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“Are you going to do it?” he asked. “Merge with the Syndicate?”
““There’s a case to be made for it, but I want to see how things shake out with Fiore.” He met Cole's eyes. “Do you have thoughts you’d like to share on the matter?”
“Not my place,” Cole said without hesitation.
“No,” Damian said. “But I’m asking.”
Cole took one of the oysters, washed it down with a drink of wine.
“We could benefit from their resources,” he said.
“But?”
He shrugged. “I’d need to know more of the details. What would it mean for us organizationally? How much authority would they have over our operation? How much would it eat into our profits?”
They were all questions Damian had wondered about in the days since his visit from Farrell Black — all except the last one. He had more money than he could ever spend in one lifetime.
But he understood Cole’s concern. He hadn’t come from money like Damian, didn’t have the luxury of assuming there would always be plenty. Damian paid him well — overpaid him if the truth were known — but he knew as well as anyone that a man was haunted most by the things he’d never had.
“I’ll get the details before I make a decision,” Damian said. “And you know I’ll see that you’re taken care of either way.”
Cole shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”
Damian put down his fork. “We started this together. We’ll see it through together.”
“Should we start making preparations in case Fiore declines the buyout?”
Damian wasn’t surprised by the sudden change of subject. Neither of them were the touchy-feely type.
“Not necessary. I have some things in the works.” Damian didn’t expect Fiore to take them up on their offer of a buyout. Not with Gatti pulling the strings. “Let’s see how the meeting pans out.”
“Will the girl become collateral damage?”
Damian thought about it. A sister had turned up in his background of Fiore. By all accounts she was on the fringes of the organization — raised by Primo after their parents were killed in a fire, majored in psychology, volunteered in one of the city’s community gardens.
“We’ll try to keep her out of it,” Damian said.
It was impossible to think of anyone’s family as collateral damage in a turf war, but Aria Fiore was an adult. Her decision to live with her brother, to maintain ties to him in spite of his work, spoke volumes.
Aria Fiore was no innocent. They would try to spare her.
But there were no guarantees.
