Not to the letter. Nick was intrigued. “Which means?”
“You trusted me to take care of your daughter. I knew you wouldn’t want me to … be close to her, personally, and …” His pause here stretched a bit, and his hand made its halfway trip to his collar before he made it grip his knee again. “I did anyway. I’m really sorry for that.”
Nick said nothing. He let his eyes speak for him.
Alex swallowed hard but met Nick’s look straight on. “But I’m not sorry for what happened. I like Lia, don. I think … I think it could be more, maybe. I don’t know how she feels, but for me, it could be more. You had me there to protect her, and I haven’t let you down in that. I would protect her with my life, even if it wasn’t my job. If I … if we … if I have a chance, I’ll keep on protecting her.”
“And bedding her. If you have the chance.”
Alex blinked, and fear took over his expression completely. He went pale as wax, and his jaw sagged. Nick realized it was the first time the boy had given himself over to fear since Donnie had closed the door.
Nick watched as Alex wrestled with and overcame it.
“I would never do anything she didn’t want,” Alex said with a clear, steady voice.
“And what I want?”
“If you tell me to stay away from her, I will. You’re my don.”
“I’m not. You’re not made.” He refrained from adding ‘yet’ to the end of that statement. “You’ve taken no vow to bind yourself to me.”
“Lia is your daughter. If you tell me to stay away, I will.”
“But already you didn’t stay away. Knowing how I’d feel.”
“No, I didn’t. I chose her. Lia is worth this, whatever happens to me. But I won’t take up residence between her and her father. That would hurt her more than anything.”
Nick wanted to hold onto his anger with the impudent shit who’d fucked his little girl when he was supposed to keep her safe from the likes of him. But this boy was impressive. His answers were right—more than that, they were true. They were too raw and unpracticed to be anything else.
This boy liked his girl. This Pagano associate who wanted to be made.
Nick hated it. But he liked the boy. And if Lia liked him, and Nick made the call to keep them apart? He do more damage to the heart he’d already broken.
“You keep your distance until I speak with my daughter. If she wants you closer, I’ll let you know.” Alex’s eyes widened with surprise, and Nick went on before the boy could speak. “Understand me, Alessandro. Your leash is short. You treat my daughter like the treasure she is. If you hurt her, or disrespect her, you have experienced nothing like the pain I will visit on you. Capisci?”
“Capisco, don. Capisco. You can trust me.”
“You’ve already shown me the limits of that trust. Don’t push the point again. Get out.”
Alex leapt to his feet and actually backed out of Nick’s office as if leaving the presence of a king.
~oOo~
That evening, Mel drove Nick to West Egg, the only nightclub in Quiet Cove, owned by Tony Cioccolanti’s wife, Billy Jones. After the attack on Quiet Cove, when Dominic’s had been shot up and had never reopened, Nick had worked a long-term deal with Billy for control of the loft above the club. It was now the Paganos Brothers’ Council room.
Dominic’s had been their meeting place for decades—it had been Ben’s favorite restaurant, and Nick had maintained that tradition. Like his uncle, Nick had enjoyed meeting in the middle of a restaurant, and the rhetoric that he had no need to hide, no shame or fear. Power was best wielded silently, but it was also important to know when to be seen. The Pagano Brothers had met in secret only when circumstances demanded it.
Being a man who understood the way times, and circumstances, changed, Nick had paid for Dominic to upgrade the place to appropriate security standards. Yet the Bondaruks had managed to destroy Dominic’s, kill innocents, and nearly take out Nick and all his most trusted men in one swoop. Simply by walking through the front door.
The Bondaruks had managed it because they had no honor, no concern for how their world bled outward into the world of innocents. Nick had made a devastating error in dining at Dominic’s that night, so soon after