Page 51 of Duty

Fast, and fleeting.

It walked hand in hand with his irritation over this whole thing. Because all of it was fucking nonsense, and nothing more. His uncle was making a mountain out of a stupid mole hill. Dante assumed, and didn’t think to ask.

Boss’s right, sure.

Andino didn’t care, either.

“Because I took her to breakfast,” he said.

Dante’s jaw stiffened—a sure sign of his anger if there ever was one. “How many times are you going to say that this morning?”

“Until you realize how fucking ridiculous it is.”

“I beg your—”

“I took a woman to breakfast,” Andino said, “Lucian interrupted it by showing up, ran to you with the information—”

“I didn’t run to him with it,” Lucian grumbled.

Andino ignored his uncle and continued on with, “And now you’ve somehow decided she’s more than what she is.”

“No one would have to assume anything, Andino,” his father pointed out from his chair, “had you just spoke up in the first place about what you were doing.”

“Because it’s none of your business who I fuck when I feel the damn need!”

Dante cleared his throat, and brought all the attention back to him. The only boss in the room—even if Andino was the boss-in-waiting, and the only man to have the floor to speak when he wanted it. So was their ways and life.

“It is my business—that’s where you’re wrong,” Dante said simply. “It will always be my business. I am the boss of this family, and I have chosen for you to take over and sit in my seat once I am gone. And so, everything you do needs to reflect well on me, this organization, and the family. From the point you left my office the day we told you what would be happening, you no longer got to make your own choices, Andino. Not when every single choice you make won’t only affect you.”

Andino clenched his teeth so hard that his molars ached.

Goddamn.

“And you know this,” Dante continued on as though he couldn’t see Andino’s anger vibrating through his tense body just ten feet away. “You know this is how it works, and why that is. You know that if you want to have a relationship—or a casual thing—with someone that the family or other organizations won’t approve of, then you do so quietly and privately.”

“I was,” Andino snapped.

“By taking her to your restaurant?” his father asked. “Where anyone could walk in, and where you do business every single day?”

Dante tipped his head in Giovanni’s direction. “Exactly that, yes.”

“It was breakfast.”

“You keep saying that like it shouldn’t mean something, but we both know it does.”

Okay.

Fuck this.

“Why can’t she be nothing? Why can’t she be a bit of fun I’m having while the rest of you fucking upend my whole goddamn life?” Andino clenched his fists, but shoved them into his pockets to try and keep some semblance of composure even while he was raging pissed. “Why can’t she be a break from every other thing I have to deal with? No—she can’t be any of those things. She has to be something else entirely because you think she is.”

Dante straightened a little taller on the spot. “And is she nothing, then?”

Andino hesitated.

Not one man missed it.

His father’s ridged posture softened, but Giovanni said nothing. Across the table from his brother, Lucian’s gaze drifted to the floor.