The Name of Honor

by Susan Fanetti

  These men, she didn’t worry about. These were Pagano men.

  ~oOo~

  As Giada walked to the door, she had a moment of uncharacteristic insecurity. All her life, she’d been careful with her appearance. It was one of the first lessons her mother had taught her, and the most lasting: the saying that ‘clothes make the man’ was doubly true for women. A woman could not make a mark until and unless she was noticed, and she would be indelibly marked by the first impression.

  Her mother had trained her to know how to dress for any occasion, to understand the rhetoric of her sartorial choices. Like her mother, Giada always dressed like a woman who didn’t merely deserve respect but had earned it. She wore her wealth and status, her success, and dressed like the professional businesswoman she was. Labels mattered, because labels described more than the merchandise. A good wardrobe, good style, was a woman’s suit of armor.

  To work today, she’d worn Ferragamo pumps and belt, a Dior skirt and blouse, Tiffany jewelry, and her favorite Birkin bag. Now she was in nameless yoga pants and a Harvard tourist sweatshirt. Even the down vest was generic.

  All of her armor was stuffed into a duffel bag on the back seat of Leanna’s Camry, and she was about to meet the most powerful don on the New England Council dressed like a harried soccer mom.

  That vulnerability put a stutter in her step. But only one.

  A large man in a dark suit—her whole world was composed of large men in dark suits—opened the door from the inside before she reached for the handle.

  “This way, Ms. Sacco.”

  He held the door, and she pushed past his broad body, into a nondescript, aggressively beige office. From the little lobby and reception area, she couldn’t tell what kind of work normally happened here, but it did appear to be a going concern. At least on days when Don Pagano hadn’t cleared the joint out for clandestine meetings with co-conspirators.

  She followed the guard down an equally bland hallway, to a closed office door. He rapped once on it, and the word “Come,” in Nick’s deep voice, pushed through the flimsy hollow-core. The guard opened the door, and Giada walked into a small, dull conference room. The vertical blinds had been drawn tight, and only the fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling illuminated the space.

  What a dreary place to meet with the don. She knew the kind of meetings the Council had—elaborate meals served by beautiful women and prepared by top-notch chefs, elegant tables surrounded by lushly padded seats, excellent booze. The emotional part of her wanted to be offended to meet in this drab place, but Giada’s intellect understood. She was sneaking. Conspiring. She was betraying her family, upending her father’s wishes. More than that, she meant to flick her chin at the traditions of their world. And she had come to Providence to seek the aid of a king.

  Of course they were meeting in an invisible place. Of course she was dressed like an invisible woman. That was the fucking point.

  If they were successful, she would have her time at the elegant tables with the excellent meals.

  Whether the old men wanted her there or not.

  Nick Pagano stood in the room. She’d seen him twice before since he’d been shot and nearly killed last summer, but the change in him still shocked her. He was older than her by a generation, but she’d never thought of him as old until these past few months. He was an exceptionally handsome man, even now, and his strength seemed restored—his back was straight and his shoulders broad and square, and he filled out his suit well. But he was paler than she’d ever known him to be, and his hair had gone fully grey. For the first time in her knowing, he looked his age, and that age was not far from seventy.

  Her father had, like Nick, become a father later in his life. He’d been ninety-two when he’d been killed, leaving two children in their forties. In his last years, his health had dwindled. When he’d been shot, a hit on the street in broad daylight, there hadn’t been enough of him left to fight off that trauma. He’d held on for a brief few weeks but never left the hospital, and the man in that bed had had no idea who he, or anyone else, was.

  Don Pagano was much younger than her father had been, and Giada knew his mind was still as sharp as ever. His intellect blazed from his green eyes. But the change in him was stark nonetheless.

  As she stepped into the room, he smiled and held out his hands. “Giada.” He didn’t seem to notice—or, more likely, to care—about her unimpressive attire.

  “Nick.” She went to him, and he took her hands and kissed her cheeks. Then, he looked to his guard.

  “Mel, bring her in, please.”

  With a nod, Mel left the room. He didn’t close the door.

  Giada frowned and turned back to Nick. “Bring who in? I thought this was just between us.”

  He smiled. “No one to worry about. A friend.”

  Mel was back at the door within less than a minute, showing in a small woman with a large black case hanging on her shoulder. She exchanged an affectionate smile with Mel as he stepped out of the room and closed the door.

  Now Nick explained. “You said your cover was a day at the spa. You should end the day, then, looking like you’ve been to the spa. Melody owns a salon in Quiet Cove, and she agreed to come with me today. She’s married to my body man. We can talk freely while she does your nails.”

  Melody set her bag on the table and opened it, showing a full set of styling gear. “If you trust me, I can give you a trim, too. Not sure we can manage a wash and style here, though.”

  “A mani-pedi is fine. No one touches my hair but my girl.”

  Melody smiled. “I understand.”

  As the surprise stylist set up her gear, Giada turned back to Nick. “You thought of this? How?”

  “I live with four women, Giada. I know what happens on a spa day. And I don’t want to miss a single detail. That’s how people I care about get dead.” He nodded at Melody. “You two set up. I’m going to make a call, and then we’ll talk.”

  It was rare that Giada felt truly stunned. She prided herself on her ability to see what came next. But as she sat down and prepared to let Melody give her a manicure and pedicure while she conspired with Nick Pagano to unseat her brother and take his place, Giada was utterly gobsmacked.

  “Do you have a color preference, or would you like a suggestion? I see you have a magnetic effect now, but we should probably stay with something simple under these conditions.”

  Giada answered automatically. “Red. I only wear red.” With a sharp toss of her head, she settled her wits about her and tapped a bottle of dark red polish. “That one.”

  “Oh, nice choice. Perfect for your coloring.”

  Giada agreed, but she didn’t answer. This simple shift in her expectation had set her spinning, and she needed to sort her expectations back out. Nick said they could speak freely in front of this nail tech—

  No, not a nail tech, a salon owner. Who was doing this favor for Nick because she was married to his body man. Which was probably Mel—that smile they’d shared had been more than merely friendly. It had been affectionate.

  That gave her something concrete to focus on. “You’re married to Mel?”

  “Yep. Three years and counting.” Melody took her hand and began removing the old polish.

  “Your name is Melody, right?”

  “Yeah. Weird, right? When we have kids, he wants to keep that going. You know, Melezio Jr., Melissa, Melvin ... I’m trying to convince him how very dumb it would be for all of us to be Mels. We would be sentencing our children to a life of having to explain that. Plus, we’d run out of good names fast, and I want a lot of kids. Do you have kids?”

  “No,” Giada answered, and didn’t elaborate.

  Nick returned to the room and closed the door. “Good, you’ve started.” He took up a seat on the same side of the table with her and Melody and leaned comfortably back in his chair. “So, let’s talk.”

  ~ 3 ~

  Trey took the cart from the room service guy at the door, signed the slip—Angie hoped h
e remembered to sign as Andrew Rutland, seeing as they were in his room—and pushed it to the sitting area, where Angie, Tony, and three Zelenko bigwigs, whatever the Ukies called their underboss and two capos, sat around a low, wide coffee table.

  He stood at the cart, lifted a bottle vodka from its ice bucket, and began to pour drinks all around. Angie was glad he hadn’t had to tell the kid to play waiter. He’d known he was a scrub in this group. In most any group, in fact.

  Trey served Kuzma Zelenko first: the underboss, grandson of Ilya Zelenko. About Angie’s age, by the look of him. Angie had never met Ilya, but he’d seen photos, and it appeared that Ukrainians, or at least the Zelenkos, started their families young. Because Ilya was about Nick’s age.

  Angie was served second. Then the elder of the Zelenko capos, Semon Archaki. Then Tony, and the younger Zelenko, Myko Hodiak. Trey poured one for himself last, put the bottle on the table among them, and sat.

  Well done, kid.

  Kuzma lifted his glass. “Razohrev, Sohrev,” Angie thought he said. Whatever that meant. Some kind of toast—but he didn’t want to fuck up a Ukie custom, so he didn’t respond right away. Trey had done some research on the culture here, and he’d explained they had a thing about toasting. He glanced quickly at Trey, who gave him a subtle nod and lifted his glass to his lips.

  Okay then. Angie nodded and drank. When the Zelenkos drank their glasses dry, Angie and his men did, too.

  “That’s good vodka,” Angie said. It wasn’t his drink of choice, but it had gone down smooth.

  “No vodka,” Kuzma said in thickly accented English, the vowels all round and roomy. “Horilka.”

  “Horilka,” Angie repeated, and Kuzma smiled warmly. Tasted like vodka to him, but whatever.

  “Now again,” Kuzam said and held his empty glass toward the bottle. Trey got up and poured more vodka. Kuzma lifted his glass and said, “Za druzba.”

  That one, Trey had prepped them for. It meant ‘to friendship,’ or something like that. He’d practiced it. “Za druzba,” he repeated, in chorus with the others. And they drank their glasses dry.

  Kuzma held up his empty glass again. Trey went around and filled them all again. Angie was getting the impression that a whole lot of deals got done in Kyiv that weren’t remembered the next day. Either that, or he had a whole new appreciation for the Eastern European constitution.

  This time, Trey attempted to short the pours, probably thinking along the same lines as Angie, but Kuzma grunted like a bear and shook his half-filled glass. With a quick glance Angie’s way, he asked for guidance.

  Fuck, they had a serious op to execute today. They could not be drunk. But they couldn’t offend their allies on their home turf, either.

  Angie took a breath and said with a nod, “Chi non beve in compagnia o è un ladro o è una spia,” and sent up a quick prayer that there wouldn’t be too many more toasts. Trey nodded and filled the glasses. He finished off the first bottle and opened the second.

  “What you say?” Kuzma asked as Trey filled his glass.

  What he’d said was He who doesn’t drink in company is either a thief or a spy, which was what he assumed all this jovial boozing was really about. Deciding he’d rather not be quite so on the nose in translation, he answered, “Basically, I said, ‘why the hell not.’”

  Kuzma laughed and gave Angie and enthusiastic not. “Yes! Why hell not!”

  It was Semon who toasted next. The old man shouted “Budmo!” and the other Zelenkos shouted, “Hey!”

  Then Semon shouted “Budmo!” again, and the Pagano men were ready to answer “Hey!” Another repeat of the call and response, and they all drank again.

  Four deep glasses of vodka in approximately two minutes. Angie was feeling it. He should have eaten a bigger lunch, but he’d been too distracted by the work of the evening. He’d skipped breakfast, too—unless you counted the scotches Simone had served him on the plane. Scotch for breakfast, and vodka for lunch. His constitution was pretty robust, but that was asking a lot of it.

  Trey and Tony looked okay, but they’d eaten both meals better. Also, they were younger, but Angie wasn’t ready to admit that could make a difference. Forty-nine was barely middle-age.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Kuzma was holding his damn glass out again. Were these guys really on their side? When Trey poured again, the neck of the bottle rattled lightly against the edge of Kuzma’s glass. He wasn’t so steady after all.

  That settled it. Angie was making everybody heave all this potato juice up after the Ukies left.

  Now Myko took his turn toasting. “Za Lyubov,” he said, and then translated in a surprisingly smooth English, “To love.”

  Which seemed like a strange toast for six men in a Hilton suite, but whatever. Angie tossed the vodka down his throat. Whew.

  When Kuzma took the bottle himself and began to fill the glasses again, Angie couldn’t help but chuckle. They were so fucked, but he didn’t care as much as he probably should.

  His chuckle was contagious; Tony and Trey picked it up. The Ukies smirked in a way Angie might have taken offense at, but he wasn’t in the mood for mayhem.

  Kuzma sat down and nodded at Angie. “Now you. What toast you make?”

  Oh, why the hell not.

  Still chuckling, Angie raised his glass. “Cent’anni!”

  “Cent’anni!” Tony and Trey replied, and everyone drank.

  Finally, Kuzma slammed his glass on the table, and his men did the same. “What it means, chentanny?”

  “Cent’anni. One hundred years—it’s a wish for a century of good luck.”

  “Ah. Good toast. Not good like ours, but good.” He slapped his hands. “Now, we talk.”

  Okay. Hold up. They were sitting in a Kyiv hotel room. Why? Because they had a plan to kill Yuri Bondaruk ... There were a lot of Ks in Ukie names; he was just noticing that. Jesus Christ, FOCUS. There were here to kill Yuri, and it was not just a simple hit. They meant to wipe him and his people off the fucking map. On their home turf. In their actual home.

  That was what Nick wanted. To violate Bondaruk’s home the way they’d violated the Cove.

  These people here, these Zelenkos? They’d been instrumental in that hit on the Cove. They’d been working with the Bondaruks—had, in fact, been the primary face of the Bondaruk moves in the States. But, with the help of the Romano Family in New York, Donnie had flipped them, and now they were allied with the Italians. Serving their own interests, looking now to feed on the carcass of the Bondaruk bratva.

  Drinking to test an alliance was one thing, but what if the opposite were the case? He was sitting here letting these flip-flopping, two-faced Ukie sons of bitches incapacitate him and his whole small team. Fuck no.

  Angie stood. “Excuse me a minute, fellas.” He waved vaguely toward the bathroom and headed in that direction, demanding his legs stay steady.

  Locking himself in, he turned the taps on full blast, crouched before the toilet, and shoved his fingers down his throat until he sicked up all that treacherous vodka. Or whatever they’d called it. Then he plunged his face into a sinkful of cold water.

  Dazed and ill, but feeling like his thoughts were hooking up again, he straightened out his clothes and hair, dried off, and went back to conduct this meeting properly.

  If these Zelenko sons of bitches tried to flip on them in the midst of this hit, he’d eat their livers with fava beans and a nice chianti.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” he said as he took his seat again. “Let’s talk.” There was a tall glass of ice water where his vodka glass had been. He assumed that had been either Trey or Tony’s call, because the Ukies looked like they had more vodka, and his men had water. Good.

  ~oOo~

  It had taken months to put in place, and had countless moving parts in the preparation and, in Angie’s opinion, too many variables in the execution, but the plan itself, on paper, was simple. Tonight was Yuri Bondaruk’s seventieth birthday. A large party was planned for the following weekend, but on this
night, according to his tradition, he was having dinner at home, with his men.

  Every man of note in the Bondaruk bratva would be at Yuri’s table tonight.

  They were going to kill them all.

  On paper, simple.

  Yuri did not make his home in a normal house in a regular neighborhood. He had a small compound, heavily guarded behind a tall fence and an iron gate.

  This was where the Zelenkos came in. They had become—and, as far as Yuri knew, still were—important Bondaruk allies. Yuri and Ilya had grown close. Ilya and Kuzma had been invited to sit at his table tonight. Their body men would thus be, of course, invited into the compound as well.

  Assuming the Zelenkos were truly on the Italians’ side now, Kuzma and their guards would neutralize the Bondaruks at the table, leaving Yuri alive for Angie to deal with. Angie, Tony, and Trey would handle the exterior guards, at the gate and the perimeter.

  The Zelenkos had also provided the weaponry, from knives to AKs. After Kuzma and his drinking buddies had left the Hilton, after he’d made Tony and Trey puke their guts out, Angie had insisted they all take apart and rebuild every goddamn gun, ensuring each one worked properly. They did.

  So far, then, so good.

  Angie, Tony, and Trey had trained for months in what Angie still called Tony’s John Wick room, though he’d developed a wholehearted appreciation for the training those scenarios could provide. They were ready for sneak attacks and all-out war. They were ready.

  As long as they weren’t betrayed by the Zelenkos, they were ready.

  ~oOo~

  Tony and Trey wore stealth gear, all the way to black beanies on their heads. Angie did not. He meant to be just as stealthy, but he also meant to walk into Yuri Bondaruk’s house through the front door, as Don Nicolo Pagano’s strong fist. So he wore a black suit—one of his more basic versions, those he kept for when he knew he’d likely get messy—and a black dress shirt, cut loose to accommodate one of the vests the Zelenkos had helpfully provided with the weapons.