Page 12 of One Last Time

He looked right at her.

Not like a passing glance, or even like it was the first time he’d seen her face. No, he stared at her as though he knew exactly who she was and that he had something to say to her.

Haven looked over her shoulder as the man came closer to the rear end of the Mercedes where she’d just shut her kids into the back—where were her enforcers? Did she even need them?

Something told her she did.

Maybe it was the aura the man gave off.

She didn’t really know.

But something was wrong.

“Haven Marcello,” the man said, not even posing it as a question. “I have a message to pass along to you, and then I’ll be on my way.”

Her hand slipped inside the bag at her side, and she palmed the small handgun that she always kept on-hand because Andino made it very clear she didn’t have a choice. The same way she didn’t get an option on whether or not her enforcers would follow close behind daily.

So, where the fuck were they?

“What do you want?” Haven asked.

She’d just grabbed tight to the gun, readying to pull it out.

The man’s next words stopped her.

“Tell your husband that Mr. Moshka would like another meeting. It’s not a request.”

What?

She didn’t get the chance to ask.

The man turned and left.

SEVEN

“They had guns pointed at him, boss,” Nate said.

Andino nodded, but continued to stare over the front property of his home. Darkness had come, cloaking everything in blackness that matched the current undertones of his mind and soul. There was never a time when the mafia wouldn’t touch someone if they were in the life—it didn’t matter if he was the most powerful man in New York with a hundred guards on constant watch, these things would always happen.

It was just a matter of when, why, and how.

He had most of those answers this time which was better than he could say for other times. Did it make this any easier or would he be able to go inside and calm his wife’s nerves? That she had been raging on and off for the last several hours?

Absolutely not.

Yet …

Andino chose this life.

All of it.

“My wife still didn’t see her guards,” he noted. “Which is part of the problem. How close were they to Haven and the girls that she couldn’t even see them when she needed them?”

Nate cleared his throat, and glanced over his shoulder. Andino didn’t miss the way the man shifted from foot to foot, either. A damn good sign of the man’s nerves. He was Andino’s best enforcer, and one he trusted the very most ever since Pink had moved onto other things. Because of that, he tended to take note of things that made Nate tick.

“What aren’t you saying?”

The enforcer sighed. “It’s what I don’t want to say—I’d rather not offend my boss. Not only do you sign my paychecks, but you also get gun happy when people piss you off.”