She leapt up and plopped herself in his lap like a little girl. She hadn’t sat in in his lap since she was a little girl.
He wrapped her up close and held on.
~ 11 ~
Alex pulled onto Don Pagano’s driveway, cringing at roar of his engine—a sound he was usually proud of, one he’d modded the car to create, but right now, its loud blat seemed aggressive.
When his grandfather died and left him this 1969 Pontiac GTO, it had needed a little bit of work—not much, Nonno was a gearhead, which was why Alex was a gearhead, so he’d taken good care of it most of its life. But it had sat a few years in a carport once his grandfather had gotten too old and wonky in the head to drive, and neglect had taken its toll.
When Alex took it over, he replaced all the parts that had calcified for sitting, and he’d made a few modifications as well. The car had been a beast from its first day off the line, but now it was a beast straight out of Hell, and it sounded like one.
It also raced like one. He kept his street racing quiet because his mother would come over faint if she knew, and he wasn’t sure how the Paganos would feel about it, either, but sometimes he just needed to go balls-to-the-wall, and racing other guys going balls-to-the-wall was a major rush.
Right now, however, he wished he still had the keys to the Equinox he’d been driving while guarding Lia. Something discreet and sedate, and Pagano approved. But he was back at the warehouse, just a regular grunt with no need of a company car.
He cut the engine, and it gave its usual snort before it went quiet—like a thoroughbred frustrated by the finish line.
The front door opened, and Don Pagano himself stepped onto the threshold. Didn’t they have a housekeeper or somebody—maybe a butler—who answered the door?
Alex didn’t know the answer to that question. This was the first time in his life he’d approached the don’s home. When he’d followed Lia to Brown, or back here from there, he’d stayed in his car or on the driveway. Other guards were on duty at the house.
He’d also never seen the don dressed in anything but a suit the likes of which Alex could never dream of affording, but now, he wore jeans and a sedately striped Oxford shirt.
The change in attire did nothing to make Alex feel any less intimidated, however. Don Pagano or Neighborhood Dad, he was still deadly and looked it. Especially to the guy who was coming to pick up his daughter.
It boggled Alex’s mind that not only had he survived his meeting with Nick, he’d even managed permission to see Lia. He’d wondered if the legendarily ruthless don was softening in his old age, but right now? Facing that icy green stare?
Nope. The don hadn’t softened in the least.
“Don Pagano,” he said as he arrived at the door. He held out his hand.
The don didn’t take it. Instead, his intense eyes shifted to the GTO and locked there as he said, “Alex.”
The two syllables of his name, said from a head pointed at his bright-red vintage muscle car, spoke a whole essay of threats. Alex swallowed hard.
“I drive safely, don. The car was my grandfather’s. He left it to me. My dad was kind of shit. My nonno did more dad stuff with me.” That felt like word vomit, and also, for some reason, absolutely necessary.
The don’s gaze returned to Alex and held. Alex tried to stay steady in its cold heat.
Finally, Don Pagano stepped back into the house. “Come in and meet Lia’s mother.”
“Yes, sir.” Alex stepped into Don Nicolo Pagano’s private residence with his heart slamming against his eardrums.
It was just a house. Like, a really nice house, but just a house. With an actual Golden Retriever bumping against Alex’s leg, snuffling at his jeans, which Mango had claimed for a perch while Alex was in the shower.
“Snuggles, come here,” a feminine voice said, and Alex was suddenly face to face with Donna Pagano.
He’d seen her lots of times before, of course. She sat beside the don every Sunday for Mass, and she was active in church and town events. But to be so close to her, in the foyer of her own house, almost made him forget that Don Pagano had a Golden Retriever named Snuggles.
Lia looked a lot like her mom. The same fair, auburn coloring,