Simple Faith (The Pagano Brothers Book 1)

by Susan Fanetti

  Before Nick turned away, Trey said, “Uncle—is she safe?”

  “Justice was rendered on the men who hurt her. There’s no imminent threat to Lara or her father, or to us through them. But the Bondaruk situation is more complicated than I’d like. I want you in the office tomorrow when Donnie, Angie, and I talk strategy. Understood?”

  “I’ll be there.” The next words out of his mouth were insanely dangerous, and he had no clue why they were finding voice, but he asked, “Uncle, do you mean for me to be made?”

  Holy shit, what a stupid thing to ask. He’d just asked Don Pagano if he’d be willing to betray the traditions and rules of all of La Cosa Nostra, rules established in Italy many generations ago, before the Paganos had come to the United States—before, even, their ancestors had moved from Sicily and settled in Tuscany. He was not full blood. He could not be made. Everybody said Nick meant to do it, but doing so meant declaring war on every Italian Family in the whole goddamn world.

  Nick himself had never suggested it. In fact, when he’d invited Trey into the organization, he’d explicitly asserted that Trey had no chance to be made.

  Trey had told him he wanted to join anyway.

  So it was unbelievably stupid to stand on the sidewalk in an ivy-covered College Hill neighborhood and ask his ruthless uncle if he meant to commit treason—and probably suicide—for him.

  But Nick chuckled and turned back, a smile on his face—a genuine smile, not a ‘oh, you are so fucked’ smile. “You haven’t shown me yet that you are worthy to be a made man.”

  “And if I show you that I am?” His heart slammed like a heavy metal drum solo. What the hell was he doing?

  The smile didn’t leave the don’s face, and the answer didn’t hesitate. “If you’re worthy, nephew, then I will go to the mattresses for you.”

  He slapped Trey’s arm. “Good night, Trey. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Stunned, Trey sagged against the Ford and watched the don walk away.

  Ray stood in the middle of the yard, waiting. He lingered a second, facing Trey, while Nick passed him and went to the Navigator. It was too dark to see his expression. Had he heard Trey’s reckless question and Nick’s more reckless answer? Was it significant if he had?

  ~ 10 ~

  Lara woke in a dark room, her head aching, her throat itchy and dry, and didn’t know where she was. A blast of anxious adrenaline seared through her sore head and made her heart stutter, but then the familiar shadows, scents, and sounds of her childhood bedroom evinced themselves, and hard on the heels of that familiarity came memory. Not complete, but enough for now.

  She remembered the awkward morning at the cabin, and the trip to town. She remembered Trey’s strange mood, and the call from Nick. She remembered packing up and leaving. And now she was here.

  Trey had brought her home.

  Some time ago, it appeared. The house was sleep-quiet, and the red numerals on the bedside clock read 11:23pm. And she had no memory of the long drive at all. Again.

  She’d been unconscious. Her head ached. Trey had drugged her. Again. Why?

  And now he was gone. The whole last week was gone, and what had come before it lay in wait right outside this door.

  Her heart still thumped erratically. Lara sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. Her old room. Her own space. She was safe here. She should be safe here. Everything was where it belonged.

  Except her. She didn’t know how she’d gotten here. She didn’t want to be here. She was out of place.

  ~oOo~

  “Lara?” Her father knocked on her door and then opened it. “Nick is here, sweetheart. He wants to speak with you.”

  Lara sat cross-legged in bed, atop her green comforter with two thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-two blue dots, one dot per each square inch, plus sixty-six half dots. She hadn’t changed her clothes, or showered, or eaten, or used the bathroom in the ten hours and thirty-nine minutes since she’d woken.

  Her father came into the room and sat carefully at the foot of her bed. He’d checked in on her four times but hadn’t, until now, pressed her to do anything or even interact with him, and she hadn’t bothered to try. She didn’t want to be here.

  “Lara. Can you speak with Don Pagano?”

  Could she speak with Nick? “Yes.”

  She knew how to be okay enough; she could pull herself together and be okay enough. This feeling she had, though, was new, and it had no place in her mind. She was stressed, and she understood why. But she was sad, too, and the reason for it didn’t make sense. Trey hadn’t betrayed her. He hadn’t let her down. He’d done the job he was meant to do. He’d done it well.

  And yet, she hurt.

  Lara wasn’t an idiot, or naïve. She wasn’t a child. It didn’t make sense, and that was harshly disorienting, but she understood what she was feeling. She was hurt. No—there was a better word for it.

  She was heartbroken.

  ~oOo~

  She used the bathroom and brushed her teeth and hair, but otherwise, she went down for an audience with Nick Pagano in yoga pants and a baggy sweater, exactly as she’d woken.

  He sat in one of the living room wingchairs, dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, a light grey shirt, and a silvery grey tie. When she stepped into the room, her father at her heel, Nick stood and opened his arms. Lara went to him and accepted the offered embrace, which ended with a kiss to her forehead.

  “You look tired, Lara,” he said as she sat on the sofa and he resumed his seat.

  “I am,” she answered, simply.

  With a glance toward the entry, Nick sent her father from his own living room. When they were alone in the room, he said, “I’m sorry to be making demands of you so soon after you’ve come home, but it’s been a busy week here. I’d like you to tell me everything you can about the attack. Can you do that?”

  Even under threat of pain or death, she would not be able to comply with Nick’s request. Those thoughts and memories had been held off for a reason, and if she let them loose before she was ready, they would tear her apart. Especially today, when she felt so low and out of sorts.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not ready.”

  For several seconds, he let his regard rest on her, and she took the consideration quietly. “I understand. When you’re ready, then. I need this answer, however, simply to be certain, because I haven’t been able to ask you directly before: Are you aware of any exposure at all for our business, because of what happened?”

  He was asking her if she’d told the men who’d hurt her anything about him. “No. I wouldn’t have told them anything, but they didn’t want anything from me but pain and shame.”

  Nick winced, and Lara found that exceptional. Normally, Nick Pagano was cool as ice, showing no emotion at all, except in his sharp green eyes. She admired him for that, for his unflappable calm and his level head. But he took her words like a slap. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why do you need to know about what happened? I thought it was safe now.”

  “It is, Lara. The men who hurt you can’t hurt you, or anyone, ever again, and I’ve forced a truce with the Bondaruks. But things are never so simple to balance as that. I need to know if there are other threats seeded in the attack on you. And we need to think more about the risk to you. It was … fortunate that they didn’t know how important you are to me.”

  “But that puts my father at greater risk.”

  “No. I protect him like the true asset because doing so protects you as well. He is as safe as you are. I promise you that.”

  “How safe am I?”

  “As safe as I can make you. As much information as possible can only help me make you safer.” His eyes narrowed, and he leaned in and picked up her hand. “How safe do you feel?”

  She shook her head, which was the only answer she knew how to give.

  Nick let that anemic answer stand. “Tell me about your week away.”

  “I felt safe there. Trey did a good job. I didn’t like the way I was taken th
ere, and I don’t like how I came back, but the cabin was good. It was good.” Another word occurred to her, and it was true, so she said it. “Important.”

  “What do you mean?”

  That answer was elusive, too, but she tried. “I needed it. Time away from what happened … here.”

  “At home.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in your debt, Lara. Rendering justice on those men doesn’t balance our ledger. If you have need, you tell me. Your father can deal with our business for a while, but I’ll have work soon that only you can do. As soon as you’re able. But I need you to be honest with me about your mental state.”

  Nick knew her full history. “Have I ever been otherwise?”

  He chuckled and let go of her hand. “No, I don’t think you have. So tell me.”

  “It’s … rocky right now. Too many things to sort out. I need more time.” She wanted to be away, to relive last week, but that wasn’t something for Nick to know. Or anyone.

  “Understood. I can give you some time. I’ll check in on you, though. And you reach out if you have need. Right?”

  “Right.” There was safety in having Nick Pagano on her side.

  ~oOo~

  Dr. Rosen set the old-fashioned kitchen timer and put it on the table between them. He didn’t use a timer like that with all his patients, but the patterns of its ticking helped Lara center herself in the session, and the bell was a strong, clear ending they both expected.

  Lara’s therapist had taken the stereotypes of his profession to heart. A small, slender man in his sixties, he wore tweed jackets, with leather patches at the elbows, over corduroy trousers. He wore the tweed and corduroy year-round. In the cold months, he added a crewneck sweater under his jacket. His hair was white and long-ish, and he had a matching Van Dyke beard. In the days when people smoked in public spaces, he’d probably smoked a pipe.

  His office was likewise clichéd, full of books and dark woods, with a big dark desk, a grouping of upholstered club chairs, and a velvet chaise lounge—the old-fashioned kind with a rolled end, on which corseted ladies might once have swooned—for those patients who wanted to lie down while he said ‘hmmm’ and took notes.

  Lara found it all quite comforting. But she didn’t recline on his fainting couch.

  Instead, she sat with him in the club chairs.

  After three and a half years without active talk therapy, only brief annual meetings to check in before he renewed her prescriptions, Lara was back to weekly sessions with her Freud wannabe. Because she couldn’t open the door in her head.

  And she couldn’t go home.

  “Tell me about this week,” Dr. Rosen said and flipped open his notepad.

  This was their fifth weekly session. More than four weeks since she’d been back from West Virginia. Almost six weeks since what had happened. And she still hadn’t been back to her own home, the apartment she’d bought with her own money, the one she’d so carefully and perfectly made into a haven. She couldn’t even get onto her street at all, much less her own block of it. She could barely leave her father’s house. No doubt her plants were all dead.

  “How did you do with the goals we set last week?” Dr. Rosen asked when Lara forgot to answer his first prompt.

  “I went shopping with my father.”

  “Good, and?”

  “I helped him with some yard work. I was outside for two hours, in the front yard.”

  “Good. That’s two goals—run an errand and spend some time outdoors. Well done. How’d you do on the others?”

  “Three days this week, I ate three meals.”

  “Good. That’s progress on three of your five goals. What about the other two?”

  The other two—ride with her father, in his Jaguar, down her street, past her home and the coffee shop on the corner. And journal about what had happened there almost six weeks earlier. Like the others, they were step goals, increments on the path to being able to be out in the world again, and living on her own, and facing and overcoming her trauma. The last two goals, she hadn’t taken even one step toward.

  Lara shook her head. “I’m not ready.”

  Dr. Rosen looked pointedly at her right hand, and she saw that she’d been keeping time with the timer. She curled her fingers inward and made a fist.

  “You’re making good progress on the other goals, but these, you aren’t ready to attempt. They reside in the heart of your trauma, and they will take time. It’s been a month that we’ve been meeting again regularly, though, and I think it’s time you think about what more you need to help you get over this barrier.”

  “I need it to be safe.”

  “I’d like you to think about what you just said, and consider if it’s precisely what you mean.”

  Old Seymour Rosen was a stickler about precision in language. Lara considered what she’d said—I need it to be safe. She took the sentence apart and examined each element: subject, main verb, and direct object phrase, including unclear object referent, infinitive form verb, and adjective. Punctuated with a period, a statement: [I] – [need] – [it to be safe].

  She’d loved studying grammar and diagramming sentences, the way the words and their connotations and usage built relationships among them that became meaning, the way the parts fit together and followed rules—not the fussy Strunk and White kind of rules that had no true purpose but to codify snobbery, but the natural rules of communication, the order that language developed because its purpose was congress among people, and in order to understand one another, they had to agree on how to make meaning. That was the true power of grammar: not correctness, but community.

  What had she meant, precisely? I need—yes, she absolutely needed it. Not a want or a desire, not a whim. A need. A necessity. A requirement.

  What was the it? Her home. Her life. Her world. She needed it all to be safe. Everything. What did safe mean? How would it be safe? What was missing that the apartment she’d had and loved for nine years, the neighborhood she’d lived in since she was seven, was not safe now? Had it not been safe before? Had it ever been safe?

  Ah. She understood. The timer ticked on as she explored the question fully and found a better, clearer, truer statement.

  “I need to feel safe.”

  Dr. Rosen smiled. “Very good, Lara. Very good. What do you need to feel safe again?”

  The answer should have been her father. He’d taken her in, made her his, made her well, given her every opportunity to be as strong as she could be. He still did all that for her. His willingness to hold her hand and lead her home should have been enough. It had been enough to help her to buy the apartment in the first place. She trusted him completely. Why wasn’t he enough now?

  Because he was part of what had been broken when she’d been grabbed off the street. He was part of the home she’d had, part of the world in which it had happened. All of it, even her father, had been infected by that day. She’d lost her faith not in him, but in his ability to keep her safe. She knew now that he could not.

  The answer was that she needed not to know it wasn’t safe. She needed not to have experienced what she’d experienced. She needed ignorance. But that made no sense, and it was impossible. Even if it were possible, if she could erase the knowledge of it, silence the memories ramming at the door, it would be foolish to give up such a truth.

  So she would have to find something else.

  Trey. She needed Trey. He’d made her safe in a new place, and he’d kept her safe from what was in her head, too. He’d given her safety again, and comfort. She needed him to hold her hand and lead her home.

  But that was silly, and stupid, and impossible. He’d done his job and gone his way. Though Nick visited every week, he came alone, and hadn’t mentioned Trey. More than a month since they’d left the cabin, and Trey hadn’t contacted her. He’d done his job and gone his way.

  Of course he had. Why would a young, strong, vibrant man like Trey Pagano have any interest in someone like her?

  N
o, Trey would not be holding her hand and leading her home, so she would have to find her own way there. And how would she do that? Only one way made sense.

  “I need to work on the fifth goal first. I need to open the door.”

  Her therapist smiled gently. “I think that makes sense, Lara. We must face our fears before we can best them. Do you want to try now?”

  She looked at the timer. There were still twenty minutes left in the session. There were only twenty minutes left in the session. “I don’t think there’s time.”

  “What about this? Why don’t you tell me the things about that day you can tell me without pain, and we’ll use that to set the scene for next week. During the week, you can use your journal to decide what to fill in next. We’ll walk up to the door slowly.”

  She thought she could try. She thought she had to.

  “It was Saturday. Saturday afternoon. I always go to The Ground Floor on Saturday afternoon. I have hot tea with milk and a sesame seed bagel with cream cheese, and I sit by the window with a book. I was reading The Blind Assassin that day.” She didn’t have that book anymore. When they were done with her, they’d thrown her bag out of the van after her, but she must have dropped the book when they grabbed her. Or it was in the van.

  Dr. Rosen sat quietly and let her work through that, the first new memory that had slipped through the door. Others tried to follow after it, to rush in and bring sensory impressions, but she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready.

  “Lara. Open your eyes. Look right at me.”

  The inside of her head had become so bright and vivid and terrifying that she hadn’t known she wasn’t really seeing. At her doctor’s instruction, she opened her eyes and looked at him. He was leaning toward her. She’d been rocking, was still rocking.