nora said.

  “But they won’t really know until they get in, right?”

  “It’s always that way,” Nora said. “But we did pull video from a local street cam that showed Anastos going into the club a few days ago. None of the footage we found afterword showed him leaving, so it’s a safe assumption that he’s still holed up there.”

  “I guess it makes sense,” Aria said, wrapping the last grape leaf around a mixture of goat cheese, spinach, and herbs.

  “How so?” Nora asked, looking at Aria while she rinsed her hands.

  “If Stefano wanted to hunker down, he’d probably want a place where he had access to food, liquor and women,” Aria said. “Where better to get all of those things than a strip club?”

  Nora sighed. “No kidding. It’s like a giant Costco for men.”

  Aria laughed and glanced at the platter of eggplant. “Is that all set?”

  “Unless you want to do something fancy to it,” Nora said.

  “Fancy’s not really my style,” Aria said.

  Nora raised her hand for a high five. “Me, either.”

  Aria clapped her hand with a grin and they took the food onto the patio.

  The men were laughing and drinking beer at the long table that overlooked the water. They stood when Aria and Nora entered and hurried to relieve them of the platters of food.

  “What are the rest of you going to eat?” Damian joked as he set one of the platters down on the table.

  Laughter and ribbing ensued as Aria and Nora took seats around the table. Damian offered them beer or wine, then handed Nora a beer after Aria declined. She’d never been a drinker, but she couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before Damian asked about her lack of interest in even a glass of wine.

  She’d been reading up on her pregnancy in private, forgoing all the things that were said to be dangerous to their unborn baby. Coffee had been the hardest thing to limit, and while she was trying to make the conversion to herbal tea, she still couldn’t give up a cup of coffee in the mornings, especially when all her body wanted to do was sleep.

  The platters were passed around amid compliments to the chef. Damian held each plate of food, asking Aria what she wanted and dishing everything onto her plate. She wouldn’t even pretend she wasn’t getting used to being treated like a queen.

  It was pretty easy to get used to.

  The patio was lit with white lights strung on the lemon and fig trees, candles flickering on the long table. Every now and then, a breeze blew in off the water, scented with salt and the night-blooming jasmine that grew wild all over the island. Their soundtrack was laughter and the murmur of conversation, the distant rush of waves and the clink of glass as the men toasted with beer or ouzo.

  A deep flood of contentment filled her from the inside out, a swell of security that she hadn’t felt since she was a child. She didn’t know all of the people at the table well, but she would have sworn she was safe with every one of them.

  They were finishing up with fresh melon and honey when Derek looked at Nora.

&
nbsp; “Any word from Braden?”

  Aria knew Braden was Nora’s boyfriend, the other ex-FBI agent on Locke’s team.

  Nora shook her head. “I’m not worried. He can handle himself.”

  Damian looked questioningly at Locke.

  “He’s in Algeria on a recon mission,” Locke said.

  Damian lifted an eyebrow. “Algeria?”

  He didn’t have to anything else. Algeria had become one of the most dangerous countries on the planet in recent years.

  Locke nodded.

  “So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Cole asked.

  It had been nice to see him with the men during dinner. Over the past week, she’d come to think of him as a friend — it was bound to happen when you spent hours with someone — but she still felt bad that he’d had to play babysitter with her while everyone else had been working the streets of Athens.

  “I could try to get in,” Nora suggested. “Say I’m looking for a job.”

  “As a dancer?” Aria asked.

  Nora shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I went undercover.”

  “Braden would have my head on a platter,” Locke said. “And anyway, it will take too long to get you an interview. We need to strike fast. We don’t know how long Stefano will stay put.”

  Derek laughed and poured himself some ouzo. “Then I guess we need some singles.”

  “It’s the safest way in,” Locke said. “Derek and I pretend to be paying customers and keep an eye out for Anastos.” He looked at Damian. “Once we have eyes on him, we’ll send you and Cole the signal and you can storm the place.”

  “When do we go?” Cole asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Damian said. “We’ll get there between the lunch and after work rushes.”

  “Do you have comms equipment here?” Damian asked Locke.

  Locke poured them all more ouzo. “I have everything we need.”

  Damian lifted his glass, his gaze finding Aria’s through the candlelight. “To tomorrow. And to finally giving Anastos what he deserves."

  Sixteen

  Damian stepped from the shower and got dressed in the empty bedroom. He hadn’t expected Aria to be there when he finished showering. He’d gotten used to the fact that she would never remain asleep when he was leaving the house to risk his life.

  And he would almost always be risking his life when he left her.

  He would have preferred to see her sleeping in their bed, her face peaceful, the shadows of her long eyelashes playing on her cheeks.

  But if she couldn’t come with him, she would do whatever possible to be with him in solidarity — even if it was just to wake up and make coffee, let him hold her one more time before he walked out the door.

  The house was already beginning to lighten, the rising sun casting pillars of gold onto the tile floor when he made his way into the living room. Aria stood with her back to him as she poured two cups of coffee. He was going to sneak up on her from behind, pull her sleep-warm body into his and inhale her scent, but she turned toward him before he got there.

  She held out one of the cups. “Good morning.”

  He approached her slowly, took the coffee from her hand and set it on the counter before tucking her into his arms.

  “Good morning.”

  She smelled like fresh laundry and the sea.

  Like the love of his life.

  “Sleep well?” she asked, looking up him.

  He nodded and kissed her, then pulled back a little to look down at her face. “We’re always saying goodbye in the kitchen.”

  She smiled a little. “Not goodbye, Damian. Never goodbye.”

  He nodded. “You’ll be okay here with Nora?”

  She nodded. “Of course."

  They needed Cole in Athens. They had no idea what they were getting into with the strip club, but they had to assume it would be well fortified if Anastos was really hiding there.

  Nora had been a blessing in more ways than one. Her background with the FBI gave Damian an extra layer of confidence in her ability to look after Aria, although he knew Aira would balk if he said it out loud.

  In her eyes, she was more than capable of taking care of herself, and while he didn’t refute her skill with a weapon or her courage, he knew that practice was often different from real life. He’d known expert marksmen who had hesitated a moment too long when under fire, had known women highly trained in martial arts who had become so paralyzed during an assault they couldn’t scream, let alone execute the movements that would have fended off their attacker.

  Aria had proven her willingness to risk her life for his, but it was impossible to know how she would react under direct attack until it happened. Response was forged in the fire of experience, and he had no desire to see Aria tested that way. He wasn’t a praying man, but if he were, he would have asked that he never find out what she was capable of.

  Nora had been field trained and tested by the Bureau, had been working with Locke’s outfit for the last year. She wasn’t Cole, but she was a solid second choice for protecting Aria.

  ‘Will you text or call when it’s done?” Aria asked.

  She would want to know he was safe — and then she would want to know if Anastos was dead.

  “You’ll be the first to know,” he said.

  There were a thousand questions in her eyes as she looked up at him. A thousand reassurances she needed but wouldn’t ask for.

  This was their life. They were both getting used to it.

  Damian to worrying about her, to remembering in a panic that he had something precious to lose.

  Aria to kissing him goodbye, knowing he might find himself under fire, that he might not come home to her.

  She wrapped her arms around him and lay her head on his chest.

  “I love you.”

  He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, too.”

  The front door closed and Locke stepped into the house. Damian had no idea where he’d been; it was barely eight a.m.

  “Time to go,” Locke said.

  Damian bent his head to kiss Aria, lingering a split second over her lips before stepping away.

  “See you tonight.”

  She smiled. “See you tonight.”

  He was following Locke through the front door when she spoke again.

  “Damian?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get him.”

  He nodded and closed the door behind him.

  Seventeen

  Aria spent the morning reviewing some of the data she and Nora had compiled on Malcolm while Nora touched base with her contacts at the Bureau. They didn’t know Malcolm’s exact location, but Aria had gotten word from a former associate of Primo’s that Malcolm had been in an underground gambling club three days earlier, and the FBI had spotted him talking to a surveillance subject a week ago outside a deli in Queens.

  It wasn’t irrefutable proof he was still in New York, but it was something.

  She tried not to think about Damian. Tried not to think about what might be happening at the strip club in Athens while she was puttering around the house on Kythnos.

  She told herself it was good practice, that she wouldn’t always be with Damian when he was in danger. After their child was born, she would rarely be with him when he was in danger.

  She’d be lucky if he let her go to the grocery store without security.

  It was close to noon when Nora found her on the patio, staring blankly at the computer.

  “How’s it going?” she asked Aria.

  “Nothing new,” Aria said. “You?”

  “Maybe.”

  Aria had gotten used to Nora’s cryptic replies. It was probably part of her FBI training — Evasive Response 101.

  Nora looked a little more closely at her. “I think it’s time for some sun,” she said. “What do you say?”

  “Beach or pool?” Aria asked.

  Nora scoffed. “Do you have to ask?”

  Aria laughed. She’d lea
rned that Nora was originally from Boston, but she’d become a California girl through and through.

  “I’ll pack some food,” Aria said.

  Nora grinned. “I’ll get the wine.”

  Aria closed the computer and stood to stretch before heading for the kitchen amid a silent prayer of gratitude for Nora Murphy.

  Aria had no doubt Nora would have been happy to stay at the house, working her contacts at the Bureau and reviewing the intel they’d already gone over more than once.

  She’d suggested the beach for Aria’s sake, to get Aria’s mind off the operation now under way in Athens, and she’d done it without making Aria feel like a neurotic 50s housewife.

  Aria hoped she would someday be as competent and strong.

  She rummaged through the fridge and cupboard for snacks, throwing goat cheese, crackers, olives, and a few dates into a picnic basket. If all went well, she would be on her way back to New York soon. She might as well enjoy the fresh, local food while she could.

  Nora returned to the kitchen wearing a black bikini and carrying a bottle of wine. She held it out to Aria.

  “How’s this?”

  Aria looked at the label absently. “I probably won’t have any, but it looks good.”

  Nora’s gaze was shrewd. “How far along?”

  Aria wrapped the wine in a cloth napkin and nestled it in the basket with shaking hands. “Almost three months.” She met Nora’s gaze. “Is it that obvious?”

  Nora laughed. “Not to the guys, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Aria breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I take it Damian doesn’t know?” Nora asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t blame you,” Nora said. “He’d probably have you under lock and key if he knew. They all would.”

  “All?”

  Nora waved a hand in the air. “Damian, Braden, Locke… they’re cut from the same cloth.”

  She tucked a gun into the basket, picked it up, and headed for the door.

  Aria grabbed her towel and followed. “Are you saying they’re sexist?”