Page 100 of Pink

“The next few weeks are going to be crazy for me with Fashion Week coming up, and I don’t know when we’ll be able to get five minutes to—”

That’s what she was worried about?

Hell.

Lev had Gigi rolled over to face him in a breath, and in the next, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips, quieting her and hopefully her fears when he promised against her mouth, “We’ll figure it out. All of it.”

It was the best he could do.

• • •

The week leading up to the meeting between Andino and his business partner was spent planning. Lev’s least favorite part of work for his boss, really. He liked being told what to do and how he was to do it. Not being the one who had to decide things, but he appreciated that he was allowed in on it at all. He knew to men inside Andino’s famiglia, it was an important distinction that their boss made about his personal enforcer.

So, fuck what Lev thought. His boss wanted him to be involved hands-on with the meeting and the plans, and that’s what he did.

Marco Farginpane stepped into the quiet Brooklyn pizzeria—another business owned by the Marcello family—and took in the traditional decor and checkered floor with an eye of disinterest. Andino had made sure the place was closed for the day. There wasn’t even a chef in the back to cook, or a girl working the floor to bring them drinks for the meeting.

This was clearly all business.

They weren’t here to entertain.

In a tailored suit and shined leather loafers, Marco seemed entirely unbothered that he had just taken a very long flight to New York, and the man he came to meet wasn’t even standing to greet him. Andino, that was.

Not that it was anything unusual. In the five and a half years that Lev had worked for his boss, he could count on one hand the number of people Andino would stand to greet like they were his equal. It wasn’t very many. Marco had a very large hand in the business of smuggling drugs—and handled a mass amount of smuggling into and out of the country for Andino’s organization—it wasn’t like the guy was a little fish in the ocean. In Andino’s eyes, however, he was just a means to an end and not worth very much when someone else could do the job just as well. Or, that’s what he explained to Lev over the past week.

Lev, on the other hand, wasn’t sitting at the table in the middle of the restaurant’s floor like his boss. No, he stood directly behind Andino, dressed in his usual black button-down and slacks, his leather shoulder holster clearly visible with the Eagle on his left side, and the knife he liked on his right. With his hands folded at his back, he kept his gaze locked on the man at the other side of the room.

And the guy behind him.

Jensen Todrey.

While Marco seemed cool and calm, Jensen wasn’t quite the same. His glare leveled on the enforcer behind Andino, recognition flaring in his eyes and growing darker when Lev dared to wink at the asshole.

He didn’t know what the Revver’s owner wanted with Gigi, but it was something. Definitely. There was a sick part of Lev that took great satisfaction in the fact Jensen wouldn’t be getting shit from Gigi. Not with Lev in the picture, anyway.

“Andino,” Marco said, not unkindly. Stepping forward, the man waved at the table, and the two empty chairs opposite to Andino’s seat. “Good to see we could at least come together and agree on one thing here.”

In front of Lev, Andino tipped his head to the side a bit. “And what is that thing, Marco?”

“Your man there, of course. I’m glad to see he’s also in attendance here considering you had no problem sticking him like a little rat in a private business meeting between me and an associate. It’s good that for this time, he’s out in the open where we can all see and know him for what he really is.”

That comment made Lev bristle.

All fucking over, too.

As though Andino could sense the tension radiating from Lev, his boss raised a single hand high for him to see. A silent acknowledgment that he should remain still and quiet in his spot. They were far beyond a time when Andino needed to give him actual, verbal orders. He knew what the man wanted with nothing more than a gesture.

Andino chuckled dryly. “I’m sorry—did you demand a meeting with me and then fly all the way here just to insult my personal enforcer, Marco? Because we both could have saved time and finished that business over a phone call. Do you want a seat? Take one. Your … little friend there, too. Why not?”

“Little,” Jensen scoffed. “Like I don’t have a name in this city—”

“You have fuck all in this city compared to me,” Andino interjected sharply, his finger pointing like a gun at Jensen. “You are fuck all in this city standing next to me. And if you think your schemes have flown under the radar of my famiglia, try again, Mr. Todrey. Nothing happens in this city without me knowing about it. Have a fucking seat.”

Marco gestured a hand toward the table, and Jensen didn’t hesitate to step forward and move for the chair on the left. He wasn’t kind about yanking the seat out and dropping into it, folding his arms over his chest like a petulant child might when they were being punished.

Lev would have laughed.

It wasn’t really his style, though.