hand, and Alex shook it. Then Donnie led him to the door. Rocky was waiting in the corridor.
As he followed Rocky down toward the exit, the beefy guard stopped at Nick’s nearly closed door. He knocked and leaned in. “You want to see the kid, don?”
“Yeah, Rock. Bring him in.”
Alex’s bowels nearly dropped out. Nick wanted to see him?
Rocky opened the door all the way, and Alex shambled like a zombie into the don’s office.
This room was larger and lusher than Donnie’s office. He’d binged The West Wing once during a bout of pneumonia in high school; this was like the difference between the Oval Office and Leo McGarry’s office next door.
Nick Pagano was at his desk. Alex didn’t know how old the don was—Sixty-five? Maybe seventy?—but his age didn’t seem to matter. He emanated power like a nuclear plant. The air practically hummed with it.
As Rocky closed the door behind Alex, Nick stood and crossed the room to meet him at the door. He offered his hand, and Alex shook it. He made his handshake as strong and firm as he could, but the don’s hand was stronger still.
“I owe you a debt, Alex. You took care of my girl.”
“You don’t owe me, don. It’s my job to keep her safe. I just did my job.”
With a small smile, the don conveyed both his pleasure at Alex’s humility and some irritation with having his thanks pushed away—which Alex had not intended.
“How’s your mother, Alex?”
“She’s good, sir. Thank you for asking. I’m going to stop by after I leave here, unless you need me to go straight back to Providence.”
“That’s up to your capo.” Such details were far beneath the don’s notice, even when his daughter was concerned. “Give your mother my regards, please.”
“I will, don. Thank you.”
Don Pagano opened the door again, and Alex was dismissed.
He made it back to his car and was sitting behind the wheel before he ripped his tie off, unbuttoned his collar and let himself hyperventilate.
~oOo~
“Oh, you look so handsome!”
“Hi, Mamma.” Alex leaned down so his mother could put her arms around his neck. She still had her aqua smock on, from doing hair downstairs, where he’d helped her fix up a salon in their walk-out cellar.
He felt better, totally calm, even a little happy, as soon as he was in his mother’s arms.
Yeah, he was a mamma’s boy. Even when his father had ostensibly been around, he’d ‘traveled a lot for work’ (yeah, right), so it had always been Alex and his mom at home, teamed up against the world.
“And you smell good, too! Why so dressed up? You got a hot date on a Monday night?”
Alex laughed and gave her a squeeze. “No, no date. I had something for work.”
With that, she let him go. Like most people in Quiet Cove, she respected Nick Pagano and most of his men, she thought the Pagano Brothers did more good than bad, but she wasn’t thrilled to have her only child in their employ.
That employ had saved this little house, though, so she didn’t give Alex a hard time about what he’d done to pull their life out of the drain.
That meeting with Donnie—and Nick!—had gone well. They’d shown him gratitude and respect for how he’d handled Friday night. The don had even told him he owed him. Yet Alex couldn’t quite shake the shakes, and the attendant sense that he’d had a close call with doom. Memories of that night in the warehouse were livelier than they’d been for years—and they hadn’t exactly been quiet before.
He was glad to have some free time now; home was where he needed to be to regroup and relax. He might even spend the night here. Bluto had Lia for the rest of the day. Alex didn’t need to be back on her until eight o’clock tomorrow morning. If he got up early, he could make it there by then.
No, that was a bad idea. If he got snagged in weekday morning traffic into the city …
Okay. Well, at least he could hang out and be calm for a little while. And Lia was supposed to come home for the weekend on Friday—Alex was pretty sure a Big Talk was in her immediate future—so he’d be in the Cove as well, with some extra time off. She didn’t need such a heavy guard team when she was home, and it didn’t need to be him.
His mom patted his cheeks. “I wish you’d shave. So fancy in your