Deep (Pagano Family #4)(105)

Then he went to check on his other loves.



oOo



“She’s at it again? You need a break, bella.” It seemed that Carina had spent about ninety percent of her first ten days of life attached to her mother’s breasts. Beverly’s right breast had never made milk as well as her left, and Elisa and Lia had both nursed frequently, too, but Carina never seemed to stop. Her longest stretch off the breast had been about forty-five minutes. Mother and baby were both exhausted. As quickly as her body could make milk, the baby was taking it. “Ma is trying to get a big sleepover tomorrow night with all the kids. Carina, too. She wants to fill the house. She’ll have Connie stay over to help.” He stripped to his boxer briefs and slid into bed next to his wife and newest daughter. Beverly was on her side facing him, her hand holding Carina at her breast.

She looked absolutely drained, but she shook her head. “She’s too young to stay the night away from home. And I haven’t been able to express. She won’t stop feeding long enough. It all goes straight into her mouth.”

“It’s time to try formula. You can’t keep up like this.”

“No!”

He thought her militant ideas about breastfeeding had a tinge of lunacy, especially considering the limits of her damaged right breast—and since her nipples had started to crack and she’d been biting into a cloth diaper so the girls wouldn’t hear her scream when Carina latched. It ripped Nick’s stomach apart to witness that. But she wouldn’t discuss even the idea of supplementing. “I’m worried, Beverly. You need rest. I don’t know how to help.”

“I’m fine. It’s just hard right now, with everything going on. I feel like such a jerk saying that, though. I really am okay.”

Uncle Ben had died in his sleep, two days after Carina was born. Dr. Kerr had said his heart simply stopped. Aunt Angie had died six months before, and Ben hadn’t come back from that. He’d tried, briefly, but losing his wife was a blow he hadn’t been able to withstand. Nick understood.

His funeral Mass and burial service were arranged for the following day. The turnout was expected to be massive. The family had spent the past three days at vigil; people from all over New England and beyond had come to pay their respects to the legendary Don Beniamino Pagano and to kiss the ring of Don Nicolo Pagano.

And Beverly, with a days-old baby swaddled and slung across her chest, had been with him through it all. Until today, when she’d nearly passed out in the kitchen that morning, and he’d made her stay home with the baby. He’d called Skylar over and had her looking out for them both.

He’d taken the girls with him. Carlo and Sabina had hired someone to watch the children during the vigil, so Elisa and Lia had spent the days having fun with all their cousins, unaware of the mourning going on. Only Trey, twelve years old, had joined them at the funeral home.

“You’re not okay. I want you to stay home tomorrow, too.”

She shook her head. “I want to say goodbye. I love him—he was a father to me. And I want to be there for you.”

He leaned over and kissed her temple. “I love you, bella. You don’t have to be in the room with me to be with me. I carry your love wherever I am. All this is taking too much out of you.”

“Nick, I’m going. That’s sweet, and I love you, but I’m going.”

With a sigh of defeat, he said, “Remember when what I said went?”

“No.” She grinned, her light clearing away the clouds of her fatigue for a moment.

He chuckled and brushed her hair back from her face. “You know, outside this house, people are afraid to defy me. Important people.” Inside this house, much more important people had him wrapped snugly around very small fingers.

“Mmm-hmm. I know. Don Pagano, the god among men. At home, we remind you you’re a man. My man. Their papa.”

Indeed.

Carina had fallen asleep, so he lifted his daughter away from her mother and rolled to his back, laying her on his chest. She stirred and woke as she was moved, but she didn’t fuss. “You sleep while you can. I’ve got her.”

Without a word, Beverly wrapped her arms around his arm, leaned her head against his shoulder, and was asleep.

As his wife slept at his side, Don Nicolo Pagano tucked his infant daughter’s dark head under his chin and patted her tiny back gently. He reached to the nightstand for a fresh cloth diaper and eased it under her face in case she spit up. This one hadn’t spit up once yet, but Lia had regularly projected the stuff with force, and Nick remembered that lesson well.

In the dim light and bright peace of the bedroom of his home, his wife and daughters sleeping safely around him, Nick gave himself a moment to think about the future.

He had been the don in all but name since Aunt Angie’s death. Now, he needed to name an underboss. The man he named might well lead the family someday. It was not a decision to be made lightly, but he had the luxury of time to weigh the choice.

The Pagano Brothers family was in the thick of a period of great prosperity and had been at peace for years, since Alvin Church had been soundly and permanently defeated. No one had tried to crawl up from below and unseat them from their power, but Nick knew it was only a matter of time. In fact, he thought there was a likelihood someone—he had a couple of ideas who—might use the death of the first and, until now, only don of the most powerful family in New England as motivation to make the attempt.