Page 104 of Duty

They felt important because mostly, she didn’t know what they meant. Oh, sure, she got the mafia—she understood that well enough just from being alive. Hadn’t everyone heard the mafia mentioned at least once in their lifetime?

She didn’t think this was the same.

And she should probably know …

Haven wasn’t stupid. There were some people who believed the mafia to be dead, especially in New York where it had once been a hub for organized crime. She didn’t think it was dead, but maybe over the years, the mafia had simply quieted in its business to keep from getting negative attention.

After all, how could a criminal empire continue to thrive when the police were constantly hounding at its doors?

It didn’t make sense.

Then again, very little about Andino made sense to Haven at times. Especially the way he kept her in the dark, or so it seemed. She was ready to turn the lights on. She didn’t want to be in the dark anymore.

“Close my door, please,” Haven said. “I’ll be out in twenty to start the pre-meetings before opening.”

Jackson gave her a two-finger salute. “You got it, boss.”

The second her office door clicked shut, Haven sat back down at her desk, and reached for the laptop she had shoved to the corner. Pulling it closer, she opened it up, and brought up a search browser.

Surely, if that’s who Andino—and his family—were, then wouldn’t she find something? If she actually looked, wouldn’t she find something?

Haven decided to look.

• • •

Haven wiped down the bottles she’d pulled from the shelves, and watched the two men at the end of the bar chat away quietly. They looked unassuming, for the most part. They could pass for any well-dressed New Yorkers in their three-piece suits. Minus the Rolex watches on their wrists. Oh, and the very expensive Italian leather loafers she had gotten a peek of when she moved around the bar to help one of the servers when needed.

All it took was someone staring at the two for longer than a few seconds to see the similarities between them—the same jaw shapes, mouths, and eyes.

Green eyes.

God, she knew that green.

Andino had those same eyes.

And the one man?

Even if Haven hadn’t spent a good two hours of her afternoon dropping down the rabbit hole that was the internet to search the New York mob, she would have recognized something familiar in the one man.

Maybe the dimple in his cheek when he smiled—just like Andino—or the cleft in his chin. It could have been his size with those wide, expansive shoulders, or the way he grinned that brought on a sense of déjà vu for her.

Who knows what might have done it?

She wouldn’t have needed to know his name—she did but only because she had found his picture on one of the many sites she scoured for information—to know the one man just had to be Andino’s father. They looked like father and son, although the man sitting at her bar had a bit of salt peppering his dark hair.

The men thought they were being sly.

They thought she didn’t notice them.

Not once had she engaged either of the two other than to call a server down to fill their drinks when they first arrived an hour ago. She hadn’t even bothered to go down and engage them for that, either.

What would be the point?

“Quite a place,” she heard the one man say.

Dante, she now knew.

According to what she had found, he would be Andino’s uncle … and the boss of the family. Or … organization. Depending on where you looked, someone called the Marcellos something different. It varied.