his head and turned to Angie, who stood beside him with a glass of scotch held up in offering. He cleared his expression of his somber mood, but Angie knew him well, and frowned as Nick took the drink from him.
“Can I not ask that anymore?”
They were still, it seemed, negotiating the path of their new friendship, finding fences between them where they hadn’t existed before. “It’s not that. I’m thinking about the kids,” he said. In their personal lives, they could be as close as ever.
Angie’s brow smoothed, and he turned to scan the room. Nick saw him locate Lia and then Elisa. Carina and Ren were still young enough not to care about the adult parts of the party and not be invited into those conversations; they were in the cellar with their cousins, watching Die Hard and stuffing their faces with popcorn and soda to ruin their appetite for the expansive, elegant dinner their mother had arranged.
Christmas Eve at the Pagano house meant a Feast of the Seven Fishes. For most of the kids, that meant a lot of popcorn and soda ahead of time.
Just then, some explosion in the movie outmatched both the sound insulation he’d had installed in the media room and the sound system on this floor, which was playing Christmas carols at a tasteful volume. Thunder rumbled under their feet, accompanied by muffled shouts of youthful appreciation. They were clearly maxing out his sound system down there.
Angie grinned. “I can’t say I’m sorry I missed the dad experience, but I like bein’ an uncle. I get the fun parts without all the heartache.”
Nick chuckled. “True, as far as it goes. But you don’t get the best parts. The heartache is worth it, I think.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
Nick nodded a greeting as Donnie came toward them with a brotherly smile. For a moment, with Angie and Donnie at his sides, he could almost feel that things hadn’t changed between them.
“Where’s your wife?” he asked. It was unusual for Donnie to leave Arianna’s side at events like these, unless there were a specific reason he needed to. Nick was the same with Beverly when they were away from home.
“She and Giada are in deep conversation about clothes.” He smirked at Angie. “I think your wife is trying to recruit mine into a New York shopping trip.”
“She talked to Beverly about that, too,” Nick said. “I’m surprised Giada would want to plan something like that. She doesn’t seem the type.”
“The type to shop?” Angie returned with a grin. “She doesn’t go to the mall, but oh, she shops. The mall comes to her.”
Donnie chuckled, but Nick did not. The thought wasn’t entirely benign, to his mind. It was not a safe time to plan a shopping trip out of town with the top two Pagano wives and the actual don of the Saccos. Even if the shopping came to them. If Giada was truly planning such a thing, either she was making a rookie mistake or she had something else up her sleeve, and in that case Nick didn’t like the idea that she might involve Beverly.
They were at war, after all. Again.
Most of the skirmishes had been of the financial variety, but those battles had taken enough of a toll that violence was breaking out—product destroyed, guards attacked, ambushes foiled bloodily. It was the way wars were fought, in their world and any other—far more activity in the shadows than the big battles that got remembered.
War was a long slog as full of red ink and red tape as blood. But the blood ran, and the don who got complacent in the lulls would find himself—or herself—drowning in it.
Nick had hoped they could find a way to peace before a major loss on either side occurred. He’d represented the Council in inviting Don Cuccia to negotiations, but Cuccia had rebuffed the offer, insisting that he wouldn’t concede to any terms but the way things had always been. They had barely managed to get his agreement to an Advent truce, which was one of those things that had always been—a pause of grievances and hostilities during holy times.
It was definitely not a good time for Giada to organize a recreational shopping trip with his wife.
Obviously thinking similar thoughts, Donnie turned to Angie. “Does Giada have something in mind by going to New York right now?”
Angie’s eyes narrowed, and he shook his head slowly.
Nick knew, and he knew Donnie did as well, that Angie’s head-shake was not a