Deep (Pagano Family #4)(49)

“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.