The Name of Honor

by Susan Fanetti

  “How so?” The water was boiling; she added a dribble of olive oil and dumped a box of linguine in. Then she laid the steaks on the grill.

  Enzo began slicing a ball of mozzarella. He waited to answer until she’d turned back to him. “The Council table seats five dons. Right now, two families are in total disarray. One of those has no don at all; the other has a dying don whose wits have left him. The Saccos are the third family. That leaves two. Nick Pagano is the most powerful of us all, and he’s agreed to support you. Vio Marconi will follow Nick’s lead.” He set the knife on the board and leaned across the island to hook his aged hand over Giada’s arm. “The time is now, Giada. There will be no one on the Council to resist you if you take the seat now.”

  Taking the seat meant killing her brother. That should be an easy thing to contemplate. He was her life’s tormenter, after all. Killing him should be an easy thing to do. Why wasn’t it?

  “But do I have the support from within?” she asked, because it was a more practical question with less existential angst attached.

  Because he was a man who could move through their world, see and hear things she’d be barred from, and ask questions she’d cause alarm to ask herself, Enzo had taken on the responsibility of determining where her support would come from and who he, or eventually she, could touch to secure it. In no small part, her chance for success rested on her uncle’s weary shoulders.

  They’d finished their drinks. Enzo washed his hands and began to make a second round. “Here’s what I know. Like I said before, if Nick shows his support right away, as soon as you make your move, I think you’ll have all you need. If he stays back for some reason and waits to back you at the Council, and you have to take the family over on your own, that’s harder. But, piccolina, I think you have a shot right now, even without him. Batti il ferro finché è caldo.”

  Strike while the iron is hot. But if she took a shot and lost, she’d never have another—primarily because she’d be dead. “Why is the iron hot now?”

  “Bruno is angry with Tommy, about what happened to Emily—he liked that girl. He’s making very quiet noises right now about Tommy going too far. He’s also the only one who fully understands how much Tommy’s antics cost the family. Despite his love of your brother, with Emily fresh in his mind, he could be convinced it’s time for him to go. And Bruno actually sees how much you really do already. He knows you’d be a capable don, and he has no ambition for the seat himself. With Bruno against Tommy, others will turn, too.”

  “And Fabi?”

  “I don’t think you’ll ever get Fabi. He and Tommy are too close, too much alike. And he’d want the seat for himself.”

  Fabio would be Tommy 2.0 as don. But he was very good in the field, and as much as she disliked him, she needed him. At least in the beginning. “He’s the best earner in the family.”

  “You’re the best earner in the family, Giada.”

  “You know what I mean. He’s the best dirty earner. What he earns is pure profit. What I earn carries the whole legit burden of the family—also, the men don’t think what I do counts.”

  “It’s a problem, yes. Your best hope is Fabi backs down when Nick stands up.”

  “If he stands up.”

  Enzo’s bushy grey eyebrows went high. “You have his word. There is reason to think he won’t honor it?”

  Angie had been worried about betraying his don, yet Giada—driven by lust more than tactics—had pushed him, persuaded him, turned him to her will. Would that blow up in her face?

  “No. Nick is a man of his word.” The words were meant to ease both their minds. “But Zio, I’ve got one shot at this. Just one. To do something that’s never been done. I have to be sure.”

  “There is no sure, Giada. For anything worth having, there is risk. A good leader knows when the reward is the better of the risk. This, you know already.”

  She did.

  ~oOo~

  That night, Giada lay alone in her bed, alone in her apartment, and stared up at her coffered ceiling, watching the play of city lights, filtered through the filmy silk of her curtains. Even at night, even in the city, even this high, where there were few trees to make shadow, the light was different in the winter. The moon sat in a different place in the sky, took up less space.

  The effect was cold, and lonely, and Giada shrugged more deeply under her comforters, nestled more snugly in her lush bed. She’d built a life of comfort and luxury within the constraints of her family’s traditions. She’d made herself important, in fact if not in perception. She’d made herself necessary. Maybe what she had should be enough.

  But it wasn’t.

  Every day Tommy stood at the head of their family, every day he sullied the Sacco name, weakened the business their grandfather had started, the empire their father had made of it, was a day too many. Every day Tommy hurt an innocent, killed or mauled or brutalized someone for the sin of being in his way, was a day too many. Every day Tommy saw Giada as less than he, as beholden to him, as subservient to him, every day she made it possible for him to do so, was a day too many. Every day Tommy remembered the days when she’d lain passively beneath him while he did whatever he wanted, every day he looked at her now and saw that same girl, was a day too many.

  Could she kill her brother?

  Yes, she could.

  ~ 11 ~

  “I’m ready to bring him in.”

  Nick made that pronouncement calmly, sitting in his armchair in the seating area of his PBS office. He had a glass of scotch in his hand, resting on the chair’s arm. The leather had worn gently there, lightening from years of the don taking the same position.

  Donnie sat across from him, in a similar chair, with a similar drink. Angie sat in his habitual perch on the leather sofa. His drink had ice.

  This meeting was a long-established habit. For well more than a decade, Angie had had Nick’s trust, and his ear. Donnie as well. Donnie’s elevation to underboss had been a key feature in the mutiny Angie had averted all those years ago.

  Angie’s loyalty to Nick had nearly cost his sister, Tina, her life. That, and the slip of his vigilance that had brought her into the line of fire during the aftermath of Nick’s reaction to the mutiny.

  She was well now, and happy. Changed, but recovered. Angie had risen to the top of the organization, and Nick’s trust in him had been solid. Only once had it even shaken before now—when the hit he’d pushed for on the Bondaruks had gone wrong. Nick had forgiven him, and Donnie, too. The don was not incapable of forgiveness, though it was a rare boon.

  Nearly a week after the Marconi wedding, Angie hadn’t been in contact with Giada Sacco again, but he sat in Nick’s office, in the place on this sofa he’d come over the years to think of as his own, and still felt as if he were in need of the don’s forgiveness.

  The week had been normal business thus far, and they hadn’t had to discuss anything pressing or serious that hadn’t been on the table for some time. Nick hadn’t brought up the Sacco situation, at least not with Angie, until now. It was Thursday night, after the shipping business had wound down for the day. The harbor lights shone through the bulletproof glass of the office windows.

  Nick had behaved normally toward him all week, yet Angie felt a thin crust of guilt. Probably because he’d been thinking of Giada all week. Every time he closed his eyes, or had just a moment without five different things to think about, she stepped into the spotlight. Flashes of that whole night—the reception and what came after—popped up unbidden and woke all five of his senses.

  He wanted to see her again, be with her again. Rather than distance and time dulling his memories, every day that passed sharpened want into need. He wouldn’t act on it; he’d had to make a choice, and he’d made it. But the memories stayed fresh and vivid regardless.

  Honest to god, he had never given any woman this much territory in his head before. It was driving him fucking nuts.

  So he still felt guilty.

  Which was probably why h
e didn’t have the guts to speak up when Nick declared that he intended to make Trey now. Instead, Angie shot a look at Donnie.

  Donnie picked up the baton. “You told Giada you’d back her first. The plan has been to cement the Saccos and Marconis before you take that on.”

  Nick answered with his eyes on Angie. “Plans change.”

  Angie knew he had to speak. If he was quiet now, Nick would read it as inner conflict. So he asked the question topmost on the mountain in his mind. “Are you backing out of the deal with her?”

  “Would you care if I did?”

  Though his heart was pounding, he kept his eyes fixed on Nick’s. “I can’t see how losing an alliance with that family helps our cause.”

  A cock of the don’s head told him he’d given a satisfactory answer.

  It was an interesting thing, being a confidant to a man as powerful as Nick Pagano. They were close. They were friends. Nick knew as much about Angie as anyone alive did, and Angie was one of a very small group who might say they truly knew Nick. When Nick gave his trust, he was a different man than most of the world ever saw.

  He was a good friend, too. He cared, and he listened. He loved.

  But the friendship was not, could not be, equal. Nick was keenly aware of his power and position, and though he delegated responsibility and trusted his advisors, he did not share the power or the burden.

  People called him the King of New England. He hated that moniker, and it was often said with a tinge of fearful resentment camouflaged as contempt. But it wasn’t inaccurate. He had the power of a king, and the burden, and thus, he had no equal. Even his dearest friends, Donnie and Angie, could never forget that they were his subordinates, and that they served at his pleasure. Neither could he.

  Right now, Angie sat in Nick’s office and wanted his friend, but had only the don.

  “We won’t lose the alliance,” Nick said. “I gave her my word, and I mean to honor it. But I don’t want her thinking I need her. I want her—everyone—to remember that I don’t. So we’ll move first. We make Trey this weekend. Saturday night.”

  After all his caution, all their careful strategy, Nick was kicking to the side everything they’d set up. It wasn’t like him to be impulsive. Angie couldn’t help but think it was his fault, that Nick was neutralizing Giada’s role in his plans in order to push her out of Angie’s way.

  So if making Trey blew up, it would be his fault.

  ~oOo~

  Last summer’s hit on Quiet Cove had crippled the town right at the peak of their earning season. The Cove was a coastal town, a quaint little New England postcard, with a long stretch of good sand beach, a reputation for great surfing, a historic lighthouse, a cute, beachy-colonial shopping and dining district, and a boardwalk like a little amusement park. The great majority of locally owned businesses lived and died on the strength of their summer.

  When the Bondaruks charged in and shot up—and blew up—four sites significant to Nick, killing and wounding innocents, the summer had collapsed. It had taken months of work, mainly by Donnie and Angie while Nick recovered, to fix things. They’d paid out huge wads of cash for the rebuilding and repairs. They’d frozen protection payments for months, which had resulted in a sizeable crater in their resources. And Angie didn’t even know what kind of sorcery Donnie had accomplished to get the federal government and all those hungry FBI and DHS agents to back away from a serious attack by a Ukrainian bratva on US soil. The official story, which, despite all the wreckage and death, got only about a week of news cycle, was that the Ukie criminals had attacked and the brave diners at Dominic’s—the only location with casualties—had fought back, killing all the bad guys in the process. Getting that story in place had cost more than repairing two blown-up businesses and a Catholic church and compensating Old Dom for the loss of his restaurant.

  With Dominic’s the site of so much carnage, the old man had lost his taste for the business. He hadn’t rebuilt. The restaurant, in a prime location right on the water, had stood there for decades. Right before winter set in, it had been razed to the sand.

  As long as there had been a Pagano Brothers organization, Dominic’s had been a favored site for the don—in fact, the Paganos had owned a nice chunk of the restaurant for years, until Nick had gifted it back to Dom.

  First Beniamino, and then his nephew, Nick, had held court there routinely, entertaining friends and family, and allies and associates. To be invited to dinner at the don’s table at Dominic’s was a great honor. To be someone who routinely sat at that table was to hold power with both hands.

  That table was gone now. Nick had made a deal with Tony Cioccolanti’s girl, Billy Jones, who owned a nightclub on the boardwalk, to take over the second floor of her building. Now, Nick held his private dinners in private, and brought his friends and other guests down into West Egg for their entertainment.

  It wasn’t the same. The space was more flexible for a variety of needs and wants Nick might have, and it was private, allowing for more serious business discussions to take place. It was also vastly easier to protect. But it wasn’t the same. There had been something truly special about sharing a full-course meal with the don, right in the middle of the Dominic’s dining room, in full view of the other diners. The King holding court.

  When Nick took the West Egg space over, it had looked like a warehouse, with unvarnished, rough, wide plank floors and exposed guts. Now, thick carpeting covered those old planks, and the massive warehouse windows were covered by lush velvet curtains. The ducts and pipes still showed in the ceiling, but stained-glass pendant lights hung from long brass poles, leaving those guts in shadow. The furniture, a massive oblong mahogany table surrounded by upholstered chairs, little groups of armchairs for smaller seating, and several credenzas and sideboards, was typically Nick’s style, a perfectly tuned combination of heavy tradition and mid-century modern sleekness. Elegantly framed black-and-white photographs hung on the brick walls: images from Quiet Cove and vistas of the Atlantic Ocean.

  A large reprint of a photograph Nick kept copies of in his office at PBS and his home office as well hung at the place one saw when they first topped the stairs: Nick and his Uncle Ben. Ben had his arm around Nick’s shoulders, and his other hand on Nick’s cheek. They both wore dark suits; they were smiling at each other, with pride and love beaming between them.

  Nick was a young man in the photo, with thick dark hair and a face still smooth of life’s harsher edges. It had been taken on the night of his making, after the initiation ceremony was over.

  Tonight was the first night this room was in use for a full-family meeting. It smelled of new carpeting and wood polish. Three sideboards were laden with food, and a small bar was stocked with good booze and wine. Later, staff from the nightclub below would be here to serve, but for now, no one was allowed who wasn’t part of this brotherhood.

  Nearly every made man in the family was in that room, but nobody ate or drank yet. They had all been through this, and they knew to wait. Conversation rumbled dully through the room. This was a sacred event in their world, as serious and solemn as a funeral, so they all spoke in hushed tones.

  At the head of the main table stood a footed brass bowl. For now, it was empty. At its head sat a blood-red pillar candle on a brass stand. A gleaming dagger with a mother-of-pearl handle rested at one side of the bowl, and a new Beretta 92FS with a burnished bronze finish was placed at the other. Both would be gifts for Trey when the ritual was complete. Circling the table like a decorative rim were dozens of shot glasses, each one full of Frangelico, for the first toast of their new brother.

  The men waited for their don and his heir.

  Finally, Nick emerged, coming up the stairs into the Pagano Brothers’ new lair. Trey followed right behind him. Both men wore dark suits, white shirts, and dark ties.

  At the top of the stairs, Trey stopped short. With widening eyes, he took in the scene before him: the thick cluster of his superiors, all of them standing, their whole attention o
n him; the spreads of food and drink, untouched; the long table with with its offerings, arrayed like items on an altar.

  “Trey,” Nick said. “Come.”

  Trey swallowed and came forward. He followed his don, his cousin, his honorary uncle, to the head of the table. The men, silent, cleared the way.

  Angie wasn’t sure of Trey’s exact age, but he thought he was twenty-eight or twenty-nine—a couple years younger than Tony. He’d been an associate in the organization for about six years. So this wasn’t early for him to be made. In fact, in most cases, men who weren’t made by the time they’d stuck so long were probably never going to be, had shown themselves in some way to be unworthy.

  Yet it felt early to Angie. Despite those years, this felt rushed. Because Nick had changed the plan, yes, but also because of the quake this act would make in their world.

  A half-blood. Not just any half-blood, but Nick’s own family. The man he’d chosen to succeed him, when the time came. The man who would someday be Don Pagano. Tonight, Nick turned rumor into truth.

  Angie took a deep breath. He’d have Nick’s back no matter what, but he thought this was a bad idea. The man standing at his side right now, Donnie, was the better choice for successor. He’d been acting don for the months of Nick’s recovery, and he’d filled those shoes admirably. He was levelheaded and wicked smart. He was experienced. He could be ruthless. And he was fully Italian.