Violence did not ordinarily consume Nick’s life, not on the current scale. The Pagano Brothers had not become so powerful and stable for more than half a century by participating in shootouts on a regular basis. In fact, for at least the past twenty years, the bulk of their enterprises had been legitimate. They were majority or substantial owners of an array of businesses, from nightclubs to hotels, restaurants to tourist cruise boats.
Even off the books, Ben and Lorrie had always run mainly higher-class operations. They lent money, they offered women. They had been involved in gambling until its legal options had expanded to the point that the profit in their enterprise had dried up. But they had never involved themselves with drugs, and their involvement with guns had been strictly as buyer.
The Pagano Brothers’ primary off-the-books product was influence. Power. They knew the people who could get anything done, and they knew how to persuade them to do it. Very little happened of note in Rhode Island that the Paganos had not okayed. People paid handsomely for access to that power.
Over the long course of their work, they had built up and maintained solid relationships that reached into every corner of business and every branch of government. Ben never spoke of ‘owning’ anyone or having someone ‘in his pocket’; he understood the danger of that kind of smug complacency. He understood that a relationship was preferable to a transaction because it was more stable. People—district attorneys, judges, ranking government agents, police chiefs, councilmen, senators, whoever—felt a great deal less conflict about the thick envelope they’d accepted when they felt liked and respected by the man holding it out, and when they liked and respected him in return.
The Paganos also knew when the best transaction was a symbolic one. Not every engagement required a monetary price, or a difficult one. It was possible to come to Don Pagano for a favor and have the return on it be painless. This, too, engendered goodwill.
The Pagano Brothers and all the New England families had been largely unimpeded by law enforcement, even while crusaders in other parts of the country made news taking down big names, because they had the right people on their side, because they were seen as doing more good than bad, because their approach to even their dirty business was perceived as clean.
Like his father before him, Nick’s job was to bury the filth. From the time he was old enough to be groomed, his father had groomed him to take his place as family’s lead enforcer. Lorrie had been a good enforcer, feared and respected both, and he had carried the family through the difficult years of the late twentieth century, when attention on so-called organized crime was at a peak. He had taught his only living child the nuances of the work. He’d made him study anatomy, psychology, physiology. He’d made him, still in his teens, watch his most intense and gruesome works.
He’d steeled Nick’s stomach, iced his nerves, sharpened his senses, and expanded his mind.
But Lorrie had been a hothead and, in his younger years, a drunk. A violent drunk. He had made mistakes. He’d had deep regrets. He’d almost torn everything important to him into shreds. Until Ben had intervened decisively.
Nick had been groomed as much by his father’s failings as by his teachings. He did not lose his cool. He did not get drunk. And he did not regret.
To regret was to open the door to torment.
Nick did not regret.
He did not.
He knotted his tie, shrugged on his suit jacket, and went to his office. From a top drawer of his desk, he took out a flat velvet box. And then he left his apartment, nodded at Sam, and went down the hall.
Though he could and usually did simply walk into Beverly’s apartment, today he knocked. When she opened her door, her pretty brow was wrinkled. “Hi. Why’d you knock?”
Stepping in, he hooked his hand around her neck and kissed her. She was beautiful, dressed perfectly for the day in a simple black dress, sleeveless, with a stiff, knee-length skirt that flared out a little from her waist. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail.
“Donnie’s away today. I wanted to knock so you weren’t startled.” Donnie was working elsewhere on this day. Nick would have Beverly with him all day, so they only needed one guard.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. “Are you okay?”
“I’m always okay, bella.” He held her briefly, then kissed the top of her head and set her back. “I have something for you.” From the inside of his jacket, he pulled out the velvet box.
She cocked her head but didn’t take the box from him. “What’s that?”
“A gift.”
With a small, curious smile and a glint of uncertainty in her eyes, she took the box and pushed open the hinged lid. Inside, on a satin bed, was a necklace, a simple, gold chain with a pendant—a sun, its rays gold, its center made of diamonds.
“Oh, Nick. It’s beautiful.” She started to lift it out of the box, but he took the box from her and did it himself, then walked behind her. Knowing what he meant to do, she pulled her ponytail out of the way.
After he fastened the clasp at her nape, he pressed his lips there and then gently pulled her ponytail free of her grasp, letting it lie on her back again. Then he turned her to face him, and he kissed her softly. “Sei il mio sole,” he murmured.
He liked that she never asked him what the quiet Italian words he gave her meant. There was a naked kind of trust in her simple assumption that what he’d said was good. He was by no means fluent in the language of his forebears. He’d told her the truth—he could get by in Italy, but with a few exceptions, the things he could say well in Italian were things to say quietly, in passion, dark or light.
Beverly picked the pendant up from her chest and kissed it, a gesture Nick found powerful and sweet. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” She looked up at him. “But today?”
Nick had always enjoyed giving gifts to his women, usually jewelry. His enjoyment had been less about pleasing the woman, and more about the adornment of her. Seeing the small sun lying a few inches below Beverly’s throat, the image of her kissing it still vivid on his eyes, he felt something different.
“Today, yes. I need my sunshine.”
As she looked up at him and smiled, her eyes filled and swam with tears. Then she nodded and took his hand. “Okay. I’m here.”
He picked up her little handbag from the table by the door and handed it to her, and then he led her out of her apartment, and Sam escorted them to his best friend’s funeral.
~oOo~
Brian’s mother, Pauline, and a younger sister, Janet, were his only surviving family. The mourners at his funeral were all Pagano Brothers family. His mother wanted no visitation or vigil. The Mass was brief, the graveside service briefer still. Pauline stood between Janet and Nick and stared at the casket until it had been lowered into the ground. Then she turned abruptly on her heel and walked away.
Janet stayed behind, staring at Nick.
Nick squeezed Beverly’s hand. “Go with my mother, bella. I’ll meet you at the car.” He waved Matty and Donnie over. “Stay with them, both of you.”
Matty nodded and held out his hand to Beverly. “C’mon, ma’am.” Since it had become clear that she was Nick’s—today made it official—everyone called her ma’am. She always blushed, just a faint tinge, at that.
When they were alone at Brian’s open grave, Sam at a discreet but wary distance, Nick turned to Janet. “You have something to say, Janet.” He didn’t ask, he stated. It was obvious that she did. She’d been staring icily at him since he’d greeted her at the church.
She laughed without humor. “You always were super smart. Remember sitting around after school, eating pizza rolls and drinking 7Up and watching Jeopardy? Even back then, you knew most of the answers.” She laughed again, that same dry tone. “I had a wicked huge crush on you when we were kids. Longer than that, even.”
“I know.” Janet was four years younger. She’d been transparently fascinated by Nick from the time he was about sixteen.
“I know you know. You know everything. So I know you know this. Brian’s dead because of you.”
“No. Brian’s dead because of our enemies.” Nick would not carry that weight.
She scoffed. “Is that right. When he got hurt just a couple of weeks ago, that bomb thing—he was protecting you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. That was his job.” He would not carry that weight.
“His job. Your best friend’s job was to lay his life on the line for you. You used him like a shield. That’s what kind of friend you are. Is that how he died, too? Taking your bullet?”
“You don’t know our business. It’s not your business to know. When he died, Brian was where he wanted to be.” He would not carry that weight.
“Taking your heat.”
He would not carry it. He would not. “We’re all meeting at Uncle Ben’s. The car will take you and Pauline.”
“Thanks, but this is where I get off. Mom wants to go, though. She’s still drinking your Kool-Aid. You better take care of her. You’re all she’s got. She could care less about me.”
He knew Janet was overstating on that last point, but not by much. Janet had blamed Pauline for their father leaving, and the two had never repaired the rift it had caused. “You know I’ll take care of her, Janet. She’ll want for nothing. Same goes for you.”
“I don’t want your blood money, Nicky. I want you to rot in hell.” With that, Brian’s baby sister turned and walked across the cemetery, away from the rest of the mourners and the awaiting vehicles.
Nick watched her for a minute, and then he turned and stared down into Brian’s grave. He was tired, and he was impatient. He had lost much to Alvin Church. They all had. They had taken their share, as well, but the war was unending. Nick had come to agree with his uncle that taking Church out directly was the wrong play—it would only make a space for someone else to step in. They had to take Church’s infrastructure out first. It was the right strategy. But now that they had cut him off from his cartel supplier and closed off every pipeline Jackie Stone had managed, they had done crippling damage to that infrastructure.
He wanted to go for Church, and soon. He had retribution to carry out. His father and his best friend to avenge. His family to make safe. His world to balance.
He squatted down and tossed a handful of dirt into the grave. “See ya, bro.”
Then he dusted off his hands and stood, turning and walking away from thirty-eight years of friendship and the only person whose name was not Pagano who’d ever known what Nick’s father had once done. Or what Nick had then done.
As he and Sam walked up to the Town Car in which Beverly and his mother already sat, a white Explorer drove up and stopped. At his side, Sam drew. Every other soldier drew as well. Nick unbuttoned his suit jacket and waited.
The driver stepped out, his hands up, and opened the rear door. Alvin Church stepped out, and a dozen guns were aimed at his head.
With his hands up and a wide smile on his face, Church said, “I come in peace. I thought I’d have a word with Nick here.” He turned to Nick. “You and me have never been formally introduced.”
Even with his hands up, the disrespect was palpable—to show up here, after the burial of a man killed in their war, and after what he’d had done at Nick’s father’s funeral a few months before. “You’re not welcome here.”
“This cemetery is one of the few things in this little town you people don’t own. So I think I’m as welcome here as I want to be. I’d like a word. What do you people call it? Take a walk with me?”
Uncle Ben and Aunt Angie had already left, headed home in advance of their coming guests. Beverly and his mother were fewer than ten feet to his side, certainly watching all of this, at real risk if there was anyone else behind the blacked-out windows of that white Explorer. Nick closed his mind from that thought and focused on his enemy.
There would be no walk. There would be no talk. There was nothing to be gained by a détente with Alvin Church, even if that, in fact, was what he was after—and it might well be, since the Council had hurt his business badly that day in Connecticut. Never would the Paganos entertain business or pleasure with a man like Alvin Church. Under any circumstances.
“You disrespect us by coming here, to this place, on this day. I won’t walk with you. If you want to concede, then you can do it from where you stand. If not, then I will pay you respect you don’t deserve and allow you to leave now. Those are your choices—concede or leave. The third is that I blow your head off where you stand.”
Church laughed. “I’m disappointed. I thought maybe you, Nick, would be a forward thinker. But you guineas think you’re better than everybody because you get invited to have lunch with the Mayor.” He dropped his hands, and Nick’s right hand twitched, ready. “You remember this day, Pagano. You remember this chance you missed.”
He turned his back on Nick and went back to his truck. His driver let him in, and then they drove away.
Matty, who’d been standing at the side of the Town Car, drawn on Church like all the rest, now came over to Nick. “You okay, boss?”
Nick buttoned his jacket. “I want the guard doubled on all family—my cousins, my mother, my aunt, and Beverly.”
“We don’t have that kind of manpower, Nick. We’re stretched too far already.”
“Then call up reinforcements from the clubs. Men we know we can trust—get Jake on it. We can backfill the club security with new civilian hires.”
Matty nodded. “On it.” He trotted off, pulling his phone from his pocket as he did. Nick went to the Town Car and got into the back seat, where Beverly was sitting.
“Are you okay?” She asked before he’d even closed the door.
He leaned over and picked the sun up off her chest. Then he kissed her lightly. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Nicky?” His mother looked over the front seat.
“It’s fine, Ma. Nothing to worry about.” She nodded and faced front again. She’d been living this life a very long time.
Beverly, however, had not. Her hand clamped down on his fingers. “Nick.”
“Trust me, bella. Trust me.”
Her blue eyes burned into his. And then she relaxed and gave him a small smile. “I do.”
~oOo~
Almost immediately upon their arrival at Ben and Angie’s, Nick’s mother swept Beverly off to the kitchen with her. Nick kissed her hand and let her go, then found his uncle. As on the night of his father’s death, and again the night of his funeral, the Pagano Brothers administration set aside the rituals of mourning and sequestered themselves in Ben’s study.
Though Dom, Julie, and J.J. had all still been at the cemetery when Church visited, all three had been in their vehicles already and had not gotten out. So Nick briefed them all on his short exchange with Church, the threat with which it ended, and Nick’s order for increased security.
When he was finished, he looked straight at Ben. “We’ve hurt him, Uncle. We took out his primary associate. We cancelled supply on his primary product. We flushed out his attempt to buy out our shylocks. We have his perimeter. That was the plan. And he’s worried enough to come face to face with us. We have to strike now, before he gets with Ortega and fills the gaps we’ve made.”
The don was quiet for several seconds, and Nick felt the steady ticking of the mantle clock knocking at the base of his skull. He recognized the feeling as agitation, and he fought to reinforce the walls in his mind that kept him in control. He couldn’t think about his mother, or Beverly, or his father, or Brian, or what Janet had said at the side of his open grave. He could only think about the business. The fight. Strategy.
“You handled today well, Nick. You were right to send Church away, and you were right to take his threat seriously. But we need to close Ortega off before we take Church down. We have good intel from New York, but we have to tread carefully there. Our New York brothers don’t feel about drugs as we do. They have relationships of their own to pr
otect, with Ortega, even. We can exploit that to our advantage, if we’re careful. But if we strike too soon, then we could end up replacing a demon with the Devil himself. A few days, a couple of weeks at the most, and we can make our move.”
Nick clenched his fists and said nothing. Until he had this thrumming in his head under control, he wouldn’t speak.
Ben sat forward and folded his hands together on the desk blotter. “But we take his threat seriously, vague as it was. It was good to double security. I think we should—”
“Actually, don,” J.J. cut in, “we don’t have the men. With you and Nick and us, and Donna Pagano, and your brother’s children and their families, and the construction company, and Nick’s mother, and now his new comare, too, we’re stretched too far with one guard each. We don’t have the bodies to double it.”
Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) Page 16