Page 160 of Duty

Because it was.

“This is killing Lucian,” Andino’s father muttered at his side.

“I can tell,” Andino replied.

“John has to go in, and check in alone—of his own free will,” Dante said as he came to stand on the other side of Andino. “Something Lucian needs to learn, I think. Let the man do this on his own.”

Andino shook his head. “Lucian knows.”

His boss shot him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean, nipote?”

“It means, you don’t need to keep stepping in on people’s lives, and making choices for them when they already know what has to be done, and how to do it.”

Giovanni cleared his throat.

Dante only arched a brow. “Is that so?”

“It is.”

He wished his uncle would put the advice to use.

“Let’s start with you, then,” Dante murmured.

Andino stiffened. “That’s not what I—”

“Oh, well. It’s what you said.”

“I meant in general, not that we had to get in to specifics.”

Dante shrugged. “Since you’re all about letting others make their choices when they know what they have to do, and how to do it … I think it’s best we do start with you.”

Of course, he did.

His uncle continued on even when Andino stayed quiet next to him. “We have to make choices, now. All of us. What we’re going to do from here, and how we’re going to do it. John killed a rival boss, and the family of that boss is now in an uproar. Threatening war with our family—it’s only a matter of time before the first person dies.”

“I don’t think he meant for that to happen,” Andino muttered.

“Maybe not, but now we have to act. We have to protect our family.”

“I know—”

“Do you?” Dante asked sharply.

“I do.”

“And what would your call be, then?”

“Answer them with whatever they throw at us,” Andino said. “Nothing that wouldn’t be worth it, anyway. We can handle this. The Calabrese only want power from us—they’re snakes in the grass, and nothing more. I wouldn’t give them anything.”

Dante scoffed. “Of course. You’re so willing to rush into a violent street war with a rival family just because you know we can win it? What will be the cost, then? How many of our men will need to die because pride won’t allow you to do what would probably be the best, even if it didn’t feel right? My wife, or daughter? One of Lucian’s children, perhaps? Your mother?”

Giovanni made a sound in the back of his throat, but stayed quiet on the other side of Andino. In fact, his father never even looked away from where Lucian was still saying goodbye to John on the walkway.

“That’s the thing about wars,” Dante said, “not that I expect you to understand, Andino, as we’ve kept the peace in this city for your entire life so that you never had to live through a street war with another family. But in war, someone always has to lose. And that loss doesn’t necessarily mean in the grand scheme of someone coming out on top, or on the bottom. It means, each side will lose something and someone because that is inevitable.”

Guilt compounded hard in Andino’s chest. That duty—the responsibility of protecting his family, their life, and name—that he had been ignoring for so long was suddenly heavy and present on his head again, weighing down his shoulders.

He said nothing.