by Bethany-Kris
The man on the phone continued talking about numbers, offers, and price points. What he should do, and how he should do it.
“Listen, this is what I want,” Andino said. “That’s the offer I am willing to give on the place. They will jump at it.”
“Yes,” his lawyer—one of many, although this one was the one Andino used for the legal side of his businesses—said, “but you’re offering twenty thousand above the asking price. Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because I want to win the bid.”
“It’s not worth the extra—”
“Did I say I cared about what it was worth?” Andino asked. “Because I am pretty sure that wasn’t in the fucking details, Marty. Also, how much do I pay you again? Because I am starting to think it’s too fucking much when you’re this mouthy, and combative.”
“Now, Andino—”
“I’m serious.”
“You pay me enough to tell you when you’re making a bad business decision.”
Okay, that was fair. And it was also fair to say that Andino was more the type of businessman to talk someone’s offer on a business, location, or building down, and not offer more. Which was probably why Marty was quick to point out how this wasn’t the greatest idea.
Nonetheless, it needed to happen.
“Make the offer,” Andino said, “at the price I stated. Got it?”
“Why do you want this place so badly?”
“Because I just do. And remember what else I told you, too.”
Marty sighed, clearly frustrated. “Yeah, yeah—keep the deal tied up in paperwork and legalities for as long as I possibly can. Although, that seems fucking pointless too if you’re so willing to offer more than the asking price because you want the business this badly.”
He didn’t want the business he was trying to buy at all. He just needed it not to sell to someone else. So were his ways.
Andino didn’t intend to explain that to anyone. He never explained his motives before, and he wasn’t going to start now for a fucking lawyer on his payroll.
“Just do what I fucking said,” Andino snapped. “I have better things to do today than sit here and have a verbal sparring match with you. I pay you to do what I want, and not the other way around. Make sure to let me know as soon as the offer is accepted, too. Don’t fuck around with me, Marty. You won’t like what happens, I assure you.”
There, his patience was gone.
Well, fuck it. At least he tried. That counted for something, right?
Andino hung up the phone with the lawyer without a goodbye. It was only then that Pink finally looked at his boss, and smiled.
“Rough day?” the enforcer asked.
Andino scowled. “Something like that. People regularly testing my fucking patience.”
“What patience?”
“Exactly.”
Pink laughed. “What did you need, boss?”
Finally.
Back to the business Andino wanted to do. Or rather, business that needed done as soon as possible.
“I need someone dead, actually,” Andino said. “And I figured you’re as good of a man as any to do the job.”
Pink arched a brow. “Which man?”
“A Calabrese Capo, actually. The one Kev Calabrese always keeps close.”
The enforcer whistled low under his breath. “Damn. I mean, next to Kev’s own brother, you’re striking out pretty close to the top there, boss.”
“I’m not playing around anymore.”
Dante might not want to respond for what the Calabrese did to Andino, but he was sure as hell going to respond. Then, and only then, would Andino try to make some kind of peace with the bastards like his uncle wanted.
Or, it was going to seem that way.
Andino was a damn good liar.
“Didn’t the boss put out word that we weren’t to antagonize the Calabrese, and we were to stay out of their way as much as possible until the rest of this was settled?” Pink asked. “Because something like this sounds like exactly the opposite of what he wants.”
There was a method to Andino’s madness even if it didn’t seem clear, or he wasn’t willing to give all the answers right away. This was how he worked, and he wasn’t going to apologize for it, or explain himself.
“You’ll do the hit, won’t you?” Andino asked instead of responding to the man’s statement.
“If you tell me to,” the enforcer replied.
“I’m telling you to.”
Pink relaxed in the chair a bit. “And when do you want me to follow this hit through, boss?”
“Tonight. Make a show of it. I don’t want it to look like an accident. I want it to be very clear that it was intentional, and that it came from us.”
“Us, as in … the whole family, and not just you.”
Andino smiled. “You can’t let the snakes get away with even one bite or with the next one, they’ll swallow you whole.”
He couldn’t help if his uncle disagreed.
That wasn’t his problem.
• • •
Andino knew the very next minute after the hit had gone through on the Calabrese Capo because Pink was quick to call him. The enforcer knew how to follow directions, thankfully.
But even if Andino hadn’t known … had Pink decided to wait even ten more minutes before calling his boss, Andino still would have known the hit went through successfully because in their business, word like that was quick to make the rounds.
So fast, in fact, that before Andino even hung up the phone with Pink, Dante was already calling. His uncle barely said a word other than to spit out an order for Andino to get to the mansion right fucking now.
Somebody isn’t happy.
That was putting it mildly.
Andino had been listening to his uncle rage for the last ten minutes. Well, ever since he arrived at his grandparents’ mansion, anyway.
This was getting dull.
“What were you thinking?” Dante snarled.
How many times had he asked that now?
A few.
Funny thing was, Dante wasn’t actually looking for a proper response. He just wanted to shout and rage at Andino because he hadn’t followed the rules set out for him. It wasn’t that his uncle actually cared about the whys. Those weren’t important details.
“Well, talk!”
Andino gave his uncle a look. “Do you actually want me to this time? Because you’ve asked me that same question at least three times in five minutes, and haven’t allowed me to explain, so—”
“Fucking talk, Andino!”
“I was never going to let that go unanswered,” Andino said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Not what they did to me. I will not have someone make an attempt on my life, and let it go. Peace, or no peace. They weren’t willing to sit down with us at the table even when you didn’t retaliate against them for coming after me—let’s see what the Calabrese want to do now when they see we’re not fucking around.”
Dante scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and gritted his teeth. He shot a look in the direction of his brothers who were both seated, and quiet in the office. They knew better than to speak up. Gio, because he was of the same opinion as Andino, and Lucian, because he was just fucking smart.
Since his uncle had decided to keep quiet, Andino continued talking. He had the floor, after all. “They’re snakes—we know this. They thought they had some kind of upper hand on us, and I just showed them how wrong they were by taking out one of their highest Capos, and Kev Calabrese’s closest friend next to his brother. They’re not stupid men. They know an honest to God street war with the Marcello family would not be in their best interests.”
“He has a point,” Lucian said. “And when we chose to not react against their actions, they only got worse. What might something like this change, Dante?”
“There was a point to what I wanted, brother.”
Lucian nodded. “But was it the right choice to make?”
Dante glared,
but quickly turned his attention back on Andino. “You were not given permission to make a hit like that; you were out of fucking line.”
So be it.
“Are we finished here?” Andino asked.
Dante looked ready to blow his fucking top. He doubted his uncle thought that in all the people he could have chosen to take over after him, Andino would be the one to cause him this much trouble. He loved his uncle—respected the man more than anyone would ever know.
But Dante was stuck in a different time. He wanted different things for the Marcellos than what Andino knew the family and organization needed to thrive well into the future. Allowing a faction like the Calabrese to believe they had any kind of control or weight against their family would lead to nowhere good.
He understood why Dante wanted peace.
It was still wrong.
“We’re done,” Dante uttered through clenched teeth. “For now.”
That was fine with Andino.
He only needed this to start the ball rolling elsewhere.
After all … this wasn’t just for the Marcellos. This was for him, too. He was going to get what he wanted one way or the other. His uncle had given him the means and the motive when he said it would be the men sitting at the Commission who held him back from having Haven. It was the people there who would tell him no, and refuse him the woman he wanted the very most.
So, fine.
He’d make sure those who made up the Commission were people he chose to be there. That’s all there was to it.
That was the rope Andino needed—some men might hang themselves with it when given the chance, but he wasn’t that kind of man. He was the kind of man who didn’t mind using that rope to hang someone else.
And if the Marcellos came out better for it, which they would, then he didn’t see the problem. His uncle didn’t need to know that, though.
That wasn’t part of the plan.
Andino had just stepped out of the office while his uncle still muttered on behind him when his phone started to ring with a familiar tune. He grinned down at the name flashing on the screen.
Haven.
It took her long enough. He thought the note on the flowers was a nice touch … he just didn’t think it would take her this long to call about them.
Because really, what else would she be calling for?
She constantly surprised him.
SIX
Haven eyed the bushel of flowers resting in the vase she had managed to find in one of the many boxes that she had yet to send to storage. Despite the confusion those stupid flowers made her feel every single time she even looked their way, she kept them on her table. Right in the very fucking middle.
They were the first thing she saw whenever she came into the kitchen, and the last thing she saw before she left. She watered them, fed them the plant food that had been shoved in with the stems, and even carefully pruned away any dead foliage lest it kill the healthy parts of the other flowers.
She hated them. She hated the beautiful flowers with their colorful, soft petals because they constantly reminded her of the man who gave them to her, and how cruel love truly was. Because they were something she wasn’t willing to get rid of even if it would make her feel better to do exactly that, and then put them out of her mind … just like Andino. Because they caused her pain without meaning to, and she was not smart enough to put an end to that agony.
So yes, she hated them.
And yet, she took care of them, too.
It was not lost on Haven how fucking ironic it was that those flowers and the way she treated them with great love and care were a perfect mirror to her relationship with Andino. She treated their relationship the same way she treated these stupid ass flowers. With love and care. While he—like the stupid flowers—only gave her confusion and pain in return.
She tried her best to ignore the note that had been attached to the flowers. That only lasted a few short days, though, because like the flowers … she wasn’t able to toss the note, or stop looking at it whenever she stepped foot in this damn kitchen.
How was she supposed to forget about something when she was constantly reminding herself of that very thing?
She tried to put it out of her mind.
And failed.
So, when trying to ignore the note and what it might mean failed, she regaled herself to not calling Andino about the note. It became her next task.
She failed at that, too.
Fuck her life.
“Ciao, mia bella donna.”
Why did he have to sound like that?
All dark, smooth, and entirely bad for her health?
His voice alone was enough to get her heart pounding, and her chest tight. The sound of him calling her beautiful in Italian could make her wet between her thighs, and ready to run right back to him even if that was the very last thing she should do.
Oh, yeah.
Entirely bad for her health.
In more ways than one …
“Andino,” Haven greeted civilly.
Somehow, she managed to keep her tone level. She thought she didn’t sound stupid with her feelings just from the sound of his voice alone. She really fucking sucked at this whole thing, but it wasn’t entirely her fault. It was his. He did this to her, and he kept doing it, too. She didn’t want to be played with. Not her heart, her body, or her soul. She loved this man, but that didn’t mean she had to allow him to keep hurting her, too.
That was Haven’s hard limit.
It wasn’t happening.
“What can I do for you today?” he asked.
Haven clenched her jaw, and passed the flowers another look. Not that those damn things were very far from her mind lately—clearly. It just irritated her so goddamn much that he could act as though nothing was wrong, and they were perfectly fine. That nothing had happened, and he hadn’t watched her leave his house a few days earlier after telling her he didn’t love her.
Like he didn’t send her flowers that same day with this confusing fucking note!
“Do you care to tell me what that note means?” Haven said.
Andino made a low noise—sexy and husky at the same time. “Which note would that be, baby?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Oh, you’re in that kind of mood today.”
Jesus.
Maybe calling him was a mistake. He seemed bound and determined to work every fucking nerve she had, and happily so.
“You know exactly which note I mean, Andino,” Haven said, refusing to indulge the bait he offered. If they got in to that argument, then she knew there was no way in hell she would get the answers she wanted. “The one you sent along with these fucking flowers.”
“Do you not like the flowers?”
He posed the question so genuinely that she wanted to laugh. Instead, she just let out a frustrated noise.
“Because if you prefer another type, Haven, just let me know, and I will have those sent to you tonight. Is that what you—”
Oh, my God!
“This isn’t about the flowers!”
Andino made another one of those noises. “Then why are you yelling at me about them?”
Yep.
Every nerve—this man knew how to work them like a pro.
“The note—what does it mean?” she asked quietly.
There, she’d managed to gain back some semblance of control. How long it would last, however, was an entirely different story. Probably as long as it took Andino to start acting … well, like himself, apparently.
“It means exactly what it said,” Andino replied after a long pause. “That I am a terribly good liar, which means you were exactly right when you said that to me before you left my house. I am a good liar—I lied. And so, I felt the need to tell you exactly that.”
“That you love me, you mean,” she whispered. “You love me.”
“I don’t know how to not love you, Haven.”
God, yeah.
That’s what she w
anted to hear.
That didn’t mean she wanted to know it, too.
Those were two very different things. Like the different parts of her that kept warring back and forth day in and day fucking out about this man. Her heart and her soul knew exactly what they wanted—Andino. Her mind, on the other hand, was the part that kept screaming no, and bad, and run, girl.
Because him saying that—that he loved her—only left her feeling more pain and confusion than ever. He had made the choice. He had done this to them. She felt like rope being tugged in two entirely different directions. He had control of one end, and her mind had control of the other.
Healthy, and unhealthy.
Good, and bad.
What she wanted, or what she needed.
“You said it,” she pointed out, not even bothering to hide the ache coloring her words as she spoke. “You said it—we’re over. Done. You chose that, Andino, not me.”
“I did say that.”
“Then why are you doing this to me? You’re playing a game with me, and I don’t want to be played with. I am not a toy!”
She’d told him this before. She was going to keep saying it until he fucking got it. Her heart was not some bouncy rubber ball for him to play with when he was bored. He was not going to keep hurting her time and time again just because he fucking could.
Haven wasn’t a masochist.
She didn’t like pain.
“Please don’t play games with me,” she whispered. “Let me go, and let me move on, Andino. That’s what I want.”
“I can’t do that. I want you too much to do that, Haven.” Andino chuckled under his breath, adding, “And I think you want it to … otherwise, you wouldn’t have called me today. You didn’t need to call, woman. You could have thrown that note away, and forgot about me. You don’t need answers to questions when you don’t really give a fuck about them. So, what does that say about you? I don’t think you want me to stop, or let you go. Do you?”
Well, then …
Fuck.
“You said we were done,” she repeated.
So, shouldn’t that be it? Shouldn’t that end this? Shouldn’t he let her walk away?
Haven felt so. Andino did not, apparently. She wished she could be surprised.