Deep (Pagano Family #4)(55)

oOo



There had been four of them; now there were two. One had come from the back, and Donnie had killed him. But when he’d run in for Bev, the man who had her had shoved a knife under her chin and backed Donnie off.

Bruce had been in his office. He’d fought, swinging his aluminum bat and catching one of the men across the back, but the blow hadn’t been enough to disable him. Now Bruce was down in the storeroom with a shotgun blast to his stomach.

Dink had clocked out at eleven, so only Bev and Bruce had still been on the clock. Now she and Donnie were on the floor, propped up against a steel cupboard, their hands bound. The men hadn’t done or said anything to indicate what they wanted. They’d taken their phones and Donnie’s weapons. And then one of them had made a call on his own phone.

Bev was chanting in her head, trying to stay calm, trying to make her troubles weightless, but these troubles were made of lead and curled over her shoulders like claws.

Donnie leaned over and spoke quietly in Bev’s ear. “Bev, listen. Nick will come for you. I know he will. So be strong. I don’t think these guys intend to take you anywhere. If they did, they would have. They can’t be here for information—we don’t have any. This is a message. So keep in your head that Nick is coming.”

Bev turned to him, trying to understand what any of that meant. Donnie smiled at her, and it was so clear he was trying to give her strength that she almost collapsed into tears at the sight. He was about to say more when one of the men strode over and grabbed him up by one arm.

Donnie shouted, “If you hurt her, Nick will spread your parts all over the coast. And then he’ll kill you!”

The other turned the grill on.



oOo



The smell of burnt meat was strong, and Bev’s throat was hoarse from her screams. If it had been two weeks later, maybe Gannet Street wouldn’t have been a ghost town, maybe someone would have been around to hear. But it wasn’t two weeks later. It was now.

They dropped Donnie at her side. His face—God, his face.

The men had said nothing to them. They’d just turned the grill on and forced Donnie’s face down on it. They’d let it heat up while they held him down.

He’d been struggling but quiet, and then he’d started to scream. Bev joined him. And then she could smell it, and she screamed until something gave in her throat and she tasted blood.

Now he was lying on the floor at her side, panting and moaning but awake. The side of his face was—she couldn’t even look at it.

“Donnie, oh God! Donnie!” Her throat protested her words, but she got them out.

“It’s okay, Bev,” he gasped. “I wasn’t that pretty anyway. Just be strong. Nick’s coming. When I don’t call that we’re on our way home, he’ll come right away. Not long now.”

They came for her then, dragging her along the floor by her hair, and she heard Donnie say again, “Not long now, Bev.”

She had no idea how long it actually was.

It seemed like forever.





13



Matty grabbed Nick’s arm and pulled him back, then shoved him hard in the chest to keep him back. “You don’t go in first, boss.” He put both hands around his Glock and followed Sam through the open back door of the diner.

“Fuck! Jesus f*ck!” Matty’s voice sounded furious and horrified in equal measure.

Nick had known by twelve-forty that something was up. Donnie always called when they were leaving the diner, and on weeknights, they almost always were finished and ready to go early, by twelve-forty at the latest. Donnie had taken to calling around twelve-thirty if it looked like it would be later, and then calling again when they left.

When he hadn’t heard by twelve-forty, he called. He’d called Beverly, and Donnie, and Smash, and all three had gone to voice mail. Then he’d called the diner itself. And then he’d called for backup.

When they’d arrived and found a body in the alley, something in Nick’s head had shifted.

In his life he had done unspeakably violent things. He had witnessed others. He had suffered loss. And yet he had never lost his cool. Vowing to be better than his father in all things, he had always kept his head, no matter what. He could not be goaded. Instead, he’d filed it all away, used it to become stronger, to know more, to understand more. He had refused to allow pain to have sway over him and had instead made it inspire him. What made Nick good at what he did was his invulnerable ability to set emotion aside in favor of reason. To see rather than to feel. To leave feeling for private moments without risk.

That ability had once been invulnerable, but lately cracks had been forming. When he walked through the back door of Sassy Sal’s, a crack opened wide. Rage unlike he had ever known coursed from his heart and through his veins, and he felt his hands shake.

Beverly was on the floor, lying over Donnie. Her uniform was torn open and soaked with blood. Her face was red and swollen, her mouth and cheek bleeding. She’d been beaten and f*ck knew what else. But she was alive and conscious, and when she saw him, she began to sob.

“Nick…” The word came out like a croak.

“I’m here, bella.” He went to her and knelt at her side. When he tried to pull her close, though, she held him off. Her wrists were bruised; she had been bound.