good suit, and dirty scruff all over your handsome face. You look like a homeless guy they pulled out of the gutter and fixed up on one of those reality shows. Halfway between before and after.”
“Wow, Ma. Thanks a heap.”
If he hadn’t already known, her sly smirk would have told him she was teasing. “Just makin’ sure you don’t get too full of yourself. You stayin’ for supper? I was gonna throw a Lean Cuisine in the nuker and tap out a glass of Franzia, but we can order from Santini’s instead.”
“I can stay. Santini’s sounds great. My treat.”
His mom grinned up at him. “My hero,” she said and batted her eyelashes.
She was teasing, but she meant it, too.
~ 4 ~
When Lia turned onto her family’s street, Alex finally drove past in his black Equinox and went on his way. Unless there was some kind of big event going on, or she went out by herself, she didn’t have so much security at home. There was a guard on the house—she waved at the guys in another of a seemingly infinite supply of dark SUVs parked at the curb—and her father had Mel, his body man, wherever he went, but when the family stayed together, they needed fewer armed men around.
She made a point to come home for a weekend about once a month not only to make her parents happy but to give Alex and the others a break. Brown was only about an hour’s drive from home, so she could come back more often, but she preferred to be at school.
Parking the Nissan Rogue that had been her high school graduation present beside her mother’s Tesla and Carina’s Wrangler, Lia got out and dragged her laundry duffel from the back. She had her backpack, too—the first paper of her Intro to American Lit class was due Monday, and she’d put it off until this weekend—and her Coach tote with her essentials for life.
As she struggled to get it all on her shoulders and reach for the button to lower the hatch, a big shadow loomed behind her, and one of Mel’s tree trunk arms lifted her laundry while his other hand got the button.
With a quick grin at Mel for thanks, Lia turned and found her father smiling at her.
“Hello, gattina.”
Her whole life, he’d called her ‘kitten’ in Italian. There’d been a minute or two in middle school when she’d felt embarrassed about that, but she’d never said anything to him, and she’d quickly gotten over it. That one little word was basically the only thing from her father that was just hers, so she loved it.
“Hi, Papa.”
He held out his arms. She let her backpack and tote slip from her arms to the ground, and hurried into his embrace.
Even now, when he was getting old, and had almost been killed, he was still so strong. Lia rested her cheek on his chest, on the soft, rich wool of his beautiful suit, breathed in the subtle scent of him, felt his arms hold her tightly, and couldn’t think why on earth she preferred to be away from home. Home was where Papa was. Where this feeling was. Only here.
He was Don Nicolo Pagano, and his mere name struck fear in the hearts of powerful people all through New England and beyond. He’d killed people. He’d hurt people. He was the reason there was so much potential for danger around her she could never be alone. He had made enemies that might hurt her, or her mother, or her siblings—enemies who had hurt them.
But he was her papa, and she loved him above all others.
He kissed her head and set her back. “Let’s go in. Your mamma will be mad I’m keeping you all to myself.”
As she stooped to pick up her pack and tote, her father took the pack from her and slipped his arm around her shoulders. Mel took her laundry through the garage to the laundry room, and Lia and her father went into the house they’d lived in all Lia’s life.
As Papa opened the front door, Snuggles, their geriatric golden retriever, was there waiting, his creaky old butt wagging happily. There had been a time when he would have been barking and dancing around in excitement, but he’d slowed down over the past year or so, and now all he could manage was a happy butt and some whining.
Their first dog, Cuddles—the kids had always been in charge of pet naming—had been the same. When