by Bethany-Kris
She caught sight of his flinch out of the corner of her eye.
“Listen, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is kind of a big deal to me.” Pulling her ballet flats away from the wall, she slipped her feet into the shoes. “But at the moment, there’s nothing to talk about, Andino.”
“Then, why are you running out of here like—”
“Because I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She stood straight, and spun around to face him. “Who are you?” Andino opened his mouth to speak, but she was quick to interject with, “And no, don’t give me some garbage again. Give me the truth. Who are you, and what do you do, Andino?”
A tic worked its way through the strong line of his jaw, and he swallowed hard. Still, he said, “I never said I was a good man, Haven.”
“You didn’t say anything, actually.”
“I didn’t know how,” he said, his tone sharp, yet aching. “And so fucking what, maybe I liked that you didn’t know everything about me like everyone else does.”
Haven blinked, stunned for a second. “Is that it? You liked that I was in the dark about the things you do, and who you really are?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t know me—like you’ve never sat down to have dinner with me, or watched me with my dog, or woke up next to me in the morning. Don’t act like you know nothing about me when you probably know the parts that matter the most, Haven.”
Ouch.
“And yet,” she told him, “you forgot other parts. You know, shit that might matter to me.”
She turned to move for the door, but Andino followed. “Wait, please—”
“I need some time, okay? Just … give me some time, Andino.”
Thankfully, he let her go.
And sadly, she still felt cold.
ELEVEN
November …
December …
The truth always came out eventually. That was thing about secrets and lies. No matter how strong a web of lies was woven, it only took one thread to unravel for the rest to come crashing down. And secrets? Well, one could only keep those hidden for so long before someone stumbled upon something they shouldn’t.
Or in Andino’s case … his boss finding out who he’d been working with behind the man’s back. Yeah, maybe he should have known better, but for now, he was going to blame it on life getting in the way, and making him fucking stupid.
“Cross Donati?”
Andino was a little busy staring at the bareness of the grand entry in the Marcello mansion to really care about how loudly his boss was yelling at him. Bare, he thought, because here it was the twenty-sixth of December, and not a decoration hung from the walls. No green garland twisting up the bannister of the grand staircase, and no Christmas tree in the middle of the hall tall enough to touch the ceiling.
Every year that he could remember, this mansion became a winter wonderland at Christmastime. It never failed. Sure, his grandmother, Cecelia, had stepped back over the years to allow her sons’ wives to do the majority of the work and planning for their decorating and parties this time of year, but still.
It was never not done.
It was never bare of decorations.
Andino found it a little distracting.
“Cross fucking Donati,” Dante snarled.
He glanced at his uncle, but he didn’t know what Dante wanted him to say. Likely nothing, considering the way the man was staring at him. Sometimes, being silent was better, especially when all your shit finally caught up to you.
Or, that’s what his father always told him.
Speaking of who …
“You were told not to work with Cross,” Gio said.
Andino shrugged. “Dante needed his guns run, didn’t he? What did you all want me to do?”
“Find someone else!”
Dante’s shout echoed.
It all felt like vibrations bouncing off Andino’s form. He was numb to this—to their anger, and disappointment. Unfeeling about their fucking feelings. It was business at the end of the day, and Andino only cared about making sure business was done.
Nothing more, and nothing less.
“And when were you going to tell us that you had Cross running our guns?” his other uncle, Lucian, asked.
Beside him, John shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. He was finally back and settled after chasing his sister all across the fucking United States, but he was trying to lay low, and keep himself out of trouble. Not that Andino blamed his cousin, really. Still, where one of the two went in this family, the other one was sure to follow.
Or, it seemed that way.
“Andino made a choice,” John said, “and given the circumstances, it wasn’t the wrong choice, necessarily, but—”
“It was the wrong choice,” Dante barked, “and nobody asked you, Johnathan.”
John stiffened, but quieted.
Andino, on the other hand, was just about done with this whole fucking thing. “So, it didn’t work out. The gun run was botched—it happens. Who the fuck thought the buyer was going to come back on us like he did? No one. It worked out, though. We all fixed it. And we got Catherine back, didn’t we? Alive.”
Dante’s jaw tensed, and his gaze hardened.
Like ice and fire.
Freezing cold, and burning.
“Yes,” his uncle said, “and lucky for you that my daughter made it out of that mess alive. You would have been the one answering for that mess, Andino. Family first—it’s our rule. Did you forget about it?”
Not really.
It just got lost in the mess that was everything else in his life at the moment. He figured his uncle was a fucking hypocrite in that way, anyway. Dante barked that family first bullshit like he meant it—but mark Andino’s words, had he slipped in business, his uncle would have let him know it; family or not.
Because yeah, the Marcellos looked out for one another.
They also liked money.
“And you didn’t answer the question,” Dante added, his tone dropping to that dark, angry timber again. “When were you planning on telling me that you deliberately disobeyed me by having Cross Donati run our guns down the Gulf because our usual man got picked up on charges? Go ahead and figure out another lie, Andino. I’ll wait.”
“Hey,” Giovanni said, his gaze narrowing. “Watch it, Dante.”
The boss didn’t even pass Andino’s father a look, but he did hold up a hand as to ask his brother for silence.
“Well?” Dante asked when Andino stayed quiet. “I’m waiting.”
Andino sighed, and shook his head. His uncle was not going to drop this until he got what he wanted—or at least, something suitable to his pissed off mood. “Maybe after it was successful, and the rest of the money was in your bank. Or … never?”
Dante scowled.
Did he want the truth, or not?
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” his uncle asked.
“I did my job,” Andino said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Shit didn’t work out, but the fact will remain the same in that I did my job, boss. The guns needed to be run, and you didn’t have to like who was running them as long as they got to where they needed to go. That’s the thing about this business, right, or so the three of you have been preaching to the rest of us for our whole life. As long as the fucking job gets done, and money goes in the bank, then the rest doesn’t matter. Unless,” he added with a bitter laugh, “Dante decides to get stuck up in his feelings about a certain person because then everybody’s going to have a fucking problem.” Andino scoffed. “Isn’t that how it seems lately?”
Silence answered him back.
His uncles were stunned.
His father was wide-eyed.
Beside him, John stared at the floor, silent but with a ghost of a smile on his lips.
Because yeah, where was the fucking lie?
“Leave,” Dante murmured.
/> Andino didn’t need to be told again. He turned fast on his heel to get the hell out of that house—it seemed like his best bet considering how much he managed to piss off his uncle tonight, and he really didn’t need to be going for a second round.
“Not you, Andino.”
Ah, shit.
“Everybody else, move your asses somewhere else,” Dante said. “Upstairs, outside … I don’t give a fuck. Get out of my sight until the rest of the men get here. Go.”
Andino turned back around to face his uncle. Dante looked like he was hanging onto his last rope of patience, and it was getting thinner by the fucking minute. This was life as a Cosa Nostra boss, though, no way around it. Stress was constant—from the business to the family, and more importantly, the men working under the boss.
This was what it was.
This was the duty Dante handed to Andino.
Like he should be grateful for it.
Dante only spoke again once the rest of the men of their family had scattered elsewhere—Giovanni outside with a mutter about needing a smoke, and Lucian and John upstairs to the large office that Dante liked to use whenever he visited the mansion, likely.
“What is wrong with you?” Dante asked.
Andino blinked.
That was not the question he expected.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You, Andi,” his uncle murmured, gesturing at him. “What is wrong with you? This—all this insolence and disobedience—this is not the made man your father raised. You know your place, and you’re quite comfortable in it. You don’t cause problems, and you do good work. Stop behaving like a man who doesn’t know how to act in this family and life, Andino. What’s changed?”
Andino laughed.
Instinctual, maybe.
Nerves and anger, most definitely.
“What changed?” he asked.
Dante nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“Everything fucking changed!”
Andino couldn’t believe the gall of his uncle to ask something like that as if he didn’t know exactly how he’d upended his nephew’s entire fucking life by shoving something onto his shoulders that he’d never asked for, and without any kind of proper warning. Like it wasn’t a big deal.
It was a big deal!
And now … now he wanted to tell Andino how he could or could not be as Dante’s little boss in waiting?
Fuck all of that.
Fuck that noise.
“What changed,” Andino said, taking a step toward his uncle although Dante stayed firm in his position, “was that somewhere along the lines, you decided you get some kind of say in what kind of boss you want me to be. Somewhere in this bright fucking idea of yours to make me the next boss of the Marcellos, you figured you could turn me into you. I am not you, Dante. I am me. And that means you don’t have to like the way I do business, or who the fuck I do it with, or how I decide to sit down in your seat once you’re done with it.”
His uncle’s stance softened a bit. “Andino—”
“The only thing you get to decide—you already did. You put me here. You decided this for me. You chose my future, and what you and everybody else wanted for it. And you didn’t give one good goddamn about what I might have wanted. So, fine. Fuck you, too. You got your one choice about me, but the rest?”
Andino laughed, and sneered. “The rest, boss, is up to me. Don’t forget it.”
He could be a good boss—he knew it because of who he was, his bloodline, and the way he’d been raised in this family. He could be a good boss because this was who he was, and this was all he’d ever known.
He could be a good boss.
Except he’d never asked for it.
And here he was.
So, fine.
Fine.
Andino would be their next boss—like fuck was anybody going to step in his way, and tell him how to be it, though.
No one was going to do that.
Dante cleared his throat, and fixed the cufflink on his dress shirt. His tone lost a lot of that heat and anger with his next words. “I don’t expect you to be me, Andino.”
“It sure seems like it.”
“I don’t need you to be like me.” Dante shrugged, dropped his arms to his side, and stared long and hard at Andino before he spoke again. “What I need, Andi, is to know that I made the right choice. That when push comes to shove, you’re going to put your duty ahead of your own wants, and do what is right and best for this family and organization. That’s all, nipote.”
Andino clenched his jaw, and muttered, “Stop trying to put me in your seat the way you want me to go there.”
“All right.”
“All right?”
Dante nodded. “That’s what I said. We’ll start tonight, even.”
“Tonight,” Andino echoed.
“Why do you think I have the men coming here? It’s the night after Christmas, Andino. I am sure they want to be with their family, but instead, they’re coming to this mansion to have their vote and voice when I officially put you into the underboss position. See, even though you disappointed me, lied, and more … I was not so pissed off that I couldn’t see what you were trying to do. I don’t need you to be like me to know that I made the right choice, Andino, but I don’t know how to be any other boss than the one I am.”
Yeah, he got it.
He knew.
“I’d do the right thing, for the record,” Andino said.
Dante sucked in a long inhale. “Would you?”
“For this family—I’ll always make the right choice.”
Him, too, though.
Andino would always make the right choice for himself because nobody else was taking care of him at the end of the day. And what good was a family like the Marcellos if the man heading them was simply nothing more than a shell molded by someone else?
Andino couldn’t be Dante.
He could only be himself.
“Hey,” came a voice from behind Andino. He glanced over his shoulder to find his father leaning in the entrance, and staring at Dante. “The men are starting to arrive.”
Dante nodded. “Thanks, Gio.”
“No problem.”
Andino’s father was gone a second later.
“Andino,” Dante murmured.
He looked back to his uncle. “What?”
“You’re not going to have any problems tonight with the men of this family, for the record,” his uncle said. “I hope you know that—you’ve been handling them and their business or issues for months now with no problems. You’ve been acting as the underboss for me and them long before it was ever official. They like you. They respect you. There will be no issue when I put it to a vote on whether or not to move you up in an official capacity.”
Andino sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
Nothing his uncle said was a lie.
This whole night would be nothing more than the theatrics of the mafia—they could have just as easily made a few phone calls, and let the men have their voice that way. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t how Cosa Nostra worked.
And without their traditions—without their rules—what would they be? Andino wasn’t sure he cared to find out, honestly.
“Just … tell me this,” Dante said quietly. “If I gave you the choice right here and now before we begin tonight to go back to how you were before I put the duty and the legacy of this family in your hands, would you take that option? Would you go back to being who you were before with no expectations for anything different?”
Andino didn’t even have to think about it. Oh, sure, he still had his fucking feelings about this whole thing, but it wasn’t so much being the boss as it was … not being able to be himself when too many voices were shouting around him to be someone different. It was everyone else trying to control his life like they had any business doing so—it was not being the boss that really bothered him, necessarily.
“No,” Andino said.
“No.” Dante nodded like th
at was the answer he was expecting, and then asked, “Why not?”
“Because I would make the right choice for this family.”
Dante smiled. “And what does that mean?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“I’m the right choice,” Andino said.
Snaps whined as Andino climbed the front steps leading to his home. “Come on, buddy, can’t the walk wait?”
It was cold as hell for the end of December.
Too cold, maybe.
Snaps didn’t care.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Andino found his dog sitting firmly on the cold sidewalk, unmoved. Snaps was making his position clear even if he couldn’t speak. He wanted his fucking walk, and he wanted it now.
It didn’t matter that Andino had been on his feet all damn day chasing after Capos, and being the go-between for his uncle, and the rest of the men. Snaps didn’t have any understanding that life for Andino didn’t stop just because his spoiled pup wanted a walk or two around the cold block.
Who cared that it was winter?
And snowing?
Not Snaps.
“Fine,” Andino grumbled. “We’ll go for a walk.”
Snaps was quick to get up on all four paws again, and shake his stubby tail. He was happy again, but all Andino could think about was how quickly it was going to take for frost bite to set in on his fingertips.
Fuck, it’s cold.
“At least let me grab gloves,” he told the dog.
Snaps chuffed, but at least he didn’t have those big, sad eyes and the pouty face going on anymore. That was something, anyway.
He was pretty sure his neighbors, and anyone who saw him with Snaps, probably thought he was crazy. He talked to his dog like the animal could understand and converse right back on a regular basis. Snaps could understand, he just didn’t talk back. At least, not in a human way. No, the dog had his own attitude and spin to put on a conversation.
If anything, lately, Snaps was the only thing making Andino’s days a little bit better. The dog made him smile, and got him out of the house more often than he would willing choose to leave himself. It had been this way ever since Haven left his house two months ago without as much as a look back.