Page 29 of Vow

Andino had been listening to his uncle rage for the last ten minutes. Well, ever since he arrived at his grandparents’ mansion, anyway.

This was getting dull.

“What were you thinking?” Dante snarled.

How many times had he asked that now?

A few.

Funny thing was, Dante wasn’t actually looking for a proper response. He just wanted to shout and rage at Andino because he hadn’t followed the rules set out for him. It wasn’t that his uncle actually cared about the whys. Those weren’t important details.

“Well, talk!”

Andino gave his uncle a look. “Do you actually want me to this time? Because you’ve asked me that same question at least three times in five minutes, and haven’t allowed me to explain, so—”

“Fucking talk, Andino!”

“I was never going to let that go unanswered,” Andino said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Not what they did to me. I will not have someone make an attempt on my life, and let it go. Peace, or no peace. They weren’t willing to sit down with us at the table even when you didn’t retaliate against them for coming after me—let’s see what the Calabrese want to do now when they see we’re not fucking around.”

Dante scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and gritted his teeth. He shot a look in the direction of his brothers who were both seated, and quiet in the office. They knew better than to speak up. Gio, because he was of the same opinion as Andino, and Lucian, because he was just fucking smart.

Since his uncle had decided to keep quiet, Andino continued talking. He had the floor, after all. “They’re snakes—we know this. They thought they had some kind of upper hand on us, and I just showed them how wrong they were by taking out one of their highest Capos, and Kev Calabrese’s closest friend next to his brother. They’re not stupid men. They know an honest to God street war with the Marcello family would not be in their best interests.”

“He has a point,” Lucian said. “And when we chose to not react against their actions, they only got worse. What might something like this change, Dante?”

“There was a point to what I wanted, brother.”

Lucian nodded. “But was it the right choice to make?”

Dante glared, but quickly turned his attention back on Andino. “You were not given permission to make a hit like that; you were out of fucking line.”

So be it.

“Are we finished here?” Andino asked.

Dante looked ready to blow his fucking top. He doubted his uncle thought that in all the people he could have chosen to take over after him, Andino would be the one to cause him this much trouble. He loved his uncle—respected the man more than anyone would ever know.

But Dante was stuck in a different time. He wanted different things for the Marcellos than what Andino knew the family and organization needed to thrive well into the future. Allowing a faction like the Calabrese to believe they had any kind of control or weight against their family would lead to nowhere good.

He understood why Dante wanted peace.

It was still wrong.

“We’re done,” Dante uttered through clenched teeth. “For now.”

That was fine with Andino.

He only needed this to start the ball rolling elsewhere.

After all … this wasn’t just for the Marcellos. This was for him, too. He was going to get what he wanted one way or the other. His uncle had given him the means and the motive when he said it would be the men sitting at the Commission who held him back from having Haven. It was the people there who would tell him no, and refuse him the woman he wanted the very most.

So, fine.

He’d make sure those who made up the Commission were people he chose to be there. That’s all there was to it.

That was the rope Andino needed—some men might hang themselves with it when given the chance, but he wasn’t that kind of man. He was the kind of man who didn’t mind using that rope to hang someone else.

And if the Marcellos came out better for it, which they would, then he didn’t see the problem. His uncle didn’t need to know that, though.