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23
Aria was sittingon the terrace next to the kitchen when Damian finally returned.
“Hello,” she said, feeling oddly shy. The last time she’d seen him his face had still been in shadow.
She’d spent the day wandering the beach, perusing the books on the shelves in the house, and napping on the big sofa. She’d picked up her phone twice, her fingers hovering over the voice mail button to check the messages from Primo, before she’d finally thrown it in the water. She didn’t know what she would do next, but she wasn’t ready to talk to him and she didn’t want to risk giving him a way to find her.
Damian walked to the fridge, removed two beers and made his way to the terrace. Stopping next to her, he leaned down, swept her mouth up in a kiss that surprised her with its tenderness. He handed her one of the beers.
“Hello.”
She took a drink of the beer, her mouth suddenly dry, words escaping her. What had she expected? That everything that had passed between them the night before would dissipate with the morning light?
It hadn’t. That much was clear both from the way her body responded to his kiss and the way he looked at her. The way he held out his hand when he sat in the chair next to her, closed it around hers when she met him halfway.
She looked over at him. “How bad is it?”
“Under control,” he said. “No casualties on our side yet. Primo and Malcolm are in hiding.”
She was surprised by the directness of his answer. She’d grown used to Primo’s hedging, the way he avoided telling her things in the name of protecting her when she was beginning to suspect it had more to do with protecting his own interests. It was unexpectedly refreshing to ask questions and get answers. She realized she had a lot of them.
“What about the police?” she asked.
“We have quite a few on our payroll,” Damian said. “I imagine Primo does as well. We can’t hold them off forever, but a few well-placed bribes mean they’re willing to look the other way until the heat from above gets too hot to handle.”
“What will happen to Primo when it’s over?” she asked.
He hesitated. “I don’t know. It depends on how he handles it at the end.”
“The end?”
“Primo’s organization will fall,” Damian said. “That’s a forgone conclusion. The only thing left to determine is how many resources I’ll have to call in to end it quickly. If it were just me, it might take longer, but with the backing of the Syndicate, I don’t expect it to last long.”
“Will you kill him?” she asked.
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
It was the first admission he’d made that she had sway over him. She didn’t know what to make of it. Wasn’t ready to further define her power and its limitations.
“What about me?”
“First you get rid of your cell phone,” he said.
“Already done.”
He reached into his pocket, handed her a phone. She recognized it as a burner phone that couldn’t be traced.
“Call Primo,” he said. “Tell him you’re safe and leaving the country, that he shouldn’t bother looking for you. You won’t be back until this is over.”
She laughed a little, tucked her legs up under her. “I’m not leaving the country.”
He met her gaze, his voice steely. “Yes, you are.”
She stood, walked to the edge of the terrace, crossed her arms over her body. “Fucking me doesn’t give you authority over me.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when he spun her around to face him, his hands firmly on her shoulders. “No, but the way I feel about you does. The city is on fire right now, Aria, and this isn’t far enough away for me to guarantee your safety.”
Her mind skipped over the first part of his sentence. She didn’t know what it meant, didn’t have the clarity of thought to figure it out, let alone to decipher the way she felt about him in return.
