by Bethany-Kris
“Except you couldn’t answer my question, Andi.”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
Dante tipped his chin up. “Excuse me?”
“Just what I said—I know what I have to do, and what’s expected of me. So, yeah, it doesn’t matter what she is, or what I want, I still know where this is going to end up, and what I have to do at the end of the day.”
“This family is a legacy,” Dante murmured.
“I know.”
And he did.
He knew how hard his grandfather had worked to build the Marcellos into the empire it was, and how much effort and pain his uncles and father had gone through to keep that stronghold through the decades. It was supposed to be Andino’s turn now—his uncle chose him. Dante was passing off that torch, and the legacy was now on his shoulders to keep going, and hold strong. To grow, and to keep it thriving.
Dante sighed, and stared at Andino like he could read the thoughts going through his mind. “The legacy has to live on—you have to make sure it does. It’s your duty like it was ours to carry on before you. We sacrificed in our own ways; you will, too.”
“It was just breakfast,” Andino repeated again.
“Except it can’t be when you are who you are, Andino,” Dante replied. “Remember that for the next time.”
“Sure.”
But probably not.
“I won’t keep you longer,” Dante added, gesturing at the door behind Andino. “I know you’ve got that gun run coming up to oversee, and of course, keeping an eye on John for us.”
“Of course,” Andino echoed.
Just not the way they wanted him to. Andino needed to start taking care of himself first—nobody else seemed to be.
• • •
“Pink.”
The enforcer currently checking out the backside of a server as she passed him by glanced back at his Capo with a raised brow as if to silently ask, Did you see that ass?
Andino shook his head, and chuckled. “Do me a favor?”
“What do you need, boss?”
He nodded at Snaps who was currently sitting at his feet. “Take him for a walk, or something. He’s being good, but I don’t want him to get restless.”
“Sure thing.” Pink whistled, and patted his thigh. Snaps darted away from Andino without a look back mostly because the dog liked this particular enforcer. “We’ll be back.”
Andino waved a hand, and went back to his cousin sitting at the table with him. “Plan still the same?”
John nodded, and leaned back in his chair as he surveyed the VIP section of the club. “Still the same, yeah. Make sure the gang leader knows the deal with our territory. Get our product in his hands. Keep the bloodshed at a minimum.”
Andino smiled.
He didn’t fucking know what everybody was worried about where John was concerned. All the men of their family kept voicing their opinions about watching John, and making sure his mafia business was on the up and up as a Capo, but it was un-fucking-needed. John knew what he was doing, and he was damn good at it, too.
Like tonight.
Andino had to be here.
He had to watch his cousin.
He had to hover.
It wasn’t necessary at all. John had this meeting covered, and handled. It was going to go off without a hitch whether Andino was there to supervise, or not. John didn’t need someone babysitting his ass, regardless of what Dante and the rest of them thought.
At the same time … well, Andino didn’t want to upset his cousin, either, so he didn’t bring any of that up, or his own issues that he had going on. John probably didn’t need that shit piled onto all the rest of the crap he was already trying to handle.
No one did.
“You’re quiet,” John noted.
Andino shrugged. “I can’t be quiet?”
“You usually aren’t.”
“Fair,” he murmured.
“Is it this meeting?”
Andino passed his cousin a look. “When I say this meeting and how you choose to handle it is the last thing on my mind, that’s exactly what I mean. I’m not worried about it, and you shouldn’t be, either.”
“You’re the only one who isn’t worried about me.”
He did worry about John.
Just not for this.
There was a difference.
“Dante still riding your ass?” John asked.
“Don’t be worrying about—”
“Shut up and answer the question.”
Andino let out a dark laugh. “Fuck you, man.”
John grinned. “What—hit the nail on the head, did I? I knew there was a reason you were quiet.”
Yeah, he did.
John had a way like that … or, at least when it came to Andino. Maybe it was because the two had been looking out for one another since they were kids. Maybe it was the fact they could be brothers if not for the whole different mothers and fathers thing. Maybe it was just their life that made them this way.
Who fucking knew what it was, really?
Who cared?
As long as they were tight, nothing else mattered.
Not for him.
He’d look out for John.
John looked out for him.
“It just … the control is getting to me,” Andino admitted. “This whole boss-in-waiting thing, I mean. Every step I take, someone is there to fucking correct it. I can’t breathe without someone telling me I did it wrong. I didn’t even ask for this—I never said I wanted to be the head of this family. Wasn’t it supposed to be you?”
John smirked a bit. “Man, they can’t trust me to have a meeting with a gang leader, and you think they ought to let me have control of a whole organization? Fuck that noise.”
Andino grunted under his breath. “Point remains the same. I was happy doing what I was doing. I was a fucking good Capo. And now, they’ve shoved something else on me that I didn’t even want, but they still expect me to take it with a smile and a thank you.”
John cleared his throat. “Damn.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess now you kind of know how I feel with them all hovering over me like I do.”
Andino sighed heavily. “Sorry.”
John shook his head. “No, it’s all right. I mean … you do sound a little bitchy, though. I expected this because you’re the right choice.”
Yeah, his cousin told him that once.
Andino still wasn’t sure he believed it.
“Point is—suck it up,” John murmured, standing from the table as the gang leader they’d been waiting for was led into the club. “So what, Andi?”
His cousin glanced down at him, waiting.
“Pardon?”
“So what,” John repeated, smirking in that way of his again, “if they make you the fucking boss—take it, and don’t let them control how you sit your ass down in that seat, or what you choose to do with it. They want a boss, then be a boss, Andino. You can do that—you’re just too stuck in your fucking feelings to figure it out right now.”
Was he?
Was that what it was?
Andino stood from his chair as the gang leader approached. “I would kind of need to be the boss to handle myself and the family without their input, John.”
John laughed. “Do that, then.”
Do that.
How easy that fucking sounded.
Was it, though?
That was the question.
Andino didn’t particularly have an answer. At that moment, he didn’t have the time to think it over, either. Not with the gang leader now standing three feet away, and looking like he would rather be anywhere else.
It was time for business.
Andino loved business.
“Maverick, right?” John asked.
The tall, dark-skinned man nodded. “It is.”
“I have a proposition for you.”
“And you’ll want to take it,” Andino added. Then, he gave his cousin a pat on the b
ack. “I’ll go grab you a drink, John.”
John passed him a look, but Andino didn’t return it, or pretend he had even seen it, for that matter. His cousin had this meeting handled—Andino was not going to sit there and babysit. Absolutely not.
Andino took his sweet time on the bottom level of the club; he made sure it was more than long enough for his cousin to handle the meeting with the gang leader without him hanging over his shoulder the entire time. He grabbed a vodka, and tossed it back, before getting a glass of water for John.
That would only look like vodka.
No need to go messing with John’s meds.
By the time Andino got back upstairs into the VIP section, it looked like the meeting was just about done, and as he thought, without issue. Andino gave John his drink with a nod as if to silently tell him it was only water—he knew the deal. John took it with a nod of his own.
The gang leader took the second glass Andino had brought up that did have alcohol. “Thank you.”
Andino waved it off, and took a seat at the table with the other two men. Maverick and John clinked their glass together—a peace offering, if Andino ever saw one.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Johnathan,” Maverick said.
John took a drink, and smirked. “And you.”
Once the drinks were finished, it seemed like so was the meeting. Clean, simple, and easy. As business should be.
“So that’s settled then,” John said to the man.
Maverick stood from his seat. “Seems so. You’ll supply, and I’ll buy from only you.”
“Keep that agreement, and you won’t need to see us again.”
“We wouldn’t be as nice the second time,” Andino added.
It was a good reminder.
The gang leader gave a nod in response and then held up two fingers. His men waiting at other tables stood, and waited their leader out as the three men said goodbye.
John and Andino’s two enforcers who had been waiting in the shadows throughout the entire meeting only came closer the second the gang leader and his men were gone. The empty glasses on the table were removed, and the enforcers made their presences scarce.
“Thanks,” John said.
Andino grinned. “For what, man? You handled that on your own. I don’t know what the hell Dante is worried about with you. I wasn’t even needed here tonight.”
A quiet laugh echoed from his cousin. “Tell him that.”
“I will.”
And he would.
“I meant, thanks for the water,” John said.
Andino shrugged, and shoved his hands in his pockets. Didn’t his cousin know? “I’ve always got your back, John. Even when you don’t know it.”
“Not really your job, though.”
“Still going to do it.”
Till the day one of ‘em fucking died.
“What about when you don’t have the time anymore, huh?”
Andino’s gaze turned into slits at that statement. “Like fucking when?”
“How about when you’re the boss, and have a whole organization to manage? You don’t need to be worrying about me when that happens, Andi.”
“Yeah, sure, but—”
“No buts. You work on you—make sure you are where you need to be in this organization, Andino. I’ll handle me.”
Andino scoffed, but clapped John hard on the shoulder as the two stood from the table. “Man, even when I am looking out for me, I am still going to be looking out for you. I don’t know how to do anything different. Not after everything. Speaking of looking out for you …”
John glanced at his cousin. “Pardon?”
“I ran in to somebody—looks like she listened to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
It was like this—Andino might have gotten refused something he wanted, and his life might have been on fucking display for the men of their family to pick apart, but he wasn’t going to let them pull all that same kind of shit on John.
John wasn’t Andino.
At least one of them would get what they wanted.
Tonight, anyway.
Andino pointed over Johnathan’s shoulder, and grinned slyly when his cousin spun around fast to see Siena Calabrese being escorted across the floor by an enforcer. John stiffened, and Andino chuckled.
“I figured that was fucked—finished,” John said faintly.
Andino arched a brow. “What—her? I ran in to her when I had to handle some business with the Calabrese brothers. I hate them fuckers.”
And he did.
So damn much.
But business was business, and he had to handle whatever business he had with other families and organizations even when it was the last thing he wanted to do. It had been just shit luck that Andino ran into Siena at one of her brothers’ restaurants, and that she dared to utter John’s name in his presence.
She worked at her brother’s place—ran numbers, apparently. Andino respected that, really. He got why she might have caught John’s eye being she was smart, pretty, and everything he probably wasn’t supposed to have.
Yeah, Andino got that.
Except his do-not-touch thing was a woman covered in tattoos, and on the other side of Brooklyn. Funny how that worked.
His first reaction when the girl asked about John had been to protect his cousin—every man in their family thought this female was some kind of bad news because of her last name, after all.
Andino wasn’t every man, though.
And apparently, this woman had caught his cousin’s attention for whatever reason. Andino didn’t see the issue in helping it along if there was no harm done on either side. Who fucking cared what the rest thought?
“Yeah, but no. I meant, I kind of ducked out on her,” John said quietly. “What did you do?”
Andino clapped his cousin’s shoulder. “She asked about you when I ran in to her. Kind of figured you must have made … an impression.”
John cleared his throat. “Not really supposed to be dating.”
“Who said anything about dating? Have some fun, John. That’s all.”
His cousin deserved it after everything. Lockup wasn’t easy on a man in that way. Pussy was not accessible. Fun was nonexistent.
John grinned when Siena came closer.
Andino figured he’d done his job.
For one of them, at least.
• • •
What the fuck are you doing here?
Andino ignored his inner thoughts as he parked his Lexus, and tipped his head to the side to see the flashing neon sign above the door of Safe Haven.
Girl is going to send you out on your ass, Andi.
Man, his head was a special breed of hell tonight.
He had no business being here—it wasn’t even about Haven, and yet it was at the same time. He’d dropped off her radar for two weeks, and not by his fucking choice. It just was what it was, in a way.
Andino figured if he gave it enough time, then he wouldn’t keep thinking about the next time he might be able to squeeze in a visit with her. He wouldn’t be wondering how many fucking more stars there were to find on her body.
He wouldn’t want to fuck her again.
Talk to her again.
See her again.
Something.
And all because of what?
Because she was a woman outside of everything else—something untouched by his life, and unknowing of the crown he’d been handed, but didn’t quite know what to do with. She was fun; hell, he hadn’t lied about that.
She was someone he was told he couldn’t have. Andino had been an only child. He didn’t do well with being told no, so fuck it, he might as well blame it on his parents.
Except he couldn’t.
Andino liked that Haven was an outsider, didn’t know a thing about him. Thing was—the longer he kept involving himself with her, and coming back for one more round, the more of his life he was going to bring with it.
And thus, his probl
ems, too.
She didn’t ask for that.
She didn’t even know it.
He knew that.
He still got out of the car, and headed for the club.
EIGHT
Safe Haven was packed—it was probably over the fire code for maximum occupancy allowed inside the venue, actually. Filled to capacity, and it was only a little past midnight. The club still had several hours to go before closing time. Normally, Haven wouldn’t mind this at all. A lot of people was good for business, and she did like money. She liked when the work kept her busy, and moving from one thing to another.
Tonight was not quite the same.
Running short on staff with two call-ins, Haven was just now realizing she needed another person—or even two—on call just in case. A bartender that knew how to work a bar, and a girl on the floor.
She made a mental note as she poured a line of whiskey shots for the frat boys still trying to get her attention with their polo shirts, and dimpled smiles. For another woman, these frat boys might have been a welcome reprieve to a busy night. Some harmless fun and flirting, but not for Haven.
Not my type, sorry.
At least, they weren’t being pushy or overbearing. Nothing she couldn’t handle, anyway. Just a little drunk, and having some loud fun while she poured their drinks. That wasn’t anything new for Haven.
“There you are, boys,” Haven said, flipping the whiskey bottle around in her hand before sliding it under the bar. “Enjoy your drinks.”
“Have a shot with us!”
Haven eyed the blond frat boy at the end. “Don’t drink on the job, sorry.”
“Awe, come on, don’t be like—”
“Yo, Haven!” came a shout from down the bar. “I need another one of these.”
Max—a regular—was already pointing at his empty drink, and looking right at her. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t even in her section of the bar, and the other girl serving drinks was closer to him, he seemed to prefer to have Haven serve him.
“Sorry,” she told the frat boy, “another night, maybe.”
But unlikely.
She left the group of frat boys to their whiskey shots, and slid down the bar, grabbing bottles to make Max’s specialty drink as she went. She chatted with the regular—despite his interest in her, he was harmless for the most part—as she mixed his drink. She barely finished with Max before she was pulled to someone else, and then again for three servers who came up to the bar with their own drink orders for the floor.
