Page 147 of Duty

No, he had not forgotten.

Yeah, shit.

Good point.

“Find him,” Dante ordered, “and I will call you back when I have news.”

His uncle hung up.

That was that.

Andino looked back at Haven’s house—once again, it seemed, he was going to have to put his problems where she was concerned to the back burner so that he could deal with someone else’s shit.

Valeria was right.

He’d put Haven second one too many times. She probably wasn’t even going to let him apologize for it, either.

Andino didn’t blame her.

He deserved it.

• • •

Andino crossed the street quickly, and ducked into the restaurant that looked as though it was currently undergoing renovations. He ignored the murmurings of men all around him—waiting, and ready for bad shit to go down.

So was the way of their life.

The Calabrese waited on one side.

Marcellos on the other.

Andino didn’t know how his uncle managed to get all these men—men who despised one another—into the same space without some kind of violence breaking out between them, but here they were. Peaceful, at least, for now.

How long it would last was anyone’s guess.

He wasted no time finding his uncles and father. It was only once Andino was standing next to his uncle that he quietly explained what he knew at a level that no one but them could hear. “John is on his way—he sounds better.”

Dante’s expression gave nothing away when he asked, “How much better?”

Lucian and Andino’s father were listening then, too.

“Better,” Andino said. “Not as … out of it, or angry. Not like last night at the mansion, anyway. Better than he’s sounded in days.”

Dante let out a quiet sigh—relief.

Lucian, on the other hand, shook his head. “Don’t get comfortable in that, brother. That’s the thing about mania with John; it has crests and peaks. Ups and downs even when he’s in the middle of it. He can be lucid and good for a little bit, but then he can get thrown right back into the worst of it with nothing more than a comment from someone else. It’s fickle.”

“But he’s coming,” Gio said, giving Andino a look. “Here, right?”

Andino nodded.

Giovanni shrugged. “Then, we’ll get our hands on him. That’s what we need—what he needs. Once we’ve got him contained, then we’ll go from there and get him settled. He just needs some help. We’ll give him that.”

Andino tipped his head in the direction of the murmuring Calabrese men. “They were quick to show up here, weren’t they?”

Dante scowled, and his gaze narrowed slightly. “They did—fucking snakes.”

“They want something,” Lucian murmured.