Page 1 of Duty

ONE

Godspeed to the men who plead.

Those words played on repeat in the back of Andino Marcello’s mind as his cousin continued talking on the phone, and his attention varied between the conversation, and work. That was his life in a nutshell—mafia and family.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

“Please don’t …p-please—”

Andino flicked a hand, and the enforcer who had come along for the ride with him that afternoon shut up the begging man who was currently battered and bleeding behind his desk. Andino had taken that lack of patience from his father—Giovanni Marcello had never been very gracious to foolish men who begged for mercy. He was actually quick to kill them for it.

“It’d be great if they just let me fucking be,” John muttered. “All of them—they’re suffocating me, Andi.”

Yeah, he bet.

Between John being fresh out of prison, and everybody waiting for his next meltdown to come because some people in their family thought it was inevitable with John’s bipolar disorder, it probably felt like he was a bug constantly being watched under a microscope. Nobody wanted that shit.

“Try to ignore it,” Andino said to his cousin.

John sighed. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“They don’t mean any harm.”

“But are they causing it, though?”

Good point.

A lack of trust—or even the belief that someone didn’t trust a man—could do damage like nobody understood in the world of Cosa Nostra. A made man was nothing when his word couldn’t be trusted.

Andino knew that well.

It’s why he made every effort to be an honorable made man. Even if that was a dichotomy.

A thump across the room drew Andino’s attention back to the lawyer who had needed extra special Marcello attention that day. The enforcer had smashed the guy’s head into the desk, and it made a hell of a mess of blood and broken teeth on the shiny surface.

Damn.

Usually, Andino would let his bookies handle someone like this—they owed money, the bookie would figure out a way to collect, so he wasn’t in the red with the Capo who collected from him. Andino was that Capo; the bookie was fucking sick and tired of being skipped out on week after week.

It’d been a while since Andino got his hands a little dirty, and it was always good stress relief to beat the hell out of someone. Even if he was just watching.

John said something on the phone.

Andino missed it.

“Listen, I’ll have a chat with my father,” Andino said, “and see if he can make Uncle Lucian back off you a bit—Dante, too.”

“Un-fucking-likely.”

Truth.

“Still worth a shot,” Andino returned.

John made a noise under his breath.

“What, cousin?”