Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (37 page)

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.

Nick was ready if they tried. He saw the world as it was, and he saw far; that was his greatest strength. He understood the games men played. And he had learned from his uncle that the way to win was to be the one who owned the field and set the rules.

His uncle had been the most important, most formative influence in his life. He loved him more than he’d loved his own father. He would carry on his legacy. He would honor his memory. And he would keep the Paganos strong. Make them stronger.

The name would end with him, however. None of his cousins was part of this world, and he had married outside the blood. When his time came to name a successor, the organization would likely become known by another name, and the Paganos would fade into history.

Carina fussed a little, fighting the swaddle, and Nick was brought back to the moment. She didn’t like to be rolled up like a cannoli. The other girls had. Elisa could have been left content in a swaddle for hours, as long as her diaper held out. But this one liked to move. So he unwrapped her.

She was wearing only a diaper. Nick was glad; he loved the feel of her skin against his own. He spread the thin blanket she’d been wrapped in over them both and slid his finger against her tiny palm. Immediately, she clutched it in her fist, and he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it.

Out there, he was the don. In here, he was just a man.

~oOo~

“You should take this house.”

Nick turned to see his mother leaning her arms on the back of the settee. They were in Uncle Ben’s back yard. His funeral had packed Christ the King and had required most of the Quiet Cove Police Department to manage traffic. This gathering afterward of his family, friends, and associates would mark the last Pagano function here.

“Why would I? He has three daughters and eight grandchildren. And I have a home of my own.”

His mother shrugged and walked around to sit at his side. “This house has always meant the family to me. The head of the family should live in it. None of Ben’s girls or their families want it—they all have lives elsewhere.”

Nick shook his head. “No, Ma. My girls have a home. A good home. Lita, Cella, and Lucie will decide what they want to do with this.”

“They’ll sell it.”

Nick nodded; he assumed as much. None of Ben’s children or grandchildren lived in New England, and none of them would want to. Nick knew the terms of Ben’s will. He had been left all of Ben’s business assets, and Ben’s daughters and their children had been left his personal assets; the sums in both buckets were impressive. Nick was a wealthy man in his own right. If he chose to retire now, at fifty-one, his family would be set for life. But he had no intention of retiring.

His mother looked across the yard, and Nick followed her gaze, returning to the view he’d been enjoying before she’d come up behind him. It was a bright summer day, and all the children were playing happily, attended by their mothers and aunts, who were sitting around the table under the vine-draped pergola in a far corner of the expansive lawn. Sabina, Carmen, Rosa, Manny, and Beverly. Manny was the only one who hadn’t added a child to the Pagano brood. She wasn’t a mothering type. Even now, as the women turned repeatedly to check on the children or jumped up to save one from some childish calamity, Manny simply sat in her chair and listened to the others talk.

He’d come out here to get some distance from the solemn deference inside the house. All week, men had been coming to pay tribute to him as the new don. He understood it, and he expected it. He would have demanded it, in fact, if it had not been forthcoming. But it had become oppressive. He’d needed a moment to recharge his batteries and cleanse his spirit. Beverly was right; his family was his balance. As his power had increased, more and more he needed the antidote that was his home.

In business, he was considered a god. At home, he needed to change diapers and peel sparkly stickers off his ass to remember that he was not.

The children were innocent of the solemnity of the occasion and the changes it meant. Out here, they were simply playing with their cousins, reveling in so many days in a row together. Little Ben, Carlo and Sabina’s youngest, and Teresa, Carmen and Theo’s only, were both six. Teresa, a quiet girl like Elisa, was enjoying the chance to play mentor to Elisa and Lia, and the three of them were tromping around the garden, squatting here and there to study a flower or a bug.

Little Ben was playing cars with Teddy, Rosa and Eli’s tow-headed two-year-old. Trey was inside; he had become a serious-minded young man and had been at his father’s side through much of the vigil. Nick hadn’t spoken much to Carlo this week; his attention had been consumed elsewhere. But he got the impression that Trey had come to the age when he no longer saw himself as a child. Nick was sure Trey’s transition would be smoother than his own had been.

Nick had a thought that they should spend more time socializing with the cousins. They had been closer in the past several years, and their children were so close in age, a whole new generation. They always enjoyed playing together, and, since Carmen and Theo had moved back to the Cove, almost everyone lived within a ten-mile radius of each other. Only Rosa and Eli lived farther than that, in Washington, D.C., now.

And Ben’s daughters—but it had been so very long since they’d lived in the Cove, Nick found it hard to remember them when he thought of family. They only came home for weddings and funerals.

He didn’t want that kind of distance from the rest of his family. He wanted his children to grow up in the bosom, not on the edges as he had.

But his life was complicated, and being who he was still held him a bit apart. Beverly was the nexus between him and his cousins, but she was raising three daughters under the age of five, as well as running a business. There wasn’t a lot of time to be social. Though Katrynn Page was an excellent manager for the bookshop and was in charge of the day-to-day operations, Beverly still put in at least twenty hours a week there. Or she did when she wasn’t serving as a round-the-clock milk machine.

She was nursing Carina now, sitting at the table, the baby in her sling. Nick hated the pale skin and dark circles she’d camouflaged with makeup. He didn’t think she was fooling anyone. Certainly not him.

Nick turned to his mother. “I’m sending Sam out for formula. If you’re sure you’re up to it, and if you have help, the girls can stay with you tonight. Carina, too.”

She answered him with a teary hug.

He didn’t think his wife would give him a similar response, but it was time to take care of her, whether she liked it or not.

~oOo~

“I should call.”

Nick took the phone out of Beverly’s hand. “No,
bella
. You should relax.” He turned her phone off and tucked it in his pocket.

“What if she doesn’t eat? What if the formula makes her sick?”

Aside from this anxiety, Beverly had barely protested Nick’s decision at all—and that, honestly, alarmed him. She’d made a minor fuss about him laying down the law and not giving her a choice, but she’d been obviously relieved, almost to the point of tears. She would never have made a choice that she thought foregrounded herself over her child, and he knew that—which was why he’d made the choice for her—but she had been on her way to a collapse.

He pulled her into his arms. “Ma will call me if there’s any trouble at all. We live three minutes away. But there won’t be any trouble. Elisa and Lia are having a sleepover with their cousins, and they’re elated. Carina is going to get a whole night of Nonna snuggles. Everyone will be well and happy. For the rest of the afternoon, and for the full night, you are going to relax. You’re going to eat a meal with both hands free, and you’re going to sleep in my arms for the entire night. Carina will be fine. Millions of babies for generations have had formula without incident. I was a formula baby, and look how well I turned out.”

Her head on his chest, Beverly nodded. And then she whispered, “I’m so tired,” and began to cry.

Nick swept her into his arms and carried her up to bed. Cuddles followed behind them, his wagging tail hitting the wall as they went down the hallway.

~oOo~

She slept for five hours. Nick held her all the while, dozing a little himself, but otherwise letting his mind wander where it would. It was peaceful, and Nick was content. It felt like a fitting end to the day on which his uncle, for whom family had been everything, had been buried.

Beverly woke when her breasts were full, and while she expressed—refreshed and buzzing happily about finally having some in reserve—Nick took the dog out and then called in a late take-out order to the Red Dragon. A grunt picked it up and delivered it, and Nick took it upstairs. They ate in bed, and then, after some time spent stressing about Carina and how she was doing, Beverly slept again. In all, she slept sixteen of the twenty hours they had without their girls, and Nick stayed at her side.

When Nick collected his daughters and brought them home the next day, he brought with him the news that Carina had gone three and four hours between every bottle feeding. Then he held Beverly while she dealt with that information and wept at the thought that she had been failing her baby. Once she worked through that absurdity, she agreed to continue supplementing with formula.

The rest of the week seemed to augur a return to brighter times. Both Beverly and Carina were resting better. Elisa and Lia got their mamma back. And Nick finally got some real time of his own with his new baby girl. Until then, she’d been so firmly tethered to her mother he could hardly get his hands on her.

He stayed home as much as he could that week, until home had settled back into balance. But the period of mourning was over, and it was time to return to business. So just less than a week after his uncle’s funeral, Nick slid into a navy blue Armani suit, straightened his French cuffs, kissed his wife and daughters, scratched behind the dog’s ears, promised to be home for dinner, and returned to Pagano Brothers Shipping.

Though both Pagano brothers were in the ground now, Nick gave no thought to the idea of changing the name of the business or the organization. Ben and Lorrie had taken the business over from their father and built the name to its full power. As long as there was a Pagano at the helm, they would be known as the Pagano Brothers.

As always, Sam drove him, dropping him off at the door and then parking at the far end of the lot.

The receptionist stood when he came through the door. “Good morning, Don Pagano.” She’d been working there for three years, but today she seemed nervous.