Page 14 of Vow

“I am. You keep moving. And for the record, my father could have easily started a war for me with the Irish in Detroit, but what did he do? If anyone needs a reminder …”

Andino passed a look at his own father.

Giovanni rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying Dante doesn’t have the right idea.”

“No, you’re saying you don’t like it,” Michel replied. “We all hear you.”

The needle poked again.

“Fuck, Michel, I swear—”

“Stop acting like a baby,” his cousin bitched. “You get shot, then you get stitches. And had you just stayed at the hospital long enough for the blood to start to clot around the first fucking set, you wouldn’t need to have me here putting these ones in.”

Jesus Christ.

Andino loved his cousin. Sure, he did. Michel, John, and Andino had all grown up together. Like three thieves, in a way. He didn’t get to see his cousin nearly as often as he liked because Michel was in the midst of doing his residency as a trauma surgeon, and the man’s wife was trying to make it as a partner in a major Manhattan law firm. Michel was busy, and so was Andino. Their paths didn’t cross a lot.

Still, he loved him.

And right now, he wanted to kill him.

“They tore because he picked up Snaps as soon as he got home,” Gio said, tattling on him like a fucking baby. “The dog was in a fit, and Andino couldn’t have that.”

“Shut up.”

“Really?” Michel asked, glancing up from his work to dead stare Andino right in the face. “That dog is eighty pounds at least.”

“Ninety-two, and he’s very healthy. Thank you very fucking much.”

“You can’t pick up anything more than fifteen pounds until these stitches heal.”

“Well, that’s going to be impossible.”

Michel let out a long, slow sigh. “How many times do you want me to come here and put these fucking stitches in, Andi?”

He snapped his jaw shut in an effort to keep quiet. “Fine.”

Michel rolled his eyes, and went back to his work. Andino went back to talking to his father in an effort to keep his mind off the pain in his arm that intensified with every slip of the needle through his skin.

“They have to answer for what they do,” Gio said. “We can’t allow the Calabrese family to go unchecked when they act against us.”

“And we will,” Andino replied quietly.

“By making peace?”

“For now,” Andino replied. “For now, yes.”

His father gave him a look, and then Michel. “What are you—”

“It’s not important right now.”

And it wasn’t.

His plans would have to wait. Because he did have plans, and while he understood his uncle’s position regarding the Calabrese, and that protecting their family from more violence was what would be in their best interests … he also agreed with his father more.

Andino would never bow to the fucking Calabrese.

Not after what they did to John.