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2
Damian Cavallo had almost clearedthe lobby of his Tribeca office when a voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Mr. Cavallo! Wait!”
He turned to find his assistant, Amanda Sherman, hurrying toward him with a folder in her hands. She was young and beautiful with lively eyes and curves in all the right places. She was also his employee, a boundary he would never cross. Relative strangers were a far safer choice, and the city was full of women happy to oblige him when the need arose.
“I’m sorry to catch you on your way out,” she said. “I thought you’d want to see this.”
He took the folder and flipped it open. The financial report was short. It took him less than a minute to see the problem. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Would you like me to print a check?” she asked. “I could have it sent by messenger.”
“No, thank you.” He headed for the elevator. “Goodnight, Miss Sherman.”
“Mr. Cavallo?”
He turned wearily to face her. “Yes, Miss Sherman?”
Her porcelain skin turned pink at the cheeks. “I… I just wanted to say I think it’s wonderful what you do for them. I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but it’s just so generous and — ”
He cut her off. “We’re a charitable foundation Miss Sherman. It’s what we do.”
He hurried for the elevator, anxious to draw the interaction to a close. He didn’t want to make small talk, didn’t want to demonstrate careful modesty or see the embarrassment on her face when she realized she’d spoken out of turn. It wasn’t her fault. Although she was only a few years younger than him, she belonged to a new group of young people to which he didn’t relate. They shared everything, not only with each other but with perfect strangers.
He, on the other hand, shared nothing with no one.
He gazed dispassionately at his reflection in the mirrored interior of the elevator. He was passably good looking. Tall and broad shouldered, all his features in the right place, a full head of dark hair. He could satisfy someone like Amanda Sherman. Could eventually marry a woman like her, have children.
The idea didn’t appeal to him at all.
Better to seek release in that other hallmark of his generation: the hookup. No commitment, no expectation. Even better, first names often sufficed, allowing him to be just another horny bachelor instead of heir to the Cavallo Financial empire and its corresponding charitable foundation. He would be a disappointment to women seeking something meaningful anyway. They would want things.
Normalcy. Comfort. Love.
All things he couldn’t deliver.
He looked up as the elevator continued past the floors holding the less legitimate aspects of his enterprise.
The data lab on the ninth floor where they ran background on corrupt politicians ripe for blackmail and hacked into the intellectual property of certain companies to earn an off-the-books check from their competitors.
The gym on the sixth floor where his men engaged in mandatory martial arts and MMA training.
The medical suites on the fifth floor used to treat men who had injuries that might lead to uncomfortable questions at a traditional hospital or clinic.
The security offices on the fourth floor that housed all the cameras monitoring the building inside and out from every angle, plus a weapons cache in a hidden vault.
It was a self-contained fortress disguised as a refurbished apartment building from the 1920s. The neighborhood had grown up around it — “gentrified” was the word — and the building now sat in the shadows of Tribeca’s modern skyscrapers.
It suited his purposes perfectly. By using the legitimate work of his late mother’s charitable foundation as a front for riskier forms of revenue, much of which was funneled into the foundation anyway, he was able to conduct Cavallo Foundation business and run the criminal empire that was making him even richer — all from the same location. It was a long way from the Financial District and the offices of Cavallo Financial, his dead father’s tribute to corruption in the name of capitalism.
Which was basically the point.
Damian’s position as CEO of the Foundation was the only thing he’d inherited that was of interest to him. In the five years since his mother died of cancer, he’d shuffled the Foundation’s portfolio, insuring that over half their beneficiaries were domestic violence programs and shelters, after-school programs for at-risk children, educational grants for single mothers, and substance abuse programs.
It wouldn’t change the life his mother had led before the death of his father — the wrath she’d endured on a daily basis, the front she’d had to maintain as the wife of Vincent Cavallo (everyone knew domestic violence didn’t happen to people like them), the bruises she’d hid with carefully applied layers of makeup.
But it was something.
