Page 122 of Pink

Andino replied with silence.

Lev didn’t mind.

For a while, the two men stood side by side in their quiet contemplation. Lev didn’t need to go over the events of the day with his boss. Andino had already been filled in by the rest of the men that had been there when he found the note that linked the bomb threat to him, specifically. And by that same token, likely the men they were currently having issues with.

Lev didn’t know if he wanted to call their threats simple issues, anymore. Before, he was fine to believe what his boss told him. That they were nothing. Jensen and Marco could and would do nothing. They weren’t capable of going against an organization like the Marcello mafia. He wasn’t so sure that was the case anymore.

“I want to send Arely out of town with someone safe,” Lev said, the first to break the silence. “With someone she knows, or I know, if possible.” Likely Nessa, although that would have to be worked out considering the girl had a life that didn’t revolve around him telling her what to do and when to do it. “The enforcers can go, too.”

“That might be an overreaction,” Andino replied.

“Is it?” He gave the man a look, sneering when he asked, “If your wife had gotten a note on her car like I did today … after everything, would you call it an overreaction then?”

Andino dragged in a slow breath, his chest rising with the action as he shoved his hands into pockets. “Point taken.”

“Exactly. And if you would do it for your wife or kid, then you will do it for mine, too. You and me both know the only reason why I’m even here in the first place is because of Arely. I stayed because of you. Because we’re—”

“Friends, I know.”

Lev swallowed hard. “What are they fucking doing? How do stupid fucks like Jensen and Marco even come up with shit like they pulled today? What’s next, huh?”

Andino grunted under his breath. “Yeah, that’s the real question. Or the right one, for that matter.”

Lev didn’t like not having the answer.

Not one bit.

“Marco has been attempting to make contact with me over the last week,” Andino admitted.

Lev’s head snapped to the side, his gaze nailing into his boss like a bullet blowing out of the barrel of a gun. “What?”

“Listen, my business is personal, and you’re not privy to all of it. I’m not required to discuss or disclose anything, Lev.”

“From the start, this has been about me and—”

“The moment Marco decided to join in on the skin trade in my territory, I was done with him. I made that clear. I believed his attempts at contact were in the vein of business as that’s what he suggested and, in that regard, I had nothing to say. I cut my losses; I won’t waste time with a pointless back and forth that will do nothing to fix the reason I walked away from business with him in the first place. I don’t engage or entertain that sort of nonsense.”

“Is it possible today was retaliation for you ignoring him?”

Andino cleared his throat, rocking on his heels when he replied, “Anything is possible. Let’s just get through the next couple of days. Get your woman down the runway safely; make sure Arely is far out of anyone’s reach.”

“And then what?”

“Well, then we end it all.”

Lev’s shoulders ached from the weight sitting there when he replied, “And how exactly are we going to do that?”

Andino smirked. “The Marcello way. The only way.”

That should have been it. Lev should have felt satisfied.

For a second, maybe he did. But then his phone started to ring in his pocket. At damn near the same time, so did Andino’s. What were the chances of that?

And he knew …

The day wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.