Aria paced the apartment, lit only by the lights of the city beyond the big windows. It had been dark when she’d finally arrived home after pacing the city, Damian Cavallo’s words echoing in her mind.

He set fire to a women and children’s shelter last night.

She didn’t want to believe it. Had told herself she didn’t believe it.

But that was in the heat of the moment, the accusation fresh, the image of a burning building filled with women and children unformed in her mind. Hours walking had negated both of those things, the accusation seeming less far-fetched as the night wore on, the image replaying with horrifying clarity over and over again in her mind.

She’d used her phone to look up details of the fire, had read every article she could find on it, some of them twice. No one had been killed.

But they could have been.

There had been no mention of Damian in any of the articles, but more than one had cited a benefactor as having moved the women and children to an alternate location.

It had to be him.

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

There had been that briefest of hesitations, like he was trying to find an innocuous word to describe an interest that was obviously very personal to him. It was a mystery she would have to come back to later. Right now there was only Primo and the words she’d rehearsed in her mind as she’d walked the streets. Words that would force him to answer the question of whether he’d been involved in the fire at the shelter.

There was a possibility Malcolm would be with him. But while part of her felt anxious at the thought — the memory of his teeth sinking into her flesh, the bulge of his erection insinuating itself against her stomach — another part was almost looking forward to a confrontation.

She would order him to leave if she had to. This was her house. Hers and Primo’s. Most of the time she accepted the reality of the situation, understood that treading lightly around Primo was necessary for her survival.

More was at stake now, namely the survival of women and children already traumatized by abuse. Primo would answer for that to her. If it set him off, so be it.

The jangle of keys at the door pulled her attention away from the city spread out below. She turned her back to the window, watching a sliver of light leak into the foyer from the hall, listening as the door shut and Primo’s footsteps came closer.

He stopped at the entrance to the living room and flipped on the light, then blinked in surprise when he saw she’d been standing there the whole time.

“Ari, what are you doing in the dark?” he asked, moving toward the bar.

She’d been ready to face down Malcolm. Now she was almost sorry he wasn’t there. There would be no preamble. No warm-up to the question she would have to ask Primo.

“Did you do it?” she asked.

He walked to the bar against one wall, poured himself a drink. “Do what?”

“The fire at the Franklin Street shelter,” she said. “Did you do it?”

She had no expectations for his response. He could just as easily throw his glass across the room as he might answer her question calmly and rationally.

He did neither of those things. Instead he gazed at her dispassionately, like she was an equation he was trying to calculate.

A problem he couldn’t solve.

Finally he downed the drink and walked farther into the room, tracing his fingers along the back of the couch as he went.

“You’ve been a busy little bee, haven’t you, Ari?” he asked.

“I don’t have time for your games. Just tell me.”

Her voice was calm and she was glad she’d had time to down a couple drinks of her own before he’d gotten home.

“How would you know anything about anything?” He continued his patrol of the room, picking things up, studying them as if he’d never seen them before, putting them down. It set her on edge, and she held her breath with each object, wondering if this would be the one he would hurl in her direction.

“I know things, Primo,” she said. “Don’t let the fact that I keep quiet make you think I’m stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” he said. “You’re just selfish like the rest of us.”

“Selfish?”

He circled the room, made his way back to the bar where he poured himself another drink.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “We all want things.”

A bitter sigh escaped her mouth. “What have I ever wanted from you?”

“Safety, security, time to work in your little garden.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Ari. I’m not judging you. I want things too.”

His words sent a wave of shame through her body. He was right. She’d been a frightened adolescent when their parents had been killed. She hadn’t looked too closely at what Primo was doing because she hadn’t wanted to know. Knowing would mean she had to do something.

Would have to risk the little bit of safety she’d found since her parent’s death.

She'd opted for ignorance instead, but that ignorance didn’t absolve her. Not when it was intentional.

She crossed the room to stand in front of him. “You’re right, Primo. For a long time, I wanted those things. Needed them. I pretended not to know what you were doing for my own benefit. But I’m not pretending now. I want to know.”

A sly smile touched his lips and he narrowed his eyes, as if something new was dawning on him. “How would you know about the fire at the shelter?”

“Did you do it?”

“You’ve been talking to him.” His voice turned icy. “You’ve been talking to Cavallo.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re trying to change the subject.”

He grabbed her arm. “Are you a traitor, Ari? Are you a fucking traitor?”

His grip was like a vise biting into her skin. She forced herself not to wince. “Talking to someone doesn’t make me a traitor.”

She could have told him that Damian had come to see her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Couldn’t bring herself to say something that might compromise Damian’s position even though there was no reason she should have any loyalty to him.

Primo was right. She was a traitor.

“So you have been talking to him,” Primo said. “How dare you?”

“How dare you? How could you do it?” Her voice shook, emotion threatening to close her throat around the words. “How could you?”

“You have no idea what it means to build what I’ve built,” he said, his voice raising. “No idea what it means to protect it.”

She glared at him, the dam crumbling on the emotions she’d been holding in check. On all the things she’d wanted to say.

“I know that you’re a coward. A fucking coward who would sacrifice women and children just to win a pissing contest with a man we both know has more balls than you’ll ever have.”

The strike against her face came so quickly she didn’t register it at first. There was Primo, glaring at her, and then a sting spreading across her lip and cheek as everything else went numb.

He raised his hand again, hesitated.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “I already know what you are.”

He lowered his hand and she put her palms against his chest and shoved, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I’ll never forgive you for this, Primo. For any of it.”

She spun around, hurried for the door and grabbed her bag, barely able to see through the tears blurring her vision. She’d almost reached the door when she felt his hand close around her arm again. He spun her around to face him and she lashed out, tried to hit him, all her fury spilling over.

“Get your hands off me!”

“If you leave now you’re dead to me!” he bellowed. “Dead to me, Ari.”

She stopped with her hand on the door, her back to him. “You’ve been dead to me for a long time, Primo. I just didn’t know it until tonight.”

She opened the door and rushed into the hall before he could stop her again.