Page 50 of Duty

And he meant it.

“I think I’ll stand, actually,” Andino settled on saying.

“Your choice,” his uncle returned dryly.

“I’m surprised you waited four days. Or rather, that you made it this long before calling me in.”

Dante chuckled, but the sound was hollow. A look passed between Andino’s father and his other uncle—a stare he couldn’t quite decipher, but that shit wasn’t anything new. These three brothers had long mastered the ability to have silent conversations with one another by simply giving each other a nod, stare, or some other fucking gesture that no one but them could understand. It was annoying.

“I had to do my homework,” Dante said, sighing a little. “I’m sure you expected that, Andino.”

Andino cocked a brow. “Homework—as in, Haven?”

“Who else?”

“You looked into Haven.”

It wasn’t even a question.

Giovanni cleared his throat, and drew Andino’s attention for the moment. “There’s always something to be said about a man who feels the need to see someone, but doesn’t also feel a need to share those details when he knows they are important.”

Lucian made a sound under his breath. “Not in every case, brother.”

“You did not have the standing Andino does, either,” Dante muttered. “There was not a whole host of problems that would be waiting for you—and the family—because you chose a woman that was outside of the standard for Cosa Nostra.”

Lucian quieted.

What was Andino missing here?

Giovanni—who seemed entirely unbothered by the conversation happening beside him—nodded but was still looking at his son. “And there is where you differ, Andi.”

“Because I took a woman to breakfast?”

Dante slowly raised from his chair, and turned to face Andino. He had been right; his uncle did look pissed off enough to scare the Devil himself, but Andino wasn’t the Devil. And he didn’t frighten easily.

“I know what I know about her,” Dante said, “but I’m going to give you the chance to tell me what you should have told me from the start, Andino. Go ahead.”

Andino arched a brow. “Haven Murphy—twenty-six, owns a strip club in Brooklyn, and jogs every day. That’s how I ran into her the first time; the second was at her club when I had business to handle with a bookie who enjoys the place. Quite a successful business, actually. I took her to breakfast. Anything else?”

Dante sucked air through his teeth, and set the coffee mug down that he’d been holding. “You tell me if there’s anything else I should know.”

Andino didn’t even have to think about it. “Nope.”

“No?”

“That’s what I said. I don’t tend to stutter, you know.”

“Andi,” his father warned.

He ignored Giovanni.

Andino was getting tired of being the fucking doormat someone thought they could walk over just because he played by the fucking rules of this family, for the most part. He was nobody’s goddamn doormat.

He hadn’t done anything wrong.

“How about the fact she strips?” Dante asked coolly. “Or that she’s not Italian. And oh, we can’t forget the most important part—literally everything about what and who she is will never be appropriate as the wife of a boss, present or future. You would not find another man heading a family with a seat at the Commission who would take a look at that woman and what she offers, and have them say she is acceptable as a boss’s wife. So, yes, let’s not forget that bit. I think it’s important.”

Amusement flitted through Andino.