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Aria rana butter knife around the edge of the flower pot and tipped it on its side, gently maneuvering the tiny tomato plant out of it. She loosened the soil around the roots and set it into the slightly larger pot she’d prepared in advance. Then she sprinkled a little more soil on top and pressed it gently in around the stem, placing it next to the others she’d done thatmorning.
She leaned her hands on the potting table and lifted her eyes to the field beyond the greenhouse. It was early March and spring seemed further away than ever, the ground white and hard in every direction, but she could already see the big gardens she’d plotted on paper as they would look once they’d been dug and planted beyond theglass.
She loved the greenhouse. It had been a refuge during the weeks since Primo’s death, the warm soil a soothing counterpoint to the hours she spent in the basement firing range with cold steel between her hands. She’d planted dozens and dozens of seedlings: tomatoes and cucumbers, zucchini and lettuce, peppers and eggplant. There were strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, and an assortment of flowers she would plant in her cutting garden. She wanted to fill the old Westchester house with sun and fresh air for Damian, with flowers andlove.
After they kill Malcolm Gatti and Stefano Anastos, ofcourse.
But a much as she loved the greenhouse, it would never be a substitute for gardening outside, for sinking her hands into earth warmed by the sun. The gardens she planned — a large cutting garden and an even larger kitchen garden — were ambitious undertakings for a single year, but Damian had promised her all the help she would need to turn her dream into areality.
They would never be able to eat everything she’d planted, but she’d already spoken to Carol Lewis, the director at the domestic violence shelter that was Damian’s favorite philanthropic project, about setting up a program to ensure the delivery of fresh produce to the shelter’s new location in Greenwich. Anything extra would be given to the single mothers who had left the shelter and were struggling to rebuild theirlives.
Her hand went to her stomach. It was still flat, although there were other changes in her body she had been worried would alert Damian to her pregnancy. It had been a relief to hear him attribute her fuller breasts, her glowing skin and lustrous hair, to the weeks she’d spent recuperating since the shooting at Velvet, the nightclub that had been her brother’sheadquarters.
It still hurt to think of him. She’d gotten used to the fact of Primo’s death, the intellectual truth of it. But thinking of him made her feel like someone was excavating a fresh wound in her heart. She was tormented equally by the memories of him as a child — of them together as children — and the ones of him as aman.
A man who had set fire to the Franklin Street Shelter, who had risked the lives of the women and children there to send a message toDamian.
A man who had sanctioned her kidnapping at the hands of Malcolm and theGreeks.
A man who been willing to trade her to soothe his woundedpride.
He hadn’t been well. He’d never beenwell.
The fact of it didn’t ease her pain — pain that was heightened by the fact that he’d died alone. That after all Primo had done for him, Malcolm had run when Primo really neededhim.
She knew it was more complicated than that. Knew that if Malcolm had stayed, more people may havedied.
Maybe evenDamian.
But she couldn’t forget the pain in Primo’s eyes as Malcolm left himbehind.
She missed Primo as he’d been before Malcolm, missed him as he was when he was kind and gentle, when he called her “bella” and stroked her hair, but she felt guilty for being relieved that he was gone when she thought about the other Primo, the one who would rage at the smallest perceived slight. Her child would never have been safe with him in theworld.
It was a complex mess of emotion she couldn’t begin tountangle.
One thing she did know was that she wouldn’t be able to hide her pregnancy from Damian forever. She’d been lucky that her morning sickness had been mild, that she’d had the recovery of her gunshot wound to blame when she slept too much and wanted nothing more than to spend her days and night safely ensconced in the house withDamian.
That excuse wouldn’t last much longer. Eventually her stomach would swell and her condition would be undeniable. She felt alternately giddy and determined by the revelation, the thought of being a mother filling her with the kind of hope for the future that she hadn’t felt since she was a child. The idea of telling Damian, of seeing the happiness in his eyes, feeling his big hand on her belly as he waited for their baby to move, made it difficult to keep hersecret.
Then she would remember Malcolm andStefano.
She knew Damian and the leaders of the Syndicate were working to finish off the pockets of rebellion that were preventing Damian’s takeover from being an unmitigated success. He’d been open with her about the obstacles in their way, about the beatings of their men and the thefts of their money, the explosion that had demolished one of the Syndicate’s book making operations in Brooklyn. To his credit, he’d been equally open about the strategies he was using to remove those obstacles, but taking out the low-level players wasn’tenough.
She wanted Malcolm and Stefano dead and she wanted to see it — preferably do it —herself.
It was easier said than done. She’d heard Damian talking to Cole and Farrell about the difficulty of formatting a strategy when their enemy’s movements didn’t seem to have any rhyme orreason.
And that was only one of theproblems.
According to Damian, Malcolm and Stefano had gone dark. Even with the combined capabilities of Damian’s and Christophe’s cyber labs, they hadn’t been able to detect any digital communications to shed light on the plans or location of the high-profile players pulling strings on the otherside.
Aria had done her best to help, pouring over the reports that were submitted to Damian by Cole while Damian was at work. She hadn’t really expected to come up with an answer. Damian’s mind was like a supercomputer; if he couldn’t find reason in the madness, she wasn’t naive enough to think she could doit.
Still, it was frustrating. She was only a little over two months pregnant, but she was anxious to put the past behind them. To truly move into the future with Damian and their child, to build a home for them inWestchester.
To rule New York at Damian’sside.
