Page 83 of Vow

Dante nodded once, murmuring, “I’m starting to think I should be more concerned about the problems you might cause once you finally are the boss rather than the problems you’re causing now, all things considered.”

Andino shrugged. “Well, by that time, it won’t be any of your business, will it?”

That was sort of the point.

Dante said nothing.

• • •

“You good?”

Andino nodded over the glass of whiskey he’d been nursing for a half an hour. “Fine, Dad.”

Gio frowned. “Then, why don’t you look like it?”

“Shitty week?”

A chuckle answered him back.

Andino sighed. “It’s fine, really.”

“It isn’t.”

No, it wasn’t. But that didn’t mean he wanted his father to get stuck in his head about it, either.

“Don’t step in between Dante and me, all right?” Andino asked. “Just … let me handle him on this.”

Gio tipped his head back, and folded his arms over his chest. Behind his father, the voices of their family filtered into the living room area from the dining room. Dinner was still in full swing, but Andino just wasn’t in the mood.

He had shit to consider.

Things to work through.

“You lied to him earlier,” Gio said quietly.

Andino shrugged one shoulder. “I’m telling him what he wants to hear. That’s the only way to get this shit done and over with. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to not make this family into something it isn’t, Andi. Don’t turn the Marcellos into something they have never been. Don’t cause enough of a fracture between us all in your effort to be happy that we can’t come back together again in the end. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He did.

“I’ll try,” he offered.

“There you two are.”

At the soft voice of his mother, Andino relaxed a bit. He took another sip of his whiskey as Kim came in through the doorway. She gave the two of them a look that said she knew their secrets. She probably did, knowing his father.

“Rough night?” she asked.

Andino laughed. “Rough life, Ma.”

Kim grinned, but it quickly faded. “You’ve been busy this week.”

“Work.”

He said that even knowing that it was far more likely his mother knew the truth. That no, he hadn’t been busy with work at all, but more his uncle, and dealing with the mess that had come after the Haven debacle. There was no way in hell that Gio kept that information from Kim. And even if his father hadn’t told her, news traveled fast in their close family circles.

She had to know.