Hidden Worthiness Read online

  “They can clear a space for you before you go in, make sure there’s no trouble.”

  She didn’t want to walk around like a movie star, surrounded by brawny men. “That’s too close. That’s in my way, and other people’s, too.”

  “Then they’ll just keep up with you. You’ll know they’re there, but nobody else will. They come in case of trouble, but they might not be able to prevent it starting.”

  “Do you think somebody will really try to hurt me?”

  He pulled into the loading zone in front of her apartment building and cut the engine. Turning to her, he met her eyes. His expression had changed many times through this hour together. Now, he was the same man she’d had a lovely, romantic dinner with after the best performance of her life. “I hope not. But the threat is there. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. You do your part, and be smart.”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled. “Okay. I’ll walk you to your door.”

  “You don’t want to come in?” Why was she asking that? She wasn’t going to fuck him tonight. Possibly not for a while. First, she had to be sure he wasn’t going to revert to that morning-after shithead again. But she wasn’t ready to say good night, either.

  “You live with Trewson, right?”

  Oh, right. That was a definite complication—she had a big fight waiting for her inside. She laughed. “Yeah, I do. It’ll probably be pretty chilly in there.”

  “Then I’ll walk you to your door. But here.” He took his phone out and handed it to her. “Call yourself.”

  She dialed her number, and her phone rang.

  Donnie took his phone back, and she took hers from her bag and declined the call.

  “This is my personal phone. If you need me, you call.”

  She nodded and stared at his number on the screen of her phone. Then Julian’s face popped up, and her phone rang again. Another half hour had passed.

  “Oh my God, I’m parked outside. I’ll be in in a few minutes!” she said as soon as she answered.

  “Five minutes, and I’m coming out.”

  “Fine, Dad.” She ended the call. “He’s being impatient. I should go in.”

  When Donnie got out, she waited for him to come around and help her out. She wasn’t sure if it was an act of chivalry or caution, but she liked it. She liked when he took her hand and they walked to her building with their fingers woven together, too.

  He walked her into the building and started to go up the stairs, but she pulled back. “That’s my door just at the top of the stairs. You don’t need to go all the way up.”

  “Is there a reason you don’t want me to?”

  She tugged his hand and walked him to the nook for the mailboxes. “We’ll have more privacy here.”

  “I’m not going to kiss you good night, Arianna.”

  “I know.” She put her arms up, meaning to wrap them around his neck for a hug, but he recoiled and caught her wrists, and she decided something. “I want my touch now.”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because I can’t think why I would wait.” She let him hold her wrists, waiting for him to let go on his own.

  Finally, he did.

  He stood stiffly, watching her warily, like a trapped animal. Donato Goretti, underboss of the Pagano Family, feared by dangerous men, was afraid of her.

  She put her hands on his chest, felt the rapid tempo of his heart. Moving slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on his, she eased up, to his shoulders, and in, to his neck, insinuating her fingers along the neck of his hoodie—yes, cashmere. When her fingertips touched his jaw—stubble on the left; tight, oddly hot skin on the right—he sucked in a sharp breath and pulled his head up, nearly out of her reach.

  “Donnie.”

  The tension in his body was visible, it was audible, but he didn’t pull further back. She moved her hands over his jaw, to his cheeks. He grunted, a sound of misery, but she didn’t back off. She would have this touch. He owed it to her.

  Both sides of his face felt as she expected them to. The left side was rough with his short beard, and his skin was warm and soft. The right side was waxy smooth in some places and uneven in others. Its temperature was different, warmer than the other side. That was the only thing she found surprising, and she wanted to ask why, but this wasn’t the time.

  Nothing about the right side of his face disgusted her. It wasn’t aesthetically beautiful, but she didn’t mind looking at it. It was Donnie’s face, and she wanted to know it. What she felt most was sad. There’d been no accident—someone had done this to him on purpose. She ached for the pain he must have felt. And the pain he obviously still felt.

  She touched his whole face, over the uneven skin at his ear, and around his head, until she could link her fingers on the back of his neck. “Thank you.”

  Donnie’s eyes clamored in their sockets, and she didn’t know what emotion rioted so intensely in them. Had she made him angry? Had she hurt him? Did her touch offend him?

  “I liked that,” she said, not knowing how to know his thoughts except to say her own. “I’d like to touch you more sometime, if you’d be okay with it.”

  He stared at her with those noisy eyes. “I ... don’t know.”

  That was more than she’d hoped for. Best of all, it was a real answer—warm and alive and vulnerable. “Okay. Will I see you again?”

  “You want that?”

  “Not an arrangement. A relationship. The start of one, anyway. Open hearts.”

  Before he answered, her apartment door creaked open. “Ari!”

  “I’m down here. God, Jule!”

  Donnie’s expression became that of a man working very hard to be patient and running out of energy for the work. He cupped her face in his hands, and for the tiniest second, she thought he’d kiss her after all. His gesture was so kiss-ready. But he simply brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, said, “I’ll call,” and let her go.

  He went to the door, and she went up the stairs. Julian stood on the landing, his arms crossed. But he hadn’t come down to go toe to toe with the Mafioso.

  A couple steps from the landing, she turned. Donnie was still at the door, waiting. Watching.

  She blew him a kiss.

  He left with a smile.

  ~ 15 ~

  Donnie considered the map on the screen. “You put this together fast.” Barely two days after Nick had given them leave to take down the advance teams, Angie had put together the intel and the resources for an attack that could take every Bondaruk-affiliated asshole in the States out.

  “I want these motherfuckers, boss,” Angie muttered. “They put my sister’s head on a dismembered body. They don’t get to walk around with that in their brains.”

  Donnie wanted them, too. Now that he’d wedged open the door of his feelings, Arianna was taking over his mind and heart both. Truthfully, she’d been annexing territory in there since the night of the gala.

  Whether it was real intent or mere bluster, he wanted this threat against her gone. Immediately.

  “Who are we calling in for this?”

  “There’s eight of them, plus maybe a couple grunts that hang around. Ten of us should make it quick. Three unmarked vans. Vio’s offered those, so we can come in from the coast. I want guys that move fast. You, me, Jake, Tony, Dre. Paolo. I was thinkin’ Alex Di Pietro—he’s green, and he’s not made, but I went hard on him, and he took it. He might do good with a chance for some payback on the guys that put him in my crosshairs.”

  “We can’t have anybody who’ll fold in heat. You think he’s got it?”

  “Like I said, he took what I laid on him, and I wasn’t being nice.”

  Donnie chuckled. Poor Alex. “Okay. That’s seven. Who else? What about Trey?”

  Angie frowned. “I don’t know. Like you said, we can’t have anybody fold in this heat. He choked bad with the Bondaruks last year. Almost got himself and who knows who else killed.”

  “True, but ...” But Trey was Nick’s chosen successor. It
was far too early for that to be acknowledged as a truth, but Donnie and Angie knew it, and it was their job to make the kid ready. He absolutely had choked badly last year, but his own woman had been at risk then. It was worry for her, not fear for himself, that had jammed his circuits.

  Angie glanced at Donnie’s closed door, then leaned back on his desk. “I want to ask you something, but before I do, I want to know you know how much I love Nick. He has my loyalty until I die. I will follow his play, whatever it is. Even when I don’t agree. You know that, right?”

  Donnie had been leaning over his desk, resting on his hands as he studied the map on the tablet screen. Now he stood up straight and studied his friend. “Of course.”

  “I’m only saying this out loud at all because you and me, Nick looks to us to advise him.”

  “What’s on your mind, Ange?”

  Conflict raged over Angie’s face, and Donnie wasn’t sure he’d get the words out at all. But finally, he said, “I don’t know how I feel about this Trey thing.”

  Understanding what Angie meant, Donnie still wanted him to be clear. “What Trey thing?”

  “He’s not full blood, boss. He’s a good guy, I like him, and I think he’s good at the work. He’s got growing to do, but he’ll grow. If he was full blood, he’d be the obvious choice. But Nick breaks the first rule when he makes Trey. Forget him taking over as don someday—I’m worried about what’s coming at us any time now. He’s what? Twenty-seven? He’s been an associate for something like four years? Sometime soon, Nick is gonna ask him to do the thing that’ll give him cause to make him. All the way back to Sicily that shit goes. Generations back. All our roots go back to Sicily. That’s what La Cosa Nostra is. Every made man everywhere, we’re all bound. All family. And Nick kicks our grandfathers in the teeth when he brings a half-blood in, and everybody will know what he means—for that half-blood to lead this family someday. Nobody in the world is gonna stand for that. We’ll be standing here in Rhode Island with our dicks in our hands while every made man in the world runs at us with fucking machetes.”

  Donnie didn’t disagree with anything Angie had said. He was right. When Nick made Trey, he would start a civil war. Nick knew it. Donnie knew it. The whole organization—all of whom assumed the rumors to be true—knew it. This was why Nick was saving favors as if they were war bonds. They were exactly that. “You’re suggesting we tell Nick that the only other man in this family who shares his blood needs to go?”

  Angie sighed and stared out the window at the harbor. “I don’t know. Nick wants Trey seasoned, and I back his play, but maybe we need to ask him to think harder about this. The motherland isn’t just gonna roll over and say, ‘Okay, mixed blood is fine now.’ There’s a better choice for successor. There’s you.”

  Donnie turned and leaned back on the desk at Angie’s side, looking out the window, too. “Ange, it’s not a reflex decision. Nick decided this over time, and Trey decided him. Not because he lobbied to be made. He came in with us not expecting anything. Nick told him he couldn’t advance, and Trey wanted this anyway. Nick decided he wanted to take on this fight for Trey. The don knows what it means. There’s nothing we can tell him he hasn’t already considered. When he does this, if he does it, he’ll be firm. You and me, and everybody else, we’ll have one choice—to stand with him, or stand against him.”

  “And you’re okay with Trey jumping over you?”

  Donnie had had a long time to think about all this and understand his feelings. They hadn’t changed. “I’m with Nick. I trust him. The Pagano Brothers is his family legacy, and I’ll fight at his side for his right to make it as he wishes. I’ll take over if, God forbid, something happens before Trey’s ready, but if that happens I’ll step down when he is. But I have no burning need to be don. Where I am is enough.”

  Staring out at the boats beyond as late afternoon dusked to evening, Angie was thoughtfully quiet. Then he sighed. “You’re right. Obviously you’re right. Okay. So yeah, Trey’s in tonight. That’s eight. We need two more.”

  ~oOo~

  The team of ten went by water, down the coast to New Jersey. Angie re-briefed everyone on the plan during the short sail, and the men suited up in Kevlar and locked and loaded their weapons.

  The plan was to go fast and quiet, all guns silenced, and to bring out as many men alive as possible. They would all be dead before the night was over, but Nick wanted every syllable of their information, and every drop of their blood, before they sank into the ocean.

  Docked just north of Asbury Park, they met up with a small team of Vio Marconi’s men. The Marconi Family were the Paganos’ closest allies on the New England Council. They ran Connecticut and had their own beef with the Bondaruks. But the Bondaruks had set their sights on Nick, the head of the Council, from the go. So Marconi took a support role in this endeavor.

  Marconi men handed over the keys to three unmarked cargo vans, dark grey, and took up watch over the cruiser.

  The three vans split up on the road. Angie’s plan was for all three to come in from different directions, closing off all access points to the video store. Their intel had it that the Ukrainians came together every night an hour after the store closed and stayed together for at least two hours.

  Angie drove one van, and Donnie went with him. He pulled Trey into their ride as well. And Angie pulled Alex in. The two leaders in charge of the only unmade men on this job.

  Before he put the van in gear, Angie turned and scowled at the young men. “You got a wife and a baby at home, Golden Boy.” Trey reacted to the nickname he hated, but Angie ignored him and turned to Alex. “And you, kid, you live with your mamma, right?”

  “Yeah,” Alex answered.

  “If I have to carry your bodies to the women who love you, I will be very unhappy. Do you know your job tonight?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Good. You keep your heads screwed tight, and your balls where they belong. You stay cool and loose and sharp. Capite?”

  “Got it,” they both answered.

  Donnie turned around leveled a hard look at Trey. “You understand, Trey?”

  “I got it, boss. I’m sharp.”

  Angie turned back to the wheel. “Good. Then let’s roll.”

  ~oOo~

  The video store was about two miles in from the coast, in a corner strip mall at the edge of a cluster of apartment buildings. Across the street was an office plaza, one of those places that rented out space to hair stylists and independent accountants. At this hour, the whole intersection was quiet. All four corners were dark, and the apartments sloped down a hill behind a cantilevered gate.

  Angie was right—there was room here for them to work and not make waves.

  The video store—its name, so far as Donnie could see, was simply ‘відео,’ the green letters still illuminated on the eaves though the shop lights were down to their after-hours dimness—was two shops in from the southern end of the strip. No access in or out but the front and the back.

  Angie directed Dre to use his van to block the front entrance and wait. Jake and Angie pulled around to the back, headlights dark. They cut their engines and let the vans roll in the rest of the way.

  Four cars, nondescript sedans and compact SUVs, and two sport-style motorcycles were clustered near the rear door of the video store.

  “We’re looking for eight?” Donnie asked, considering those vehicles.

  “Yeah. That’s all their rides. Some of the guys don’t drive.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Angie shrugged. “I guess it’s different in the old country, I don’t know.”

  Jake and Angie were stopped almost nose to nose. Jake made a ‘ready when you are’ gesture, and Angie turned to the back. “Do not fuck us up, children.”

  “We’re good, Ange,” Trey answered. His tone had the edge of a fight, and Angie grinned.

  “Good. Then let’s get this done.”

  Angie, Donnie, Trey, Alex, Jake, Tony, and Fezz—seven men i
n Kevlar, carrying silenced M4s as well as their own sidearms and ammo for it all—crept quietly to the dinged metal service door of the Bondaruk advance crew’s base. Angie tried the knob quietly, but it was locked. There was a deadbolt above it, and they had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be engaged as well. And it opened out, not in.

  But Angie had called Fezz in on this job for a reason. Vince ‘Fezzik’ Bartelli wasn’t the fastest or smartest guy in the organization; he was probably the slowest, in every respect. If things got dicey here, there was no question he’d be the one slowing them down. He was made, because he was loyal and would do—had done—anything Nick asked of him, but he’d never be more than a soldier. At the shipping company, he worked the warehouse and would never do anything more complicated than drive a forklift—a job it had taken him weeks to learn. His nickname had come from the warehouse guys, after the big guy in The Princess Bride. And it fit: Fezz was six-ten if he was a foot, and four hundred if he was a pound. They’d had to custom-order Kevlar to fit him. And, like the character he’d been named for, there was seemingly nothing that could withstand his brute strength.

  So Angie stepped aside and nodded the big guy up. Fezz handed his M4 to Jake. He lifted one massive yacht of a foot and kicked the door. It burst in at once, the jamb splintering, the whole assembly groaning at the strain.

  From then, with the Ukrainians reacting to the incursion, chaos exploded, but they’d expected as much. Their goal was to keep the fracas inside the video shop and remove all traces of their presence when they were done. The same pinch points that would hold the Ukrainians inside were bottlenecks for the Paganos; coming in one at a time, they were vulnerable to getting picked off, so they used the brief moment of surprise they had and clambered in over the broken door as fast as they could.

  Angie was in first, Donnie right behind him, but bullets were already flying when he was clear of the door. The best-case scenario would have been no gunfire—the element of surprise freezing the Ukies where they sat or stood in the face of a troop of heavily armed and armored Italians. Best cases rarely happened, of course. One of their targets must have had a gun at the ready, and Donnie felt a bullet skim off Angie’s Kevlared shoulder and ping off to gouge the wall at Donnie’s side. Angie reacted, firing either with intent or in reflex after taking the hit, and after that, their plan changed fast.