Deep (Pagano Family #4)
Susan Fanetti
To the Freaks, for everything.
And to Irene and TeriLyn. The reminders of your support have perfect timing.
Yea, take thy fill of love, because thy will
Chose love not in the shallows but in the deep.
Christina Rossetti, from “Cardinal Newman”
Prologue
Nick Pagano stood in the center hallway of his Uncle Ben’s house on Greenback Hill and watched people coming in through the front door, a steady, seemingly endless stream of people—friends, family, business associates. They all came up and shook his hand, or hugged him, offering empty words, and then they all left him alone. He wanted to be alone, and he knew how to make that happen with nothing more than his posture.
He could hear the women congregating behind him, in his Aunt Angie’s kitchen, already doing what women seemed to do in these situations—in every situation, as far as he could tell: cooking. And yakking. Though he was making an effort not to hear their blather, words broke through his barrier occasionally—right in his own yard; Betty found him; so much blood; Did you see Nick? At that, he doubled up the barrier. The last thing he needed in his head was a bunch of hens clucking about how angry he looked and what they thought he was going to do about what had happened.
About the murder of his father.
He was standing near the entrance to Aunt Angie’s prissy little sitting room. Peering around the corner, he saw his mother sitting on the sofa, with his Uncle Carlo and Adele, Uncle Carlo’s wife. She was resting quietly on her brother-in-law’s shoulder, pale and empty. She hadn’t cried, as far as Nick had seen. He wondered if she would.
“Nick.”
He turned and saw his Uncle Ben, Don Beniamino Pagano, standing at the doorway to his study. He didn’t answer.
“Come, nephew. It’s time to talk.”
Nick walked down the hallway and followed Ben—his uncle, godfather, and don—into his study.
Like the rest of Uncle Ben’s house, the study was large and luxuriously appointed. As President and CEO of Pagano Brothers Shipping, and as majority or at least substantial shareholder in several other legitimate business ventures, Ben had ample cover for a comfortable lifestyle, and he’d married a woman who’d wanted to be pampered. Their home was one of the finest—if not, in fact, the finest—homes in Quiet Cove. And their competition for the slot was all on the same street.
Most of the home had been decorated with Aunt Angie in the lead, but this room, and the rooms of the cellar, were Ben’s domain. The study was done like an old school men’s club—heavy, tufted-leather sofas and chairs with nailhead trim, dark walnut paneling and ceiling, dark walnut tables, a massive walnut desk in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that looked over the bluff and the ocean below. The effect was imposing, and Nick remembered, when he was younger, being intimidated simply to be called into the room.
When he was younger. Not anymore.
Uncle Ben sat in his deep, tall leather chair behind his wide, long desk. In the room with him were the officers of the other branch of the Pagano Brothers’ business. Fred Naldi, consigliere. Dominic Addario, capo. Giulio Nicci, another capo. Nick, the third capo. Nick’s father, Lorenzo “Lorrie” Pagano, Uncle Ben’s brother, had been underboss. But Lorrie was on a morgue slab now, his face blown off. The position of underboss was empty.
The heavy, maroon draperies were drawn over the window behind the desk, and all the table lamps were illuminated. It was long past dark, but still the closed drapes had the effect of making the large space seem oppressively close. The silence among the men assembled didn’t ease that impression.
Nick sat in an armchair facing his uncle’s desk across a long, low table. Fred and the other capos sat on the sofas. And they waited for Ben to speak.
His uncle was tired. His normally baggy eyes seemed doubly so on this terrible night, and they were rheumy and red-rimmed. Nick knew that his father and uncle had been close even by the standards of close-born brothers who’d worked side by side their whole lives. But it was more than losing Lorrie that made his uncle so weary. For nearly eighteen months, the Pagano Brothers had been embroiled in battle after battle to preserve their place in their world. The random months of truce only seemed to be dulling Ben’s edge more quickly, making him slower to respond each time the war fired up again.
Since Alvin Church had announced his offensive two autumns ago, by killing Fred’s nephew and nearly killing Nick’s cousins Luca and John, the Paganos had beaten back every attack. The effort had taken a toll in all parts of their world—family hurt, business impaired, scrutiny from every level of law—and Ben, who was closing fast on eighty, had grown tired and dull.
Nick saw it. He knew others did, too. And now his father, who had grown tired and dull himself, was dead because the Paganos could not shut down Alvin f*cking Church and his bullshit band of associates.
Not could not. Would not. The Paganos were on the defensive, and had been since the first shot across their bow, because Ben and Lorrie had refused to fight the war they were in. They fought the war they thought it should have been. They thought they were ‘going to the mattresses’ with these sons of bitches. But this wasn’t a family war. This was a gutter war.
And now Nick’s father was dead. Shot on his own front lawn and left for Nick’s mother to find.