Damian spun on the balls of his feet, kicking the heavy bag as he worked the knife in his hand against an imaginary opponent. He dodged the bag as it swung from the kick, imagining it was one of Anastos’s men standing between him and Aria. He threw the knife from one hand to the other and spun it, burying it into the bag without thinking.

It was no longer an inanimate object, not a heavy bag hanging from a hook but a living, breathing man who might have hurt Aria, who was trying to keep her from Damian.

He slid the knife into it again and again, seeing a wash of red behind his eyelids, needing only the release of fists and feet and weapons sinking into flesh.

Even pretend flesh would do.

By the time he was done, sand was pouring onto the floor under the bag, seeping from the cuts Damian had delivered as he worked against the moves of the opponent in his head.

He watched the bag swing, the sand marking the floor of the gym as it swung slower and slower on its hook. Finally, it stopped and he crossed the gym to a table lined with weapons.

He let his gaze scan the knives and throwing stars, the nunchucks and claws. His tastes had grown more exotic in the month since he’d checked himself out of the hospital. He’d always liked fighting. Had always found release in the physical exertion required to hurt an opponent, in the satisfaction of knowing he had prevailed, but in the past he’d relied on garden-variety methodology: MMA, boxing, an assortment of knives, guns when required.

His fixation on exotic weapons had become an obsession, yet another way to imagine himself destroying the men who had taken Aria from him.

Who had kept her for nearly two months.

And Primo Fiore was at the top of his list.

Damian had to resist the urge to return to the heavy bag as he thought about Aria’s brother. He sheathed the knife instead. It was too late. He was due at the Westchester Airport in under two hours to board the private jet to Tanagra, Greece.

To get Aria.

He would store his rage instead, save it for the men who held Aria captive.

Sweat was dripping from his bare torso, and he reached for a towel on his way out of the gym, hit the lights, and started up the stairs to the main floor.

His thoughts returned to Primo. At first, he hadn’t been sure Aria’s brother had known about the plan to kidnap her. Primo was well known to be unstable, gossip that had been backed up by Aria once Damian had come to know her. Primo built the second most powerful organization in New York on the back of his madness — he was unpredictable and therefore dangerous — and in the vacuum of leadership by the Syndicate after Raneiro Donati’s death.

But Primo wasn’t smart enough to realize those were conditions that had since changed. When Damian approached him on behalf of the Syndicate with an offer to buy out his New York interests, the other man had not only balked, he’d come after Damian, setting fire to the Franklin Street Women’s Shelter, Damian’s pet project.

Those actions had been stupid, but allowing an animal like Stefano Anastos to kidnap his sister on the island of Capri would be pure evil.

Damian had wanted to believe that Primo wouldn’t put Aria’s life in the hands of someone like Stefano. He’d hoped and prayed Primo had been oblivious to the plans, that they had been executed by Malcolm Gatti instead.

That hope had died when his hackers had uncovered correspondence between Primo and Malcolm discussing plans to bring Anastos in on the New York operation — in exchange for kidnapping Aria and helping to eliminate the threat posed by the Syndicate.

That meant Primo would have to pay like the rest of them.

Damian closed the door to the underground level of the house, locked it, and made his way down the main hall of his estate in Westchester with the towel draped around his neck. The house was quiet and he looked into the rooms as he passed — the vast two-story library packed with every book imaginable, the expansive kitchen where he'd taken to eating standing up after his time in the gym, the study where he slept on the sofa, afraid to sleep too deeply for fear of the nightmares that haunted him.

He’d taken to indulging in fantasies about bringing Aria back to the house. Of seeing her curled up in a chair in the library, reading a book, watching her make tea in the kitchen, looking up to find her in the door of his study.

Most of all he wanted to show her the big greenhouse and he’d spent the month since he’d gotten out of the hospital working to restore it, moving it to the top of his restoration projects.

Aria would find refuge there when he got her out of Greece. The community garden that had been her safe haven before Damian had moved to take over her brother’s territory was closed for the winter, but here she could grow anything she liked even in the dead of winter.

He paused in the doorway of the glass-walled room, imagining her sinking her hands into dark, rich soil, a smile playing on her lush mouth, her hair falling over her face, streaks of burgundy catching the light as she worked.

His heart clutched in his chest and he turned away from the room, started up the back staircase to the master suite. He couldn’t afford to be sentimental. He only had room for useful emotions, and the only useful emotions were rage and determination.

It was a familiar mantra, one that had gotten him through Christmas. The Syndicate’s leaders had all extended invitations to him for the holiday, but accepting was unthinkable.

He didn’t know what Aria was going through. Allowing himself even a small amount of peace wasn’t possible until he knew she safe.

He’d had the ingredients for a lavish feast sent to the Franklin Street shelter’s new location in Greenwich and instructed Cole to deliver gifts for the women and children. Then he’d spent the holiday alone in Westchester, drinking and reviewing the data on Anastos’s holdings in Greece.

It had been a relief to welcome January. To know everyone else’s focus was back on Aria’s rescue.

He entered the master suite and continued into the bathroom where he ran a hot shower. When the bathroom was filled with steam, he stepped under the water and soaped up. He kept his mind on the mission ahead — the timeline, the plans, the equipment — forcing himself not to think of Aria as the water sluiced off his body.

It was easier when he was working, separated from the world by the armor of his clothes and his mission. In the shower he was naked and vulnerable, the memories of Aria’s skin sliding against his own, her hands roaming his body as her lips opened to him, too close.

Too close and too vivid.

It was the same at night when he tried to sleep, every muscle aching for her, the memory of her in his arms, her hair splayed across the pillow as he joined his body to hers.

It was unbearable.

Then came the nightmares to remind him what unbearable truly was. Then he saw the things Anastos and his men might be doing to her. He saw the mean glint in Malcolm Gatti’s eyes the day he’d first met him at Primo’s club in the city, the way the other man had looked at Aria when he’d grabbed her wrist.

Damian forced the thoughts away and turned off the shower, dried off his body and wrapped the towel around his waist. Pulling a duffel bag from the closet, he threw in his shaving kit and a couple changes of clothes for Greece and turned to the red shopping bag on the floor of his bedroom.

He picked it up and moved to put it in the duffel, then hesitated and set it on the bed. It took him a full minute to screw up the courage to look inside.

He’d asked his underboss, Cole Grant, to choose things for Aria, not trusting himself to do the job. It’s not that Damian didn’t want to shop for Aria — hell, there was nothing he wanted more than to shower her with anything and everything she ever wanted.

But entering stores to choose clothes for her felt arrogant.

Like a jinx on their chances of getting her out of Athens alive.

She’s alive…

And she was. Damian knew it. He would have known it even if there hadn’t been indications based on the supplies being brought into the apartment in Omonoia.

He felt it in his bones.

Shopping for her felt indulgent, like he was challenging the universe to a duel, and while he’d never hesitated to challenge the universe to a duel in the past, he wasn’t about to do it this time.

Not with Aria’s life hanging in the balance.

Which was why he’d asked Cole to choose things for Aria to wear after they got her out of Athens. Damian had no idea what condition she’d be in — he hadn’t allowed him to consider any other possibility than her return to him safe and whole — but she would need clothes that didn’t have the stink of Anastos on them.

He reached into the bag, removed a pair of soft velvet trousers with drawstring at the ankles, a silky scarlet blouse. He held the blouse to his nose without thinking, realized it didn’t smell like her and shoved everything back in the bag.

He folded it over and nestled into his duffel, not allowing himself to think too hard abut the moment he would remove it, the moment he would have Aria back in his arms.

When he was done, he moved the duffel to the floor and pulled on a pair of jeans, then walked to the bar in his room and poured himself a double shot of whiskey. He sank into one of the chairs by the window and took a drink of the amber liquid.

The images of her came fast and hard. The morning light shining on her sleeping face, the way she tipped her head back when she laughed, the shine in her eyes when she teased him, the moonlight casting diamonds onto her skin as she dived off the boat in the Mediterranean during a late night swim.

He took another drink and let himself relive every moment. He lingered on every detail, let the ache of missing her settle into his bones. When it was more than he could bear, he sat with it a moment longer.

Then he finished dressing, grabbed his bag, and left the house, promising himself that the next time he returned to it, she would be by his side.

Whatever it took.