Page 148 of Duty

Giovanni nodded. “The Calabrese always want something. It’s finding out what that becomes dangerous.”

“Do you think …” Andino trailed off, and passed his family a look. “Is it possible they’re the ones antagonizing John lately? Did they make this happen, or make it worse somehow?”

No one answered him.

Andino understood why.

It was hard to say—John’s disorder wasn’t widely known in their circles, and definitely not outside of their people. The thing was … the Calabrese family couldn’t be trusted. The Marcellos called them snakes for a reason.

Andino wouldn’t put doing something like this—manipulating or hurting John to get one over on the Marcellos—past them.

“Show time,” Giovanni murmured.

Andino’s attention went to the restaurant door where he could see John approaching. Well … John and someone else.

“He was with her,” Lucian said faintly.

Siena, that was.

Andino cleared his throat. “Yeah, shit … I forgot to mention that.”

Dante gave him a look. “You forget to mention a lot of things lately, it seems.”

“One thing at a time,” Giovanni said. “Right now, let’s worry about getting John somewhere safe, and then we’ll handle the rest.”

His father said that like it wasn’t a big deal.

No problem.

Right.

Because this wasn’t going to be easy at all.

Andino knew that first hand.

TWENTY

The ringing of the phone echoed in Haven’s ear like a backdrop to the beating rain pelting the window. She didn’t know if it was normal for Florida to have this much rain nearing the end of February, but that seemed to be all it had done since she got here. Rain made everything a little drab, and heavy.

It was appropriate for her mood, though.

Bleak.

Tired.

Dark.

Finally, the call clicked through on the other end. Haven lost the daze she’d been in waiting for her friend to pick up while she stared out the window of her parent’s Florida beach house. The voice on the other end of the call made her smile, even if her heart was all too heavy lately.

Funny how that worked.

One could smile through sadness.

“Still not using your phone, huh?”

Haven laughed. “I’ve just … left it turned off, Val. This is supposed to be a vacation for me, remember? You practically threw me out the front door with my bag in hand, and told me to relax by taking time for me.”

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad.”