by Bethany-Kris
What had changed?
He knew the answer, but he ignored it.
Would John understand?
Andino didn’t have the answer for that.
Drifting out of his stupor, Andino’s legs finally decided to work. He moved the last few feet between him and the open office doors. Standing in the doorway, his form caught the attention of his father and uncles.
Not one of them seemed surprised to see him there.
“Did you hear?” Dante asked from behind his large desk.
Andino nodded, but said nothing.
Gio stood from the couch. “This is good, Andino.”
“Is it?”
Things were beginning to make more sense to Andino. The longer he considered it, the more he understood his mother’s words to him about settling down and finding a wife. His father had likely known what was coming for him, and Gio probably took the news to Kim.
“Nobody thought to ask me?” Andino asked.
Lucian dipped his head down. “You should have known, Andino.”
“I don’t know that I should have, actually.”
Dante sighed. “What is the problem?”
Andino didn’t know if he was ready for this.
That was exactly the problem.
He was twenty-eight. Being a boss wasn’t as simple as moving up in power when people retired in the mafia. There was a hell of a lot more to it.
His uncle—his boss—seemed to pick up on his inner thoughts.
“We’re never ready, Andino,” Dante said.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he said.
“No one ever does.” Dante smiled. “We either take it, are given it, or are born to it. We don’t, however, ask anyone for it.”
“This isn’t the kind of change that will be made overnight,” Gio tacked on when Dante finished. “It’ll be done over a span of time, Andino. Lucian is ready to step down, which will allow Dante to fill his spot. Lucian’s position as the underboss will put you front row and center for the family first and foremost. You’ve acted as my middle man for years alongside being a Capo. You know how to do this, and it won’t be a stretch to anyone who sees you in the position.”
“Makes sense,” Andino said.
It would work, and Andino understood his family’s choice to advance him, especially if la famiglia was already looking at him for the spot. It was still a huge change. One he hadn’t been expecting at all.
“Good,” Dante said, smiling widely and clapping his hands together. “Then it’s settled.”
“You’ll make a damn good boss, Andino,” Lucian said.
“I agree,” Dante said.
Gio passed his son a look that Andino didn’t understand.
“You have a while to get everything sorted on the personal side of things,” his father said. “No one is saying that you have to run out and get yourself settled with a wife right this minute, Andino.”
That was that. Andino’s future was decided and he didn’t get a single say in it all.
Duty waited on no one.
“Now,” Dante said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Onto other business.”
Yes.
Other business.
Apparently, Andino’s entire life could get upended just like that, but business still had to be talked about because this was their way. This was how they all lived.
“What business in particular?” Andino asked.
“You have a gun run coming up, don’t you? You’re handling the details of it—fill me in.”
Andino held in the cringe fighting its way over his lips. “All is well on that front. It’s a typical run. I don’t expect any problems.”
Except there was.
A lot of problems.
Their runner had been picked up on charges. He wasn’t getting out. The run still needed to go through, and Andino was going to need to do what he needed to do to get those guns to the man who bought them. Otherwise, they’d have a hell of a lot more problems to deal with.
Thing was—he only knew one gunrunner able to do it.
A man his boss hated.
Cross Donati.
Dante’s hatred of Cross stemmed back to something that happened between the gunrunner and Catherine—Dante’s daughter, and Andino’s cousin.
It didn’t matter.
The guns had to be run.
Andino would just make sure his boss never found out who the fuck was running them—at least, not until after.
Yeah, that worked.
Andino nodded. “Everything is great, boss.”
Dante smiled. “Make sure of it, Andino.”
The best part of Andino’s day was when nothing was happening at all. Usually, his life was busy because that’s how he lived, always on some kind of go. He didn’t take much time to relax, but his spoiled dog didn’t give him a choice. There was nothing Snaps liked more than to chill.
Trailing his fingers through the pit bull’s short-haired coat, Andino walked his dog through the silent park. Snaps was happy, content even. So was Andino.
Snaps took lazy strides, staying directly at Andino’s side at all times like the dog had been trained to do. Thinking back, Andino hadn’t wanted a dog, and certainly not one that required a lot of his attention all of the time. He didn’t have the patience for that nonsense.
And then his father showed up at his door one day with a scarred puppy in his hands when Andino was just twenty-two. Maybe the little pup had reminded Andino’s father of the rottie he’d had all those years ago before the dog succumbed to age and cancer. Andino wasn’t really sure, but Gio hadn’t given him a choice.
No, his father simply passed over the whimpering puppy and explained how he came about him. Snaps had been bred from a puppy mill, apparently. The fools who had been breeding the dogs did so with the purpose of using them to fight. Snaps had been nothing more than fodder to the dogs around him. If he survived, he would live to fight. If an older dog killed him during the period when the dogs weren’t being watched, then so be it.
Another litter would be born.
Gio didn’t like dog fighting—he wouldn’t stand for it. When he’d found out his men were involved in it, he ended it, rescued the pup in the process, and brought it to Andino.
Now, Andino was grateful.
Then, he’d wondered what in the hell he would do with a dog like Snaps.
Running his fingers through the dog’s fur again, Andino could feel the raised ridges of some of Snaps’ old scars under his fur. No one could see them, but Andino remembered vividly what the marks looked like when his dog was just a pup, struggling to eat solid food and needing Andino to feed him liquids through a syringe. Yeah, Snaps had been that young. He wasn’t so young or incapable anymore.
“Snaps,” Andino said, noting the fact that the trail had cleared of people.
His dog’s ears twitched, but Snaps never looked up.
“You ready?” Andino asked.
Snaps snorted, his nose pressing to the ground. Andino flipped the stick he’d been walking with. It was maybe six inches thick and a foot long. A broken tree branch that had fallen on the path and he picked it up as they walked.
“High,” Andino ordered.
Snaps’ head flew up, his gaze trained straight ahead. Good dog, Andino praised silently. All that time and training paid off. Snaps loved to learn.
“Get it,” Andino said fast.
The stick flew from his hand in a flash of movement. Snaps probably hadn’t even seen his master throw the stick, but the dog was already going after it. To most people, Snaps looked lazy as fuck. Andino didn’t mind letting people believe that, either.
Snaps was twenty feet in front of the stick before it even began to drop from the air to fall to the ground. In a blink, the dog turned and charged forward. Snaps’ two paws pressed hard into the paved walk and then the dog lunged into the air.
Six feet high, the dog caught the stick. Snaps’ jaw clamped around the wood with an audibl
e crunch. The stick splintered into nothing but scraps. Snaps landed to the ground almost silently, shaking his head at the same time. What was left of the stick fell from the dog’s mouth to the ground before Snaps was back at Andino’s side.
Chuffing, Snaps waited for his praise. He always waited. He never pressed for it.
“Good dog,” Andino said.
Snaps pushed his large head into Andino’s palm. Andino stroked the dog back.
When Andino’s life felt like it was going too fast, Snaps always managed to slow it down. Today was no exception. But even worse was when Andino’s life suddenly felt like it wasn’t his own to control, as if he was now someone else’s toy to command, Snaps was still the same.
His dog.
His companion.
After the news Andino learned the day before, he was still trying to adjust to what it all meant. A boss, that’s what he was intended to be. He’d decided it didn’t necessarily feel wrong, but the things he enjoyed most about his life, like being solitary, would have to change.
He wasn’t ready for that at all.
“Whoa, that was crazy,” came a soft, sensual voice to Andino’s left.
He spun fast on his heel, alarmed that Snaps hadn’t alerted him to the fact someone was around. Andino was sure he’d been alone.
Apparently not.
The woman, in her baggy tank and jogging shorts, stood at the mouth of a connecting trail. Her blonde hair, streaked with waves of teal and purple, was pulled into a loose ponytail. She had the lean, toned body of a runner and Andino found himself staring at all the curves of her body, from her hips to her waist, and up to her breasts. She was fit, tall, and by the expression she wore as he kept staring at her, fiery and feisty, too.
Andino liked that in a woman.
The woman put a fist to her jutted hip.
“Do you stare often?” she asked.
Andino smirked, amused at her candor. “I do when something deserves my attention.”
The woman grinned. “That’s what you got?”
Andino just shrugged.
What the hell else could he do?
“I only speak the truth,” he said.
The woman looked him up and down. “Do you often wear a suit when you walk your dog on running trails?”
“Sometimes.”
“Huh.”
Andino cocked a brow. “Do you often question random people on the trails?”
“Sometimes. Is that a problem?”
A smartass.
Fantastic.
“Not a problem at all,” Andino settled on saying.
“Good,” the woman told him, her full lips curving into a smile and making her dainty features all the more beautiful, “because I was starting to wonder what kind of guy wears a three-piece suit, and walks a dog on the running trails.”
“Were you?”
The woman stared Andino right in the face—it was the first time he got a good look at her eyes, and it shocked him. Bright blue like the sky, but stormy like the sea.
“Was I, what?” she asked.
“Wondering what kind of man I am,” he clarified. “You know, because of the suit, the dog, and the walking thing.”
She cocked a brow, but dropped her gaze to Snaps who had been progressively moving closer to her throughout the conversation. She didn’t look bothered by Snaps even as he rubbed his muscular body against her legs, and sniffed her with his short snout. She petted Snaps’ large head with her palm as she peered back at Andino.
“Bad things happen to people who aren’t paying attention,” the woman said.
Andino nodded. “That’s true.”
She gave him another look, adding, “I guess the bad guys probably don’t wear three-piece suits, or walk their dogs in the middle of broad daylight.”
Funny.
Hadn’t he just killed a man a couple of days ago? Didn’t he have a gun hidden at his back? Wasn’t he just told he would be the heir to a criminal empire?
That all spelled bad guy to him.
Just in different ways.
“Life is busy,” Andino said, whistling after for Snaps to come back. Unquestioningly, the dog left the woman’s side, and came back to his master to sit patiently at Andino’s leather loafers. “Too busy for me, maybe. I don’t like change, but someone decided something recently that changed everything for me. Walking Snaps clears my head.”
The woman crossed her arms over her chest, and it drew Andino’s attention to the colorful artwork tattooed up her arms. Full sleeves on both arms, ink covering her throat, and traveling down to where the baggy tank top dipped low on her chest.
Damn.
He wondered what kind of stories her ink told.
Something amazing, probably.
“You should take a break, then, stranger who wears a three-piece suit to walk his dog.” Her tone was half-amused, and half-teasing. “You looked happy right before I interrupted—I bet Snaps would like you to take a break, too.”
“I—”
Andino’s phone buzzed with a call—he cursed as he shoved his hand into his pocket, and pulled the offensive device out to check the call.
Dante.
The boss.
No shunning a boss.
It was a rule.
He turned slightly to make his shoulder face the woman as he picked up the call. “Yeah, boss, what can I do for you?”
“Nothing you can’t handle, I am sure.”
The last thing Andino wanted to do was handle business. Any kind of business. He thought of the woman, and her words. Maybe she had a fucking point.
“Actually, I need a couple of weeks,” Andino said.
“Excuse me?” Dante asked.
“Yeah, I need a break.”
“For …?”
“At this point, whatever the hell I want. And anything that is not in this city.”
He needed to get away, and just … relax. Maybe then he wouldn’t get so snappy when his mother asked about women in his life, or whatever. Maybe then he might start to feel better about this whole fucking boss thing.
“Is this about the business, and la famiglia again, Andi?”
“Do you really need me to answer that?”
“You’re the right choice,” Dante said quietly. “The best choice. And you know it.”
“Fact remains. You’ve upended what I thought was my life. I need time to adjust.”
Dante sighed harshly, and Andino knew then he was going to get what he wanted. After all, Dante would want to keep him happy.
This was a two-way street.
A give and take.
“Fine, but—”
“No buts,” Andino interjected. “A break is a fucking break.”
“Has your father ever told you that you’re a demanding little shit?”
“Yes, and also that it suits me.”
Dante grumbled under his breath, but Andino was pretty sure his uncle said, “He’s not wrong.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Take your break.”
Dante hung up the phone without a goodbye. Andino wished he could say he was surprised. Turning on his heel to apologize and say goodbye to the woman who had been at the mouth of the connecting trail, he found the spot empty.
And the woman gone.
Fuck.
He hadn’t even gotten her name.
Snaps looked up at Andino with his big, dark eyes—ready and willing to find yet another stick to be thrown for him, probably.
“Where did she go?” Andino asked his dog.
Snaps simply wagged his stubby tail.
Thanks for the help, buddy.
TWO
If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.
Haven Murphy had seen that inspirational quote on the office wall of a guidance counselor when she had been applying to college after college in high school, and it stuck with her.
That was eight years ago—when she had only been eighteen. Now, at twenty-six, not much had chang
ed for her when it came to what she learned from that quote. She had taken those words to heart that day, and every single day thereafter, too.
It was why she jogged every single day. Eight miles, never failed.
She would jog until her lungs felt like they were going to give out; until the sweat soaked her clothes; until her legs just couldn’t take anymore. And then she would stop for a breather, like she was doing right then at the same spot every time, turn around, and run all the way back home to her small Brooklyn bungalow.
That simple inspirational quote also cemented her decision right then and there that no matter what people were telling her—regardless of how much her father and mother wished she would travel or indulge her love of writing, or literally anything else but take over the family business—a business degree was the way to go.
It was what she had wanted to do, after all. Not travel to see a world that was falling apart at the seams, or write for decades upon decades only to have the gatekeepers of the publishing world tell her she wasn’t good enough.
No, none of that appealed to her.
Haven was responsible.
Smart.
Practical.
And business was all of those things, too.
It worked out well for her—when her mother’s health failed two years back, and her father needed to take a step back from the bar he’d been running for over four decades, Haven stepped in to keep Safe Haven running, and profitable for her father while he took care of her mother.
What she hadn’t known at the time?
The bar her father had so dearly loved was suffering under crushing debt—a byproduct of her father trying to keep their head above water for years, pay for Haven’s college, and then his wife had gotten sick, too. She wished Neil had said something; her father had always been too proud to ask for help.
Even now, two years after Haven had taken over the business, and bought her father out. She allowed him a safe retirement … not to mention, saved Safe Haven from financial ruin. Neil was still too proud to admit anything had been wrong. He also hadn’t come back to the bar since Haven had made a few changes to the place.
She didn’t blame that one on her father’s pride, though.
No, she blamed herself for that. Well, that and the fact that very little about the small bar was the same as it used to be. Where it had once been enjoyed as a quiet spot for a draft beer after a long day of work, it was now known for some of the most beautiful nude dancers in New York.