Page 51 of Pink

For years.

Lev had come to accept it; he just didn’t use it. People introduced him with the moniker—they said it before he even had the chance to correct them. He made the choice not to offer something else because it worked.

Here, he was Pink. At home, where it mattered, he was a little girl’s daddy. She didn’t give a fuck what people called him, anyway. So, why should he?

“Pass on the drink,” Lev told the guy, removing the hand that was still on his shoulder. “Try not to mix pleasure and business, you know?”

“Of course. Tell your boss I said hello.”

The man with the familiar face in a suit that said he could at least afford to eat in the restaurant took a seat back at the table, but Lev was already halfway across the main floor. He had zero plans to tell Andino shit about the guy—if he was really that important, the boss would already be out on the floor talking to him.

It was that simple.

Lev passed through the kitchen without issue. The head chef throwing orders actually moved out of the way for him which wasn’t anything new. He didn’t fuck with their work, and they never bothered him about his. Things just worked easier when that was the case. For everyone involved.

“You got a request for lunch, Pink?” the chef threw at his retreating back.

Over his shoulder, Lev replied, “Whatever the boss is having. I’m not picky.”

“Got it—Rickie, put it on the fucking board!”

“Yes, chef, right away.”

There was a time when Lev used to show up at this place before the doors even opened. For a time, he even waited at Andino’s front door before the man was awake so that he was ready to pick him up.

But years passed.

Some shit changed … like it did.

For one, Andino Marcello no longer held only a Capo position in his family’s organization. A year back, he’d taken over completely, got married, and they started to do things differently. The more men Andino needed to feel safe and handle business, the more he delegated Lev to be a personal enforcer that spent his days at the boss’s side unless told otherwise.

There was something to be said about the trust Andino put in him. Lev wasn’t ignorant, or disrespectful for that matter, enough to not see it and understand what it meant. He had keys to the man’s home. To his cars. Access codes to businesses, warehouses … personal garages.

And more.

At some point, the job changed.

He did more than just watch Andino’s back. It was the most important part of his job, yeah, but in a world where his boss depended on cash flow and violence to keep people loyal … Lev wasn’t quite the same. He offered his loyalty because, well, Andino was his friend.

One of the few he did have.

“Fucking hell … where you been?” Andino asked when Lev finally came to stand in the doorway of his office. “Petey’s been calling—”

“Tell his spoiled ass to shut the fuck up. I’m not doing shit for him today when I ran for him all last week to make things easier on him.”

Someone else making comments like that about a newly minted Capo in la famiglia and Andino would have put a bullet between their eyes. For Lev?

The man just laughed.

“Busy morning?” Andino asked when the amusement faded.

Lev shrugged. “She had to show me all the things she did last week. I didn’t pick her up on Friday last week, so, you know. Took an extra twenty minutes. My bad.”

It was always just her when it came to Arely during his work hours. Andino never seemed to mind, and he hadn’t ever offered information about Lev’s personal life to anyone. Yet another reason why he trusted his boss inexplicably, even if he was just a well-dressed criminal sitting atop an empire that ran the city of New York like a fucking machine.

“What’s the plan, anyway?” Lev asked.

“Business, Pink. What else?”