by Bethany-Kris
He wouldn’t need it.
“Pink!”
Like the good enforcer he was, Pink materialized out of practically thin air. Despite his size, the enforcer was good at blending in and keeping out of sight unless he needed to be seen. He followed Andino around—or whoever he was directed to watch by Andino—daily, and he rarely even saw the man.
A lit cigarette dangled from the man’s mouth as he asked, “What can I do for you, boss?”
Andino eyed the cigarette. “Didn’t Antony make rules about you all smoking on the property?”
Pink shrugged. “It’s been a long day.”
Wasn’t that the fucking truth?
Andino let the cigarette thing go.
For now.
“Where’s Snaps?”
“Sleeping in the back of the Lexus,” the enforcer replied. “I turned it on.”
“Good, good.”
Pink took one last drag from his smoke, and then stubbed it against the heel of his boot. Wordlessly, he dropped the butt into his pocket. “So, what’s up?”
“I need you to do something for me. I don’t want word going beyond you and me about it. Like usual, you report back to only me about what’s happening, and what I want to know. Got it?”
“Sure. What do you need me to do?”
It was time to put Andino’s plans in motion. Or rather, some of them. Sometimes, shit just worked out for him. His father liked to say he was a lucky fuck like that, but Andino didn’t know if that was actually the case or not.
Either way, it was time to get started.
“I need you to follow Siena Calabrese for me. Report back on where she goes on a daily basis, who she talks to, and what she’s doing.” Andino shoved his hands in his pockets in an effort to keep out the cold. His fingertips had already turned numb. Maybe he should have grabbed his coat. “I will be specifically interested in knowing if she starts to do anything different—say, joins a gym … or something.”
Yes, or something.
That worked.
Pink’s brow furrowed, and he glanced away. “You want me to watch Siena Calabrese.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Not your wife-to-be?”
Andino kept his face passive, and unreadable. “No, only Siena.”
“All right.”
Pink still sounded confused, but like the good made man he was, the enforcer didn’t ask questions. He knew better than to demand details when Andino gave him a job. He was simply to do it, do it well, and nothing more.
“Start tomorrow,” Andino said.
Pink nodded. “You got it. Reports daily?”
“Until I say otherwise, yes.”
With that conversation done, and his plans moving forward, Andino was satisfied. He dismissed Pink before heading back inside the mansion. By the time he slipped back into the dining room where his family was still debating the Calabrese and the deal like it mattered, no one seemed to notice he had even left.
Or so he thought.
“Where did you go?” his father asked next to him.
Why was Gio so fucking observant?
“Stepped out for a breather,” Andino said.
It wasn’t a complete lie.
His father didn’t question it or push, but then again, the conversation at the table took a lot of their attention, anyway.
“This is just another way for them to get inside our family in some way,” Lucian said.
At the head of the table, Dante gave his brother a pensive look. “It’s a woman, Lucian. We’re not inviting the men to dinner, or doing business with them.”
“Yet, Dante. We’re not doing that yet.”
“He has a point,” Antony murmured from the other end of the table. “There is a reason why I kept our family so guarded and closed off from the Calabrese faction. They have always—always—wanted a piece of our business. They have never once stopped trying to get into our ranks in someway. I don’t like that … essentially … you’ve given them an opening.”
Dante opened his mouth to say something, but Antony was quick to raise his hand. It never failed to amuse Andino how even at his grandfather’s age, and the fact he had stepped down from being the boss decades ago, when Antony spoke, he still headed the room. People gave him the chance to speak, and allowed him to take the floor without issue.
“I know you don’t see it as an opening, son,” Antony said, his gravelly voice dipping in tone. “But you don’t have to see it as one. They do. And that emboldens them, and gives them the permission they think they need to … well, behave like the snakes we all know them to be.”
“What is more important?” Dante was quick to ask. “Keeping the Calabrese far away from the Marcellos, or continuing to maintain peace in this city between all of the organizations? Go on and tell me. I’ll wait. We have time.”
Antony sighed.
Lucian scowled.
Dante only nodded. “Exactly. I am not giving them an opening. I am offering to make peace with them in this way. I know that it seems like an opening to them, but that doesn’t mean it actually is. Nothing will change.”
“Except Andino will marry one of them,” his mother spoke up.
That wasn’t like Kim.
She didn’t even try to hide the contempt in her voice.
Dante passed Kim a look. “And your son agreed this was the best course of action. It also helps his standing considering he does need a wife when he finally takes my seat as the boss.”
Kim looked to Andino. He saw her silent question even though she didn’t voice it out loud.
“I have to protect the family,” Andino told her. “I’ll always protect my family, Ma.”
It was how he chose to protect them that might differ from his uncle’s plans. It simply wasn’t time for Andino to explain that little detail, though.
They had other problems.
EIGHT
Haven sat on the park bench, and slapped the card she held against the palm of her hand. She didn’t need to read the words on the card again to know what it said. As it was, she had probably read it one too many times already.
March 10th, noon. Be at the place where I first found you. —A.M.
She didn’t need clarification about where that was. And as much as she wanted to rip that note off her front door when she first found it, Haven hadn’t been able to do that, either. She took the note as a fucking sign, maybe. This was her last chance to say goodbye, and make it count. To really get Andino to understand whatever game he was trying to play with her was over now.
Maybe.
Nothing was ever that simple, though.
She heard footsteps approaching on the trail, but didn’t need to look up to know it was him. She had always been able to feel his eyes on her long before he ever spoke to her. Despite everything, that was one thing that hadn’t changed. Even if she wished it would.
“Right on time,” Haven said, glancing up from her hands in her lap.
Snaps stood close to Andino’s side with a stick in his mouth the size of a human arm. His dark eyes stared at Haven, waiting for her to greet him. She couldn’t help but put her hand out to the dog who then dropped his stick, and came forward all at once to get his love from her.
Short, yet soft, fur met Haven’s fingertips as she took her time greeting the pup. Snaps sat like the good boy he was, and accepted her silent hello with a wiggling tail against the cold ground.
Andino, on the other hand, had yet to say a word. Not that Haven was very surprised about that. She focused on Snaps for the moment. It was easier. The dog was far less complicated than the man he was always walking beside.
Or, that’s what she found.
Finally, Andino spoke. And even then, Haven chose to keep her attention on Snaps. “I wasn’t even sure if you were going to come today.”
“I shouldn’t have,” she replied.
Andino made a noise in the back of his throat. “That’s fair. But here you are, so that’s what matters, isn’t it?”
> Was that what he thought?
Haven had news for him.
“You seem to be under some kind of impression that just because you make a demand, Andino, I must always follow it,” Haven said, glancing up at him. Unsurprisingly, he was staring right at her, entirely unashamed. In some cases, that made it easier for her to see what he was truly feeling when he made such a great effort to hide it, but not today. Now, he was a blank slate, and she hated that more than anything else. “I’m my own person, Andino, and I have my own life. I came today because I wanted to, and nothing more.”
Andino cocked his head to the side a bit, and his brow dipped. “Why did you want to come, then?”
“Maybe to tell you enough is enough. Or to ask my own questions. There’s a lot of reasons, Andino. And I doubt that even one of those reasons will match up to yours.”
He gave her one of his crooked smiles. A look she thought could do wonders for a woman’s body without meaning to at all. She was no fucking exception to that rule, even if it did make her weak to admit it.
She could hide it, though.
Therein lied the difference.
“But you didn’t have to come today to say anything to me or ask me a question if that’s what you needed or wanted to do,” he countered. “You have my phone number—though you barely use it anymore—and you know I’ll answer for you. If all you wanted to do was get something off your chest, and make sure to stay the hell away from me, you easily could have made a phone call. You didn’t need to come all the way out here in the cold to meet me on jogging trails, Haven.”
Did he want a pat on the back for figuring that out?
A congrats of some sort?
She was all out.
“You’re right,” she murmured, “I didn’t.”
“Then, again, why did you come?”
“Because I wanted to look at you.” Haven stood up from the bench, and Snaps was quick to get up on all fours, and move next to Andino again. She stared right at Andino, and refused to drop his gaze even when his face barely cracked with an expression or emotion. “Because I wanted to see your face when I asked you why you keep doing this to me. Why?”
Andino blinked. “What do I do to you, Haven?”
How could he not know? How did he act so blind?
She let out a bitter laugh, and waved a hand between them. “This. This right here, Andino! I thought I made it clear more than once that this was done—we’re finished. And yet, you keep inserting yourself into my life time and time again. Flowers on my doorstep, and notes on my door when I get home.”
Andino’s gaze drifted over her face in that slow way of his that made her feel like he was taking all of her in, and appreciating her at the same time. It served no purpose, really, other than to heat up her body and make her insane.
“Yet, you don’t actually tell me to stop doing those things,” he murmured.
Haven stiffened. “I have—”
“You have not. Like this, you rant and rave. But I think that’s more for yourself, than it is for me. It makes you feel better and not so fucking confused about why you smile every time you do find flowers, or a note. But you don’t call—you don’t send the flowers back.”
Haven gave him a look she hoped burned. “I shouldn’t have to do those things. My feelings should be clear.”
“They’re not. They’re far from clear.”
“A lot like yours, then, I guess.”
Andino nodded, and glanced down the trail. “Walk with us?”
Haven thought to refuse, but two things stopped her from doing exactly that. One, the way Snaps was looking at her in his expectant, happy way. And two, the way she felt inside. Exactly as Andino had said. He was good for that … calling her out when she didn’t want to face something.
Despite wanting to be done … they weren’t.
They were so far from fucking done.
“Walk with us?” he asked again.
Haven sighed. “Fine.”
• • •
“Your house hasn’t sold yet?”
Andino’s quiet question drew Haven’s attention away from Snaps who had found a spot along the side of the trail to dig. “How did you know—”
“My man mentioned seeing the sign.”
Oh.
“No, it hasn’t sold yet,” she replied. “The club is in the process of a sale, though.”
Andino raised a brow high. “The club, too?”
“I can’t run it from Florida, can I?” Haven shrugged. “At least, not hands-on like I would if I was here. That’s a problem for me, so I would rather just liquidate what I can, and use that money to help my mother pay for her cancer treatments and whatever other bills might come up. They don’t have a very big safety net.”
Andino cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize she was sick again.”
No, she supposed he wouldn’t. She hadn’t told him.
“I didn’t know either,” she admitted. “They hid it from me when I went to visit, and … well, I think they didn’t want me to worry or uproot my life to go and help her. Not that it mattered in the end.”
“Because that was the first thing you chose to do,” Andino said.
“Yep.”
How could she not?
“Besides,” Haven added in a sigh as she looked back at him, “it’s not like I have very much in New York to keep me here. Nothing is tying me down. Maybe a fresh start is exactly what I need.”
His green eyes blazed, but he said nothing other than, “What about your friend? Valeria, and her child?”
“Gone.”
Andino blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Val is gone—took off one night. She didn’t say goodbye, and didn’t leave me a note to explain where she went, or why. She warned me once that she might do exactly that if she felt she had to. She wasn’t legal, if you get my drift. It was still a surprise, and it hurt, but she did warn me. I have to give her that.”
The two continued walking on the trail side by side in silence. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. And still, he didn’t try once to reach out and touch her or do anything more than just walk with her.
Haven appreciated that.
She also wanted everything else, too.
Fuck.
Why was she such a mess?
Why did this man make her this way?
“If the club sells, will you go even if the house hasn’t sold?” he asked quietly.
Haven nodded. “I will. The house can stay on the market for months, for all I give a damn. I won’t really be losing out when the mortgage is already paid, you know? It’s just a waiting game to sell a starter home in the current market.”
“I’m surprised the club hasn’t sold already. Businesses like that—proven ones—tend to fly off the market.”
“That’s what my realtor said, too.”
“And yet, yours is still there.”
Haven scowled. “I have a buyer. He—or she, who fucking knows since their lawyer is doing everything for them—is just dragging their ass through the process. But the offer was far better than the other two I was given, so it would have been stupid to refuse.”
Andino said nothing.
Haven was fine with that.
She went to take another step on the trail, but Andino was quick to stop her. It was only his hand snaking tight around her wrist and then tugging hard to spin her around that shocked Haven the most. She hadn’t been expecting him to do that when throughout their walk, he’d not once tried to touch her.
His kiss, however, didn’t surprise her at all.
That was most familiar.
He pulled her into his arms, fisted the loose strands of her hair, and closed the distance between them with a burning, searing kiss. His lips were haunting to her, she thought. Each graze, and stroke they made over hers. Soft, at first, and oh, so slow. And then faster, but harder, too. His tongue struck out to lap against the seam of her lips, testing th
e waters before she parted her mouth and let him inside.
That was all he needed, really.
What could have been an innocent kiss burned far hotter when he had an all access pass to love her mouth exactly how he wanted to.
The way she loved his kiss the most.
Deep, and aching, and true.
The taste of him on her tongue.
Salt, and man, and musk.
Those fingers of his tightened in her hair, and kept her close. Like this, though, there was very little chance she was going to push him away. This was predictable between them. Haven was not very good at refusing him—or herself—when they were this close, and he was kissing her.
It was the last thing she wanted to do.
That kiss of his slowed until he pulled away altogether. Still, even as she spoke, they were close enough for their lips to touch. His nose grazed hers, and their foreheads pressed together.
“I will be going soon,” she whispered. “When the club sells, and the ink dries. I have to go, Andino. I need you to let me do that, okay?”
There.
She said it.
Haven couldn’t be clearer.
Andino nodded. “Then, you will go.”
“And you’ll let me go.”
It was more than letting her leave.
More than knowing she would be gone.
It would be the end.
Of them.
An official end of whatever they were, and whatever they might have been. There would be no coming back from that because once she was gone, Haven wouldn’t be turning around.
Ever.
“I will let you go,” he murmured.
She still wasn’t sure she believed him. Or maybe that was just her heart wishing for things that could never be. Not now, anyway.
• • •
“You didn’t have to walk me to the house, but thank you,” Haven said over her shoulder.
Andino stayed at the bottom of the steps leading up to Haven’s house. Snaps had fallen asleep in the back of the car, and barely even moved when Andino got out to walk Haven to the door.
“Didn’t I?” he asked. “Who else is making sure you get home safely?”
She had the door unlocked, and the knob turning under her hand. She should have left his words alone, and just went inside the fucking house like a smart woman. She shouldn’t have turned around to look at him—for just one more peek—because then she wouldn’t have seen the darkness clouding his features. As if the jealousy coloring his tone wasn’t enough … no, she had to see that, too.
