Page 132 of Duty

His father’s gaze glanced over the edge of the paperback thriller in his hands. “Go on.”

“It’s … sensitive.”

Gio rested the book on his stomach, all attention on his son, now. “I don’t like the sound of that, Andi.”

“Yeah—and I need someone who can help, but keep quiet.”

“Since when do you have problems that are sensitive?”

Andino glanced away. “Listen, I know I’m not a fuck up, okay, but lately … that’s been a common occurrence for me. I’m just as surprised about it as you are.”

“Relax.”

Easier said than done, Dad.

“It’s John,” Andino murmured.

That really got his father’s attention, not that he was surprised. John had always been like a second son to Gio, in many ways. John spent just as much time in this house with Andino growing up as he had in his own house. John was probably closer to Andino’s father than he was his own, even if that was a sad state of affairs in that regard.

Gio sat up fully on the couch, and clasped his hands together over his legs as he stared hard at Andino. “What about John—I thought everything was good on that side of things? You were looking out for him like Dante told you to do, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Andino said. “And I was also giving him a bit of leg room to do his own thing. You know, like he should be given considering he’s thirty fucking years old, and knows how to be a proper made man like the rest of us.”

“He’s also fresh out of prison, dealing with a new therapist, trying to figure shit out with his life and parents, has Dante riding his ass, and—”

“I know,” Andino interjected. “I know he has a lot on his plate.”

And he did.

He’d just … forgotten for a time.

“Or are you distracted?” his father asked quietly.

Andino couldn’t meet his father’s stare, then. He looked at anything but Gio when he spoke again. “That’s possible.”

“Is it because of that wom—”

“Could we not? This is about John, not my personal life.”

“I think it’s about both,” his father replied.

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not talking about her.”

“Why?” Gio asked. “Because as long as everyone’s attention is on someone else—John—then no one is watching you, Andino? You get to fly under the radar, and do as you want with whoever you want? Is that it?”

“Is that seriously what you think?”

Gio chuckled dryly. “No, but other people might think it.”

“I care about Haven. She’s … not a toy for me.”

He felt his father’s eyes practically burning holes into him. He thought he could hear his father silently begging for him to look at him, but Andino didn’t. He kept his gaze firmly stuck on the window overlooking the back yard. He had other things to handle right now—Haven was not one of them because she was the one thing he was sure of. It was everything else that was up in the air at the moment.

“Do you love her?”

Why did that question feel like a slap cracking against Andino’s exposed nerves? Why did it hurt like someone had just stabbed a knife into his chest, and twisted until the blade came back out with a ruined heart on the tip? Why did it kill him?

He knew why.