She’d had to resist the urge to claw at the smirk on his face as he’d lowered himself to the end of themattress.
“Why am I not surprised?” she’d saidinstead.
“You’ve never been stupid,”Malcolmsaid.
“What doyouwant?”
“Just paying you a little visit,” he said, reaching out to touch her cheek. “Are they treatingyouwell?”
She’d smacked his hand away. “Don’ttouchme.”
His smile had been slow and cold. “We’ll have plenty of time for thatlater.”
Her stomach had turned over. She’d become used to the guards who fed her and took her to the bathroom. Had grown somewhat secure in the fact that at least they weren’t going torapeher.
She hadn’t bargained forMalcolm.
She’d lifted her chin, determined not to let him know she was afraid. “Feel free to leave if you don’t have anything importanttosay.”
His hand came down across her face so fast she hardly had time to register it before her fingers went to the trickle of blood dripping from hersplitlip.
“You’re not going to be so high and mighty when I’m done with you,” he said, standing, a vengeful glint in his eyes. “Think about that,bella.”
It was the term of endearment Primo used for her when he was feeling kind, when their sibling bond was strong and unbroken by Malcolm’sinfluence.
“Primo is going to kill you when he finds out what you’ve done,” she’d said as he walked tothedoor.
He turned to look at her, and for a moment, she was almost sure she saw pity in his eyes. Then he started laughing. It echoed through her mind long after he’d stepped into the hall, long after she heard the key locking the doorbehindhim.
She’d seen him only one other time, and he’d said nothing about Primo. Instead, he’d asked her about Damian, about Damian’s operation, about his contact with the Syndicate. But beyond the day trip she and Damian had taken to visit Nico Vitale and his wife, Angel, in Italy, Aria didn’t know anything. Besides, she wasn’t going to say a word about the dark-eyed man who ran the Syndicate and the surprisingly warm, genuine woman who was the mother of hischild.
She was grateful Damian had sheltered her from the details of his effort to take over the New York territory. She’d taken a few backhands during the conversation with Malcolm for her unwillingness to be helpful, but she couldn’t have told him anything important even if she wanted to — and she didn’twantto.
She pulled her thoughts from the past and focused on the food in front of her. There was no telling how long it would be before she had fresh food again. She would eat and rest for awhile. Then she would force herself through the series of sit-ups, pushups, and calisthenics she did to pass the time and staystrong.
She savored the tang of the cheese, the warmth of the bread in her mouth. When she was finished, she set the tray on the floor and lay on the mattress. She grew drowsy, her thoughts turning, as always, toDamian.
She’d learned to live without a lot of things in the time she’d been in the room, but he was her most expensive luxury, her one remaining vice. Thinking of him would cost her. It would mean dreams so real that waking from them would crush her. It would mean nightmares so vivid she would wake up sweating, crying out for him as he lay bleeding on the terrace inCapri.
She would happily pay the price if it meant holding himclose.
She remembered him as he’d been the first time she saw him, the animal magnetism that had seeped from every pore in his body as his eyes met hers across the club inNewYork.
She’d known then he was noordinaryman.
She saw him when he’d touched her face for the first time, the day after Malcolm had hit her. There had been anger in his eyes, and a fierceness that had taken her bysurprise.
She remembered the way he’d looked when they’d made love on the boat off the coast of Capri, the moonlight turning his skin luminescent under her fingers. He’d told her about his father, about the cold and violent man who had hurt him and his mother. About the facade that had been required to maintain appearances suitable to a man of his father’s wealth and standing insociety.
It had made sense then, the reason a rich, educated man like Damian Cavallo would turn to organized crime. She’d understood why he would take the resources — both the money and the intelligence — he’d gained from his father and use it in a way that would have made his fatherashamed.
In Damian’s eyes, his work was more honest than the work done by his father, a well-connected financial trader who made his fortune buying and selling for wealthy investors. At first, Aria had thought he was rationalizing, but it had been hard to refute hislogic.
Most of all she remembered how she’d felt in hisarms:safe.
Safe and protected, like nothing in the world couldtouchher.
It was a feeling she’d never experienced, not before her parent’s death and certainly not after when Primo took over her guardianship. He’d tried. She knew he’d tried. But he was unstable, probably in need of medication and therapy to manage what her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology told her was a serious mentalillness.