Page 84 of Duty

And here he was.

So, fine.

Fine.

Andino would be their next boss—like fuck was anybody going to step in his way, and tell him how to be it, though.

No one was going to do that.

Dante cleared his throat, and fixed the cufflink on his dress shirt. His tone lost a lot of that heat and anger with his next words. “I don’t expect you to be me, Andino.”

“It sure seems like it.”

“I don’t need you to be like me.” Dante shrugged, dropped his arms to his side, and stared long and hard at Andino before he spoke again. “What I need, Andi, is to know that I made the right choice. That when push comes to shove, you’re going to put your duty ahead of your own wants, and do what is right and best for this family and organization. That’s all, nipote.”

Andino clenched his jaw, and muttered, “Stop trying to put me in your seat the way you want me to go there.”

“All right.”

“All right?”

Dante nodded. “That’s what I said. We’ll start tonight, even.”

“Tonight,” Andino echoed.

“Why do you think I have the men coming here? It’s the night after Christmas, Andino. I am sure they want to be with their family, but instead, they’re coming to this mansion to have their vote and voice when I officially put you into the underboss position. See, even though you disappointed me, lied, and more … I was not so pissed off that I couldn’t see what you were trying to do. I don’t need you to be like me to know that I made the right choice, Andino, but I don’t know how to be any other boss than the one I am.”

Yeah, he got it.

He knew.

“I’d do the right thing, for the record,” Andino said.

Dante sucked in a long inhale. “Would you?”

“For this family—I’ll always make the right choice.”

Him, too, though.

Andino would always make the right choice for himself because nobody else was taking care of him at the end of the day. And what good was a family like the Marcellos if the man heading them was simply nothing more than a shell molded by someone else?

Andino couldn’t be Dante.

He could only be himself.

“Hey,” came a voice from behind Andino. He glanced over his shoulder to find his father leaning in the entrance, and staring at Dante. “The men are starting to arrive.”

Dante nodded. “Thanks, Gio.”

“No problem.”

Andino’s father was gone a second later.

“Andino,” Dante murmured.

He looked back to his uncle. “What?”

“You’re not going to have any problems tonight with the men of this family, for the record,” his uncle said. “I hope you know that—you’ve been handling them and their business or issues for months now with no problems. You’ve been acting as the underboss for me and them long before it was ever official. They like you. They respect you. There will be no issue when I put it to a vote on whether or not to move you up in an official capacity.”