Page 59 of Loyalty

John walked in the home office of his father to find there were more men sitting around the room than he expected. John’s father, and Giovanni and Dante, his uncles. Andino, too, sat on the edge of the desk. A place Andino shouldn’t be sitting considering Dante—the boss—was behind it.

It was sometimes strange and difficult to grow up in the world of Cosa Nostra. Made men with an entire family dynamic that was governed and controlled by the rules of the mafia sometimes created complexities that no one could understand.

John’s father had never been able to be just his father, after all, not when he had also been an underboss. The same went with his uncles—Gio and Dante. They, too, had always held positions of power.

Family was family.

Cosa Nostra colored them up.

And now …

John gave Andino a nod, and a grin. “Don’t you look comfortable, just like a spoiled little underboss should.”

Chuckles passed around the room.

Had it been anyone else, John never would have disrespected the new underboss of the family with that kind of a joke. However, this was Andino. It wouldn’t be normal for the two of them not to trade some kind of barbs with one another.

It was expected, really.

Andino was still kind of new to the position. A whole change that had come about over the last couple of months. Nobody was kidding around when they decided to move him up.

John still felt it was the right choice.

“Careful, I’m allowed to make mistakes since I’m so new and all,” Andino threw back, grinning himself. “I would hate for you to be one of those mistakes, John.”

“You could try.”

The chuckles turned in to laughter, then.

For a moment, it was nice.

It never lasted long.

Not in Cosa Nostra.

Lucian looked to his son. “Did you talk to your sister?”

John scoffed. “Do you mean, did I let her rage at me? Because if so, the answer is yes.”

Silence saturated the room, thick and heavy. It left a bitter taste behind in John’s mouth, but it was what it was. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one on the bad end of Lucia’s moods since she had come home for a break from California.

“It’s almost better when she ignores you, isn’t it?” Lucian smiled sadly. “Never thought I would see the day.”

“We all make choices we sometimes regret,” Dante said from behind the desk. “And so, we have to live with those.”

The boss of their family would probably understand that lesson better than anyone, considering the hell he had gone through with his own daughter recently. No family was perfect, John had come to learn. Not behind closed doors.

Those lessons were the hardest.

They hurt the very most.

“I don’t regret it,” Lucian said, “but I wish she wasn’t so angry.”

“More like … full of contempt, I think,” John said quietly.

Nods passed between the men, and then it was right back to business as usual. Family only got so much time in before the mafia had to come out and play again.

So was their life.