Page 13 of Vow

Fuck.

“We need to do something to end this,” he heard Dante say out in the hallway. “This cannot happen again. Who will be next? And will the next shot be the one that kills?”

“Or,” Andino’s father said sharply, “we could fucking answer them back.”

Lucian grunted under his breath. A quiet sign that he agreed with what Giovanni said, but didn’t verbally voice the opinion.

Dante sighed heavily. “And then what, Gio? It continues. The violence escalates. More people get drawn into the mess. We start keeping a body count. Men get buried. Wives and children are left alone and without. That is not our way.”

“Our way is also not to allow a rival family to step out of bounds like they did today with my son!”

“That’s the only reason why you’re reacting this way is because it’s Andino.”

“I would have said the same thing if it was Catherine, Michel, or any one of Lucian’s four kids. And you fucking know it.”

“But that’s not thinking clearly—it’s thinking with emotions.”

Gio made a dark noise, saying, “And I am allowed to have them.”

“You get to keep your son today,” Dante returned, “but the next man might not be as lucky. Is that the choice you want me to make? Vengeance for yours at the sake of someone else’s? We talk about sacrifice and the duty we have to one another in this family, so let’s have that conversation again.”

“No fucking need. Not right now, anyway.”

Andino wondered what had made his father back down, but he didn’t have to consider for long. Soon enough, two plain-clothed detectives were darkening his doorway. He didn’t have to see their fucking badges to know who they were. He swore cops all walked the same, looked the same, and smelled exactly the fucking same to him.

So was his damn life.

Avoiding these fuckers.

Behind the detectives stood the doctor in his white lab coat wearing a frown, and just behind the doctor were his father, and his uncles. Apparently, his quiet, empty room was about to get a hell of a lot louder, and crowded.

Fun.

“I have no comment to make,” Andino told the detectives before they could even introduce themselves. “I don’t know who shot at me, and I don’t even remember the make of the car.”

“We’re sure,” the taller of the two men said dryly. “Still, indulge us.”

“Call my lawyer. We’ll set up a meeting. In the meantime …” Andino turned his gaze on the doctor. “Get my papers to sign—I’m leaving.”

The doctor pushed past the detectives. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Did I ask what you thought, though?”

Because he was pretty sure he hadn’t.

And he was not staying there one more minute.

• • •

“I don’t like Dante’s decision,” Andino told his father, “but he is right.”

Giovanni made that same angry, disgusted noise he’d been making all fucking night. “Had that been—”

“I know, had it been one of his kids, this conversation might be very different. It also might be exactly the same. He’s ready to step down, and let me take the seat. Do you really think he wants to do that during a war with a rival family?”

“Stop moving,” his cousin muttered.

Andino flinched when the needle Michel was using to fix his busted stitches went through a particularly sensitive part of his injury. “Fuck, be careful.”