Aria’s muscles were aching by the time she reached the last row of tools. She’d come to the garden early, running through each of the beds one last time to make sure they were prepped for winter. There was no sign of Mrs. O’Rourke, but she’d spent twenty minutes catching up with Horatio Rodriguez, the garden’s coordinator, talking about their plans for spring. Then it had been just her and the garden, and she’d retreated to the shed, taking her time cleaning and oiling the clippers and shears, the hoes and rakes. She’d worked slowly, using the time to replay her visit with Damian Cavallo the day before.

What she had done was dangerous — and not just for the obvious reasons. It was out of line for her to visit her brother’s enemy. Even more out of line to ask him for a favor.

But the real danger lay in her attraction to the man who was at this very moment working toward her brother’s downfall. That Primo probably deserved it did nothing to change the impossibility of anything happening between her and Damian.

She’d been woefully careless, downplaying the attraction she’d felt at the club as lust when it was too harmless a word to describe the way he stole her breath, the way her body pulsed with need when he was close, the urge to press herself against him that was a physical ache at her core.

By the time she’d realized her mistake it had been too late. He’d been standing impossibly close, holding her face in his hand, the anger behind his eyes only adding fuel to the fire raging in her body.

He was a dangerous man. At least as dangerous as Primo and Malcolm.

And yet the danger in Damian lay not in recklessness or unfettered fury but in his cold calculation. It was no wonder she was so turned on by him. If the piercing eyes and muscled perfection of his body was cake, the refuge of his reason was the icing.

“It’s not a good idea to be in a place like this alone when it’s getting dark.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin as the voice sounded behind her. It didn’t help to turn around and realize it had come from Damian Cavallo.

Her cheeks grew heated when she realized she’d been thinking about his body the whole time he’d probably been standing behind her. She turned her back to the workbench, oiling the already clean shears she’d been working on to hide her face.

“I come here alone all the time,” she said. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“I could argue that point, but we have more important matters to discuss.”

She turned around, sufficiently under control. “You made it clear we don’t.”

He was leaning against the door frame of the shed. She was glad his face was in shadow. She could feel the heat of his eyes on her face. Not having to stare into them was a small blessing.

“That was before yesterday. Before last night.”

She shook her head. “What happened last night?”

She’d gone back to the apartment after her meeting with him. Had ordered out and sequestered herself in her room, determined to avoid Primo and Malcolm. In the end it hadn’t mattered; Primo had come home well after she’d gone to bed. She’d found him passed out on the couch with a bottle of Vicodin open on the coffee table next to him.

“I’d like to ask you a question before I get into it,” Damian said.

She shrugged. “All right.”

“Yesterday you said you came to warn me,” he said. “What were you warning me about exactly?”

“I already told you. Primo doesn’t play by the rules. He has no honor code. Once he’s determined to hurt you, he’ll do anything to make it happen. Cross any line. And he is determined to hurt you,” she said.

She waited through a long pause for him to speak.

“He set fire to a women and children’s shelter last night,” he said.

She heard the words but couldn’t quite process them. “That doesn’t make sense. Primo wants to hurt you.”

He walked into the room and she was hit all over again with the power of his presence, the space seeming to recede behind him, as if there was no room for walls with him inside. He busied himself studying some of the tools she’d cleaned and put back on the wall.

“Some might say he did.”

“I don’t understand.”

He turned to look at her and she almost flinched. His face was all raw beauty — the chiseled jaw, the infinite eyes, the full mouth.

“The shelter is a bit of a… pet project of mine.”

She sensed weight behind his casual tone, but her curiosity was overshadowed by the possibility that Primo would do such a thing. That he would risk hurting innocent women and children as part of his war against Damian Cavallo.

“You think Primo did this to send a message?”

It was a question she almost didn’t want him to answer. Because what was she supposed to do with it once she had it? Her entire life depended on a certain level of oblivion. She hated to admit it to herself, but she had no choice in the face of Damian’s accusation. She didn’t want to know the details of her brother’s business.

Had never wanted to know.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” He hesitated, then added quietly. “The fire department has already determined it was arson.”

There was something gentle in the last sentence, and she understood that his hesitation had been for her. That he had been trying to find a way to break the news without being needlessly harsh.

Something like affection flooded her chest and she had to force herself not to go to him.

Not to reach up and hold his face in her hands.

Because there was no room for tenderness for Damian Cavallo. He wasn’t her family. Primo was, and she owed him her loyalty until Damian’s accusations had been proven.

“Primo wouldn’t do that,” she said.

He drew in a breath, and she sensed that he was losing patience. She almost held her breath through tension, felt the weight of Damian’s potential anger hovering over them like a storm cloud.

She was still waiting for him to speak when he crossed the room slowly toward her. She was backed up against the workbench she’d been using to clean the tools, but she felt no desire to escape when he stepped close enough to box her in.

He was right there, his body close enough that she could feel the heat of it. That she could smell him— warm bourbon and cedar and smoke. It was intoxicating, and she reached a hand behind her, bracing herself against the workbench both to keep herself from touching him and to ground herself in the here and now. To remind herself that she lived in the real world.

And the real world would never, ever let her touch him.

He stood over her, his eyes unreadable. There was a moment when she thought he might kiss her. When his gaze skimmed her face, landed on her lips, lingered there.

Then he spoke.

“Someday soon your desire to remain ignorant won’t absolve you of wrongdoing. I would prefer to keep you out of my war with Primo, but you’re running out of time.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew something, and she held her breath as he leaned toward her. His body was nearly covering hers, close enough that she felt the brush of his shirt against hers, his breath near her shoulder.

Close enough to make her want him.

She heard him set something down on the workbench behind her. He hesitated as he straightened, lingering near her collarbone. She was paralyzed, and not with fear.

Fear would have made sense. Fear would have been explainable.

But this… this lust storming her senses, her body, was anything but explainable.

He stepped back, putting a few more inches between them, and she sucked in air like she’d been underwater too long, hoping he couldn’t see the rise and fall of her chest, the flush she felt expanding across her face, the desire that had clouded her need for anything but him in the few seconds he’d been suspended over her body.

“That’s my card,” he said. “My personal number is on the back. Call me if you change your mind.”

She watched as he stepped through the doorway of the shed, disappearing into the twilight.