Page 158 of Duty

“A Calabrese, yeah.”

“But maybe not one of them,” his uncle murmured. “She shares their last name, and their blood, but she isn’t like them.”

“Little late to be coming to that realization, isn’t it?” Andino asked. “Look at all that’s happened.”

Lucian shook his head subtly. “It’s never too late to right a wrong, Andi. This life, and being a father, has taught me that.”

Andino grunted under his breath, and glanced out the dark kitchen window. “So far, I’ve learned that this life does a lot of taking, but it doesn’t do a lot of giving.”

“It’s called sacrifice.”

“But for what?”

Lucian didn’t seem to have an answer for that one.

His uncle joined him at the table, and the two were silent for a long while. Andino stared up at the ceiling where he knew his cousin, and Siena, were sleeping in John’s room. Once they’d gotten John out of that brownstone, he’d gained a bit of lucidity.

That helped.

Not much.

“Do you think she’s okay up—”

“She’s fine with him,” Lucian said. “Now.”

Andino nodded, and went back to staring out the window. His mind was running a million miles a minute. Retracing every step he’d made these last few months, and all the errors that had come from it. Things he couldn’t fix, or take back. Things that would likely irrevocably change his life, and his family.

The guilt, though, was a killer.

It weighed the heaviest.

Pulled him down.

Drowned him.

“Don’t do that,” Lucian said quietly.

Andino glanced at his uncle. “Pardon?”

“The guilt thing. I can see it. You don’t wear it well.”

Clearing his throat, Andino said, “If not guilty about all of this, then what should I feel?”

“John is not your responsibility,” Lucian replied. “There is only so much we can do, and so far we can reach with him. The rest has to be his choice, and we can’t make those choices for him, Andi.”

Easier said than done.

“I’ve always looked out for him,” Andino replied. “Ever since—”

“You were kids, I know.”

“The one time I don’t have his back, and he goes into a manic spell, kills a rival boss, and—”

“Andino.”

He met Lucian’s gaze. “What?”

“This isn’t your burden to bear.”