Fourteen
Damian satbehind the wheel of the SUV, his eyes on the busy streets of Omonia. It was his fifth day in the city. Five days of ferry rides in from Kythnos, stepping into one waiting SUV at the ferry terminal in Athens while Locke and Derek stepped intoanother.
They’d gone their separate ways, canvassing every area of the city even remotely connected to Anastos’ operation — and they’d gottennowhere.
They’d had tips, more than one occasion when they thought they’d gotten a break in the form of a sighting, an alleged business partnership, a possible hit on Anastos’passport.
But it had all come tonothing.
There had been two more hits in New York — an explosion at one of Damian’s satellite offices outside of the city and the beating of two of hismen.
They’d survived, but it still pissed Damianoff.
He needed Cole in Greece to protect Aria, and if he sent Aria back to New York with Cole so his underboss could take command of the situation there, he’d have to worry about Aria being thousands of miles away fromhim.
Nowhere was he less inclined to entertain the idea than in Greece, where the memory of her imprisonment was around everycorner.
He was beyond grateful for the beautiful house on Kythnos, a refuge for Aria while she worked with Nora on finding Malcom. He wanted to punch someone every minute he was in Athens, and he wasn’t even the one who’d been kept prisonerthere.
He could never have subjected Aria to the memory ofit.
He scanned the street, marking the places that were worth trying a second time. Every day he was here, there was a greater chance he would be made by Anastos. How long would it be before word got out that someone was looking for him? Before he was dragged into some back alley or stuffed into acar?
He wasn’t worried about Anastos. Damian could take that lazy fucker alone. He could even take two or three of hismen.
But if they sent a team for him, it wouldn’t be thateasy.
He fucking hated that the bastard was eluding them using tactics he and the Syndicate had actively worked to banish from theirmodel.
It was a big, ironic fuck you from theuniverse.
He checked his weapon and stepped from the car. He was halfway down the street when someone called to him from a narrowalley.
“Mister!”
He followed the voice, saw a young woman standing in the shadows of the two buildings on either side of the alley, and looked around, thinking she was talking to someoneelse.
“Yes, you,” she said, waving him into the alley. “Come.”
This was shady as shit. Was Anastos using women to lure him out of the streetnow?
But that didn’t make sense either. He was on Anastos’ territory. If the other man wanted to kill him, he would have had one of his men shoot him on the street and no one would say a word to thepolice.
Hell, they wouldn’t even talk to Damian, and he was giving themmoney.
He rested his hand on his weapon as he headed for the alley, looking into the shadows beyond the young women to head off anambush.
It wasn’t until he was standing next to her that he realized why she looked familiar: she was the girl from the bakery, the one who had stood in the doorway and was shooed into the back when he’d been trying to bribe thebaker.
“I know where he is,” she said, her dark eyes shining as she looked around to make sure no one was listening orwatching.
“Stefano Anastos?” Damianasked.
She nodded. “I can tellyou.”
He nodded, his hand still on the gun in its holster. “Okay.”
She shook her head. “Moneyfirst.”