Page 119 of Duty

This was not John.

Not a sensible John, anyway.

This was John finding problems in every little detail. This was his cousin being paranoid and pissed and wrong. This was John stepping into mania, and unable to see reason or reality. And yet, usually, even in his worst moments, John allowed Andino in. He let him talk, or help.

Not this time, it seemed.

Coming here had been a mistake; Andino was sure of it.

Still, he thought he could try.

“When have I ever sold you out to them be—”

“Last week,” John interjected. “You sold me out last week when they called me in for that meeting. And you can color it up or justify it with whatever bullshit you want to, but in the end, it’s still going to mean the same thing to me. Fuck you, Andino.”

Andino didn’t even have time to react before John’s hands stuck out, and hit him hard against his chest. All it took was one good shove that Andino wasn’t expecting, and he was knocked off the steps entirely, and pushed a good three feet away from his cousin, causing him to slip on the step and spin as he fell. Andino barely managed to catch his fall before he landed face first into the pavement.

It was only the growls and barks muted behind glass that reminded Andino where he was, and who had just put their fucking hands on him that kept him from getting up and beating the hell out of John for that.

It was his cousin.

His blood.

His best fucking friend.

John wasn’t John right now.

John was … not John.

Andino kept telling himself that even as he got up from the icy ground, and brushed his jacket off. He continued to repeat those words to himself even as his hands stung from the scrapes that now covered his palms. He glanced over his shoulder to find Snaps still trying to claw his way out of the Lexus’s passenger side window in an effort to protect his master. Snarling, baring his teeth, and ready to fucking kill.

Damn.

He was glad he rolled that window up.

“Don’t fucking bother me again,” Andino heard John say from the steps. “I’ll come to you when I am ready to talk, and not the other way around. After what you did, at least give me the respect of coming to you first, and not trying to push your shit on me when I’m not ready. Do you fucking understand me?”

Andino nodded, but still didn’t look back at his cousin. He couldn’t, or else the very small control he had over his anger was going to break, and he was going to do something he would seriously regret.

This wasn’t John.

This was not John.

This was John in a bad place within his own head—nothing more. It wasn’t John’s fault. He couldn’t control it.

“Yeah,” Andino said, though it killed him to do it. “I got you, man.”

He didn’t go to Snaps until he heard the front door slam, and even then, he couldn’t calm his dog down.

So was his life, lately.

One giant fuck up after another.

SIXTEEN

“It’s way too cold for this shit,” Haven muttered.

She struggled to turn the knob on her front door. Finally, her frozen fingers worked long enough to get inside the very warm house. A cold snap was moving through New York, and she wasn’t having any of it. Except … she did deal with it every single day when she left her house to run, or even to jump into her vehicle to head to the club. Today, it was jogging.