Hidden Worthiness Read online

  Nick wanted live bodies to interrogate. They all wanted the men who’d envisioned horrors for their women to suffer. But by the time the brief firestorm had ended, there was a pile of Ukrainian bodies, and Donnie didn’t know if any of them were breathing. Nick would not be happy.

  His first concern, though, was his own men. “Are we whole?” He spun around. Angie’s face was speckled with red, but it obviously wasn’t his blood. There was a dark streak on the shoulder of his vest, but he hadn’t seemed to notice. Jake was down, but struggling to his feet. A metal disk had implanted in his vest, on the left side of his chest. That bullet would have killed him. He’d feel the punch of it for a while.

  No other Pagano man had taken a hit.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” Tony yelled from the front of the store. “Fuck!”

  Donnie turned to Trey and Alex. Both were whole, and Trey was holding his M4 in a way that made it clear he’d used it. “Cover Angie. Keep aimed on them. Don’t assume they’re dead until we check.”

  He ran to the front, jumping over Angie, who was starting to check for signs of life.

  The trouble up front was obvious. There were two more Bondaruk men on the floor in the middle of the shop, but they’d expected some to run for the front; it was why they’d had a van stationed there. One man was clearly dead, but the other was breathing, trying to sit up, and wheezing something in Ukrainian. None of that was the trouble.

  The trouble was the body lying beside and partly under the dead Ukie.

  A boy. No older than eight or nine. Donnie didn’t have to get any closer to know he was dead.

  Tony stood and stared at the bodies, his rifle sagging from his hand. Dre and Paolo stood by the door, in shock.

  “What the fuck? What the fuck happened?” Donnie demanded, going to the bodies—he knew the boy was dead, he was missing most of his throat, and his eyes were open, but he checked anyway. “What the fuck is a kid doing here?”

  The bloody, breathing man was still yammering in Ukrainian. Now he was trying to get to the boy, and Donnie understood the grief in his voice. He was related to this dead child.

  “I don’t know!” Tony moaned. “They were coming for the door, and that one pulled on me, and I shot. Just a short burst. I didn’t see the kid! Goddammit, boss, I didn’t see the kid!”

  “Cazzo!” Angie stood at the back of the store. “What the fuck?”

  Donnie turned on him. “You said there were a couple hangarounds who might be collateral damage. Why didn’t you know about this kid?”

  “I don’t know! We’ve had eyes on them for weeks, and there was no kid with them—ever. The only kids who came in were customers, and they went right back out. I don’t know where he came from!”

  The wounded Ukrainian raised his struggling voice and turned his soliloquy on them, but no one understood his language.

  “He’s saying it’s his son, boss,” Trey said. He’d come up from the back room.

  Donnie wheeled around again. “You speak Ukrainian?”

  “Not really. A little. Lara is teaching herself. She says it helps her, since the Bondaruks keep turning up. I’m trying to learn with her. Miy syn, miy syn—he’s saying ‘my son, my son,’ I think. I don’t know the rest of it.”

  “Can you ask him if he speaks English?”

  Trey rattled off some halting syllables Donnie didn’t understand. The man shook his head and wailed the same two words. Now that Donnie understood them, they weren’t so different from their English counterparts.

  Trey turned to Donnie. “I think you got that. He’s too out of his head to make sense, anyway. But I don’t think he speaks English.”

  “Fuck. Somebody here’s got to. I hope we didn’t kill them all.”

  “I killed a kid,” Tony moaned. One of their toughest enforcers stood staring at the body of the child he’d killed and moaned.

  This was not the time or place to reckon with guilt. Donnie gave Tony a hard shake. “Get your head together. We gotta get out of here. Focus! Let’s do what we’re here to do!”

  Ten silent men focused and finished the job. Of the eleven people who were in that shop when the Paganos attacked, five were still breathing. Only three were conscious.

  Of the six who were dead, one was a child.

  They wrapped the dead in tarps. They bound and gagged the living. Once the dead were piled in one van and the living in another, Angie and Donnie put men on guard at the vans, and the rest went in to remove the traces of their presence. The blood was all Ukrainian, so they left it for the cleaners to come and finish the job and leave a mystery behind.

  ~oOo~

  They brought the dead and the living onto the boat and returned to Quiet Cove, docking in a Pagano Brothers harbor warehouse, one that Nick preferred to do his wetwork in. It was already outfitted to accommodate any need he might have for the work.

  As don, Nick rarely bloodied his own hands anymore. There were certain jobs he didn’t delegate—when he had a personal interest in the justice, or when justice was due against one of his own men, for example—but for the most part, Donnie and Angie were his weapons of choice.

  But Nick had well and truly earned his reputation as a brutal enforcer. He’d begun rendering justice in the name of the Pagano Brothers when he was fifteen years old, first on his own father. In the fifty years since, he’d become a student, and then a master, of all the methods of torture the world and its history provided.

  When he arrived at the harbor that night, the men were quiet. The death of the boy weighed on them all. Six men and the boy were dead now; another man had died on the boat. Two were unconscious, including, now, the dead boy’s father. Two were conscious. One of those was barely hurt. He hadn’t been shot; all he had was a bump on the head. They’d found him playing dead. Neither of them would admit to speaking English.

  “Where’s the boy?” Nick asked once the doors had closed behind him.

  “Here.” Donnie directed him to the stack of pallets they’d laid the small body on.

  “Show me.”

  Angie folded back the tarp so Nick could see the grey face, the ruined throat. Donnie watched Nick as he took in that sight. His face was calm, but his eyes flashed, and the muscles at his jaw flexed dangerously.

  “I told you this had to be clean and quiet, and you bring me a dead child. You told me the only collateral damage would be hangarounds, and you bring me a dead child.”

  Nick’s voice was low, as seemingly sedate as his expression, but danger pulsed around him like bright red heat. Donnie sensed the other men shrink back.

  “I don’t know where he came from, don,” Angie said, quietly. “None of our surveillance showed him going in or coming out. Not once. I don’t know how he got in there.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Seven,” Donnie answered, a hot rock of guilt throbbing in his gut.

  Nick didn’t seem to react. “Who did this?”

  Tony, Trey, and Dre stood just back from Nick, Donnie, and Angie, but from the corner of his left eye, Donnie saw Tony shift, ready to take responsibility. Before he could, Angie said, “I did it.”

  Nick turned sharply. Donnie couldn’t see the look he gave Angie, but he saw Angie’s face. Saw it go pale, saw his eyes flare wide. “I’m sorry, don.”

  “You bring me a dead child.”

  Again, Tony moved, made to step forward. Donnie turned his head and made enough of a gesture to stop him in his tracks. It was too late to shift the blame. Angie had taken it, and it couldn’t be deflected now, certainly not onto an underling.

  It wasn’t out of place on Angie’s back. He’d planned the hit. He’d led the intel. He’d rushed the job. It was on Donnie, too, for having the idea in the first place and not insisting they triple check the plan.

  It had been a good plan. Except for this child.

  “Tell me you’ve done the work now and know if this boy has a mother.”

  Knowing Nick would want to know, Donnie had called Calvin and put him on the ta
sk of identifying the boy. “He does. The boy’s name is Gregor Honcharenko. His mom is a waitress at the Hard Rock in AC. She’s a citizen, and so was the boy. Dad is Artem Honcharenko. He’s here on a green card. He’s one of the hangarounds we expected.”

  “Is?”

  “Yeah. He’s alive but unconscious. Shot in the chest, but still kicking so far.”

  Nick’s jaw worked strenuously as he stared down at the small body. “I want the boy left to be found. So his mother can bury him. Angie, that’s on you.”

  “Capisco, don.”

  “That’ll turn the Bondaruks to us, Nick,” Donnie said. “They’ll consider it proof that we did this. They’ll say we killed a child to start a war.”

  “Yes. And so we have. You’ve brought me a dead child with a mother who’ll miss him. Who’ll search for him if she doesn’t know. We will give her her child to bury and mourn. And now I’m at war with roaches.”

  “I’m sorry, don,” Angie said again.

  “I will cut those words out of your tongue if I hear them again. They mean nothing.” Nick turned on his heel. “Trey.”

  “Uncle?”

  “I hear you know Ukrainian.”

  “Only a little. Lara knows more, but—I don’t ... I don’t want her here.” It was brave of the kid to push Nick at all right now; he was angrier than Donnie had seen him in years.

  “No, neither do I. Can you say enough to get one of them to tell us who speaks English? Since they’re not speaking up themselves?”

  “I can try, yeah.”

  Trey went with Nick to the two bound, conscious men. He spoke some awkward, guttural words, but neither answered him. While Trey tried, Nick removed his jacket. He cuffed his sleeves to the elbow.

  Still standing at the makeshift bier, Angie wrapped the boy’s body up again.

  “Angie—” Tony started.

  “Shut up. You’ll help me take this kid back to Jersey.”

  “Yeah, absolutely.”

  Donnie left them to that work and went toward Nick. He pushed up his sleeves. They weren’t done getting dirty tonight.

  When Nick was ready—sleeves cuffed, gloves on, tools out—he called Trey over. “Enough, nephew. Don’t waste time on what doesn’t work. Come here.”

  Trey came to Nick’s work table, where he’d laid out an array of sharp and blunt objects.

  “Take off your jacket, roll up your sleeves. You get dirty tonight.”

  Donnie saw the kid’s Adam’s apple bob with a hard swallow, but he did what he was told.

  Nick chose a scalpel as his first tool. He went to the conscious Ukrainians and called Jake close with a tip of his head. Indicating the healthiest of the bound men, the one who’d played dead, Nick said, “Take his shoes and socks off.”

  Jake did what he was told, and Nick crouched before the man’s bare feet. Donnie’s toes curled in his shoes. He knew this move, and it was not pleasant.

  “When information is required, the key is to make much more pain than damage,” Nick said to Trey, and then slit the man’s foot down the center, from the ball to the heel.

  The thing about the scalpel—it was so sharp, so fine, that the first cut wasn’t nearly as painful as one might think. It slid through the skin like a hot knife through butter, and on the sole of the foot, way down at the bottom of the body, the pain receptors couldn’t keep up. The blood seeped almost sedately from the wound. But the scalpel went deep, through tendons and muscle, through the hard pads of the ball and heel. So when Nick set aside the cutting tool and with his fingers pried open the slit he’d made, the pain roared all the way up the subject’s body. This man screamed like a soprano in the middle of her aria.

  Donnie could only imagine the pain; he’d seen its effects before but had never felt it himself. Still, he doubted it was as intense as the greatest pain he’d ever endured.

  Nick handed the scalpel to Trey. “Do his other foot.”

  “Ni! Ni! Ni!” the man screamed, and even Donnie knew what he meant.

  “Ask him now, Trey.”

  Trey cleared his throat and said the same Ukrainian words. The man sobbed and screamed and stared at his quivering, ruined foot, but he wasn’t ready to give up his friends.

  Nick nodded at Trey, who opened the man’s other foot and spread the wound wide. His hands shook, but he did what the don wanted, and he didn’t hesitate.

  The man broke, wailing like a siren now, and pointed to the boy’s father. Artem Honcharenko. He’d denied speaking English earlier, but now that they knew the boy and his mother were American citizens, and he was a legal resident, it made sense that the father had some English. But he was unconscious.

  “Anybody else?”

  Trey rattled off some more shaky, incomprehensible syllables. The man gasped some back and pointed in the direction of the tarped bodies.

  “Pretty sure he’s saying the rest are dead.”

  Nick stood and went to the supine body of the boy’s father. He crouched beside him and checked his pulse. When Nick’s head sagged to his chest, Donnie knew that Artem wouldn’t be telling them anything.

  “All of this, and we have nothing. Nothing but a war I don’t want.”

  Don Pagano stood. He went to his table, pulled off his gloves, threw them in the bin for the incinerator. He washed his hands. Dried them. Threw the towel away. Rolled down his cuffs. Fixed his cuff links. Put his jacket on.

  All the while, the Pagano men around him stood silently, ashamed.

  “Trey, clean up and come with me. It’s not the night to make your bones. Angie, take who you need and get the boy home. Donnie, wipe this up. The rest of you, do your part. I want this erased. Everything but the boy. And I swear on my uncle’s memory, if you fuck this up more, I will sink every one of you in the Atlantic.”

  ~oOo~

  It was morning when Donnie got home. Everything from his scalp to the soles of his feet ached with weariness. But the Bondaruk men had been erased, and young Gregor’s body was back home, where his mother would know his fate and be able to put her son to rest. Where his body would serve as a message Nick had had no intention of sending.

  Seven. The boy had been only seven years old. Donnie could barely lift the weight of the night as he walked through his house.

  Mrs. Alfonsi was in the kitchen, making breakfast, and she lifted an eyebrow as she mixed pancake batter. “You were out all night. You’re not getting younger, Mr. Donnie. You should take better care.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m taking the morning off—I’ll take a shower and get some sleep.”

  “Will you eat?”

  He had no appetite at all. “Just put them in that warmer dish you have, and I’ll eat them later. They smell great.” He left his housekeeper to her work and went up to his room.

  After a hot, scrubbing shower, Donnie sat on the side of his bed and looked down at his phone. He needed something light and good in his head before he tried to sleep, or any sleep he got would tear his mind apart. Nights like the last one tore off the lid on his old demons.

  Arianna had called him late last evening, while they were preparing for Jersey. He’d let it roll to voice mail because he couldn’t afford the distraction. But he’d listened to it four times in the past few hours. It wasn’t anything special—just her, being sweetly awkward. You never actually said you wanted to start a relationship. You kind of skidded out underneath that one. So just checking—you do, right? Okay, now I’m embarrassed, so I’m gonna go. I hope you call me.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning. Was that rudely early? He’d never worried about that before; when he wanted to call a woman, he called.

  So he called now.

  “Hello?” He’d obviously woken her; her voice was soft and unfocused.

  “Hi.”

  “Donnie.”

  He smiled at the relief and pleasure in her tone. “I had a long night, and I’m just getting to bed. But I’d like to see you tonight. Are you free for dinner?”

  “Here in
Providence?”

  “Of course.” Quiet Cove was his home; it was too soon to bring her so close.

  “Then yes! I have an audition late this afternoon, but then I’m free.”

  “I’m surprised a principal has to audition.” She was quiet, and Donnie understood he’d offended her. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism.”

  “No, I know. I’m just thinking. How would you feel about picking me up in the studio?”

  “At the theatre? Sure.”

  “No, I mean coming in to the studio.”

  Now he was quiet, as he tried to understand her purpose. As much as he could, he avoided situations where attention was drawn his way, and he’d already told her as much—or at least strongly implied it. “You want me to see you audition?”

  “Okay, I’m just going to be straight with you, and if you don’t like this, I get it. The director and I ... it’s complicated, but he doesn’t like me. He’s being a pretty big jerk, which is why I have to audition. I don’t have enough juice to deal with him on my own, which sucks, but I was thinking—”

  “You were thinking you’d make a show of your Mafioso boyfriend and back him off that way.”

  “Sort of. Are you my Mafioso boyfriend?”

  Donnie didn’t answer, because he had a more important question. “What’s he doing to you, Arianna?” The question reminded him of something Trewson had said, about a ‘Jeremiah.’ Was she having trouble that didn’t have to do with him? It lightened his load a little to think he could do some good for her and not simply cause her trouble.

  “He’s just being a jerk. I don’t want you to do anything to him, I just want him to see you, and see me with you.”

  “Okay.” He’d pay attention to what he saw while he was there, and he’d press Arianna for more details. About Berrault and this Jeremiah, both.

  “Yeah?”

  “What time should I be there?”

  “Like ... six? Does that work?”