Aria poured two cups of coffee and watched Cole, tapping on his laptop at the table in the kitchen. Damian had gone up to shower after spending most of the night overseeing the operation to disrupt Primo's strategy with the Greeks.

She'd learned more about the business in the week they’d been back from Paris than she'd learned in all the years living with Primo. At first, Damian had been hesitant to include her in the details, but after she explained how important it was for her to have a sense of control over the life she was living — the life she was choosing — he’d loosened his reigns on the information.

She wasn’t surprised by the genius of his plan. He wasn’t a talker — he was a thinker. She was beginning to understand that his mind was like a state-of-the-art computer, constantly running scenarios and algorithms that were off the radar of most people — even most smart people.

It had been no accident that he’d built such a powerful presence in New York or that the Syndicate had chosen him to run it.

He was brilliant.

He and Cole had set up a cascading web of disruption that had started the morning before with an ATF raid on a container full of illegal weapons brought in by Anastos. It was followed with the detainment of several men on their way in from Greece, all of them suddenly on the no-fly list, thanks to Damian’s hackers, and the NYPD shakedown of low-level soldiers reporting to both Primo and Anastos.

Aria didn't feel bad about any of it. The weapons shouldn’t be in the States, the men were violent and indiscriminate criminals in their home country, and once Damian took over, the low-level soldiers would have to make a choice between serving Primo and Anastos or slinking quietly into the night anyway. They should thank him for getting them off the street before the war truly began tomorrow.

She took the coffee to the table and set one down in front of Cole. He tore his eyes away from the computer, surprise flashing across his features as she took the seat across from him.

He’d been in and out of the house since they arrived from Paris, and while Damian was never one to advertise his feelings, it was obvious Cole was more than an employee. Aria had become curious about the icy, blue-eyed man who was every bit as unreadable as the man she loved.

“How's it going?” Aria asked him.

He looked up, suspicion shading his eyes. “It’s going.”

She held his gaze. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

“Whether I like someone has little to do with anything,” he said.

She smiled. “I don’t think that’s true. Damian cares very much about your opinion.”

He leaned back in the chair. “Is that why you care whether I like you?”

“No,” she said. “Damian cares what you think — but not about me.”

There was no point blowing sunshine up Cole Grant’s ass. He would only lose respect for her and it wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway. Damian loved her like she loved him. Cole’s opinion wouldn’t change that for either of them.

His gaze sharpened, like he was seeing something he hadn’t seen before in her face. “You’re right there.”

“I’d just like to know for my own benefit,” she said. “Why you don’t like me, I mean.”

He shrugged. “I don’t dislike you, but you’re Primo Fiore’s sister — and in case you didn’t notice, we’re at war with Primo Fiore.”

“So you don’t trust me,” she said.

“Don’t take it personally,” he said, taking a drink of coffee. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“Except Damian.”

“Except Damian,” he agreed.

“Can I ask why?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have to ask?”

“I know why I trust him,” she said. “I want to know why you do.”

He hesitated. “I was just a bartender when I met Damian,” he said. “Didn’t think he was anything special at first, just another trust fund baby, slumming it to get his kicks.”

“What happened?” she asked. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and she couldn’t help wondering if he was only answering her questions because he feared Damian. Because he felt like she was somehow his boss by virtue of her relationship with Damian. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

“I know,” he said. “But I will.”

Touché.

“He started making plays I thought were mistakes,” Cole said. “Until I realized they weren’t. It was subtle at first, little things that didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme but that later turned out to be important. Moves on a chessboard no one could see but him.”

She thought about the plan to disrupt the preparations made by Fiore and Anastos. She couldn't speak to any of the other bosses, but if Primo had been in Damian’s position, the plan would have been all reckless force — shock and awe with no purpose other than to demonstrate his power.

Like the fire at the Franklin Street shelter.

“It made you respect him,” she said.

Cole seemed to think about it. “Before I met Damian, I was just a street thug like everyone else in my circle,” he said. “I begged, borrowed, and stole to get what I need. What I wanted. If someone said no, I beat the shit out of them until they said yes.”

She smiled a little. “Probably effective a lot of the time.”

He nodded. “But Damian showed me another way. He saw things in me I didn’t know were there, and because he saw them, I started to see them too.”

“He changed you,” she said.

Cole nodded.

“I know the feeling,” she said.

He sat up a little straighter, like he’d caught himself saying more than he’d intended and planned to rectify the mistake.

“Anyway, we started working together, developed a strategy for building an off-the-books operation using the same strategies businesses use to increase market share and revenue.” He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

“And it worked,” she said.

“You could say that.”

“You feel like you owe him,” she said.

He met her eyes. “If it wan’t for Damian I’d still be serving drinks in that shitty little dive bar, kicking the shit out of people and getting the shit kicked out of me to get by. So yeah, you could say I owe him.”

She nodded. “He respects you,” she said. “I can see it in his face, in the way he trusts you.”

Cole studied her. “He respects you too,” he said. “Trusts you.”

She smiled. “I guess that means we’re kind of stuck with each other, huh?”

She thought she caught the faintest of smiles at the corners of his mouth but it happened so fast she couldn’t be sure. He’d given her an anesthetized version of his life before Damian — she had a feeling it was a lot messier than he’d let on — but he’d already told her more than she deserved.

She pushed back from the table, picked up his empty coffee cup, and headed for the kitchen.

“Aria?”

She turned around. “Yeah?”

“Hurt him and I’ll kill you myself,” he said.

She met his eyes before resuming her path to the kitchen. “Ditto.”