Page 2 of One Last Time

Fine, he decided to reply.

Really, his wife typed back, because your little dot on my app keeps circling the same block.

Damn.

Yeah, he’d forgotten about that. It was actually him who downloaded that app on his wife’s phone. He had the same one on his own, too. Their oldest daughter—Lynn—who was seven and had a cell phone with preprogrammed numbers that she could call also had one. His other two girls—Rose was six and Emily Cecelia had just turned four about two weeks prior—wore stylish watches that allowed their parents to check on their location using the same app. It wasn’t that he thought something might happen, but he would rather be prepared if it did.

That’s all.

Business as usual, he settled on typing back to Haven. He waited on a reply from her, but didn’t get anything right away.

“Yeah, ciao, Alex here,” the man to Andino’s right said.

For a moment, he lifted his attention away from his own phone. It allowed him to see the way Alex’s gaze narrowed as he listened to whatever was said on the other end of his call.

“Really? No, that won’t be happening now. Let him know.”

Without another word, his underboss hung up the phone and made a harsh noise before stuffing the device into his pocket.

“What?” Andino asked.

“Your potential associate—”

“He’s not a potential associate.”

Andino knew that already. Better everyone else did, too. He was simply indulging this bullshit.

Alex cleared his throat, correcting himself with, “Right. Mr. Moshka sent someone in his place to do the meeting.”

Yeah. No.

Bosses didn’t meet with subordinates.

“He’s not to get another chance at a meeting with me,” Andino said. “Make sure they all know it, Alex.”

“Will do.”

To his driver, Andino said, “Nate, take me home.”

“Sure, boss.”

TWO

Haven pulled her large SUV into the drive of her mother-in-law’s suburban home just outside the city limits, and parked the vehicle. Looking over the front of the house, a smile curved her lips as she had no doubt her daughters were having the time of their life with their Nana Kim. The house was likely loud and lively at the moment. There was nothing Kim loved more than her grandchildren, truly.

A lot of the time, Andino’s mother looked after the three girls when they were out of school, and Haven needed a sitter because of work conflicts. Not that she had much of a problem with that—being the owner of a business and the boss meant she could make whatever schedule she needed to suit her own needs, even though she tried not to take advantage of it.

Today was one of those days that just couldn’t be helped. She needed to have a meeting at the club and more people tended to show up when it happened later in the afternoon once they had all gotten in a decent sleep after a late night. Kim had been quick to take the girls—with a smile and all.

She never said no.

Haven was lucky that way.

The phone she’d tossed on the passenger seat after leaving the club flashed with an unanswered text that had come in while she was driving. Reaching over to grab her purse and the phone, she straightened in the seat and checked the phone.

I’m heading home, Andino had wrote. See you there, babe. Ti amo.

Haven smiled but didn’t bother to reply. She would see him soon enough—once she got all three of their daughters piled into the SUV and took off, that was. Despite the fact he’d sent the text almost a half an hour ago, she would still arrive home before he did, likely.