There was a great sense of satisfaction that came with watching a plan all fall together just as you hoped it would. To watch everyone else around you struggle to understand what just happened, and how to react while you were a calm pillar in a raging storm was … divine.
Andino hadn’t realized that this was how it was going to feel. That it would be this satisfying and amusing at the same time.
The echo of confused voices around him only picked up while he remained still and silent leaning against the wall. His gaze scanned the familiar faces of his family, and those of Ginevra’s. They’d been looking for a half an hour now. Searching the church, and surrounding areas. They were unwilling to admit she was actually gone.
He had news for them.
Ginevra was getting closer to the Canadian border with every passing second. With freedom at the tips of her fingers, there was no way in hell that woman was turning back around now. As she shouldn’t, he supposed.
He needed her to stay gone.
It had been pandemonium at first when they realized Ginevra was gone. Complete fucking chaos. Now, they were finally starting to calm.
That didn’t mean they were happy.
Too bad, so sad.
“Nothing?” Kev asked desperately.
The enforcer shook his head. “Nothing, boss.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Kev, we’re wasting time here,” Darren stepped in.
Oh, they were having a right fit, and Andino found it all hilarious. He didn’t show it other than the small smile that continued to edge its way over his lips. He couldn’t help that. Satisfaction was hard to fucking hide.
And besides …
Well, he supposed a part of him wanted them to know, too. He wanted these fucking snakes from Brooklyn to know exactly what he had done. That he was the one who ruined their plots and plans because he could. Because he didn’t trust them, he never had, and he was never going to.
There was no way in hell he would bow to them.
Ever.
“Where is Siena, then?” Kev demanded. “She should know! She was supposed to be with her the whole fucking time!”
“She’s dealing with Greta and—”
“I don’t give a fuck. Get her!”
Andino readjusted his stance, and leaned his shoulder against the wall as the Calabrese struggled to find a new angle to which they might use to find Ginevra. It was all rather pointless, he figured. The woman wasn’t coming back, and there was no way they were going to be able to find her unless they ripped the truth out of his mouth.
Unlikely.
Marcello people weaved in and out of the panicking Calabrese. Andino mostly paid them no mind because they were only here for him. The one he did care to watch was his uncle—the boss.
Only because Dante was watching him.
From the other side of the room, Dante stood similarly to Andino … but without the shit-eating smirk. The boss watched him with that cold, hard stare of his that said I know what you did.
How Dante knew was impossible to know. Probably because if the Calabrese were a little clearer headed at the moment, they might understand that there were only a select few people in this church who could actually get Ginevra the hell out of town, and had the motive to do so.
Andino, really.
He was the only one with the means and the reason.
Dante kept staring.
Andino stared back, unbothered.
He didn’t care if Dante didn’t like this. He didn’t give a shit what his uncle thought about what he’d done, or why he did it. He didn’t even give a fuck about the consequences he might have to face because of all this.
It was time for Dante to really learn.
Andino was his own man, and at the end of the day, that’s what mattered. He was going to do things his way when it came to this family. He was never going to do what he was told to do just because he was told to do it.
And he would never cower to an enemy.
Not for peace, or power.
“How long before he blows up, do you think?” Andino asked his father. “He looks about ready to, doesn’t he?”
Oh, Dante was calm and collected on the outside, sure. But in his eyes? That’s where the disbelief, and rage swirled with every passing second.
Gio and Kim had both come to stand on either side of Andino from the moment he stepped off the altar, and left the main section of the church. They didn’t leave him—it was their silent way of showing where they stood in all of this, he supposed.
And not necessarily for the benefit of the Calabrese, either.
Gio made a noise under his breath, and passed his brother a look. “He won’t do anything here. The last thing any of us needs is for the Calabrese to think we have fractures amongst our own ranks. Dante knows better—that’s the one thing you can bet on.”
“But the only thing, too,” Kim added dryly.
His father nodded, in silent agreement.
“Great,” Andino said. “How much longer are we going to have to stand here acting like we give a fuck—”
“Let me go, you asshole!”
Andino’s gaze swung in the direction of the familiar, hateful voice. Siena was dragged into the entry of the church by a bull of a man. He kept a tight hold on her elbow until she was almost right in front of Kev. Then, he practically tossed her at her brother.
“Here she is,” the man grunted.
Siena huffed, and shot a burning glare over her shoulder. “Fuck you.”
“That’s quite enough.” Kev folded his arms over his shoulder as Siena faced him. “Where is Ginevra?”
“I don’t know. Why would I know, Kev?”
“Where is she?”
Jesus Christ.
Even Andino bristled at the man’s tone. He had to give Siena credit, though. She didn’t even flinch. If anything, she stood a little bit taller in the face of her brother’s rage.
She was subtle, this chick. Her strength was quiet, and small, and sometimes, it seemed like it wasn’t even there at all. And yet, he thought she might be the strongest one of them all at the end of the day.
No wonder John loved her.
That was going to come in handy someday.
For now, though …
“You were with her all day,” Kev snapped at Siena, pointing a beefy finger right in her face. Hell, if he got any closer, then that finger was going to hit her forehead. Siena never even blinked, or backed down. “You were with her right before she was supposed to come down. So, where in the fuck did she go, Siena? Don’t mess around with me. Not today.”
“I went to the bathroom,” Siena replied, her jaw tight. “I came out, and she was gone. What do you want me to say? I can’t tell you something I don’t know.”
Damn.
Give credit where it was due, after all.
Siena was one hell of a liar.
Kev let out a harsh noise, and flicked a hand. The enforcer who had come to bring Siena stepped in to take her away. He moved to grab her, but she was quick to slap the man before he could even try.
“Don’t fucking touch me again!”
“Siena!” Kev barked.
The woman gave her brother a withering look over her shoulder, fixed the skirt of her dress, and stormed off without another word. The enforcer was quick to follow behind, but he made sure to keep a couple of extra steps between him and her.
It was funny.
And boring, too.
Strange how that worked.
“I think it’s safe to say that this day is a loss,” Dante said, speaking up for the first time as he moved away from the wall, “and that my family would like to go home.”
Kev’s angry attitude turned on the wrong man, then. “How quick you are to back out of a deal, Dante.”
Dante quirked a brow. “What deal, Kev? There is no bride. There is no deal.”
“There will be a bride!”
His uncle’s gaze drifted to him, and then quickly went back to Kev. “For some reason, I doubt that. I think we’re done here, Kev.”
Dante turned to gesture for his wife to join him, but Kev was already stepping forward. Not a man to back down, Dante stood tall and unmoved when Kev came toe to toe with him. Had that been any other man, Andino figured they would have been quick to make Kev back the hell off.
Not Dante, though.
No, he stood there and smirked.
“Do you want something?” Dante asked. “Another wedding that will fall through, maybe? A new way to try and slither your way into our family?”
“We’re not finished, Marcello.”
Dante glanced Andino’s way again. “No, I suspect we’re just getting started, Kev.”
He was right.
Now was not the time.
It was the shift in the back of the crowd—a flash of blonde hair trying to move further behind the people that took Kev’s attention away from Dante. The man’s gaze narrowed for a second, before he stepped to the side, and strolled forward.
“You!”
Andino finally found what had caught Kev’s attention.
Shit.
Haven.
It took all of Andino’s willpower not to show the way his heart decided to do a fucking deep dive in his chest every time he looked at her. He didn’t even know how to begin to describe the way he felt when he saw her in that church.
But she was here.
She was not gone.
Didn’t that mean good things?
He could fix this.
At the idea that Kev might approach Haven, Lucian was quick to slide away from the wall and move through the crowd like a hot knife cutting through butter. His uncle was supposed to stay with Haven, but Andino figured maybe the two had gotten separated at some point. Silently, Lucian moved in beside Haven, and did nothing but fucking stare at Kev.
Like he was daring him to come closer.
Haven, on the other hand, glanced between Kev and Andino on the other side of the room. It didn’t escape Kev’s notice, either.
The man barked out a loud laugh, and spun around. Those icy eyes of his landed on Andino, and he saw the promise of violence staring back at him before Kev even spoke the threats out loud.
“I should have fucking known, Andino,” Kev said. “Was it you, then? Did you get Ginevra out before she could even walk down the aisle? Was this your plan all along?”
Why lie?
“Yes,” Andino said, shrugging one shoulder. “I was never going to marry her. Not for you, and not for fucking anyone else, either. After all you did to me, to my family … to my best friend, you thought I would give you something, Kev? There’s your first mistake. I allowed you to have it with this little lesson added on, of course. I won’t be as nice the second time around, so try not to make another one.”
“You fucking—”
“Insults are for weak men who lack any real ability to challenge their opponent in a better way. Try something else. Surprise me.”
Kev’s face reddened, and he clenched his fists into tight balls at his side as he came as close to Andino as he had been to Dante earlier. Like Dante had, Andino stayed as still as stone and refused to let the man’s size or proximity intimidate him.
Kev was a fucking bully.
Nothing more, and nothing less.
He didn’t hold any real kind of weight or power. He couldn’t do shit. Andino might laugh at the man if this whole thing wasn’t so goddamn dull now.
“For what?” Kev asked, so close that his hot breath made Andino want to punch the man right in his throat. “What did you do this for, then? Her—Haven? A whore your family will never allow you to marry because she’ll never be good enough for them? Was that it?”
Okay, so maybe Andino wasn’t quite like Dante.
He went for the face instead of Kev’s throat. His fist came up lightning fast, and slammed into Kev’s mouth. He felt the man’s teeth split his knuckles before Kev dropped like a rotten sack of potatoes to the ground. The room turned deathly silent as Andino bent down, and grabbed the man’s face to force him to look at him.
Bleeding, but still pissed, Kev stared up at Andino. There was a bit too much glee in his eyes. Like maybe he’d just gotten what he wanted.
A reason.
That’s all these fucking snakes ever needed. A reason to start a war. A reason to live. Shame, really.
Leaning down, Andino murmured in the man’s ear, “Put her name in your mouth again, and I will make sure your cock is the last thing you taste when I cut it off and shove it down your fucking throat. I hope we understand each other.”
Andino was quick to stand then, and fix his jacket. Kev, on the other hand, didn’t move.
“This isn’t over,” Kev said below him. “Count on that. You’re a dead man.”
Andino smiled. “Do you think that scares me?”
“It should,” Kev murmured.
“It doesn’t.”
• • •
“What in the hell were you thinking?” Dante asked as he strolled into the office at the large Marcello mansion.
Andino, and his uncle and father, filtered in behind him. Lucian moved to sit on the couch while Giovanni went to his usual perch on the windowsill. Andino, on the other hand, stuffed his hands in his pockets and stayed standing in the middle of the room.
“You ask me that question a lot,” Andino noted, “but you never care to actually hear the answer. I mean, not if it’s an answer you don’t like.”
Dante stiffened, and his back tensed. Still, he continued pouring a glass of bourbon without facing the room. He did speak, though. “How long were you planning something like this, Andi?”
Well …
“I was never going to marry that woman,” Andino replied. “So use that to answer your own question, Dante.”
Finally, his uncle turned to face the room. There was no doubt about it—the anger and disappointment written heavily across Dante’s brow couldn’t be missed. He clutched that glass in his hand like he might throw it at the next person who talked out of turn. Andino swore the older his uncle got, the less tolerable he was to other people’s bullshit.
Dante sipped on that glass of bourbon, and stared at Andino all the while. A sharp eye that said his uncle was measuring him as much as he was trying to figure him out. That was the thing about Andino, though.
He was fucking full of surprises.
Dante pointed a finger at Andino, saying, “You purposely disobeyed me again, nipote.”
“I don’t see it like that, no.”
“Then how do you fucking see it?”
For the first time, his uncle’s mask cracked. The anger lit up his voice, and took it above the level of calm he had been maintaining. But hey, if it was a fight his uncle wanted … Andino was up for that.
He wasn’t backing down.
Not on this.
“You preach and go on about family and loyalty and doing what we have to in order to protect this thing of ours,” Andino said, “but you forget that those things only work when it is for the betterment of every man, and not one man.”
Dante took a step forward, and arched a brow. “And you think you are every man, Andino?”
‘“I think I am one man, but I refuse to be an unhappy one, zio. I will never be the man who is only the reflection of you because these are the things you chose for me under the guise of duty. Not when I could have done it my own way to begin with. I spoke an oath for this life—I did my vows. But it will not take everything I have. It is not everything that I am. I will not be a better man for it just because you told me to do it.”
That stopped his uncle from coming closer. Dante glanced at him again, reconsidering once more.
“For what, then—the woman? You did this for her?”
Andino shrugged. “Why not? Wars have been started for less, haven’t they?”
“Don’t sound so flippant. This is not a small thing, Andi. It can’t be.”
“It is one thing to me. One thing amongst many things.”
Dante sighed, and glanced away. “I get the impression that you either don’t have the first clue of the uphill battle you’re about to face because you wanted something as silly as a woman you knew you couldn’t have … or you just don’t give a shit.”
“More the latter, actually.”
His uncle’s sharp gaze came back to him. “Is that so? You think you know, then, how you’ll lose control of the Commission when they refuse to accept the woman you present to them? You think you understand how it’ll stain our name and legacy? You think you know? She won’t be accepted by outside organizations, Andino. It doesn’t matter how we treat her, or if we love her. Our actions won’t factor into their opinions at all. Is that what you want for her? The constant reminder that she isn’t up to their standards?”
“She’s what I want. I don’t give a fuck about them.”
“The Commission is clear and you know—”
“Who at the Commission will deny me her?” Andino asked, smirking just a bit. “Me, when I take over your seat? John, when I put him in the seat the Calabrese holds once I bury them? Oh, how about the Donati boss—Cross. The man that is so in love with your daughter he wouldn’t dare consider making a choice that might hurt someone close to her. Maybe Chicago? An organization that has been terrified of another war like the one that decimated them decades ago—unlikely. Who’s left?”
“Vegas,” his father murmured from the window.
Andino nodded, and gave Dante his attention again “Yes, Vegas. You know, where my other uncle controls. So again, who is going to refuse me now?”
Dante blinked.
Andino smiled. “See what I did there, zio? You told me who would take her away, and so I handled it. I always get what I want.”
“And you wanted her,” Dante murmured.
“I will always want her.”
Even if she doesn’t want me.
Because that was a real fucking possibility right now.
Dante scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and stared at anything but Andino. “You know, I didn’t realize you were this manipulative, nipote.”
“I’m not sure if that’s an insult, or not.”
“Definitely not, but forgive me for being pissed that you thought to manipulate me.” Dante leaned back, and sat down on the edge of the large oak desk. He took a second before he spoke again, this time his voice quiet and pensive. “You’ve essentially started a war for a woman.”
“You said that already.”
Dante cut him with a look. “What do I tell them now? All the people downstairs who came here because they expected a party after a wedding—a celebration, Andino. What do I tell them now? That their whole lives are about to be chaotic and dangerous again because you wanted a woman?”
“You tell them that we never cower, and we don’t bend. Marcellos take, but we don’t give. Not for anyone, and certainly not for the Calabrese. That’s what you always used to tell me.”
“I wanted peace,” Dante murmured. “You think I wanted it for them, but I wanted it for you. So you didn’t have to come into this seat with carnage under your feet, Andino. You think it’s easy to be this man? This has never been easy.”
He didn’t expect it to be.
That changed nothing, though.
“I will never make peace with the Calabrese,” Andino countered. “Whether today, or tomorrow, or whenever the hell I take over … it doesn’t matter. I will not ever give them a single inch. They are not even a fraction of what we are, and they shouldn’t be allowed to think they are, either.”
Dante gave Gio a look from the side. “He’s so fucking difficult.”
Gio smiled faintly. “I know.”
“Where did this come from?”
“Does it matter if he’s right, brother?” Gio asked back.
Lucian chuckled from his seat on the couch. “That’s a good point.”
Dante glanced at Andino again. “Where is the Calabrese woman?”
“Why?”
“Curious. I don’t plan to retrieve and return her. Why would I? She deserves better.”
“Canada,” Andino answered. “She is in Canada with a Guzzi who agreed to look after her for the time being, and once it was safe, return her. I called in a favor.”
Dante stiffened, and his gaze cut to Lucian. “Corrado Guzzi? Because I know Andino is not the one who is owed a favor by that young man.”
Lucian shifted uncomfortably. “What do you want me to say?”
“You helped him? You knew what he was up to?”
“Gio isn’t the only one in this family who wants to give his son the thing he wants the very most, Dante.”
The three brothers took a moment to consider each other silently before Dante’s attention came back to Andino once more.
“Do you know what this means, though?” his uncle asked.
“Be specific.”
“Our family—the line will end with your boys. The Marcello name, Andino. Our legacy will end with your boys, if you even have any. Half Italian from the father’s side. Any boys you have—only one can be the boss, and he will be the last Marcello boss.”
The heavy silence that covered the room almost felt suffocating. Andino didn’t have to wonder why, either. He already knew. The idea that their name would end in this criminal world that they had controlled for so long simply because he fell in love and chose a woman that couldn’t continue on the line was a lot to absorb.
“There’s still John,” Andino said, shrugging. Because really, that still did not matter to him. Haven mattered. And their legacy was always something he was willing to sacrifice for her. He would give up anything for her. “And any sons he might have.”
“John shouldn’t even be a made man if you look into his bloodlines deep enough,” Dante grumbled. “His biological grandmother was only half Italian. His mother has less than a fraction of Italian bloodline in her family lineage. And you think his sons could pass the fucking test? Foolish.”
Lucian cleared his throat, but otherwise, kept quiet.
Andino laughed. “Who is going to be that disrespectful, Dante? Who would be willing to dig into the history of a murdered man and woman just to trace their bloodlines? They killed Lucian and John’s bloodline—any man and woman that came from their family are all gone. Who is willing to disrespect the dead to challenge a bloodline? No one, that’s who.”
Dante glanced up. “You think you have this all figured out, don’t you?”
“If we don’t evolve, then we fail.”
Another sigh echoed.
Finally, Dante asked, “Well, what the fuck do we do now?”
Andino thought the answer to that question was quite simple. “I would like to take Haven downstairs—apparently, she came here with Ma after the church—and introduce her to my family. I would like to see her welcomed, and embraced. Treated with respect for no other reason than I love her, and it is what she deserves. That is what I need to happen now.”
Dante shook his head. “What did you do, Andino?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“What I needed to.”