Page 85 of Duty

Andino sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

Nothing his uncle said was a lie.

This whole night would be nothing more than the theatrics of the mafia—they could have just as easily made a few phone calls, and let the men have their voice that way. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t how Cosa Nostra worked.

And without their traditions—without their rules—what would they be? Andino wasn’t sure he cared to find out, honestly.

“Just … tell me this,” Dante said quietly. “If I gave you the choice right here and now before we begin tonight to go back to how you were before I put the duty and the legacy of this family in your hands, would you take that option? Would you go back to being who you were before with no expectations for anything different?”

Andino didn’t even have to think about it. Oh, sure, he still had his fucking feelings about this whole thing, but it wasn’t so much being the boss as it was … not being able to be himself when too many voices were shouting around him to be someone different. It was everyone else trying to control his life like they had any business doing so—it was not being the boss that really bothered him, necessarily.

“No,” Andino said.

“No.” Dante nodded like that was the answer he was expecting, and then asked, “Why not?”

“Because I would make the right choice for this family.”

Dante smiled. “And what does that mean?”

Wasn’t it obvious?

“I’m the right choice,” Andino said.

• • •

Snaps whined as Andino climbed the front steps leading to his home. “Come on, buddy, can’t the walk wait?”

It was cold as hell for the end of December.

Too cold, maybe.

Snaps didn’t care.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Andino found his dog sitting firmly on the cold sidewalk, unmoved. Snaps was making his position clear even if he couldn’t speak. He wanted his fucking walk, and he wanted it now.

It didn’t matter that Andino had been on his feet all damn day chasing after Capos, and being the go-between for his uncle, and the rest of the men. Snaps didn’t have any understanding that life for Andino didn’t stop just because his spoiled pup wanted a walk or two around the cold block.

Who cared that it was winter?

And snowing?

Not Snaps.

“Fine,” Andino grumbled. “We’ll go for a walk.”

Snaps was quick to get up on all four paws again, and shake his stubby tail. He was happy again, but all Andino could think about was how quickly it was going to take for frost bite to set in on his fingertips.

Fuck, it’s cold.

“At least let me grab gloves,” he told the dog.

Snaps chuffed, but at least he didn’t have those big, sad eyes and the pouty face going on anymore. That was something, anyway.

He was pretty sure his neighbors, and anyone who saw him with Snaps, probably thought he was crazy. He talked to his dog like the animal could understand and converse right back on a regular basis. Snaps could understand, he just didn’t talk back. At least, not in a human way. No, the dog had his own attitude and spin to put on a conversation.

If anything, lately, Snaps was the only thing making Andino’s days a little bit better. The dog made him smile, and got him out of the house more often than he would willing choose to leave himself. It had been this way ever since Haven left his house two months ago without as much as a look back.

Fuck.