by Bethany-Kris
If his cousin was actually slipping into another manic phase of his bipolar cycles, then Andino needed to tread carefully. Measure his words, and his actions when it came to John. He couldn’t even appear to be challenging John, or attempting to cause him harm—even if none of those things were the case.
John’s mind would just … see it that way.
Make it happen, even.
And once Andino got this sorted with his cousin today—or tried, depending on John’s mood—then he would deal with the very angry woman downstairs. That was, if Haven even decided to stick around long enough to chat.
One thing at a time, Andino.
Even though he’d heard his cousin approaching, Andino didn’t look up from the paperwork on his desk when John knocked on the door. “You finally came around to see me, huh?”
“You finally decided to pull the underboss card and make me come see you,” John countered easily.
Fair enough.
That was true.
Andino did that.
No shame.
Andino looked up to meet his cousin’s stare from the doorway, but made sure to keep his posture and expression as least combative as he could manage. If he could get through this meeting with John without it spiraling into a verbal sparring match, then maybe he could judge just how bad his cousin’s current state actually was.
“Had you given me a choice, I still would have come over eventually,” John said.
“When would that have been?” Andino asked.
“Eventually.”
“I sped it up, John. One of the perks of being the family underboss.” Andino grinned. “Nobody gets to ignore my ass.”
John laughed under his breath. “Yeah, lucky you.”
His smile was quick to fade, then—was that was this was, luck? He wasn’t sure he wanted to keep this kind of luck. “Well, the luck is debatable. Sit, John.”
“I would rather stand.”
“Why, are you going to fuck off if I say something you don’t like?”
People in his life that he cared about—which weren’t very fucking many—seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It drove him crazy.
John shot Andino a look—a warning if there ever was one. Careful, Andino. “I see Haven is downstairs. Siena is chatting with her.”
Andino’s gaze narrowed. “You brought her here?”
“I was with her when you called. I promised to spend the day with her since all I do is work my fucking ass off. I owe her time every once and a while, don’t I?”
“Sure, John, but you know how they feel about—”
“I imagine, the same way they feel about Haven, no?”
Andino stiffened in the chair. It wasn’t like his cousin to take easy shots like that—he made a checkmark on his mental list for John’s irritability level. It was definitely a sign pointing in a bad direction. Sure, everyone had their bad days, but irritability for John was never a good thing.
“Point taken,” Andino said.
“Yet, she’s here, I noticed.”
Good, that was the point, man.
“You sound like a broken record.”
“Give me something to give a shit about, cousin,” John snapped back just as fast, his hazel eyes burning with anger. “It’s been weeks, and all I’ve wanted to do is break your face. So yeah, give me something right now.”
Andino cleared his throat, trying to readjust his tone before he spoke again. “Maybe I’m taking a page out of your playbook.”
“Which is what?”
“Doing what I want.”
John laughed. “That’s not going to be an easy road.”
Andino smirked, and shrugged one shoulder. “No, definitely not. I didn’t want to pull the underboss card to get you here, John. Honestly. I know you think I’m a fucking jackass right now, but I was fine with letting you come to me when you were ready.”
“That so?”
“You felt like I crossed a line, and I get that.”
Andino didn’t miss the way his cousin’s fists balled easily at that statement, or the hard clench of his jaw. John was very good at hiding his emotions—he’d perfected it into an art form over the years considering he battled constantly with an emotional disorder that he felt, made him weaker standing next to other made men in their business. Just the fact that John was struggling to keep his emotional reactions in check told Andino more than John ever could in that moment.
Sure, his cousin seemed level.
Acted good.
Kept his tone mostly calm.
All that told Andino was that John knew something was up with himself—his bipolar—and was currently trying to hide it, or ignore it. Bad news again.
“You did cross a fucking line, man.”
“They already had somebody watching you, John,” Andino pointed out, wanting to get his cousin to relax a bit. Nothing he said was a lie, though. That was the thing—he needed John to know he wasn’t fucking lying, either. “I was approached because Dante had a guy trailing you, and he thought I might know something.”
John was quick to sit, then.
Thank God.
Andino continued. “So yeah, Dante and your father came to me asking about the Calabrese, and whatever else. I thought if I tried to explain that Siena was really just a random encounter you had then they would leave it alone.”
“You didn’t think to give me a fucking heads up that they were trailing me like that?” John asked. “And why the fuck can’t they just trust me?”
“I get the intentions were good, or that’s how Dante meant for it to be, but I warned him then that he was crossing a line with you. That kind of shit messes with your head.”
John wouldn’t meet Andino’s gaze then, but he really didn’t need him to. He had already seen the things his cousin was trying to hide. Now, he had to decide what he was going to do about it, or if there even was anything he could do.
Dante had been clear.
Look after John—make sure he stays out of trouble.
It kind of looked like trouble was there.
Damn.
Andino had one last trick up his sleeve, though, and he sure as fuck hoped it worked. Or at least, worked until he figured something else out.
And … John would have to be agreeable.
Here goes nothing.
“I should have let you know, John,” Andino said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t.”
John looked back at Andino. “They’re never going to feel like I can handle this business without somebody babysitting my every move. It puts me on edge like nothing else. I fucking hate it, Andi.”
“It won’t be like that forever, John.”
“Really?” John scoffed, quickly adding, “I’ve gone years without a major episode. I do everything they want me to do, and they still pulled this kind of shit on me.”
“I know, but it won’t be forever, John. Trust me on that. I’ll fucking make sure of it, man. Anyway,” Andino said, smacking his palms against the desk, and smiling, “the reason I had to pull the underboss card is because now, I am the one babysitting you.”
John stiffened again.
Okay, babysitting might have been the wrong word, stupid.
“Excuse me?” his cousin asked.
It was now or never for this plan. Maybe … Christ, maybe if Andino could keep his cousin relatively close for a couple of weeks, he could see if this phase in John’s cycle would pass easily, or worsen in to something else that needed someone to step in. He was hoping for the former before the latter, but only time would tell.
“The boss wants me to keep an eye on you. Seems you’re dodging your father, the boss, and even my dad.”
“You know what they did,” John said.
Andino waved that off. “Doesn’t matter, John.”
“It does fucking matter.”
Frustrated.
Heavy.
Angry.
Andino changed the topic—anything to bring back the calm for John.
“How’s work?” Andino asked.
“Work is work,” his cousin said quickly. “I’ve got my crew handled. Money is coming in just fine. All the Calabrese work is going fine, as it should.”
“Good,” Andino said.
“That’s it? Good.”
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re not going to push and question me on every fucking aspect of everything I do?”
“Nope.” Andino smiled, and shrugged. “If you say shit is on the up and up with you, then that’s what it is, John.”
“I see what you did there,” John murmured.
“Did you?”
“I’m bipolar, but not crazy or stupid.”
“I would never call you those things, anyway,” Andino replied.
“I know.”
“And I’m not going to treat you like the rest of the men in this family do a lot of the time. I just want to make sure you’re handling whatever you need to handle. Probation, work, and therapy. Anything else—who you’re fucking, or the rest of that—is none of my goddamn business.”
John cleared his throat. “You sure on that?”
Andino pointed upward. “As sure as the sky is blue, man.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“Give them something, and they’ll back off.”
“But not about her. Not on Siena, Andi. They won’t back off a bit.”
“You’re really messed up on this woman, huh?” Andino asked.
John smiled slyly. “How’s that Haven thing working out for you?”
Andino smirked right back. “Yeah, I get it, John.”
“But yeah, I am, Andi.”
Messed up on her.
Andino knew that feeling.
Right now, he knew it too well.
“I guess nothing else matters, then,” Andino said.
“Nothing?” John asked.
“I’m just here to help you, man.”
John nodded. “All right.”
Only time would tell, though.
Andino knew that, too.
• • •
Two weeks told Andino a lot.
More than he ever wanted to know, frankly.
John was not getting better—he was far worse.
Ignoring the mid-February cold biting at his throat, Andino tightened the collar on his jacket, and climbed the steps of a familiar home. He’d been tailing John for two weeks, keeping a low profile to make sure his cousin didn’t know he was essentially babysitting him from afar, and then it came to a head.
It started with John’s … thing.
His girlfriend, Siena.
She finally thought something was wrong, too—Andino was quick to offer help even though he’d been watching John for a while and already knew that his cousin was slipping further into a manic spiral. And then yesterday?
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Yesterday, he watched his cousin beat a man to death in the back alley behind a billiards club. That was it for Andino—he cleaned the mess, and hid what John had done, but this was too much, now.
Andino needed help.
He couldn’t handle John alone.
Usually when he entered his parents’ home, the first person he would look for was his mother. He liked to greet her first, and make sure she had his attention for a bit before he went looking for his father.
Today, he went right upstairs.
He didn’t even look for Kim.
Andino found his father reading a book in his office. Giovanni lounged on a leather couch that he’d kept for at least twenty fucking years—the damn thing looked twenty fucking years old, too with all its faded, roughed spots, and frayed edges. Yet, his father loved it for some reason.
Gio didn’t even look up at Andino’s entrance. “Afternoon to you, son.”
“I have a problem.”
His father’s gaze glanced over the edge of the paperback thriller in his hands. “Go on.”
“It’s … sensitive.”
Gio rested the book on his stomach, all attention on his son, now. “I don’t like the sound of that, Andi.”
“Yeah—and I need someone who can help, but keep quiet.”
“Since when do you have problems that are sensitive?”
Andino glanced away. “Listen, I know I’m not a fuck up, okay, but lately … that’s been a common occurrence for me. I’m just as surprised about it as you are.”
“Relax.”
Easier said than done, Dad.
“It’s John,” Andino murmured.
That really got his father’s attention, not that he was surprised. John had always been like a second son to Gio, in many ways. John spent just as much time in this house with Andino growing up as he had in his own house. John was probably closer to Andino’s father than he was his own, even if that was a sad state of affairs in that regard.
Gio sat up fully on the couch, and clasped his hands together over his legs as he stared hard at Andino. “What about John—I thought everything was good on that side of things? You were looking out for him like Dante told you to do, weren’t you?”
“I was,” Andino said. “And I was also giving him a bit of leg room to do his own thing. You know, like he should be given considering he’s thirty fucking years old, and knows how to be a proper made man like the rest of us.”
“He’s also fresh out of prison, dealing with a new therapist, trying to figure shit out with his life and parents, has Dante riding his ass, and—”
“I know,” Andino interjected. “I know he has a lot on his plate.”
And he did.
He’d just … forgotten for a time.
“Or are you distracted?” his father asked quietly.
Andino couldn’t meet his father’s stare, then. He looked at anything but Gio when he spoke again. “That’s possible.”
“Is it because of that wom—”
“Could we not? This is about John, not my personal life.”
“I think it’s about both,” his father replied.
“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not talking about her.”
“Why?” Gio asked. “Because as long as everyone’s attention is on someone else—John—then no one is watching you, Andino? You get to fly under the radar, and do as you want with whoever you want? Is that it?”
“Is that seriously what you think?”
Gio chuckled dryly. “No, but other people might think it.”
“I care about Haven. She’s … not a toy for me.”
He felt his father’s eyes practically burning holes into him. He thought he could hear his father silently begging for him to look at him, but Andino didn’t. He kept his gaze firmly stuck on the window overlooking the back yard. He had other things to handle right now—Haven was not one of them because she was the one thing he was sure of. It was everything else that was up in the air at the moment.
“Do you love her?”
Why did that question feel like a slap cracking against Andino’s exposed nerves? Why did it hurt like someone had just stabbed a knife into his chest, and twisted until the blade came back out with a ruined heart on the tip? Why did it kill him?
He knew why.
Because somehow—between late nights, and counting tattooed stars, and just her—Andino found himself entirely fucked, and totally in love.
You know, with someone he couldn’t have.
Or so they kept telling him.
“We’re not talking—”
“I asked,” his father said quietly. “Give me the respect of answering me, son.”
“I don’t owe you anything about that,” Andino replied, “only her.”
Silence answered him back.
Andino was grateful his father didn’t push.
“All right.” Gio cleared his throat. “One thing at a time, then?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“How bad is John?”
Andino’s chest ached. “Pretty bad—he’s full blown manic at this point, but he’
s avoiding everybody, and not taking calls. Doesn’t matter, though, because he’s leaving a path of destruction wherever the fuck he goes.”
“Like what?”
“Killed a guy yesterday. I cleaned up the mess.”
Gio made a noise in the back of his throat. “Let’s not repeat that to Dante.”
Andino laughed bitterly. “Quite aware, yeah.”
“Okay,” his father said, standing from the couch, “we’ll get this figured out, and quickly. Have it all handled before we take anything to the boss. You know how Dante is. I’ll help you with getting him under control, and—”
“Getting who under control?”
Fuck.
Andino glanced over his shoulder to find his mother standing in the doorway. She smiled at them, and then looked to Gio.
“Something wrong?”
His father wasn’t one to lie.
Especially not to Kim.
Gio smiled back. “Everything’s fine, Tesoro. Like always.”
That should have been another clue for Andino. His father would have his back no matter what—even to his own detriment. That’s just what fathers did for their boys.
God knew he had the best father.
• • •
“Club’s quiet tonight,” Andino said.
Haven didn’t pretend like she hadn’t heard him speak when he sat down on the stool across the bar from her, but she kept her gaze on the cash she was counting inside the register. She barely even passed him a look when he first greeted her.
“Monday’s usually are slow,” she returned.
“You’d think that would be the night when people would want to go out, and get rid of their stress. The start of the week, and all that shit.”
“Maybe.”
Her quiet, but not interested, reply made Andino frown. “Hey.”
Finally, she glanced over at him. He wished he could find some warmth in her blue eyes, but all he found staring back at him was coldness.
“Hi.”
Andino nodded. “I’m sorry I’ve been busy. The last couple of weeks have been—”
“Don’t worry about it, Andino. I’m not.”
Ouch.
Her tone came out as sharp as a razor blade, and cut at him like one, too.
“Haven,” he said.
He got nothing.
“Haven.”
