“Mel, bring her in, please.”
With a nod, Mel left the room. He didn’t close the door.
Giada frowned and turned back to Nick. “Bring who in? I thought this was just between us.”
He smiled. “No one to worry about. A friend.”
Mel was back at the door within less than a minute, showing in a small woman with a large black case hanging on her shoulder. She exchanged an affectionate smile with Mel as he stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Now Nick explained. “You said your cover was a day at the spa. You should end the day, then, looking like you’ve been to the spa. Melody owns a salon in Quiet Cove, and she agreed to come with me today. She’s married to my body man. We can talk freely while she does your nails.”
Melody set her bag on the table and opened it, showing a full set of styling gear. “If you trust me, I can give you a trim, too. Not sure we can manage a wash and style here, though.”
“A mani-pedi is fine. No one touches my hair but my girl.”
Melody smiled. “I understand.”
As the surprise stylist set up her gear, Giada turned back to Nick. “You thought of this? How?”
“I live with four women, Giada. I know what happens on a spa day. And I don’t want to miss a single detail. That’s how people I care about get dead.” He nodded at Melody. “You two set up. I’m going to make a call, and then we’ll talk.”
It was rare that Giada felt truly stunned. She prided herself on her ability to see what came next. But as she sat down and prepared to let Melody give her a manicure and pedicure while she conspired with Nick Pagano to unseat her brother and take his place, Giada was utterly gobsmacked.
“Do you have a color preference, or would you like a suggestion? I see you have a magnetic effect now, but we should probably stay with something simple under these conditions.”
Giada answered automatically. “Red. I only wear red.” With a sharp toss of her head, she settled her wits about her and tapped a bottle of dark red polish. “That one.”
“Oh, nice choice. Perfect for your coloring.”
Giada agreed, but she didn’t answer. This simple shift in her expectation had set her spinning, and she needed to sort her expectations back out. Nick said they could speak freely in front of this nail tech—
No, not a nail tech, a salon owner. Who was doing this favor for Nick because she was married to his body man. Which was probably Mel—that smile they’d shared had been more than merely friendly. It had been affectionate.
That gave her something concrete to focus on. “You’re married to Mel?”
“Yep. Three years and counting.” Melody took her hand and began removing the old polish.
“Your name is Melody, right?”
“Yeah. Weird, right? When we have kids, he wants to keep that going. You know, Melezio Jr., Melissa, Melvin … I’m trying to convince him how very dumb it would be for all of us to be Mels. We would be sentencing our children to a life of having to explain that. Plus, we’d run out of good names fast, and I want a lot of kids. Do you have kids?”
“No,” Giada answered, and didn’t elaborate.
Nick returned to the room and closed the door. “Good, you’ve started.” He took up a seat on the same side of the table with her and Melody and leaned comfortably back in his chair. “So, let’s talk.”
~ 3 ~
Trey took the cart from the room service guy at the door, signed the slip—Angie hoped he remembered to sign as Andrew Rutland, seeing as they were in his room—and pushed it to the sitting area, where Angie, Tony, and three Zelenko bigwigs, whatever the Ukies called their underboss and two capos, sat around a low, wide coffee table.
He stood at the cart, lifted a bottle vodka from its ice bucket, and began to pour drinks all around. Angie was glad he hadn’t had to tell the kid to play waiter. He’d known he was a scrub in this group. In most any group, in fact.
Trey served Kuzma Zelenko first: the underboss, grandson of Ilya Zelenko. About Angie’s age, by the look of him. Angie had never met Ilya, but he’d seen photos, and it appeared that Ukrainians, or at least the Zelenkos, started their families young. Because Ilya was about Nick’s age.
Angie was served second. Then the elder of the Zelenko capos, Semon Archaki. Then Tony, and the younger Zelenko, Myko Hodiak. Trey poured one for himself last, put the bottle on the table among them, and sat.
Well done, kid.
Kuzma lifted his glass. “Razohrev, Sohrev,” Angie thought he said. Whatever that meant. Some kind of toast—but he didn’t want to fuck up a Ukie custom, so he didn’t respond right away. Trey had done some research on the culture here, and he’d explained they had a thing about toasting. He glanced quickly at Trey, who gave him a subtle nod and lifted his glass to his lips.
Okay then. Angie nodded and drank. When the Zelenkos drank their glasses dry, Angie and his men did, too.
“That’s good vodka,” Angie said. It wasn’t his drink of choice, but it had gone down smooth.
“No vodka,” Kuzma said in thickly accented English, the vowels all round and roomy. “Horilka.”
“Horilka,” Angie repeated, and Kuzma smiled warmly. Tasted like vodka to him, but whatever.
“Now again,” Kuzam said and held his empty glass toward the bottle. Trey got up and poured more vodka. Kuzma lifted his glass and said, “Za druzba.”
That one, Trey had prepped them for. It meant ‘to friendship,’ or something like that. He’d practiced it. “Za druzba,” he repeated, in chorus with the others. And they drank their glasses dry.
Kuzma held up his empty glass again. Trey went around and filled them all again. Angie was getting the impression that a whole lot of deals got done in Kyiv that weren’t remembered the next day. Either that, or he had a whole new appreciation for the Eastern European constitution.
This time, Trey attempted to short the pours, probably thinking along the same lines as Angie, but Kuzma grunted like a bear and shook his half-filled glass. With a quick glance Angie’s way, he asked for guidance.
Fuck, they had a serious op to execute today. They could not be drunk. But they couldn’t offend their allies on their home turf, either.
Angie took a breath and said with a nod, “Chi non beve in compagnia o è un ladro o è una spia,” and sent up a quick prayer that there wouldn’t be too many more toasts. Trey nodded and filled the glasses. He finished off the first bottle and opened the second.
“What you say?” Kuzma asked as Trey filled his glass.
What he’d said was He who doesn’t drink in company is either a thief or a spy, which was what he assumed all this jovial boozing was really about. Deciding he’d rather not be quite so on the nose in translation, he answered, “Basically, I said, ‘why the hell not.’”
Kuzma laughed and gave Angie and enthusiastic not. “Yes! Why hell not!”
It was Semon who toasted next. The old man shouted “Budmo!” and the other Zelenkos shouted, “Hey!”
Then Semon shouted “Budmo!” again, and the Pagano men were ready to answer “Hey!” Another repeat of the call and response, and they all drank again.