Hidden Worthiness

by Susan Fanetti

  “Our children,” Don Pagano said. “Elisabetta, Lorenzo, Lia, and Carina.”

  Wow. Way to go all in on the Italian. Not that a woman named Arianna Luciano had room to marvel.

  She shook hands with all four. Beautiful parents had made beautiful children. Elisabetta, tall and willowy, possibly the eldest, shook hands and smiled shyly. Lorenzo, who seemed to be middle-school age, was dark and dour. He was clearly uncomfortable in his tuxedo, and Ari could imagine him going Goth in high school. He shook her hand and mumbled, “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you,” Ari answered.

  Lia, with the fairest complexion of the group—tawny and russet while the others were bronze and sable—was plumper as well. Ari guessed her to be in high school, or maybe just out of it.

  She smiled sunnily and shook Ari’s hand eagerly. “You are so beautiful. You dance so beautifully! And your costume! The way it sparkled! Do you make you own? Are they made here?”

  “Gattina.” Don Pagano said, gently, and Lia settled instantly. Without a smile, her face settled into a look almost sad.

  “You were wonderful,” she added, much more subdued.

  Ari had found the artistic Pagano. She smiled and leaned close. “Thank you. We have a costume department. Our designer, Bastien Quan, made my costume. If you’d like to meet him, I’m sure I could arrange that.”

  Lia’s eyes—intense green like her father’s—went wide and bright. “Oh, I’d love that!” She looked sheepishly at her father. “Papa?”

  “I’ll speak with Miss Luciano later, and see what we can work out.”

  The sun returned to Miss Lia Pagano’s pretty face. Ari turned to the youngest girl, whose name she now couldn’t remember. It possibly didn’t matter, because the girl’s arms were crossed over her chest, and she didn’t look interested in meeting anyone.

  “Carina, be nice!” Donnie chided. Oh—interesting. Donnie was close enough to the family that he had scolding privileges.

  Ari held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Carina.”

  The girl—obviously in the full flower of new puberty, with all the hormonal attitude that came with it—finally offered a grudging hand. “Hi.” She turned to her mother. “Mamma, I need the restroom.”

  Her father answered. “Hold on, cara, let me call Leo over.”

  “Oh my GAWD, I don’t need a man to follow me to the bathroom. That’s creepy, Papa!”

  “Yes, you do. Be still a minute.” He pulled his phone from his jacket. Before he opened it, he nodded at Donnie. “Check the exits.”

  “Right.” Donnie gave Ari’s arm a quick, affectionate squeeze. “Be right back. Stay put, please.”

  “This is stupid,” Carina groused, reminding Ari that middle-schoolers were the absolute worst. “I just need to pee.”

  “Don’t be a twat, Carrie,” Lia sniped.

  “Lia!” their mother hissed. “Watch your mouth.”

  Yeah, other people could have kids. Ari would observe from a distance, thank you very much.

  Donna Pagano smiled and tried to recover a polite atmosphere. “How long have you been dancing, Ari?”

  “Since I was three. I’ve been here in Providence for almost eight years now.”

  “Where is she?” Don Pagano was off his call, and Ari saw a beefy, bald man, squeezed into a black suit, coming their way.

  Everybody looked at the place where Carina had been standing literally fifteen seconds earlier. The empty place where she’d been standing.

  Ari spun around. “And where’s Donnie?”

  Don Pagano scanned the room in a flash and snarled, “Fuck!” He yanked his wife, his children, and Ari all toward him, somehow all at once, and shoved them at the big bald guy. “Get them to cover. Now!” He didn’t raise his voice, but his alarm was clear.

  Suddenly there were two giant men in black suits bustling them away, through a glittering Christmas wonderland and oblivious lingering theatregoers. Ari tried to look for Donnie, but they were pushing her too fast, off to the side, into one of the catering service rooms. Both men produced very large handguns before they closed them alone in that room.

  Ari flipped on the light. Beverly Pagano and three of her children were absolutely terrified.

  So was she.

  And then they heard gunfire.

  ~ 21 ~

  Things had been tense with Nick for weeks now. Donnie knew the only thing keeping him at Nick’s side was the lack of anyone to replace him. The don had closed his circle so tightly around Angie and him that no one else understood how he thought or worked. Except Trey, who wasn’t yet made.

  There’d been no movement from Ukraine yet, so business, both day and night, had gone on as usual, with an extra layer of vigilance and preparation. The security and intelligence guys were working overtime. Everybody else was doing their usual thing.

  But Nick hadn’t conferred with Angie and Donnie since the death of the Honcharenko boy. He called them in and gave them orders, but he didn’t ask their opinions. They’d been iced out, and Nick was alone on the tip of his iceberg.

  However, Donnie was deeply immersed in Nick’s family life. Bev considered him one of her best friends, and vice versa, and he was their kids’ favorite uncle. All their lives, Donnie had been part of their family rhythms. Nick treasured his family’s happiness, so Donnie hadn’t been excluded from anything he normally shared with Bev and the kids. As the holiday season got underway, he’d spent Thanksgiving with them—missing Arianna, who’d gone home to Long Island alone for the weekend—and, as always, he’d shared his box seat with them for The Nutcracker.

  Cold as he was in the office, in his home, where Bev and the kids could see, Nick treated Donnie as always, as his good close friend. But when they chanced to be alone, the chill took over, like the room had been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

  The precarious balance of that high wire kept Donnie in a steady state of wooziness around his best friend. It needed to stop, and he had no trace of a thought how to fix things between them. Maybe he should have talked to Bev about it after all.

  If Trey was a made man, he’d step down and fold into the ranks of the capos, let Nick’s golden boy come to his side. But Trey wasn’t made. Angie was in just as much shit as Donnie was. There was no one else to stand at the don’s side.

  So Donnie danced on the high wire, above raging, freezing waters.

  He’d been glad to have Nick here at the ballet tonight, to see Arianna dance and know she was Donnie’s woman, to introduce her and watch her charm him. Nick was a romantic, deep in his heart. He’d fallen in love quickly and fiercely with Bev, and he doted on his children—though he was also demanding of them, especially as they reached adolescence. He’d been enthusiastically supportive of Trey and Lara’s relationship.

  Donnie hoped that meeting Arianna, seeing her with him, would warm his feelings about Donnie’s protective inclination toward her, and help him understand why he hadn’t thought as clearly as he should have. He needed some room to make things right.

  Arianna had made a good impression already; Donnie had seen the glint in Nick’s eye that meant he’d been impressed. As he scanned the crowded, glittering theatre lobby, he smiled, thinking of his beautiful ballerina, gliding toward them in that satiny red sheath.

  He checked the exits, looking for suspicious faces or movements before clearing Carina to go back into the narrow corridor that led to the public restrooms and a staff passageway beyond it. Donnie knew that passageway well now; it led by a stairwell down into the studio area for dancers and musicians. It was dim and gloomy, and Carina needed a guard on her before she went back. Which she knew; she was just being a petulant teenager irritated that she’d been forced to miss a party with friends to come to the ballet with her family.

  He didn’t like the way the lobby was set up for the holidays. It was pretty, lots of lights and glitter and Christmas spirit, but it made for far too many blind spots. Still, there were six Pagano Brothers men in this room, plus three m
ore outside, not counting Nick and Donnie. To get to Bev, Arianna, or the kids, a guy would have to be literally invisible.

  Not seeing anything that perked up his antennae, Donnie turned back to his group—and saw Carina, the little twerp, peel off from her family and skitter toward the restrooms. Her aspect perfectly exemplified the awkward adolescent puree of rebellion and anxiety—both ‘fuck you, I do what I want,’ and ‘golly, I hope I don’t get caught.’ Muttering to himself about willful teenagers, Donnie headed straight for the same doorway. So he was looking right at the guy, dressed in an usher’s uniform, who made a profoundly suspicious quick scan of the room before he ducked through the doorway right behind her, reaching into his uniform coat as he did.

  An usher in a theatre. Literally invisible. Jesus Christ.

  Donnie ran, pulling his Beretta as he did. In the middle of a theatre lobby, still crowded with innocent bystanders. He ducked past them, shoved through them, and got to the doorway like the fires of hell were at his heels. Carina. No fucking way was he losing her.

  The hall was quiet, except for Carina and the bastard who had her. Not much taller than she was, but significantly broader, he had a hand clamped over her face, and he’d dragged her to the staff door. His other hand held a 9mm.

  “Hey!” Donnie shouted, his Beretta aimed and ready.

  The ‘usher’ froze and looked back. He put the gun to Carina’s head and pushed through the staff door. That goddamn dark, narrow passageway and stairwell into the lowest recesses of the building. The dungeon where they kept the talent.

  Donnie ran again, to the door and through it. He couldn’t do anything else. If the guy got too far away, he’d have backup. If he got her out of this building, Donnie knew exactly what they’d do to Nick’s youngest daughter. Donnie’s favorite niece. He knew, because they’d done it to Lara last year. He knew, because they’d made pictures of Carina, sweet, fierce Carina, her head on a naked body nailed spread-eagle on a wood floor with a sword pushed up between her legs.

  Everything was dim and quiet back here; enough time had passed since the end of the performance that the dancers had changed and gone free. Anyone still around wasn’t passing from one place to the next. He heard the shuffling scuffle of someone being dragged down stairs against her will, and he peered into the weak fluorescent glow of the stairwell.

  They were on the landing, two flights down. That would take them to the hall that led to the back door, which was shrouded with shrubs to keep it discreet from the public. Would any Pagano Brothers man be on that door? If this guy got out that way, no doubt there was an unmarked van waiting.

  They’d done their research. They knew Nick brought his family here every year for the premiere. Because Donnie invited them. They knew, with a wife and four children, there was a nearly perfect chance one would peel off to use the facilities, or for some other reason. They hadn’t targeted Carina in particular. They’d just gambled on the excellent odds of getting to one of Nick’s family on this night.

  The guy didn’t have the gun at her head anymore; she was putting up a hell of a fight, and most of his effort was going toward keeping her in his hold.

  He had instructions not to kill her, then—instructions strong enough that he was afraid to use force to knock her out.

  Donnie could use that. “Hey!” he called again, before the guy could turn and drag his ferociously unwilling prey down the hallway.

  He looked up and pointed the gun at Donnie. Good. Donnie put his eyes on Carina. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I got you.”

  “Back off, man, or I’ll put a bullet in her brain right now!”

  The only accent this guy had was Brooklyn. If he was Bondaruk, he wasn’t OG. Donnie ignored him, kept his Beretta aimed on him, and focused on Carina. The span of a floor and a half separated them, but he could see her eyes. She’d calmed, facing him, but her body remained tense with resistance. He made a show of looking downward, with only his eyes. Her brow furrowed in confusion and cleared at once as she understood, and she mimicked his gesture, looking downward with wide eyes, and then back up to him.

  Donnie refocused on the man he meant to kill. “You don’t want to do that. That’s bigger trouble than you can afford.” Subtly, rhythmically, only for Carina, while he talked, he nodded once, twice ... On the third nod, she did exactly what he wanted and went completely slack. Her attacker had been struggling against her fight so much he wasn’t prepared for anything else, and he lost her. She dropped to the floor, and Donnie shot that child-stealing bastard in the face.

  His gun went off as he fell back, and Donnie took the blow in the gut. It knocked him back, knocked all the air he’d ever breathed out of him, and he almost dropped to the floor himself, but there were more of them, there had to be more of them, so he kept his feet and ran for Carina. She was scrambling up the stairs, sobbing now, her pretty dress torn, one shoe gone.

  “Uncle Donnie! Uncle Donnie!” She threw her arms around him, and pain blasted through his midsection, but he held onto her, wrapped her close, and drew her up the stairs.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he gasped. “I got you. Let’s get out of here.” His vision swirled into greyness. He had to get her to her father before he passed out.

  “You’re hurt!” she cried, seeing the blood on her own hands.

  “I’m okay, I’ll be okay.” But he stumbled and almost couldn’t make it up the steps. Her hold around him became as much about help for him as comfort for her, and they climbed together. By the time he had her up, it took all he had left to aim his gun and open the door—and there was Nick, his face contorted with wild fear.

  Donnie pushed Carina to her father and fell backward, down the stairs.

  ~oOo~

  Donnie opened his eyes to dense, swirling white fog, bright as sun. He groaned and closed his eyes against the searing light, and groaned again as he realized where he was, why he was here. The hospital. He’d been shot. Someone had taken Carina at the theatre. His tickets, his invitation, his fault.

  “Donnie? Donnie?” A soft voice at his ear. A soft hand around his.

  He opened his eyes again, and saw a delicate shape against the painful light. “Arianna,” he tried to say, but he wasn’t sure the name had left his head.

  “I’m here. I love you.”

  Arianna. Did she love him? Did she really? Could she really?

  He felt lips on his fingers, a soft cheek against the back of his hand. “I love you so much,” she said, like an answer. Had he asked the question?

  Agony pulsed through him from his legs to his head, a beast with its own heartbeat clawing through his body. He closed his eyes and tried to fight it off.

  Another, heavier hand on his shoulder. Donnie shoved his lids up again and saw Nick at his other side. His right side. Scarred side. Monstrous. Failed. “I’m sorry, ” he said, and felt those words leave his lips, heard them in the air. “Carina?”

  “She’s well. She’s safe. You saved her.” The strong hand of his don squeezed his shoulder. “Donnie.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and sank back into the dark.

  ~oOo~

  When he woke again, the light was low. No more burning white fog. His mind worked better, and he was able to put together his memories in a way that made sense. He remembered shooting the usher, getting shot by him, bringing Carina back to her father. He remembered sirens and flashing lights. That white fog. There were gaps, long spaces that felt missing, but he thought he had a fairly accurate hold on events.

  Unless more trouble had happened while he’d been out.

  The room was noisy with mechanical beeps and whirs. Donnie tried to rise up a bit more to see the room—oh fuck, ow. Right. Shot in the gut. His legs buzzed with a sensation of electric shock. He gave up the effort and contented himself with an inventory of the crap on him. A lot of crap on him. Over his arms, his chest. No wonder there was so much clamor in the room. They’d hooked him to every machine they had.

  The door opened, and a
nurse came in. “You’re awake!” she said, quietly, with a smile. He supposed one of the machines had noticed he wasn’t asleep. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like I was shot.” His voice rolled out over sand and rocks.

  She laughed softly. “Well, that’s a fairly common side effect of being shot.”

  She was whispering. While she checked his machines, he looked to see if he had a roommate, but there was only one bed in this room ... except for one of those recliner-cot contraptions, in which was curled a small body under a white blanket. A spill of dark hair over the side of the chair.

  Arianna was here with him. Emotion rushed up and made his eyes burn. Clearing his throat—ow, fuck—he collected himself and turned to the nurse, who held out a thermometer. Before he took it, he asked, “Has she been here all night?”

  She stuck the thermometer in his mouth. “All last night, all day yesterday, all night tonight. I don’t think she’s left your side, except when you were in surgery.”

  He’d been under so long? But she had a performance!

  “Would you like me to wake her? I know she’d be happy to see you.”

  Watching her sleep, Donnie shook his head. She was resting, and it was enough that she was with him. She’d stayed with him.

  Because she loved him.

  The nurse took the thermometer back, checked the reading, and smiled. “Well, that’s much better, isn’t it?” He had no idea, but if she thought so, then sure. How bad had yesterday been? “You have people in the waiting room, too. If you’d like, I’ll check and see if any of them are awake.”

  “Nick,” he said. “I want to see Nick Pagano, if he’s here.”

  Her smile faltered a little. Not much, just a twitch at a name she knew and feared. Donnie was used to that expression. “He’s been here, too. I’ll see if he’s in the waiting room. If you’d like, I can try raise your head a little—not much, but a little. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, thank you. What’s your name?”