Page 5 of One Last Time

Despite the fact that Andino frequently and severely missed Pink working for him—he thought he would never get an enforcer as good as that man—Nate wasn’t so bad. When it was just him and the guy, he was a lot more tolerable, too. That said good things for him even if Andino wasn’t willing to admit those things to the man.

It was what it was.

Andino didn’t plan to change.

And … well, he never really told Pink he missed him although they crossed paths regularly given that the man acted as John’s underboss now. He didn’t think it needed to be explicitly said considering the fact that Pink had worked for Andino for well over a goddamn decade.

Times changed.

It always did.

“John,” Andino greeted into his phone as he stepped out of the Rolls. The first thing that caught his attention was all of his girls’ toys scattered over the front lawn. Haven liked to let their daughters play out some of the excess energy from long drives before they went into the house, and he suspected that was the culprit for the mess. “What are you up to, cousin?”

Home is where my heart is.

That was the only thought running through Andino’s mind as he took his time to pick up a few toys and carrying them over to the cedar chest on the front porch where they kept them stored. He had a lot of roles to play in his life, but his favorite ones revolved around this home and the people within it. Haven gave him everything, and he didn’t think he told her that nearly enough. He made a mental note to do it more often.

“How’d that meeting go?” John asked.

Andino laughed under his breath, replying, “It didn’t. Mr. Moshka sent some lower fuck in his place, and instead of calling me to say he didn’t want to attend personally, had the fuck call to say it would be him I was meeting with. I’m not playing those games.”

“Someone calls in to speak with the boss—”

“I better be speaking with a goddamn boss,” Andino grunted. “Exactly. Why is this so hard for people to understand?”

“They’re not Cosa Nostra?”

Well …

“You have a point but that changes nothing for me.”

“If we don’t have standards,” John murmured, “then we’ll have none, won’t we?”

Basically.

It was the only rule Andino cared to follow a lot of the time because as his uncle, Dante, liked to point out pretty regularly … he broke every single other one that was put in his path just because he could. Or he bent them far enough that they were no longer recognizable. Andino liked to think he made their famiglia better for it, too.

Andino went back to the yard for another round of toys, noting that Nate had yet to back out and leave the driveway—as he had been told; the boss wasn’t inside the house yet. “I passed along the message that there wouldn’t be another chance at a meeting. I’m fine with that decision. I hate people who waste my time.”

His greatest pet peeve.

“Or you could pass the name and business venture along to Dante—get his opinion on the situation and if he thinks it might be worth making an exception,” John suggested. “It’s not a bad thing to get someone else’s opinion on these things sometimes.”

“John—”

“I’m just saying.”

Andino sighed. “How about you handle your side of the city, and I will handle mine?”

His cousin chuckled. “Fine.”

He offered John that respect.

Now.

He expected the same back.

“You do you, man,” John said.