Page 145 of Duty

His amusement was quick to fade when he noticed Haven didn’t respond back to his text—like the last ten he’d sent since the night before, and over the morning. That wasn’t like Haven at all which was why he just decided to come over to her place while he had five minutes to spare.

He couldn’t be here long.

John had taken off the night before, but like Andino figured, the enforcer following behind had lost his cousin’s trail the second they were on a freeway. That only served to put Lucian in a panic, which meant everybody else needed to be in the same kind of state.

Andino was going to look for his cousin just like everybody else—he figured John ended up in one of his favorite places. Somewhere that was comforting and familiar to him.

First, though, he wanted to check on Haven.

Snaps tried to follow Andino out of the car, but he was quick to make the dog stay. “You can wait, Snaps.”

The dog huffed.

He just laughed.

Closing the driver’s door, Andino rounded the car and headed for the small Brooklyn bungalow even as he checked his phone again. It wasn’t like it buzzed or anything, but fuck, maybe the damn thing was—

“It’s Andino, right?”

Andino’s head snapped up to find a pretty woman closing the front door of the house before she came to stand on the front stoop. Even though it was cold out, she wore nothing but a sweater and jeans, and her dark brown hair had been thrown up in a messy bun. He recognized her, but only because he’d seen her once or twice in passing.

Valeria, he thought.

Haven’s roommate.

They’d never had a real conversation—he thought he might have said hello to her once when he was at Haven’s club, and the woman was helping out behind the bar. But beyond that? Nothing came to mind.

“It is Andino,” he said. “And you’re Valeria, yeah?”

“Most people call me Val,” she replied, smiling faintly. “You don’t need to worry about that, though.”

Andino stiffened, and his steps slowed to a stop at the bottom of the stoop’s stairs. “Something wrong?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good. Is Haven home?”

Valeria glanced away. “Not at the moment.”

“Little early for her to be at the club, isn’t it?”

“She’s not there, either, although I wasn’t told to tell you any of this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean exactly?” he asked.

“Does it matter?”

Yeah, it kind of did. Andino didn’t like the way this woman seemed like she was trying to play word games with him. Either his girl was around, or she wasn’t. And if she wasn’t, then where in the hell was she?

What in the fuck was happening?

Andino checked the time on his phone again. “She’s probably on her run, then.”

“Not unless her run is twenty-thousand feet in the air.”

“What?”

Valeria sighed. “Listen, Andino … I don’t really know you, so I can’t say whether or not you’re a decent guy. I do know enough about you to make my own assumptions, though, so I’ll leave it like that. Haven took a vacation because she needs one, not that you would know anything about what she needs, right?”