Deep (Pagano Family #4)(74)

Nick walked over and shook his uncle’s shoulder. “Uncle.”

Ben came awake immediately and gracefully. As he sat up, he smiled. “Nicolo. I wasn’t expecting you this evening. Are you keeping me company while your aunt plans tag sales and dunking booths?”

Nick chuckled and sat on the facing sofa. “No, I’m sorry. I need to get back to Beverly.”

Standing, Ben went to his bar and poured them each a scotch. “How is your lovely woman?”

Still reserved and subdued. Nick was growing impatient—not with her, but with himself. He couldn’t find a way to help her return to who she was. His world had broken her, and he didn’t know how to help her heal. “Better, I think. She has a way to go yet.”

“She breaks my heart.” Ben handed Nick his scotch. “I hope the fires of hell are deep and scorching hot for the cafones who hurt her. Going after women. Innocents. Those men were the worst kind of scum.” He sighed. “But you’re not here to update me on Beverly, are you? This is not a family call you’re making.”

“No, uncle. I’m sorry. It’s business.”

He sipped his scotch. “For years, there was no business done in this home. This place was a sanctuary. One of my most closely-held rules—no business at home. And then Church stood up on his mountain of trash, and we seem to talk business here more than anywhere else.”

“I know.” It wasn’t simply Church who had changed that tradition. It was Ben himself. If he were still putting in full days at the warehouse, they could have had this discussion at the office. But Nick knew there was no use pointing that out. His uncle needed no reminders of his waning.

“So tell me.”

“We’ve got a new Fed on us. DHS—Homeland Security.”

“Homeland Security? Is this because we knocked back the Zapatas?” DHS was normally only interested in organized crime when it crossed national borders. With a few discreet exceptions for connections to the homeland, the Paganos kept their business within the country.

But a car bomb was seen as an act of terrorism, and that got DHS hard, too.

“It’s the bombing at Neon. A DHS agent got a tip connecting Neon to the diner, and now we got a freshman agent looking for a commendation.”

Ben tossed back the rest of his scotch and held out his glass to Nick. “Top us off, nephew.” Nick took the glasses and poured doubles for them both.

“What’s his name?”

“Her. Amy Cavanaugh. Do we have anybody in DHS?” Handing the glass back to his uncle, Nick sat down.

“No. I’ll have to call Marjorie.” Marjorie Russo was the senior senator from Rhode Island. “A tip? Who knew the connection?” Ben’s eyes narrowed, showing every bit of the fearsome power he had ever wielded. “Do we have a rat?”

“I think it’s Chris Mills.”

“Bev’s friend, you mean. The bookseller. You’ve had confrontations with him already.”

“Yes. And the last time I told him that if I heard more from him, it would be the last anyone did. Now I have to make good on that promise.”

“Are you sure it’s him?”

“He’s the likeliest suspect, by a wide margin. And he was threatening this kind of trouble. Of course I’ll confirm before I make the order, but it’s him.”

Ben stared into his glass for several seconds, then released a long, weary breath. “An accident. He can’t disappear.”

“Agreed.”

“And what will you tell your girl? I know they’re on the outs, but her heart is big. She’ll feel his death.”

“I know. But, Uncle, with respect. That’s for me to work out.”

Ben nodded, but he went on nonetheless. “Ogni verità non è a dire. Truth isn’t always the best course. Some lies are kindnesses. We know this. To keep our family innocent of our business, to keep our loved ones well and happy, some truths should stay unsaid.”

To start a life together with Beverly’s pain and his secret between them—what path would that put them on? This was why he’d never had an interest in mating. His life was too dark, too complicated, too cloaked for intimacy. But it was too late for him, and for her, to remember that now. Since he’d known her, what he’d known about himself had shifted and shuffled. His control over his emotions had become something to assert rather than a passive fact of his personality. He needed companionship and connection at a depth he’d never had need of before. His capacity for love was much greater than he’d known.

He didn’t want to lie to her. He didn’t want to hurt her again, ever. She’d been hurt enough because of him. But rats were exterminated. A man who would take the risk to rat once would take it again. Mills was even more dangerous because of his feelings for Beverly, and because Nick was sure she would eventually forgive him. Mills was too close, too incendiary. If he was the rat, then he had to be taken care of.

That put Nick between the horns of an unsolvable dilemma. Lie to her, or hurt her more. Maybe lose her.

“I’ll figure it out, Uncle.” He hoped that, at least, was a truth.





18



“I got you curly fries for a side. Oh—and I got a couple of chocolate chip cookies, too.” Skylar set the tray down on the little round table overlooking the beach and sat down next to Bev.