Simple Faith (The Pagano Brothers Book 1)

by Susan Fanetti

  The words were full of fire and acid, but they came in a calm tone, and were even more intense because they hadn’t been shouted.

  “I’m not afraid, Uncle. It wasn’t fear. I swear on our blood, it wasn’t fear I felt.”

  Nick studied him furiously for another few seconds, trying to read his truth. “Lara. You vapor-locked on Lara.”

  Trey nodded; there was no use denying it. “I’m sorry. But where is she?”

  “We’ll find her.” He grabbed him by the vest again and pulled him to his feet. “How’s Frederick?”

  Donnie was with Frederick. “He’s alive, Nick. He took one in the chest, but his pulse is stable. I don’t think it hit anything lethal. They beat him bad, and he needs a hospital, but I don’t think he’s dying. Not fast, anyway.”

  “Get him down—is any of these cafones still breathing?” he asked as he surveyed the bloody bodies on the floor.

  “Not one,” Vio answered and kicked Bohdan’s body. “Porca miseria!”

  Nick spun and found Angie. “Search the premises. Find their vehicles and search them. She’s got to be around here somewhere. If you don’t find her, go into the woods and look. Trey, go with them.”

  “Nick!” Donnie shouted, and Nick and Trey both turned. Donnie had Frederick off the roller and was holding him with the old man’s arms over his shoulders, like they meant to do a waltz. “He’s coming around!”

  Nick strode quickly to Donnie, navigating the carnage with an angry grace. Trey followed him.

  Donnie laid Lara’s father on the floor and took off his jacket to make a pillow for him. Frederick’s eyes fluttered open, and Nick hunkered beside him.

  “Frederick.”

  “Where’s Lara?” Trey asked, unable to wait, and Nick’s hand shot up at once to silence him.

  “Lara,” the old man gasped weakly. “Trapped. They … they couldn’t …”

  “Trapped where, Frederick? Couldn’t what?”

  Frederick’s eyes closed, and Trey couldn’t see his chest moving. Shit, was he dead? Dying? Donnie had said he was more or less okay, but Donnie wasn’t a medic.

  “Frederick,” Nick said again, and picked up the old man’s hand. Trey stared at that, at the don’s manicured hand, still clean after all this, holding Frederick Dumas’s stubby, hairy paw.

  He opened his eyes again and looked clearly at Nick. He seemed to have used that moment’s rest to marshal his strength. When he spoke, his voice was weak but clear. “They hit the car. They couldn’t get her out. They left her. Where is she? She’s hurt.”

  “You’re saying they caught you by crashing into you, and Lara was trapped in the car, so they left her behind when they took you?”

  Frederick nodded his answer to Nick’s question.

  “Where were you when they hit you, Frederick?”

  But he was out, and they couldn’t rouse him again.

  Nick stood up. “Angie! Call off the search. Get Calvin on the phone. I need to talk to him.”

  ~oOo~

  Calvin found her at Providence General Hospital. She hadn’t shown up earlier because a massive pile-up on the Iway had all the ERs overrun, and they hadn’t had all their new-patient records updated when he’d been searching earlier.

  Ray drove Nick and Trey back to Providence while the others handled the clean-up in Connecticut. By the time they reached the hospital, Calvin had called twice with updates. He’d gotten into her patient record.

  So before he entered the hospital, Trey knew three things that had his stomach frothing with acid: First, the Bondaruk truck that had hit Frederick’s car had hit the passenger side, and Lara had had to be extricated from the Jaguar with the Jaws of Life. She’d taken damage from the impact and the airbags, and her seat belt, and had a serious concussion, two cracked ribs and heavy bruising, and they were on the lookout for signs of internal bleeding. Next, she was restrained and on a psych hold because she’d regained consciousness in the hospital—alone, hurting, and badly disoriented—and she’d freaked out, because she was absolutely terrified of hospitals. The note in her record stated that she was ‘extremely agitated,’ which was, no doubt, doctor-speak for ‘out of her fucking mind.’

  And there was one more note tearing through Trey’s gut:

  Lara was pregnant.

  ~oOo~

  Nick went with him into the hospital and up to her ward, but he let Trey take the lead when they got to the nurse’s station.

  “I’m looking for Lara Dumas.”

  The nurse, a solidly built older woman who had had one of those ‘I’ve seen it all, sweetie’ faces, peered at him over the tops of her wire-frame glasses. “Are you next of kin?”

  “I’m her—“

  “Husband,” Nick said and stepped forward. “And I’m his uncle. Nick Pagano. Hello, Julie. We’d like to see Lara. Now, please.”

  Nurse Julie Who’d Seen It All had apparently never been face to face with a Mafia don, but she knew who Nick was. Her cheeks paled, and she swallowed hard. “She’s … she’s sedated.”

  Nick’s expression didn’t change.

  “She’s in room 318. Down the hall to the left.”

  Trey was already moving before she finished speaking.

  “Thank you, Julie,” Nick said behind him.

  Room 318 was a double, and there was an old woman snoring in the bed near the window. Lara slept in the bed nearest the door. Her neck was closed up in a plastic immobilizer, her face was black and blue, and her arms and legs were bound to the bed with medical restraints. An IV needle was stuck in her arm, and two tubes ran from it up to bags hanging from a stand. Trey went to her and brushed her matted hair from her face.

  “Hey, babe. I’m here.” He kissed her temple, where the skin wasn’t discolored. She was too deeply under to know he was there.

  “I’ll get her moved to a private room,” Nick said.

  “Thank you, Uncle.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.

  “Trey.”

  Nick stood at the end of the bed. Reluctantly, Trey turned from Lara and gave the don his attention.

  “I take it you didn’t know. About the baby.”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t, either.” A sad laugh came out with his next exhale, as a thought occurred to him. “I don’t know if she even knows now.”

  “Probably not, considering the state she was in. It sounds like they had their hands full getting her calm. And this is my point. Lara doesn’t handle accidents and surprises well, as you know. I would have thought you’d be more careful than to allow an accidental pregnancy to occur.”

  His star was waning fast in Nick’s eyes tonight. But Trey knew when this baby had been conceived, and it wasn’t carelessness, and it wasn’t his fault.

  Or maybe it was, because this possibility hadn’t entered his mind, not once, not even a glimmer. He’d been freaked to wake up with her on him, riding him hard, and he’d been hurt for himself and worried for her, and he’d never said anything because it all felt so goddamn weird. But if he’d told her about it, likely at least one of them would have realized this risk, and they could have gone to the pharmacy for some emergency contraception.

  He couldn’t tell Nick how this had happened. More than that, he wouldn’t. It wasn’t Nick’s to know. So he said simply, “I know,” and let Don Pagano think he couldn’t control his dick.

  Sweet Jesus, she was pregnant. Pregnant. With his child. They had no business having a baby. They’d been together two and a half months. Even by the very generous math of counting their beginning from early April and their week at the cabin, they’d been together not even six months. They hadn’t figured out living arrangements yet. He was twenty-six and had not in any way been thinking of being a father. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to be a father. He and Lara hadn’t shared a single word on the subject. She wasn’t physically strong. She barely ate enough to keep herself going. How could she support a pregnancy? And exactly what part of Lara Dumas’s wonderful, weird mind had room for
maternal instinct?

  Nick came to the side of the bed and set his hand on Lara’s restrained ankle. “You take care of her, Trey. You stand up and you make this right.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t know what it meant. What would make this right?

  How could he possibly make this right?

  ~ 20 ~

  Lara’s eyes opened and found their first focus on the ceiling. The uniform, sound-absorbing acoustic tiles, the distinct pattern of divots in each one. Somewhere nearby, its sound muted but still distinct, an announcement came over a PA system, calling a doctor to the ER.

  Oh no, she was in a hospital. Oh no, oh no. Her head throbbed, and her body ached, and the pain awakened her sleeping memories. She’d been with her dad. There had been an accident. She remembered seeing the grille of the truck, coming right for her—and that was it. Nothing but emptiness in her mind thereafter. Oh no! Dad!

  She moved her arms, needing to sit up, but they only moved a couple of inches before she felt the far-too-familiar tether of restraints. Oh no!

  “Hey, hey hey. It’s okay. I’m here.”

  Trey’s face loomed above her, and his hand smoothed over her head. He was smiling, but it wasn’t very convincing. He looked worried and weary.

  “My dad. My dad.”

  “He’s going to be okay. And you’re going to be okay. Everybody’s all set.”

  One tight clamp around her heart released, at the news that her father was alive, but that relief made her feel the restraints even more. Her legs were bound, too. She pulled all her limbs, drawing against their tethers, and tried to sit up, knowing she’d be unable but needing it nonetheless. There was something around her neck, too. She could barely turn her head.

  “I can’t, I can’t. I can’t.” Even the words would not be said. All she could do was resist and chant those two syllables.

  Trey’s hands cradled her face. “Lara. Try to be calm. Focus on me. You’re safe. I won’t let you get hurt, not anymore.”

  Terror had hold of her now. It swam through her blood and filled her stomach. “I’m going be sick, I’m going to be sick.”

  He let go of her head, and the top half of the bed came up. The pain in her chest spiked higher with every inch Trey raised the bed. He held a tub before her face, and she heaved.

  Nothing came up. She heaved again and again, each spasm like an axe hewing her in half, but there was nothing in her belly to lose. Finally, the futile paroxysms ended, and she sagged back to the mattress.

  “It hurts.”

  “I know, babe. You’re hurt. You have a bad concussion and two ribs with hairline fractures. Your right side is badly bruised, and your face, too. It was a bad wreck.

  “But Dad’s okay?”

  “He will be, yeah. And so will you.”

  “I need the restraints off.”

  “I guess you were pretty wild last night. They’re worried you’ll hurt yourself more.”

  She wasn’t feeling the numb distance of Thorazine. She felt, in fact, entirely unmedicated. After all these years, she knew the difference between her medically-controlled self and her free-range self, and she was free range. “They don’t have me on meds. Why don’t they have me on meds? I can’t deal with a hospital on my own. Providence General has my records. Am I at PG?” Realizing that she could answer that question herself, she found and focused on the patient information whiteboard and saw the hospital logo. Yes, she was at PG. “I need my meds!”

  “Lara. Babe, easy.” Trey took one restraint off—why only one?!—freeing an arm, and put down the bed rail. He sat at her hip and held her hand in his. “I need you to focus on me, and I need you to be calm, so we can talk. Okay?”

  She focused on Trey. Her safe haven. That was what she’d come to comprehend, right? That he was her safe place, her home. The power in that—and the limits. But she focused on him and knew that what he had to tell her would not make her safe.

  “Something’s wrong.”

  He looked down at his hand holding hers. Oh no, something really bad had happened.

  “My dad?”

  “No, babe. He’s all set. I promise. Nick is working on getting him transferred here, to be with you.”

  “Transferred? Where is he?”

  “In Connecticut.”

  “Please? Why? How did he—“ A blast blew through her mind: the crash hadn’t been an accident. “The Bondaruks?”

  Trey nodded. “But he’ll be okay. And Lara, they are all handled.”

  Too much information was coming at her sore head. She couldn’t sort the pieces, find the edges, see the sense in any of it. “I need my meds, Trey. I need my arms and legs free. I need my dad. I need to get out of here. I can’t … I can’t deal with all this.”

  “You can’t have meds, at least not yet. I talked to the doctor last night. She wants to talk to you before she prescribes anything but pain relief.”

  “She? I can’t have a woman doctor! No! I need Dr. Rosen! Or Dr. DeMilla!”

  Trying to free her hand from Trey now, so she could get the other restraints off on her own, she found herself struggling with him, twisting her arm in his hold, trying with all her feeble strength to be free of him, and a fear of him began to build in her. He was holding her back, keeping her here, not giving her what she needed.

  Her head was screaming, her chest was screaming. She was screaming.

  The door opened, and a nurse and a male orderly came into the room. The orderly pulled Trey off of her and the nurse slammed her arm back to the bed, tying her down again. She put the rail back up as well.

  “You have to calm down, honey. You’re going to hurt yourself.” The nurse reached out to put her hand on Lara’s head, but Lara jerked away as much as she could, ignoring all the ways she hurt, and yelled.

  She calmed to militant wariness when the nurse backed off and turned to Trey.

  “I’ll put another call into Dr. James and see if she can get up here right away. If you remove her restraints again, I’ll have security remove you from the hospital, I don’t care who you are. You put her at risk and others as well.”

  Lara couldn’t see Trey’s reaction, but the nurse and the orderly left the room.

  When they were alone, he came back to the bed, but this time, he didn’t put the rail down. He stood at the side and wrapped his free hand around her restrained one.

  “I need my meds, I can’t do this without my meds. Why won’t they give me my meds?”

  “I think they need to figure out new meds, or new doses, or something, I don’t know. Lara—babe, you’re pregnant.”

  Her frantic brain stopped cold and went perfectly silent, every single thought freezing into an impenetrable mass.

  She’d heard his words, but they were nonsense. She wasn’t pregnant. They’d never had unprotected sex. And anyway, she had never in her life had regular periods. Three or four a year, a few days of light bleeding. Sometimes only spotting. She’d been eighteen before she’d had her first one. Her doctors had attributed her amenorrhea to what her mother had done to her, as well as her low weight. When she was still in her teens, she’d been told that the odds she’d ever have a baby were less than ten percent.

  She always used protection because she didn’t ever play the odds, but adding those two factors together, her low probability of conception and her consistent use of condoms, there was no chance. Lara knew she wasn’t pregnant because she knew she couldn’t be pregnant.

  “No, I’m not. They’re wrong.”

  “They’re not, Lara. They did an ultrasound to make sure the baby wasn’t hurt in the wreck. You’re about six weeks along. You’re pregnant.”

  Again, she heard the words, and understood them, but could not give them weight. “No. I’m not. I can’t be. We’ve never gone without a condom. Not even for a second.”

  Shockingly, Trey’s head dropped, and he stared at their hands again. He was guilty about something. Lara’s heart began to race inside her throbbing ribs.

  “Trey?�
��

  “On the night of my birthday, I woke up and you were riding me. I thought it was a dream at first. Then I tried to stop you, to wake you up, but you were deep under, and I was so close I couldn’t hold off.” He looked up. “I’m so sorry, babe. I should have said something, but I … I felt weird about it, and I didn’t want you to freak out, and I swear, this possibility just didn’t occur to me. I’m an idiot for not thinking about it, but it just didn’t. Not until they told me you were pregnant, and then I knew exactly when.”

  He was apologizing for something she’d done. “I … raped you in my sleep?”

  “No! No.” His tone was emphatic, but then he swallowed, and Lara knew that was how he saw it, too, whether he could admit it or not. “You didn’t rape me. You just … surprised me.”

  No, she’d raped him. He felt weird because she’d raped him. In her sleep.

  Oh, she was never taking those pills again in her life, if she was capable of that under their influence. If she never closed her eyes again, that would be preferable. “Oh my God.”

  “Please don’t freak out, babe. I need you with me to figure this out.”

  Strangely, this event was so enormous, so unexpected and unfathomable, it had overwhelmed Lara so entirely, her brain didn’t even try to flail at it. Once the reality was incontrovertible, her mind simply shrugged and said, Okay, you’re pregnant. Well, isn’t that a kick in the chin. Now what.

  She was calm. Even her fear of hospitals had been displaced.

  “I’m not freaking out. I’m so sorry I did that to you. But I can’t be a mom, Trey,” she said with perfect equanimity and calm. “I can’t have this baby.”

  Still holding her restrained hand, he pulled the chair close to the bed and sat down, resting his chin on the top of the bed rail. “You know, I’ve known about this for about eight hours or so, and I was freaked the fuck out. I wasn’t thinking about kids at all. I’ve never thought one way or the other about having kids. If anything, I thought it was something I’d think about later, in my thirties, maybe.” He cocked his head, and the green of his eyes seemed to deepen. “Or if I fell in love with someone I wanted to be with forever.”