Copyright © 2018 by Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
DUTY
ONE
Godspeed to the men who plead.
Those words played on repeat in the back of Andino Marcello’s mind as his cousin continued talking on the phone, and his attention varied between the conversation, and work. That was his life in a nutshell—mafia and family.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
“Please don’t …p-please—”
Andino flicked a hand, and the enforcer who had come along for the ride with him that afternoon shut up the begging man who was currently battered and bleeding behind his desk. Andino had taken that lack of patience from his father—Giovanni Marcello had never been very gracious to foolish men who begged for mercy. He was actually quick to kill them for it.
“It’d be great if they just let me fucking be,” John muttered. “All of them—they’re suffocating me, Andi.”
Yeah, he bet.
Between John being fresh out of prison, and everybody waiting for his next meltdown to come because some people in their family thought it was inevitable with John’s bipolar disorder, it probably felt like he was a bug constantly being watched under a microscope. Nobody wanted that shit.
“Try to ignore it,” Andino said to his cousin.
John sighed. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“They don’t mean any harm.”
“But are they causing it, though?”
Good point.
A lack of trust—or even the belief that someone didn’t trust a man—could do damage like nobody understood in the world of Cosa Nostra. A made man was nothing when his word couldn’t be trusted.
Andino knew that well.
It’s why he made every effort to be an honorable made man. Even if that was a dichotomy.
A thump across the room drew Andino’s attention back to the lawyer who had needed extra special Marcello attention that day. The enforcer had smashed the guy’s head into the desk, and it made a hell of a mess of blood and broken teeth on the shiny surface.
Damn.
Usually, Andino would let his bookies handle someone like this—they owed money, the bookie would figure out a way to collect, so he wasn’t in the red with the Capo who collected from him. Andino was that Capo; the bookie was fucking sick and tired of being skipped out on week after week.
It’d been a while since Andino got his hands a little dirty, and it was always good stress relief to beat the hell out of someone. Even if he was just watching.
John said something on the phone.
Andino missed it.
“Listen, I’ll have a chat with my father,” Andino said, “and see if he can make Uncle Lucian back off you a bit—Dante, too.”
“Un-fucking-likely.”
Truth.
“Still worth a shot,” Andino returned.
John made a noise under his breath.
“What, cousin?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking … you’re good like that, you know? Always looking out for me.”
Yeah …
Andino had been on this earth for twenty-eight fucking years, and every single one of them had been spent looking out for John in one way or another. At the end of the day, next to his mother and father, Andino figured John was the only person he really gave a damn about.
“But when are you going to start looking out for you, huh?” John asked.
Andino laughed. “Probably never.”
“You have to take care of you sometime, man.”
It was the smash of the lawyer’s head against the desk that drew Andino’s attention again. Well, that, and the splatter of blood that hit the front of Andino’s tailored blazer. He scowled, and gave the enforcer a look.
“Really, Pink?” Andino asked. “You know I have to have dinner with my mother tonight.”
The enforcer—who refused to tell almost everyone how he got his nickname—shrugged. “Sorry, boss.”
“Are you working?” John asked.
“Cleaning up a mess.”
“Ah.”
Speaking of which …
The lawyer was pleading again.
Garbled.
Mumbling.
Bleeding.
“Godspeed to the men who plead,” Andino murmured before giving the enforcer a nod. The lawyer was never going to pay; too much debt, and too bad of a gambling habit. That’s why the bookie decided to come to Andino. “Finish it, Pink.”
Turning his back to the scene behind him, he returned to the conversation with his cousin. Like nothing had happened. Nothing was wrong.
This was his life.
Business.
And family.
Only those two things.
Andino didn’t know anything different.
• • •
“Evening, Ma,” Andino greeted, bending down to kiss his mother’s cheek.
Kim gave her son a warm smile and a pat on his arm. “Your father is tinkering in the garage.”
“I didn’t come to see Dad,” Andino half-lied.
He had come to talk to Giovanni, but he always made time for his mother, too. Being an only child had allowed Andino all of his parents’ love and attention as he grew up under their watchful eyes. His father had been easygoing and fun, as had his mother.
They made for interesting parents, if nothing else. Andino had been allowed to experiment with life without expectations or demands weighing him down. He’d always had a confidant in his father, should he need to talk. He’d always had a supporter in his mother, no matter his decisions. Judgement held no place in his parents’ home and lives, and certainly not toward Andino or his choices.
Andino didn’t even remember having rules.
“Was that a new Lexus I saw out in the driveway?” his mother asked.
Andino moved to sit beside her on the couch, grinning wickedly. He had a taste for expensive things, cars most importantly. “Yeah.”
“You spoil yourself, Andino. Everybody always said we would be the ones to spoil you because you were an only child. I think they were wrong. You certainly didn’t pick up your love of expensive things from your father and me, as far as that goes.”
Chuckling, he rested back into the couch and let the familiarity of his parents’ home soak into him. “I have to spend all the money I make in some way, Ma.”
“How about on a girl?” Kim asked, smiling slyly.
“A girl?”
“Find one, marry her, and then you’ll have lots more things to spend your money on, Andi. Things other than yourself. I think you’ll find spending your money on someone else instead of yourself is rewarding.”
“Ma—”
Kim clicked her tongue, stopping Andino before he could rebut her. “I want grandbabies someday, Andino. You’re twenty-eight, it’s time to settle down. Find someone to do that.”
“I don’t think you get it, Ma,” Andino said quietly.
“Oh?”
“No. I haven’t found anyone who makes me want to settle down. I won’t force it simply because you want grandchildren to spoil rotten.”
Kim smiled, but even the sight was sad. “I know.”
Sighing, Andino asked, “Do you regret not having more children after me? Maybe if you had, you would have some bambinos running around or something.”
“Not for a second.”
Kim hadn’t even hesitated before answering him. Her words came out frank and honest. Andino believed his mother. She had never even mentioned having more kids as he grew up. Neither had his father.
“Besides, your father would have lived his life in a constant state of panic had I birthed him any girls,” Kim added, laughing softly. “When you came along, Gio might as well have skipped off to the doctor’s office to make sure we wouldn’t have any more.”
Andino grinned, knowing that was probably true. “You’re terrible, Ma.”
“I only speak the truth.”
Kim tossed the magazine she was reading on the coffee table and gave all of her attention to her son. While his mother’s eyes were a slate blue, Andino’s were a forest green like his father’s. But in features, he knew he looked more like his mother. Where Kim was soft in her lines, Andino was the more masculine, sharper version. She often told him that he looked like his uncle Cody from Vegas.
Andino had never met the man, but it was only a matter of time before he eventually would. Cody Abella was the boss for the Vegas Cosa Nostra, after all. Giovanni was careful about keeping his son away from Vegas for as long as Andino could remember, although his father had never outright explained why.
He figured it had something to do with his mother. Like how she met his father. Andino wasn’t stupid. He knew how that happened.
People talked.
“How is work?” his mother asked.
“Quiet, but busy like usual. Keeps me going.”
“And John?”
Andino remained passive at the question. “Are you asking out of concern for him as an aunt, or are you trying to pry information out of me for Dad?”
Kim smiled. “You’re too observant for your own good.”
“No, I just know you, Ma.” Andino shrugged, saying, “Dad can ask John how he’s doing if he’s worried about him. John was always closer to Dad than he was his own father, anyway. But honestly, he’s doing okay. He’s been home a few days and nothing has happened yet. He’s working and whatever. He’s got a lot to catch up on. Three years is a long time to be out of this game.”
Kim’s hand reached out and grabbed Andino’s wrist. She squeezed him tighter than he expected her to. “Don’t say that, Andi.”
“Hmm, what?”
“A game. Don’t call this a game. It has never been that, you know it. If you treat it like it is, then you’ll lose like the rest who treat it like that, too.”
Andino patted his mother’s hand. She worried too much about him, and always had. Kim had never actively discouraged her son to join Cosa Nostra, nor did she say a bad word to him when he’d started dipping his hands in the family businesses and mafia. Kim simply let him live and grow to be whoever and whatever he wanted or needed.
He loved his mother more for it.
She still worried.
“I’m good, Ma,” Andino assured.
“Good is not always safe,” Kim replied.
She was right.
“Where is this coming from, huh?”
Kim glanced down at her hands, avoiding her son’s gaze. “Nothing, Andino. Don’t worry about it.”
He wasn’t sure he could do that, now. Especially not with the fact she seemed like she was trying to drop the conversation altogether, and she still wouldn’t look at him. What was up with his mother?
“Ma?” Andino pressed. “What is it?”
Kim shook her head, looked up at him, and smiled. “Like I said, it’s nothing. I just want you to know something, Andino.”
“Sure, Ma.”
“I’m so proud of you. I always am, no matter what.”
Andino flashed her a smile. “I know.”
“I want to keep being proud of you, Andi.”
He straightened on the couch, surprised at her words.
“Why wouldn’t you be?” he asked.
Kim reached out and patted his cheek gently. “Just remember to follow the rules, Andino. It might not be what you want right now, but it could be the best thing for you someday.”
Andino blinked, more confused than ever.
“All right,” Andino murmured. “Follow the rules. I got it.”
“Good.” Kim stood from the couch and brushed her pant legs down. “Go find your father and tell him supper is almost ready. I wasn’t expecting you, but I’ll throw an extra plate on the table. Is casserole okay?”
“Anything you make is perfetto, Ma.”
Kim laughed. “You are just like your father. Too slick for your own good, and you know it, too, which only makes it worse. Why can’t you find a girl with all that charm of yours, huh? Draw her in, Andino. It’ll be worth it, I’d bet all my money on it.”
Andino didn’t think so, but he didn’t correct his mother.
“You just want grandbabies,” he said.
“I do,” she agreed, totally unashamed. “So, get to work on that.”
Probably not.
• • •
Despite having grown up with little rules and restrictions, when it came to Cosa Nostra and living the life, Andino never even tried to push the boundaries. He did what he was told, when he was told to do it. Even if it was something he disagreed with, or meant rearranging his entire schedule for a single meeting he’d been called to attend.
He was a good made man.
His father made sure of it.
So, when the boss—even if that boss was his uncle—called, and gave Andino a time and a place to be with no explanation, Andino made sure he was there. And he made it a point to show up early, too.
Maybe that was a fault of his.
Andino found his father and uncles in Dante’s office by following the sound of their traveling voices. The topic of the conversation made Andino slow in his walk as he approached the open oak doors.
“It’s time,” Lucian said quietly.
“You could wait another couple of months, brother,” Dante said. “Maybe even until after the next Commission meeting.”
“Are you ordering me or asking me?”
Dante laughed dryly. “Between family, us being brothers, that’s all. Not a boss and his underboss.”
“I don’t know, I get being over it all,” Gio murmured.
Andino stopped his walk when his father joined in on the conversation as well.
“I mean, Lucian is sixty, you’re fifty-nine, Dante, and I’m fifty-seven.” Gio sighed heavily and added, “Dad stepped down at this age, too. It’s not like we’re talking about a premature thing here.”
“I know that,” Dante said gruffly.
“Let Lucian do it,” Gio said. “In a few months, we’ll look at someone for me. Andino can handle doing this for a few months. He’ll have his hands accounted for. Trust that he can fill seats with the right men.”
Andino felt a dead weight settle in his stomach.
He couldn’t fill seats.
He wasn’t the boss.
“I want to enjoy my time with my children and soon-to-be born grandchildren,” Lucian said. “My oldest daughters are married, one is already gone, living in Chicago, and Cella is talking about moving to Florida with her husband for his job. Lucia just graduated, and she will be going to college in the fall out of state. And then there’s John …”
“Give him time,” Gio said.
Andino was grateful his father was taking his advice on that issue.
“That’s exactly my point,” Lucian replied. “I need to give my son time. Our entire life has been surrounded by Cosa Nostra. And that would be fine, Dante, if John was like I had been growing up, or even like how you and Gio were with Dad. But he’s not, he’s John. I can’t expect my boy to be like we were when he’s had an entirely different set of obstacles that he never asked for placed in his path. For once, I would like to have time with my son where I am not active in this thing of ours. Maybe then he can see me differently. Just a man, his father. Something. I’m ready to retire. I need to.”
“Fine. Informally, then?” Dante asked.
“Informally works,” Lucian agreed. “We can handle all the other nonsense when we need to.”
“What do you think, Gio?” Dante asked.
“About what?”
“You know what. Andino.”
“He’s my kid,” Gio said, chuckling. “He’ll do okay. He’s a damn good Capo, and he knows how to manage men just about as well as you do, Dante. Andino has been under our feet since he could walk. I have no doubt that he can run this family. He’s your best choice for a successor, the entire family knows it. The whispers are already out there, you just have to listen for them. La famiglia wants Andino for the next boss.”
“They do,” Lucian agreed.
Andino was stunned. Nothing had ever caught him off guard quite as badly as this news had. It wasn’t bad, not at all, but he wasn’t sure if this was what he wanted. Being a boss had never been in his goals. Andino had focused on his crew, on being nothing more than a damned good Capo, and that was it. He’d always seen John as his uncle’s successor because he was the older Marcello between them, and John had always been included in more things than Andino.
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 audible 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 changed 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.
Or, strippers, if someone wanted to be particular.
Her father knew it was a good business to be in, and the cash was more than good, but he still didn’t like it a whole lot.
Haven had been one of those dancers at first—she’d taken a pole dancing exercise class in college to keep fit, and challenge herself in a new way. She was always trying to find something to take her to the next level. Pole dancing fitness was certainly challenging, and fun.
It ended up helping.
She didn’t need to dance now, though. Or at least, she didn’t dance on a regular basis like she used to. There wasn’t much need, frankly.
Bending over at the mouth of the running trail that connected with a main trail, Haven huffed hard as she tried to catch her breath. This was her turning point in her runs—the same place every day where she turned around, and headed back home at full speed.
Usually, she only rested long enough to take a drink of water if she hadn’t already finished the bottle, catch her breath, and then she hit the ground running again. Today was a little different, though.
Today, she waited a bit longer than usual.
Took a seat on a bench.
Waited …
Two weeks ago, in this very spot, she’d seen a handsome, dark-haired, green-eyed man with shoulders so expansive and wide, he looked as though he could play football. Haven was tall at five-foot, eleven-inches, but this man had been well over six feet. And yet, in his three-piece suit, he’d looked more like he would be appropriately dressed to sit behind a large desk inside an office rather than walking on a trail with a pit bull.
A ringing call had interrupted their encounter; his phone, not hers. It hadn’t much mattered because Haven was already running a bit late, and made a commitment to pick up her friend’s daughter from school since Valeria wouldn’t be able to do it.
So, she didn’t get the chance to say goodbye.
Or … even ask the gorgeous man’s name.
That bugged her.
She wanted to know his name.
And each day since, Haven had jogged at the same time every day—if she could manage it because sometimes she couldn’t—just to see if the strange man would be back again to walk his dog on the trails. He’d made it sound like he walked his dog quite frequently, so Haven thought … maybe.
This time, maybe didn’t work out.
Like every other day for the past two weeks.
Sighing, Haven pushed up from the bench, did a quick stretch of her burning calves in hopes they wouldn’t ache too badly when she slipped into bed later, and turned to head down the trail again. It usually took her a little longer to get back home than it did to run to her turn around point simply because she was winded, and tired.
Today, she made it with three minutes to spare on her stopwatch.
Damn.
Taking the steps to her bungalow’s painted-red front door slowly, Haven took in the small potted plant Valeria had placed next to the welcome mat. Her place wasn’t big—two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, living room, and a small back porch to sit on during hot summer days. It wasn’t much to look at compared to some of the places on the block what with its red door, and beige siding. It didn’t turn heads.
And she didn’t care.
She paid for this house.
She earned it.
It was hers.
Haven loved it for no other reason than that.
Well, and something else, too.
Unlocking the front door, Haven opened it and stepped into the house to find Maria—her roommate and best friend’s five-year-old daughter—hadn’t bothered to pick up any of her toys in the hallway before she’d left for kindergarten that morning.
It made Haven smile.
For the year that Valeria and little Maria had been living with her, nothing was ever dull. Someone was always waking her up, or making a mess to clean. Her house was never quiet anymore, but she liked it that way.
They—and the strip club—kept her busy.
She didn’t have to think about how lonely her life had seemed before a Latina woman had stepped into her club only a year after she took over, looking for a job, but being very clear that she didn’t have papers. Haven had known that night, just with one look at Valeria, that the woman didn’t have very fucking much at all.
She gave her a job.
And a place to stay.
The rest was history.
Haven didn’t regret any of it.
Kicking her Nike sneakers into the corner with Maria’s bright pink rubber boots, Haven didn’t even get to the kitchen where her Bear Claw was waiting for her to devour it after her daily run. The ringing phone on the wall stopped her from getting her greatest treat.
Maybe that was why when she picked up the phone, she all but growled, “What?”
“Bad day?” a familiar voice asked.
Haven relaxed a bit at Jackson’s question. “No, I just got back from running. Something up with the club?”
Jackson handled a lot of the club’s business where the personnel was concerned—anything the girls needed, or the security. He kept their ship running smoothly whereas Haven handled all the paperwork, and making sure the business brought in a hefty profit.
She liked this arrangement.
It worked.
“Well, kind of,” Jackson said. “That order you made last week for the liquor—they called today and said something was wrong with it.”
“Nothing is wrong with my orders.”
“Tell them that. You know they won’t talk to me.”
Haven rubbed at the spot of tension starting to form in the middle of her goddamn forehead. “It’s supposed to be my day off.”
She didn’t get very many of those.
“Sorry—I’ll buy you coffee and a donut to make up for it before opening tonight. We can go to the shop you like down the road.”
She scowled.
Jackson thought he was sly.
He wasn’t.
“No, I’m good.”
“Come on, Haven.”
“Your sneaky attempts to get me out on a date still aren’t going to work, and you’ve been trying it for two years. I don’t shit where I eat—stop asking me to.”
“That’s … a disgusting analogy.”
“So be it; no dating employees. I’ll be there in twenty.”
Haven hung up the phone before Jackson could say anything more. She really wasn’t interested in hearing him, yet again, miss the entire fucking point of her refusing his offer. Jackson wasn’t a bad guy, and he was pretty harmless compared to some patrons that came into the club to watch the girls dance every night.
Still, he didn’t take a fucking hint.
And that was a problem for her.
• • •
“For the fifth time,” Haven said to the annoying man on the phone, “it’s fifteen bottles of Patrón, and ten bottles of Jameson.”
“Then why does it say—oh.”
Haven felt her jaw click from how fucking fiercely she was clenching it. Two years of ordering liquor and doing the sheets the same goddamn way each time, and all it took was a change in staff at the warehouse for her liquor orders to be somehow screwed up every single time. It was getting to be a little ridiculous.
“Oh, what?” Haven asked.
“I was … okay, fifteen bottles of Patrón, and ten bottles of—”
“My order sheet was made out correctly, wasn’t it?”
The man cleared his throat, and the volume caused the speaker to crackle in Haven’s ear. “Well …”
Sitting at the desk in her small office, Haven rubbed at the even worse headache now starting to act like it might turn into a migraine if she didn’t somehow handle it quick, fast, and in a hurry. She stared blankly at the wall with a large painting of the New York City skyline—something her father had left behind, and never asked for it back—as she willed the man on the phone to speak, and get this goddamn call over with.
“I may have been reading it incorrectly,” the man finally admitted.
“You do realize that you just spent an hour of my time telling me I filled out the order improperly, and I was possibly going to see charges and fees because of it, right?”
“Yes, well, it was a mis—”
“And even after I repeatedly pointed out to you that my order was correct and done in the way it has always been done, you continued to press that I was wrong.”
“I am very sorry, ma’am.”
Haven gave a tight shake of her head, and rubbed at her forehead once more. “Listen, if this issue comes up again, we’re going to have a problem, or I will find a new distributor to buy liquor from. I’m probably a drop in your bucket, but I’m going to make a safe guess here and say I am not even close to the only business you’ve pissed off lately. Have a good day, sir.”
She cradled the phone on the base, and sighed.
“All worked out, then?”
Haven had all she could do not to roll her eyes at Jackson’s question. He posed it from where he stood leaning in the doorway of her office—clearly he’d been standing there listening for a while. She really needed to start remembering to close the damn door.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Ah.”
At his knowing tone, she glanced up from her desk to find him frowning, but not looking directly at her. “What, Jackson?”
The blue-eyed, blonde man was tall, lanky, and by all accounts, handsome if you asked any of the girls who worked the poles. And frankly, a lot of women outside of the club, too. Jackson didn’t lack where female attention was concerned.
He just … didn’t interest Haven.
At all.
“You’re still pissed at me about the coffee thing, huh?” he asked. “Sorry, H. I do know how to take no for an answer, but I just thought … well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, right? I get it; no more. We good?”
Haven softened a bit. “It’s not you.”
“Don’t pump up my ego, now.”
She laughed softly. “Really, it’s not you. This is just … work, Jackson. I’m not interested in it being anything else, and the more you ask, then the more I have to reject you. Stop being a glutton for punishment, all right?”
The man grinned. “Well, they do say no pain, no gain.”
Haven cocked a brow. “And you’re not my type.”
Maybe that will do it.
Jackson came right back with, “Then, what is your type?”
Tall.
Dark.
Mysterious.
Handsome.
A guy who preferred a pet to people.
Not at all related to work.
Like the guy she met on the trail.
Except she didn’t even know his name.
Haven settled on saying, “Not you, Jackson.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The man shrugged. “Your loss.”
Maybe it was.
But she doubted it.
The ringing of her desk phone saved Haven from needing to say something to Jackson that would likely hurt his feelings even worse. She reached for the phone, and flicked her wrist at Jackson at the same time to tell him to scatter.
“Before I go, the bookie called—said he’d be in tonight.”
Great.
Haven wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about Jackson giving the okay for an illegal bookie to use their club for his … well, whatever the fuck he did. The guy did keep a low profile—even if he had three different phones that never stopped ringing, and he also brought in patrons. She chose to turn her cheek.
“Yeah, thanks, and close the door,” she told him as he turned around to leave. “Stop listening to my conversations—it’s called privacy.”
Jackson gave her a wide-eyed look colored with false innocence as he closed the door behind him. She just shook her head—over his nonsense—and picked up the phone with a short, “Yeah, Haven here. What can I do for you?”
Her office phone was a different number from the main club—it was used for business purposes, and the employees. Nothing more, and nothing less. She didn’t have to answer the phone with an introduction to the club first, which she liked. And yet, she could still have main calls to the club transferred straight through to her number if needed.
It all worked.
“Haven, shit. I am so sorry.”
Haven frowned at Valeria’s tired, sad voice on the other end of the call. This was not who she expected, and her worry picked up a notch. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be sleeping right now? You’ve got a special on tonight.”
“Yeah … about that, amiga.”
Oh, no.
Haven knew what was coming, and she also knew it was sometimes unavoidable when it came to the girls. Things came up—unexpected shit.
Still, it made for a rough night.
“The school called—Maria was suddenly running a fever,” Valeria said, “and then before I could even get over there, she puked all over the counselor. She kept vomiting, so I thought I should bring her into the clinic.”
Haven chewed on her bottom lip. “Which clinic?”
“The one in Queens, you know.”
Yeah.
The safe one.
They’d take Valeria’s money, treat her daughter, and say nothing about the fact Valeria had no papers for her daughter, and no ID to go on record other than a clearly fake driver’s license. Haven didn’t know a lot about her friend’s situation, but what she did know, it was more than enough to tell her it couldn’t be good.
Valeria didn’t talk about her time in Mexico, or what sent her running to the States. She didn’t talk more than saying she had her daughter at seventeen, and now at twenty-two, the only thing she wanted to do was try to give Maria some semblance of normalcy.
Haven loved her friend.
And Maria.
She didn’t ask because she loved them.
“Lo siento,” her friend apologized. “I know you’ve been running the ads for my special all week, and it’s supposed to be a big night for the club. I don’t think I’ll get out of this clinic anytime soon.”
And even if Valeria did get out in time to make it to work, where would that leave Maria? Sure, Haven could and would look after the girl—she often did in the evenings when she was home, and Valeria danced. But not when the girl was sick. That was a mother thing; Valeria wouldn’t want to leave her daughter, and Haven didn’t need to ask to know that would be the case.
“That doesn’t matter—I will handle it. I always do. No worries, Val.”
Her friend let out a quiet breath of relief. “I am sorry.”
“Just make sure Maria is good. That’s what matters.”
“Okay.”
“Want me to bring home something greasy and hot?”
Valeria laughed. “My guardian angel, Haven.”
She snorted. “Not even close to an angel.”
After a quick goodbye to her friend, Haven hung up the phone. She stared at the flyer—one of many between online ads and personals—that had been put out for Valeria’s special that evening. A well-known, popular New York DJ would be at the club in two hours to set up for the evening. Haven had paired him with Valeria for five dances choreographed to music he made specially for this event.
Now she had no dancer.
A very expensive DJ.
And soon, a club full of angry patrons.
Great.
This day couldn’t get any worse.
Sure, any girl could get up and do their thing while the DJ played whatever music the girl asked for, but that’s not how this night had been promoted. Valeria worked all of one night a week on the stage for one single dance, and for the rest of the time, she tended the bar and helped on the floor.
So, this was supposed to be a big night. Someone had to dance. Someone who didn’t dance often, and who the crowd would love simply because it was them dancing.
That left one person.
Her.
Haven glanced at the black wig she used to wear to dance—it was her signature, in a way. Black hair, cream skin covered in ink, and a leather costume.
It had been a while since she danced.
Who cared?
It was the best way to get rid of a headache.
Win-win.
DUTY
ONE
Godspeed to the men who plead.
Those words played on repeat in the back of Andino Marcello’s mind as his cousin continued talking on the phone, and his attention varied between the conversation, and work. That was his life in a nutshell—mafia and family.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
“Please don’t …p-please—”
Andino flicked a hand, and the enforcer who had come along for the ride with him that afternoon shut up the begging man who was currently battered and bleeding behind his desk. Andino had taken that lack of patience from his father—Giovanni Marcello had never been very gracious to foolish men who begged for mercy. He was actually quick to kill them for it.
“It’d be great if they just let me fucking be,” John muttered. “All of them—they’re suffocating me, Andi.”
Yeah, he bet.
Between John being fresh out of prison, and everybody waiting for his next meltdown to come because some people in their family thought it was inevitable with John’s bipolar disorder, it probably felt like he was a bug constantly being watched under a microscope. Nobody wanted that shit.
“Try to ignore it,” Andino said to his cousin.
John sighed. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“They don’t mean any harm.”
“But are they causing it, though?”
Good point.
A lack of trust—or even the belief that someone didn’t trust a man—could do damage like nobody understood in the world of Cosa Nostra. A made man was nothing when his word couldn’t be trusted.
Andino knew that well.
It’s why he made every effort to be an honorable made man. Even if that was a dichotomy.
A thump across the room drew Andino’s attention back to the lawyer who had needed extra special Marcello attention that day. The enforcer had smashed the guy’s head into the desk, and it made a hell of a mess of blood and broken teeth on the shiny surface.
Damn.
Usually, Andino would let his bookies handle someone like this—they owed money, the bookie would figure out a way to collect, so he wasn’t in the red with the Capo who collected from him. Andino was that Capo; the bookie was fucking sick and tired of being skipped out on week after week.
It’d been a while since Andino got his hands a little dirty, and it was always good stress relief to beat the hell out of someone. Even if he was just watching.
John said something on the phone.
Andino missed it.
“Listen, I’ll have a chat with my father,” Andino said, “and see if he can make Uncle Lucian back off you a bit—Dante, too.”
“Un-fucking-likely.”
Truth.
“Still worth a shot,” Andino returned.
John made a noise under his breath.
“What, cousin?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking … you’re good like that, you know? Always looking out for me.”
Yeah …
Andino had been on this earth for twenty-eight fucking years, and every single one of them had been spent looking out for John in one way or another. At the end of the day, next to his mother and father, Andino figured John was the only person he really gave a damn about.
“But when are you going to start looking out for you, huh?” John asked.
Andino laughed. “Probably never.”
“You have to take care of you sometime, man.”
It was the smash of the lawyer’s head against the desk that drew Andino’s attention again. Well, that, and the splatter of blood that hit the front of Andino’s tailored blazer. He scowled, and gave the enforcer a look.
“Really, Pink?” Andino asked. “You know I have to have dinner with my mother tonight.”
The enforcer—who refused to tell almost everyone how he got his nickname—shrugged. “Sorry, boss.”
“Are you working?” John asked.
“Cleaning up a mess.”
“Ah.”
Speaking of which …
The lawyer was pleading again.
Garbled.
Mumbling.
Bleeding.
“Godspeed to the men who plead,” Andino murmured before giving the enforcer a nod. The lawyer was never going to pay; too much debt, and too bad of a gambling habit. That’s why the bookie decided to come to Andino. “Finish it, Pink.”
Turning his back to the scene behind him, he returned to the conversation with his cousin. Like nothing had happened. Nothing was wrong.
This was his life.
Business.
And family.
Only those two things.
Andino didn’t know anything different.
• • •
“Evening, Ma,” Andino greeted, bending down to kiss his mother’s cheek.
Kim gave her son a warm smile and a pat on his arm. “Your father is tinkering in the garage.”
“I didn’t come to see Dad,” Andino half-lied.
He had come to talk to Giovanni, but he always made time for his mother, too. Being an only child had allowed Andino all of his parents’ love and attention as he grew up under their watchful eyes. His father had been easygoing and fun, as had his mother.
They made for interesting parents, if nothing else. Andino had been allowed to experiment with life without expectations or demands weighing him down. He’d always had a confidant in his father, should he need to talk. He’d always had a supporter in his mother, no matter his decisions. Judgement held no place in his parents’ home and lives, and certainly not toward Andino or his choices.
Andino didn’t even remember having rules.
“Was that a new Lexus I saw out in the driveway?” his mother asked.
Andino moved to sit beside her on the couch, grinning wickedly. He had a taste for expensive things, cars most importantly. “Yeah.”
“You spoil yourself, Andino. Everybody always said we would be the ones to spoil you because you were an only child. I think they were wrong. You certainly didn’t pick up your love of expensive things from your father and me, as far as that goes.”
Chuckling, he rested back into the couch and let the familiarity of his parents’ home soak into him. “I have to spend all the money I make in some way, Ma.”
“How about on a girl?” Kim asked, smiling slyly.
“A girl?”
“Find one, marry her, and then you’ll have lots more things to spend your money on, Andi. Things other than yourself. I think you’ll find spending your money on someone else instead of yourself is rewarding.”
“Ma—”
Kim clicked her tongue, stopping Andino before he could rebut her. “I want grandbabies someday, Andino. You’re twenty-eight, it’s time to settle down. Find someone to do that.”
“I don’t think you get it, Ma,” Andino said quietly.
“Oh?”
“No. I haven’t found anyone who makes me want to settle down. I won’t force it simply because you want grandchildren to spoil rotten.”
Kim smiled, but even the sight was sad. “I know.”
Sighing, Andino asked, “Do you regret not having more children after me? Maybe if you had, you would have some bambinos running around or something.”
“Not for a second.”
Kim hadn’t even hesitated before answering him. Her words came out frank and honest. Andino believed his mother. She had never even mentioned having more kids as he grew up. Neither had his father.
“Besides, your father would have lived his life in a constant state of panic had I birthed him any girls,” Kim added, laughing softly. “When you came along, Gio might as well have skipped off to the doctor’s office to make sure we wouldn’t have any more.”
Andino grinned, knowing that was probably true. “You’re terrible, Ma.”
“I only speak the truth.”
Kim tossed the magazine she was reading on the coffee table and gave all of her attention to her son. While his mother’s eyes were a slate blue, Andino’s were a forest green like his father’s. But in features, he knew he looked more like his mother. Where Kim was soft in her lines, Andino was the more masculine, sharper version. She often told him that he looked like his uncle Cody from Vegas.
Andino had never met the man, but it was only a matter of time before he eventually would. Cody Abella was the boss for the Vegas Cosa Nostra, after all. Giovanni was careful about keeping his son away from Vegas for as long as Andino could remember, although his father had never outright explained why.
He figured it had something to do with his mother. Like how she met his father. Andino wasn’t stupid. He knew how that happened.
People talked.
“How is work?” his mother asked.
“Quiet, but busy like usual. Keeps me going.”
“And John?”
Andino remained passive at the question. “Are you asking out of concern for him as an aunt, or are you trying to pry information out of me for Dad?”
Kim smiled. “You’re too observant for your own good.”
“No, I just know you, Ma.” Andino shrugged, saying, “Dad can ask John how he’s doing if he’s worried about him. John was always closer to Dad than he was his own father, anyway. But honestly, he’s doing okay. He’s been home a few days and nothing has happened yet. He’s working and whatever. He’s got a lot to catch up on. Three years is a long time to be out of this game.”
Kim’s hand reached out and grabbed Andino’s wrist. She squeezed him tighter than he expected her to. “Don’t say that, Andi.”
“Hmm, what?”
“A game. Don’t call this a game. It has never been that, you know it. If you treat it like it is, then you’ll lose like the rest who treat it like that, too.”
Andino patted his mother’s hand. She worried too much about him, and always had. Kim had never actively discouraged her son to join Cosa Nostra, nor did she say a bad word to him when he’d started dipping his hands in the family businesses and mafia. Kim simply let him live and grow to be whoever and whatever he wanted or needed.
He loved his mother more for it.
She still worried.
“I’m good, Ma,” Andino assured.
“Good is not always safe,” Kim replied.
She was right.
“Where is this coming from, huh?”
Kim glanced down at her hands, avoiding her son’s gaze. “Nothing, Andino. Don’t worry about it.”
He wasn’t sure he could do that, now. Especially not with the fact she seemed like she was trying to drop the conversation altogether, and she still wouldn’t look at him. What was up with his mother?
“Ma?” Andino pressed. “What is it?”
Kim shook her head, looked up at him, and smiled. “Like I said, it’s nothing. I just want you to know something, Andino.”
“Sure, Ma.”
“I’m so proud of you. I always am, no matter what.”
Andino flashed her a smile. “I know.”
“I want to keep being proud of you, Andi.”
He straightened on the couch, surprised at her words.
“Why wouldn’t you be?” he asked.
Kim reached out and patted his cheek gently. “Just remember to follow the rules, Andino. It might not be what you want right now, but it could be the best thing for you someday.”
Andino blinked, more confused than ever.
“All right,” Andino murmured. “Follow the rules. I got it.”
“Good.” Kim stood from the couch and brushed her pant legs down. “Go find your father and tell him supper is almost ready. I wasn’t expecting you, but I’ll throw an extra plate on the table. Is casserole okay?”
“Anything you make is perfetto, Ma.”
Kim laughed. “You are just like your father. Too slick for your own good, and you know it, too, which only makes it worse. Why can’t you find a girl with all that charm of yours, huh? Draw her in, Andino. It’ll be worth it, I’d bet all my money on it.”
Andino didn’t think so, but he didn’t correct his mother.
“You just want grandbabies,” he said.
“I do,” she agreed, totally unashamed. “So, get to work on that.”
Probably not.
• • •
Despite having grown up with little rules and restrictions, when it came to Cosa Nostra and living the life, Andino never even tried to push the boundaries. He did what he was told, when he was told to do it. Even if it was something he disagreed with, or meant rearranging his entire schedule for a single meeting he’d been called to attend.
He was a good made man.
His father made sure of it.
So, when the boss—even if that boss was his uncle—called, and gave Andino a time and a place to be with no explanation, Andino made sure he was there. And he made it a point to show up early, too.
Maybe that was a fault of his.
Andino found his father and uncles in Dante’s office by following the sound of their traveling voices. The topic of the conversation made Andino slow in his walk as he approached the open oak doors.
“It’s time,” Lucian said quietly.
“You could wait another couple of months, brother,” Dante said. “Maybe even until after the next Commission meeting.”
“Are you ordering me or asking me?”
Dante laughed dryly. “Between family, us being brothers, that’s all. Not a boss and his underboss.”
“I don’t know, I get being over it all,” Gio murmured.
Andino stopped his walk when his father joined in on the conversation as well.
“I mean, Lucian is sixty, you’re fifty-nine, Dante, and I’m fifty-seven.” Gio sighed heavily and added, “Dad stepped down at this age, too. It’s not like we’re talking about a premature thing here.”
“I know that,” Dante said gruffly.
“Let Lucian do it,” Gio said. “In a few months, we’ll look at someone for me. Andino can handle doing this for a few months. He’ll have his hands accounted for. Trust that he can fill seats with the right men.”
Andino felt a dead weight settle in his stomach.
He couldn’t fill seats.
He wasn’t the boss.
“I want to enjoy my time with my children and soon-to-be born grandchildren,” Lucian said. “My oldest daughters are married, one is already gone, living in Chicago, and Cella is talking about moving to Florida with her husband for his job. Lucia just graduated, and she will be going to college in the fall out of state. And then there’s John …”
“Give him time,” Gio said.
Andino was grateful his father was taking his advice on that issue.
“That’s exactly my point,” Lucian replied. “I need to give my son time. Our entire life has been surrounded by Cosa Nostra. And that would be fine, Dante, if John was like I had been growing up, or even like how you and Gio were with Dad. But he’s not, he’s John. I can’t expect my boy to be like we were when he’s had an entirely different set of obstacles that he never asked for placed in his path. For once, I would like to have time with my son where I am not active in this thing of ours. Maybe then he can see me differently. Just a man, his father. Something. I’m ready to retire. I need to.”
“Fine. Informally, then?” Dante asked.
“Informally works,” Lucian agreed. “We can handle all the other nonsense when we need to.”
“What do you think, Gio?” Dante asked.
“About what?”
“You know what. Andino.”
“He’s my kid,” Gio said, chuckling. “He’ll do okay. He’s a damn good Capo, and he knows how to manage men just about as well as you do, Dante. Andino has been under our feet since he could walk. I have no doubt that he can run this family. He’s your best choice for a successor, the entire family knows it. The whispers are already out there, you just have to listen for them. La famiglia wants Andino for the next boss.”
“They do,” Lucian agreed.
Andino was stunned. Nothing had ever caught him off guard quite as badly as this news had. It wasn’t bad, not at all, but he wasn’t sure if this was what he wanted. Being a boss had never been in his goals. Andino had focused on his crew, on being nothing more than a damned good Capo, and that was it. He’d always seen John as his uncle’s successor because he was the older Marcello between them, and John had always been included in more things than Andino.
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 audible 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 changed 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.
Or, strippers, if someone wanted to be particular.
Her father knew it was a good business to be in, and the cash was more than good, but he still didn’t like it a whole lot.
Haven had been one of those dancers at first—she’d taken a pole dancing exercise class in college to keep fit, and challenge herself in a new way. She was always trying to find something to take her to the next level. Pole dancing fitness was certainly challenging, and fun.
It ended up helping.
She didn’t need to dance now, though. Or at least, she didn’t dance on a regular basis like she used to. There wasn’t much need, frankly.
Bending over at the mouth of the running trail that connected with a main trail, Haven huffed hard as she tried to catch her breath. This was her turning point in her runs—the same place every day where she turned around, and headed back home at full speed.
Usually, she only rested long enough to take a drink of water if she hadn’t already finished the bottle, catch her breath, and then she hit the ground running again. Today was a little different, though.
Today, she waited a bit longer than usual.
Took a seat on a bench.
Waited …
Two weeks ago, in this very spot, she’d seen a handsome, dark-haired, green-eyed man with shoulders so expansive and wide, he looked as though he could play football. Haven was tall at five-foot, eleven-inches, but this man had been well over six feet. And yet, in his three-piece suit, he’d looked more like he would be appropriately dressed to sit behind a large desk inside an office rather than walking on a trail with a pit bull.
A ringing call had interrupted their encounter; his phone, not hers. It hadn’t much mattered because Haven was already running a bit late, and made a commitment to pick up her friend’s daughter from school since Valeria wouldn’t be able to do it.
So, she didn’t get the chance to say goodbye.
Or … even ask the gorgeous man’s name.
That bugged her.
She wanted to know his name.
And each day since, Haven had jogged at the same time every day—if she could manage it because sometimes she couldn’t—just to see if the strange man would be back again to walk his dog on the trails. He’d made it sound like he walked his dog quite frequently, so Haven thought … maybe.
This time, maybe didn’t work out.
Like every other day for the past two weeks.
Sighing, Haven pushed up from the bench, did a quick stretch of her burning calves in hopes they wouldn’t ache too badly when she slipped into bed later, and turned to head down the trail again. It usually took her a little longer to get back home than it did to run to her turn around point simply because she was winded, and tired.
Today, she made it with three minutes to spare on her stopwatch.
Damn.
Taking the steps to her bungalow’s painted-red front door slowly, Haven took in the small potted plant Valeria had placed next to the welcome mat. Her place wasn’t big—two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, living room, and a small back porch to sit on during hot summer days. It wasn’t much to look at compared to some of the places on the block what with its red door, and beige siding. It didn’t turn heads.
And she didn’t care.
She paid for this house.
She earned it.
It was hers.
Haven loved it for no other reason than that.
Well, and something else, too.
Unlocking the front door, Haven opened it and stepped into the house to find Maria—her roommate and best friend’s five-year-old daughter—hadn’t bothered to pick up any of her toys in the hallway before she’d left for kindergarten that morning.
It made Haven smile.
For the year that Valeria and little Maria had been living with her, nothing was ever dull. Someone was always waking her up, or making a mess to clean. Her house was never quiet anymore, but she liked it that way.
They—and the strip club—kept her busy.
She didn’t have to think about how lonely her life had seemed before a Latina woman had stepped into her club only a year after she took over, looking for a job, but being very clear that she didn’t have papers. Haven had known that night, just with one look at Valeria, that the woman didn’t have very fucking much at all.
She gave her a job.
And a place to stay.
The rest was history.
Haven didn’t regret any of it.
Kicking her Nike sneakers into the corner with Maria’s bright pink rubber boots, Haven didn’t even get to the kitchen where her Bear Claw was waiting for her to devour it after her daily run. The ringing phone on the wall stopped her from getting her greatest treat.
Maybe that was why when she picked up the phone, she all but growled, “What?”
“Bad day?” a familiar voice asked.
Haven relaxed a bit at Jackson’s question. “No, I just got back from running. Something up with the club?”
Jackson handled a lot of the club’s business where the personnel was concerned—anything the girls needed, or the security. He kept their ship running smoothly whereas Haven handled all the paperwork, and making sure the business brought in a hefty profit.
She liked this arrangement.
It worked.
“Well, kind of,” Jackson said. “That order you made last week for the liquor—they called today and said something was wrong with it.”
“Nothing is wrong with my orders.”
“Tell them that. You know they won’t talk to me.”
Haven rubbed at the spot of tension starting to form in the middle of her goddamn forehead. “It’s supposed to be my day off.”
She didn’t get very many of those.
“Sorry—I’ll buy you coffee and a donut to make up for it before opening tonight. We can go to the shop you like down the road.”
She scowled.
Jackson thought he was sly.
He wasn’t.
“No, I’m good.”
“Come on, Haven.”
“Your sneaky attempts to get me out on a date still aren’t going to work, and you’ve been trying it for two years. I don’t shit where I eat—stop asking me to.”
“That’s … a disgusting analogy.”
“So be it; no dating employees. I’ll be there in twenty.”
Haven hung up the phone before Jackson could say anything more. She really wasn’t interested in hearing him, yet again, miss the entire fucking point of her refusing his offer. Jackson wasn’t a bad guy, and he was pretty harmless compared to some patrons that came into the club to watch the girls dance every night.
Still, he didn’t take a fucking hint.
And that was a problem for her.
• • •
“For the fifth time,” Haven said to the annoying man on the phone, “it’s fifteen bottles of Patrón, and ten bottles of Jameson.”
“Then why does it say—oh.”
Haven felt her jaw click from how fucking fiercely she was clenching it. Two years of ordering liquor and doing the sheets the same goddamn way each time, and all it took was a change in staff at the warehouse for her liquor orders to be somehow screwed up every single time. It was getting to be a little ridiculous.
“Oh, what?” Haven asked.
“I was … okay, fifteen bottles of Patrón, and ten bottles of—”
“My order sheet was made out correctly, wasn’t it?”
The man cleared his throat, and the volume caused the speaker to crackle in Haven’s ear. “Well …”
Sitting at the desk in her small office, Haven rubbed at the even worse headache now starting to act like it might turn into a migraine if she didn’t somehow handle it quick, fast, and in a hurry. She stared blankly at the wall with a large painting of the New York City skyline—something her father had left behind, and never asked for it back—as she willed the man on the phone to speak, and get this goddamn call over with.
“I may have been reading it incorrectly,” the man finally admitted.
“You do realize that you just spent an hour of my time telling me I filled out the order improperly, and I was possibly going to see charges and fees because of it, right?”
“Yes, well, it was a mis—”
“And even after I repeatedly pointed out to you that my order was correct and done in the way it has always been done, you continued to press that I was wrong.”
“I am very sorry, ma’am.”
Haven gave a tight shake of her head, and rubbed at her forehead once more. “Listen, if this issue comes up again, we’re going to have a problem, or I will find a new distributor to buy liquor from. I’m probably a drop in your bucket, but I’m going to make a safe guess here and say I am not even close to the only business you’ve pissed off lately. Have a good day, sir.”
She cradled the phone on the base, and sighed.
“All worked out, then?”
Haven had all she could do not to roll her eyes at Jackson’s question. He posed it from where he stood leaning in the doorway of her office—clearly he’d been standing there listening for a while. She really needed to start remembering to close the damn door.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Ah.”
At his knowing tone, she glanced up from her desk to find him frowning, but not looking directly at her. “What, Jackson?”
The blue-eyed, blonde man was tall, lanky, and by all accounts, handsome if you asked any of the girls who worked the poles. And frankly, a lot of women outside of the club, too. Jackson didn’t lack where female attention was concerned.
He just … didn’t interest Haven.
At all.
“You’re still pissed at me about the coffee thing, huh?” he asked. “Sorry, H. I do know how to take no for an answer, but I just thought … well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, right? I get it; no more. We good?”
Haven softened a bit. “It’s not you.”
“Don’t pump up my ego, now.”
She laughed softly. “Really, it’s not you. This is just … work, Jackson. I’m not interested in it being anything else, and the more you ask, then the more I have to reject you. Stop being a glutton for punishment, all right?”
The man grinned. “Well, they do say no pain, no gain.”
Haven cocked a brow. “And you’re not my type.”
Maybe that will do it.
Jackson came right back with, “Then, what is your type?”
Tall.
Dark.
Mysterious.
Handsome.
A guy who preferred a pet to people.
Not at all related to work.
Like the guy she met on the trail.
Except she didn’t even know his name.
Haven settled on saying, “Not you, Jackson.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The man shrugged. “Your loss.”
Maybe it was.
But she doubted it.
The ringing of her desk phone saved Haven from needing to say something to Jackson that would likely hurt his feelings even worse. She reached for the phone, and flicked her wrist at Jackson at the same time to tell him to scatter.
“Before I go, the bookie called—said he’d be in tonight.”
Great.
Haven wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about Jackson giving the okay for an illegal bookie to use their club for his … well, whatever the fuck he did. The guy did keep a low profile—even if he had three different phones that never stopped ringing, and he also brought in patrons. She chose to turn her cheek.
“Yeah, thanks, and close the door,” she told him as he turned around to leave. “Stop listening to my conversations—it’s called privacy.”
Jackson gave her a wide-eyed look colored with false innocence as he closed the door behind him. She just shook her head—over his nonsense—and picked up the phone with a short, “Yeah, Haven here. What can I do for you?”
Her office phone was a different number from the main club—it was used for business purposes, and the employees. Nothing more, and nothing less. She didn’t have to answer the phone with an introduction to the club first, which she liked. And yet, she could still have main calls to the club transferred straight through to her number if needed.
It all worked.
“Haven, shit. I am so sorry.”
Haven frowned at Valeria’s tired, sad voice on the other end of the call. This was not who she expected, and her worry picked up a notch. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be sleeping right now? You’ve got a special on tonight.”
“Yeah … about that, amiga.”
Oh, no.
Haven knew what was coming, and she also knew it was sometimes unavoidable when it came to the girls. Things came up—unexpected shit.
Still, it made for a rough night.
“The school called—Maria was suddenly running a fever,” Valeria said, “and then before I could even get over there, she puked all over the counselor. She kept vomiting, so I thought I should bring her into the clinic.”
Haven chewed on her bottom lip. “Which clinic?”
“The one in Queens, you know.”
Yeah.
The safe one.
They’d take Valeria’s money, treat her daughter, and say nothing about the fact Valeria had no papers for her daughter, and no ID to go on record other than a clearly fake driver’s license. Haven didn’t know a lot about her friend’s situation, but what she did know, it was more than enough to tell her it couldn’t be good.
Valeria didn’t talk about her time in Mexico, or what sent her running to the States. She didn’t talk more than saying she had her daughter at seventeen, and now at twenty-two, the only thing she wanted to do was try to give Maria some semblance of normalcy.
Haven loved her friend.
And Maria.
She didn’t ask because she loved them.
“Lo siento,” her friend apologized. “I know you’ve been running the ads for my special all week, and it’s supposed to be a big night for the club. I don’t think I’ll get out of this clinic anytime soon.”
And even if Valeria did get out in time to make it to work, where would that leave Maria? Sure, Haven could and would look after the girl—she often did in the evenings when she was home, and Valeria danced. But not when the girl was sick. That was a mother thing; Valeria wouldn’t want to leave her daughter, and Haven didn’t need to ask to know that would be the case.
“That doesn’t matter—I will handle it. I always do. No worries, Val.”
Her friend let out a quiet breath of relief. “I am sorry.”
“Just make sure Maria is good. That’s what matters.”
“Okay.”
“Want me to bring home something greasy and hot?”
Valeria laughed. “My guardian angel, Haven.”
She snorted. “Not even close to an angel.”
After a quick goodbye to her friend, Haven hung up the phone. She stared at the flyer—one of many between online ads and personals—that had been put out for Valeria’s special that evening. A well-known, popular New York DJ would be at the club in two hours to set up for the evening. Haven had paired him with Valeria for five dances choreographed to music he made specially for this event.
Now she had no dancer.
A very expensive DJ.
And soon, a club full of angry patrons.
Great.
This day couldn’t get any worse.
Sure, any girl could get up and do their thing while the DJ played whatever music the girl asked for, but that’s not how this night had been promoted. Valeria worked all of one night a week on the stage for one single dance, and for the rest of the time, she tended the bar and helped on the floor.
So, this was supposed to be a big night. Someone had to dance. Someone who didn’t dance often, and who the crowd would love simply because it was them dancing.
That left one person.
Her.
Haven glanced at the black wig she used to wear to dance—it was her signature, in a way. Black hair, cream skin covered in ink, and a leather costume.
It had been a while since she danced.
Who cared?
It was the best way to get rid of a headache.
Win-win.