Page 161 of Duty

His uncle didn’t seem to need him to.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Dante murmured. “And it’s always the man who wears the crown that sacrifices the most, Andino, so the rest of the people around him never have to. What are you willing to sacrifice? I asked you once … when push comes to shove, would you step up, or step back? Time’s up, nipote. Step up with me, or step back.”

In a way, it pissed Andino off that his uncle thought he wouldn’t do what needed to be done. That he would think about himself before ever thinking about their family, and how to protect them. Andino had been protecting his family in one way or another his whole fucking life.

He didn’t expect Dante to understand, though.

Andino knew what he had to do—even if it was to the detriment of himself, and his heart. Even if it would kill him, and someone else, too.

He knew how to make peace.

For now, anyway.

“You’re doing that again,” Andino said, “where you’re trying to tell me to do something I already know I have to do, and how to do it.”

“And what is it you have to do?” Dante asked.

“Make peace with the Calabrese.”

By any means necessary.

There was really only one way to do that in their world when something like this happened. There was only one way to appease the rage and violence before it spun out of control. There was one single thing he could give to feed the snakes so that they didn’t come back to bite them.

Because even if Andino hated that he was in this position, he was really the only Marcello man who could possibly offer something good enough to a rival family that they would hold off on starting a war. He was the only one with any sort of position that still had an open spot at his side in his public and private life that needed to be filled—the next boss, still without a wife, and now, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

No one was going to be happy.

At least, not the Marcellos.

Not Andino.

Not Haven.

Duty called.

It waited on no one.

TWENTY-TWO

Noon—meet me on the trails.

Haven hadn’t even needed to ask which trails Andino meant. The same jogging trails where they had first crossed paths.

It felt foreboding.

Something bad was on the way.

She didn’t have any particular reason to feel like that, but in her heart … it was there that she knew. Like they were coming back to this place where they first said hello so that they could maybe say a goodbye, too.

It was his first text in days, so maybe that was why she was left with this dreadful feeling making her throat tight, and her heart ache.

Haven’s phone still burned a hole in her pocket long after she’d gotten that text from Andino earlier that morning. She’d responded confirmatively, but he’d not said anything more.

Here it was, five minutes to twelve, and he still hadn’t shown his face. Haven was trying not to let that bother her. Just like she’d been trying ever since she returned home from Florida to get back to some semblance of normal in her life.

Jog.

Work.