Copyright © 2018 by Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
STIFLING WAS NOT a word Siena Calabrese used often, but at the moment, it was the one that best fit her life. Hot, stuffy mid-June air blew through the hallway of her oldest brother’s brownstone. It reminded her that it wasn’t only the two men looming at her back making her feel like she was roasting with suffocation. Even the muggy weather had hot, sticky hands around her small throat.
So was her life, now.
“Greta, Giulia,” Siena greeted.
The two teenaged girls stepped into the brownstone with guarded eyes. As they always did. As they should. There was nothing in that house—but for Siena, perhaps—that could be trusted, and the girls knew it.
Every time they were faced with their half-brothers, Siena highly suspected Greta and Giulia wondered about their fate. Or rather, what their fate might bring for them today.
Greta more than Giulia, likely. She was, after all, closing in on eighteen faster and faster. Giulia, on the other hand, was only fifteen. She still had a few years of safety under her belt.
Not even the girls’ mother had been able to save them.
Not when it came to Kev and Darren.
“I like the red,” Siena said, reaching out to play with a few strands of Greta’s long, wavy hair. Her half-sister only offered a slight, yet still awkward, smile in response. “I thought you were thinking about something darker?”
Greta shrugged. “Ma liked red.”
Silence saturated the hallway. Both of Siena’s half-sisters refused to look up from the floor, not even after Kev cleared his throat, and Darren let out an exasperated sigh.
“Too bad she won’t be able to see it,” Siena said.
She was only forcing herself to talk because every part of her felt like Greta and Giulia. As though she should hide away somewhere, and avoid drawing attention to herself. That would be for the best—that was what would be the safest for her.
Siena couldn’t do that.
Not now.
Not after everything.
It would be like throwing these two young girls to the wolves. Those wolves being their own half-brothers.
It wasn’t like any of the Calabrese daughters—not Siena, being the only legitimate daughter, or her half-sisters, born to her dead father’s equally dead mistress—could trust their brothers to have their best interests in mind. Kev and Darren had proved over the last few months that their interests were solely tied up in one thing, and one thing only.
Moving higher.
Ruining the Marcellos.
Taking over New York.
Siena’s mind drifted over the months that had passed since her father’s murder, and then John going into a facility. A little bit of February, March, April, May, and now here they were in the middle of June.
Her father was still dead.
John was still gone.
And yet … so much had changed.
So very much was different.
Kev had taken over as the boss in lieu of their father’s death. Darren was, of course, Kev’s right hand man. If only that was all …
A failed marriage arrangement. A missing half-sister. Two others, now orphaned. A war on the streets. Bodies piling up.
Siena shook those thoughts out of her head. She could not afford to get lost in them today, and certainly not right now. It didn’t help that Kev and Darren were at her back damn near constantly. She couldn’t move without one of them knowing about it.
Again … so was her life.
But for these two girls?
For her little sisters, so lost without their own big sister to guide them, Siena was present. She forced herself to be present and to do what she needed to do, so they saw a smiling face, and someone they could trust.
Because fuck Kev and Darren.
They would not do to these girls what they had tried to do to their missing sister. Well … to Greta and Giulia, Ginevra was missing. Siena knew the truth—and while right now, the younger Calabrese girls hurt, it would not last forever.
Missing did not mean dead. Someday, they would know that little fact, too.
“Are we all going to linger in the goddamn hallway all day, or have lunch?” Kev asked. “I’m starved.”
Greta and Giulia kept their gazes locked on the floor. Neither of them answered their brother, but frankly, they had learned rather quickly about Kev and Darren. When the two men asked a question, they weren’t actually looking for a response, but rather, an action.
They only wanted well-behaved women.
Very little else.
“Are you hungry?” Siena asked the girls.
“A little,” Greta said.
Giulia dared to look past Siena, and her familiar blue eyes narrowed. “Not particularly.”
Siena let a little smile slip through at the youngest girl’s barely hidden contempt. “I cooked, though.”
The girl’s gaze darted back to Siena in a blink. “Did you?”
“Your favorite.”
“Oh, well … okay.”
“I’m hungry,” Kev repeated.
“Then, go sit down in the damn dining room,” Siena barked over her shoulder.
The warning that flashed in both her brothers’ eyes was enough to tell Siena she was toeing a very thin line with them. Before her father’s death, she used to get away with a hell of a lot more than she did now.
Kev and Darren barely let her breathe. Apparently, even breathing was wrong. Or rather, Siena breathing was wrong.
“Let’s grab some food,” Siena told them.
The girls nodded, and then followed in front of her when she urged the two forward. Greta and Giulia passed by Kev and Darren without saying a word. Siena didn’t miss how the two sisters’ lips curled a bit in their disgust at being close to their brothers.
That could happen when a person was forced to watch brothers you barely knew do things like try and force your older sister into an arranged marriage, not to mention, how they found their mother one morning.
All by Kev and Darren’s hand.
Siena tried her fucking hardest to ignore the awkwardness as the siblings settled into the kitchen together. What else could she do at this point? What else could she possibly do for these two girls—both fighting invisible battles, and confused?
At least, she thought, Greta and Giulia had some freedom even if it was just an illusion. The two lived with an aunt, although the woman was largely paid and happily so by the Calabrese brothers. The sisters weren’t forced to be in Kev and Darren’s presence every single day of their lives. Usually once or twice a week, instead.
Siena, on the other hand …
Well, it all went back to the stifling thing again.
Her brothers were the worst.
She was rarely able to escape them.
It was a couple of hours later before Siena saw her half-sisters off. Shuffled into the back of a black town car driven by a Calabrese enforcer, Greta and Giulia were taken away once more. They were packed up like prized beauties to be brought out and dusted off for showing on another day.
Siena knew it.
The girls knew it.
A fucking shame, really.
“You’re late, Ma,” Kev grumbled.
“I had things to do, son.”
“Things like what, exactly?”
“A friend called.”
Kev scoffed. “Sure, Ma.”
As the footsteps of her mother and older brother came closer to the kitchen, Siena tried to relax the tension in her shoulders. The anger she felt toward her mother reared its ugly head whenever the two were in a damn room together.
Today was not going to be any fucking different.
How could it?
“I really did have other things come up, Kev,” her mother said.
The two were just outside the kitchen, now. Siena didn’t care to eavesdrop, but that had kind of become a part of her job.
So to speak …
“We are trying to put on a united front,” Kev reminded Coraline. “It is the most important thing right now. I’m quite aware of how you feel about Greta and Giulia, but you need to forget about it, Ma. Put it aside for now, so we can all handle our business in this city.”
“Mmm.”
“What?”
“Handle business,” Coraline said. “I suppose we’re going to pretend that another Calabrese Capo was not killed last week, are we?”
“No one is pretending—”
“Well, we can’t forget about that united front, Kev.”
“Ma.”
“I said what I said, didn’t I?”
Kev let out a harsh sigh. “We have a plan—an attack coming up. A few days after the funeral. One of their warehouses on the west end that they think we don’t know about. An answer to the Capo’s death. Darren thought it would be appropriate that we wait until after. Respect to the man, and all that.”
“Sure,” Coraline said. “Your father never would have waited.”
“I am not my father, Ma.”
“Obviously.”
Siena didn’t even bother to look up from the dishes she was washing as her mother and brother slipped into the kitchen. Coraline moved toward the island where a plate of hot food had been left to sit out for her, and looked it over.
“Really, Siena, chicken alfredo?” her mother asked.
Siena kept her attention on her work. “It’s Giulia’s favorite. I was trying to make her comfortable.”
Coraline made a noise under her breath.
It sounded a lot like disgust.
“It might have helped had you shown up like you were supposed to for dinner,” Siena added. “They were looking forward to having an actual conversation with you, Ma.”
Siena did turn around and chance a glance at her mother, then. Coraline looked like something awful had been shoved into her mouth. Horrified, displeased, and disgusted all at the same time.
The last thing this woman wanted to do was greet, be nice to, or handle anything about her husband’s mistress’s children.
It wasn’t like it was the girls’ fault. They hadn’t asked to be born, or for their father to be an unfaithful bastard. Yet, here they all were.
Coraline had been perfectly fine, pleased, and pampered in her life before Matteo’s death. She had not minded turning cheek to her husband’s behaviors, and dalliances with women. She even pretended like she didn’t know her husband’s mistress had once lived in a bigger house than she did simply because she birthed him the same amount of children that Coraline had given to Matteo.
No, none of that had mattered to Coraline before.
Now, with Matteo dead, and the girls’ mother dead, Coraline had no choice.
Despite knowing it might cross one of her brother’s many lines, Siena didn’t mind reminding her mother of her place at the moment. Sometimes, it was the only thing that actually worked where Coraline was concerned.
“It would not look very good for you to shun the only Calabrese principessas della mafia,” Siena murmured, letting her finger edge along the line of the island as she spoke. “Even if those mafia princesses are illegitimate daughters born from a several decades-long affair. You know this, Ma.”
Coraline scowled.
Kev passed a look between the mother and daughter, but said nothing.
“They are not the only principessas of this family,” Coraline said, smiling in that cruel, cold way of hers. “And don’t you forget that, Siena.”
Dread slipped down Siena’s spine.
A cold fear met it with open arms.
Siena knew all too well how open and vulnerable she was to her brothers’ games. She could just as easily be used as fodder for her brothers’ plans as her half-sisters.
And shit …
Maybe better her, than them.
Siena didn’t show her fear, or her weakness. Not to a woman like her mother. Coraline ate that shit for breakfast.
“Maybe that’s what bothers you the most, Ma,” Siena said, shrugging. “That one of the illegitimate daughters will be used before I ever am—the only legitimate daughter. Your daughter. What a fucking shame that would be, huh?”
Coraline’s gaze narrowed.
A silent threat.
A vicious promise.
“Legitimate in name and birth only,” Coraline hissed right back. “We all know how you’ve betrayed this family with all you have done to us, Siena. None of us will ever forget the disgrace you are. Marrying you off to get you off our hands, or getting rid of you by some other means would be a blessing. Nothing more.”
Kev chuckled. “She’s got a point.”
What a life this was.
The disgraced one.
Siena wished she cared.
• • •
The church quieted as the Calabrese family slipped inside. Siena stayed firmly behind her older brothers, yet still in front of her mother. Appearances were everything, and even how they entered a space was now a well thought out event.
Kev stayed a half of a pace ahead of Darren. A subtle, yet still clear, message about which of the two men now ran the Calabrese show. Darren never seemed to mind, as his brother’s right-hand man, seeing as how he still had quite a bit of control himself.
Siena was always made to be in between her brothers and mother—a clear indicator that she was both protected, and watched. Enforcers trailed behind them all. One for each person, and sometimes more.
Somedays, it felt as though Siena couldn’t breathe. Every direction she looked, someone new was watching her. Someone else would be reporting back to her brothers on her latest behaviors.
She found it easier to be compliant and complacent, but inside, she was a raging monster battling against the walls of her cage. A prison cell that no one else could see, sure, but that she was all too aware of when it came right down to it.
Siena’s gaze drifted over the people already sitting down and waiting for the funeral to start. She didn’t linger on one person for any length of time, and she didn’t even give them a smile. What would be the point?
She was only there for show.
Much like her brothers.
At the front of the church, standing at the closed casket of a now-dead Calabrese Capo, was the family of Arty Moretti. Siena stayed back beside her mother as Kev and Darren greeted the dead man’s wife first, and then his oldest daughter, and one son. Both of the man’s children were adults—Siena counted that as a blessing in disguise when it came to this war between the Calabrese and Marcello families.
At least this way, the two were not young children now left without a father. They were already adults into their own lives, and would not be left feeling abandoned and alone. Or … that was her hope for them.
She suspected it still hurt them, of course. Grief was a lot like the ocean—wide, sometimes clear and sometimes murky, and always dangerous. It could swallow someone whole, and drown them in pain.
Siena stepped up to the family when her brothers moved away. As Kev and Darren moved to speak with a couple of their men gathered close by, she and her mother took to comforting the family.
It was also their job.
Another one added to the pile.
And what did they say to these poor people?
“We’re so sorry.”
Sorry our family has taken from you.
“We’re here for you.”
So long as you are here for us.
“He is with God.”
And more men will soon join him.
Because that was the way of war, and that was all that could be guaranteed for these people, and their pain. More deaths would follow, and it would be all the Calabrese family’s fault.
Why?
Siena’s gaze drifted to her brothers again. Sure, they looked as though they fit the part of mafia principes turned kings in their black suits, shined shoes, slicked back hair, and straightened postures. Their cold eyes held little warmth, and their tones delivered orders with a sharp flatness that could both chill, and slice at the same time.
Matteo—during the years that he lived—had certainly trained her brothers well. They stepped into the positions they needed to without hesitation, and without batting an eye. The rest of the Calabrese organization didn’t think to question the brothers when they moved up in power, and replaced others that might have been a better fit. No one said a thing when they first tried to strong-arm the Marcellos into a peaceful deal, and then turned on them when said deal went sour.
Fingers pointed.
Bullets were readied.
Blood spilled.
The city tasted like war now.
Nothing could stop them. Kev and Darren were obsessive in their desire and assurance that the Calabrese family would soon be the one running New York City with an iron fist.
Well, that’s how it felt, anyway. They still had to get the little issue of the Marcellos out of the way. The Marcello family made it very clear that would not be an easy task.
Siena patted the hand of the Capo’s widow, and offered her a smile. A forced smile, sure, and one that didn’t reach her eyes, but who could tell? It was a funeral, after all. No one was supposed to be happy or true.
“Anything you need, I promise,” Siena repeated.
The woman nodded. “Thank you, Siena. You’re such a sweet girl. Your brothers must be so proud of you.”
Siena smiled a little more honestly at that statement. Bitterness coated her tongue with the taste of bile, and she patted the woman’s hand once more.
“You have no idea,” she murmured.
As quickly as Siena had greeted the woman and her adult children, she turned away from them, and followed behind her now-moving brothers. Kev and Darren weaved through the group of men who had come to talk to them, and made for their designated seats.
Only because this was not their family’s funeral, and this was not their church, did they sit in the pew directly behind the family. Unfortunately, while sitting, there was no chance for Siena to hide her displeasure or discomfort behind her brothers’ backs. She was forced to take a little more care with her appearance, and the mask she put forth.
Darren looked over at her. “Did you really have to pick a purple dress?”
“It’s a dark color.”
“Black is appropriate.”
“I’m fucking sick of black, Darren.”
All she ever seemed to wear anymore was black.
Once this was all over—she had not forgotten what Andino Marcello told her months ago when she was ripped away from John, after all—she was never going to wear black again. Not unless someone fucking forced her into the color.
This won’t be forever.
Those words rang and rang.
They echoed and echoed.
She kept them close.
What else could she do?
A few minutes before the service was supposed to start, murmurings passed between the people in the pews. Heads began to turn in the direction that the whispering started. Hot, humid heat from the outside slipped up the church’s aisle.
Siena turned, too.
She wanted to see, too.
There, at the back of the church dressed in black on black and standing in a close line of at least ten men, were Marcellos.
The boss. His men. John’s father.
Dante Marcello—the boss of the family—smiled and ticked a finger forward. His men moved behind him as he took a step forward, and then another. Slow, purposeful strides. A confident, uncaring stroll.
Beside Siena, her brothers and mother hissed back and forth between one another. Clearly, they had not been expecting this move.
Siena was kind of impressed.
“How fucking dare they?” Kev asked.
“Stop sitting there—do something,” Darren snarled.
“What should he do?” their mother asked. “He cannot make a scene in this church.”
No, Kev certainly couldn’t.
Once again, it looked like her brothers were bowing down to the Marcellos. It seemed as though not every battle was started and finished with bullets, blood, and funerals. Some battles were won with killer smiles, and a simple show of power.
Siena was starting to believe she should keep score.
Calabrese family—zero.
The Marcellos—one.
• • •
It was almost funny how one simple action could change all kinds of circumstances. Suddenly, the enforcers that rarely left Siena alone when she was outside of her brothers’ sights were now fully distracted by the show happening inside the entrance of the church.
With the funeral over, it seemed Siena’s brothers had finally decided to take action with the Marcellos.
Better late than never.
Siena hung back behind the crowd—her interest in watching men verbally spar over their growing feud was nonexistent. None of this would do her or the cause she was silently fighting for any good at the end of the day.
She kept one eye on her mother as Coraline edged along the crowd. Her mother’s eagle eye was fully pointed on Kev, Darren, and the Marcellos.
Siena never would have taken her mother for a woman who involved herself in mafia politics, or the business of men. And yet, there Coraline was on a daily basis. Doing exactly those things with her sons, and never thinking twice about it.
Who knew why.
The name she carried.
The man—now dead—she had married.
The legacy behind her.
The promise of one ahead of her.
Siena didn’t know.
It wouldn’t matter when this was over.
A form slid in beside Siena. She stiffened a bit at the man’s presence, and the scent of his familiar cologne. He wouldn’t typically be so bold, but it seemed like everyone around them at the moment was currently distracted.
Andino smiled a bit when Siena looked at him. “What do you have for me?”
This little game of theirs had started months ago. It started with nothing more than a single sentence in passing from Andino--perhaps you should take up a hobby … like yoga. Back when there had seemed like a chance of settling this feud between their families with something like a marriage was possible, he had given her that line, and she ran with it.
Yoga it was.
It was the only time—two hours twice a week—that her brothers allowed Siena any kind of privacy and peace. The enforcers stayed outside the complex. She slipped out the back. Andino was always waiting.
John’s cousin was fighting this war in a far dirtier way.
Siena respected him for it, really.
“Well?” he asked again. “What do you have for me?”
“A west end warehouse,” Siena said. “An attack in a couple of days. Retribution for Arty’s death. That’s all I know.”
Andino’s face cleared of emotion, and his gaze hardened. “All right. You don’t know what, or how many—”
“I would tell you if I did. You know that.”
Andino’s hand touched her shoulder lightly. “I know.”
She glanced back at him again. “I miss him.”
John.
She always missed him.
She hadn’t seen him in months.
Andino nodded once. “I know that, too. Soon, Siena. I know he’ll be getting out soon. He made the choice to stay in the facility for this long because of his own health. He chose stability. That’s the thing about John, and being bipolar. I don’t think he’s ever really chosen stability before now. And with that comes taking a hard, long look at a lot of things in his life. I don’t think he felt it was good for him mentally to try handling his personal business while dealing with everything outside of it, too.”
“I want him to be good.”
She wanted John to be healthy, and happy.
Safe.
He was not going to come out to stability, or safety.
Not now.
“He’s going to be fucking great,” Andino said with a grin, “as long as you’re still waiting for him when he’s ready to come back, then nothing else matters.”
“Of course, I’ll be waiting.”
She loved John.
Nothing was ever going to change that.
Andino nodded. “So, hey, what’s the thirtieth looking like for you?”
“Of this month?”
“Yeah.”
Siena shrugged. “Yoga.”
Andino chuckled. “Thought so. I’ll be waiting. We should really go visit John.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, girl, really.”
That made everything so much better.
“Okay, go before someone sees you with me,” she said, flicking her hand at him.
Andino rolled his eyes. “Trust me—they’re all too stuck up their own asses to even think about you right now. You didn’t seriously think this whole show was just about fucking with their heads, did you?”
“Well …”
Yeah, kind of.
Andino smirked. “I will always find a way to get my message in, Siena, no matter how protected they think you are. Do you have a new phone?”
“Yeah, Kev changed it again last week.”
“Same old, same old.”
Siena nodded once. “Random wrong numbers, I know.”
“This whole thing isn’t forever, remember. Soon, you’ll have what you want.”
Not what.
Who.
She reminded herself daily that this wasn’t forever.
No, it was just for right now.
Forever was going to be far more beautiful.
CHAPTER TWO
THE RED CIRCLE around July twentieth both taunted and promised Johnathan Marcello. It was just a date—a single date among many on the calendar. One of the nurses at Clearview Oaks had given him the calendar months ago when he first arrived. Each month showcased a different picture of the facility’s grounds.
The older nurse had suggested that crossing off dates on the calendar would give him some sort of satisfaction. It hadn’t, of course. Not until he knew his release date.
Now, every little black X in permanent marker felt like another chain coming undone from his body. And yet, the closer he got to that big red circle, the tighter the invisible rope became around his throat.
Strange how that worked.
“Nervous, John?”
He spun on his heels to find his therapist leaning in the doorway of his private room. Patients weren’t allowed to have their doors closed unless the doctor was also in the room, and only if the patient was nonviolent. On a suicide watch, the door was never closed. Ever.
“Well?” Leonard pressed.
“For what?”
“Your chosen release date is coming up. Three weeks away.”
John passed the calendar one more look. “I like how you posed that as if I chose when I could leave, when actually—”
“You did choose.”
Leonard smiled when John glanced back at him.
“You made it clear you didn’t think I was ready to go,” John said pointedly.
The older man shrugged. “Yes, well, you weren’t. Every little medication change sent you into another round, and we had trouble getting you settled with the right dose of Lithium. Never mind the actual therapy, John.”
“I am, though. A little nervous, I mean.”
“All normal, considering.”
“I’m looking forward to it, too.”
“As you should,” Leonard replied. “I’m curious, though, what has you the most nervous.”
John laughed under his breath. Running this fingers through his hair, he once again turned to face the calendar. Leonard had a way of pushing John into talking about things beyond the surface of what he presented to the world. The therapist had no problem with really digging into the crux of John’s issues.
About life.
His family.
Being bipolar.
Out of the many, many therapists John had gone through in his life, Leonard was—by far—the best for him personally. Sure, he didn’t always like what the older man had to say. He didn’t particularly appreciate being forced to drag out old issues and dirty laundry to reexamine. That didn’t mean Leonard’s tactics were useless.
They weren’t.
They worked.
They worked especially well for John.
What more could he ask for?
“Well?” the therapist pressed when John stayed quiet. “What has you nervous—reentering life, integrating with your family again … her?”
John swallowed hard.
Her.
Siena.
John chuckled. “Not her. Never her.”
Leonard returned John’s smile. “You haven’t seen the woman in … well, almost four months, now. You sound very sure of that statement, though.”
He was.
It wasn’t like he had a reason to be.
He also didn’t have a reason not to be.
John shrugged. “It’s not her.”
“The rest, then?”
“It’s a mixture of the rest, I think.”
Leonard closed the door behind him, and stepped further into the room. He waved a hand at John, and then gestured toward the seating area next to the windows. So was the therapist’s way when it came to a session. He liked to make John sit, while he remained standing, or pacing. Sometimes Leonard would also sit, but it wasn’t particularly often.
John’s private room was more like a very expensive, yet also clinical-feeling, bachelor pad. He had his own small kitchen with a two-person table. A double bed, and private bathroom. A sitting area with bookshelves and a flat screen television. The walls showcased photographs of mountains and colorful flowers set in clear frames. The floor was a marble stone that somehow never felt too cold in the mornings.
If anything, it was comfortable. Clean, which he appreciated. Simplistic in design, and catered to his private needs. He had a private phone line to make calls out if he needed to or wanted to, but other than a few calls to his mother, he had not used the phone a lot. After all, he was here to get better, and to focus on himself. Besides, the person he wanted to talk to the most—Siena—he had not been able to. For whatever reason, her old number was dead. No one had given him a reason why.
John had been able to make his room at Clearview Oaks feel somewhat like home in different ways.
John opted to sit in one of the white leather recliners next to the window. Leonard leaned against the wall beside the flat screen, and gazed out the window. Next to the backdrop of crisp white walls, the therapist blended in with his stark white hair and jacket.
“Let’s talk, John,” Leonard said.
“You are aware I know why you like to stand and pace while I stay sitting, right?”
Leonard’s gray eyes cut to John with amusement dancing in his thick, lifted brows. “Oh, do tell.”
“When you sit, then I can zone out. I know exactly where you are, and I feel safer to focus my attention elsewhere. The wall, or the clock. Maybe a picture. My hands. Whatever it is, then I don’t have to keep an eye on you because you’re no longer moving around and keeping my attention on you.”
“Keep going.”
“When you move, the kind of man I am, means I have to keep an eye on you constantly. I can’t let you move behind me, or too close to my side. I need to see your hands, and what they’re doing. It takes up a great deal of the focus in my brain, and that makes my mouth vulnerable to letting things slip. If I can zone out, I am far less likely to talk. Or if I do, it’s … as you say, surface things.”
“What people see, not what really is.”
John nodded. “Although, if you would sit, I would talk, too. For you.”
The man’s smile softened a bit. “Would you?”
“I would, Leonard.”
“I thought so,” Leonard replied as he moved to take a seat across from John. “And well done on figuring that strategy of mine out. It only took you … a few months.”
“A couple,” John shot back. “I knew about a month in.”
Leonard chuckled, and wagged a finger at John. “Talk, now.”
“It’s different.”
“What is?”
“Here, to there. Being inside here, and then going back into the outside. One of the first things you told me was that I had to choose stability. Not just for now, or for a while, or even for a few years. I had to choose stability for the rest of my life.”
Which meant meds, even when they made him feel like shit. It meant choosing to get up every single day and take medications regardless of how he felt about it until a better medication could be chosen. It also meant never excusing himself because of being bipolar, but accepting and being honest about it. It meant being honest to those in his life about what was happening inside his mind, and keeping himself accountable.
Stability was a choice.
Because he could just as easily choose to refuse meds, to self-medicate, or to live his life in a constant spiral of hypomania, full blown mania, and depression. A vicious cycle that would continue to hurt him, and those around him.
John chose stability.
He didn’t expect it to always be easy.
“Because in here is routine,” John said, glancing out the window. “Here, I know exactly what time the lights are going to come on, and when I can go outside. I know which channels will be on the television, and what the menu looks like for the next week. I know which meds are coming, and which ones need to change. I just … know everything.”
“Your life is also pretty structured outside of here, too,” Leonard reminded him. “You have made a great effort to set up personal routines that you like to follow, from what time you get up in the morning, to how you clean your house. You’re not leaving an environment like this and walking into pure chaos, John.”
John nodded because the man was right. “Sure.”
“But you have the factor of the unknown out there that we don’t provide in here.”
“Exactly.”
“I understand why that’s a little unsettling.”
“It might help if they told me more,” he said.
John didn’t say who, specifically, but the therapist understood what he meant. The only people who came to visit him—his choice, not others—were his father, and Andino. His uncle, Giovanni, had come once as well, and got the bottle of booze he brought along confiscated. It was, by far, one of the most amusing days since John entered the facility.
Still, when the men of his family came, they didn’t talk about business. They never told John what was happening outside of these walls, or what he could expect once he left the facility. It was a little unsettling because he wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
Were they hiding something from him?
What was it, if they were?
Leonard also knew some of the private details of John’s life that he didn’t share with outsiders. Or rather, the illegal side of John’s life being that he was a made man, and fully engrained in the way of Cosa Nostra.
It certainly helped for these talks.
John didn’t need to skip details, or dance around them in some way. He was able to be honest with his therapist, and because he too knew things about Leonard’s personal life, he did not feel as if it might get him in trouble simply to talk.
All good things.
“I think they intend for you to focus on yourself, and not … the business,” Leonard murmured.
“Funny.”
“What is?”
“I’ve been focusing on the business a lot lately.”
“Because you don’t know what’s happening?”
“Mostly.”
Leonard nodded once. “You’re going to do fine, John. Regardless if you leave here and it is sunshine, rainbows, and puppies, or if it is hellfire, chaos, and anarchy. The unknown can only really threaten your stability if you allow it to dig in a bit too much, if you get what I mean.”
“I do.”
“Good.” Leonard stood, and brushed invisible lint from his pant legs. “I also have another proposition for you before I give you some good news.”
John smirked. “How about you give me the good news first?”
“Nice try. I make the rules.”
Asshole.
“What is the proposition?” John asked.
“You need a therapist when you leave here.”
John stiffened.
This was not a topic he wanted to discuss because it was a sore spot for him. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Clearview Oaks only to need to find a new therapist to see. He was not about to trust someone after the last debacle.
“I can physically feel how much discomfort this is causing you,” Leonard said.
“Yeah, well, what can you do,” John said through gritted teeth. “Nothing, apparently.”
“I would take your file on as a patient outside of this facility. Twice weekly. One weekday, and one day on the weekend.”
The tension in John’s body bled out slowly. “Would you?”
“Sometimes,” Leonard said, “it is more about the patient finding the right doctor, than it is about anything else.”
“Twice weekly, then.”
“Do you want the good news, now?”
John nodded, and stood from the chair. “I almost forgot about it with the whole new therapist thing, actually. What is it?”
“You’ll have visitors tomorrow. Your cousin—Andino—and a couple of people he’s bringing along. Ladies, apparently, if the information he provided is to be trusted. Unlike his father, Andino doesn’t tend to be disruptive when he comes here.”
John only laughed. “My uncle, Giovanni, makes it his first and only goal to have fun.”
“This is not the place for fun.”
“Mmm.”
“You didn’t ask who Andino is bringing, by the way,” Leonard said over his shoulder as he left the room.
Fuck.
He hadn’t.
Too late now.
• • •
“John, my man. You’re looking good.”
He heard his cousin’s greeting, and felt Andino’s firm hug, but John’s gaze was locked on the dark-haired beauty standing just a few feet away. After all, it was kind of fucking impossible for him to pay attention to anything when the love of his life was once again gracing his presence. She was the only thing that ever mattered.
Siena wore the brightest smile that matched the flower printed summer dress accentuating all of her curves and height. A dress that showed off all kinds of leg, and the four inch heels on her feet. She had let her long, dark hair down in soft waves. One of his favorite styles on her because he could wrap his fingers in the silky strands, and get lost. She’d painted her lips a striking red, and those blue eyes of hers never left him once.
Damn.
What had Andino just said?
John didn’t know.
His attention was somewhere else entirely.
“What?” he asked Andino.
His cousin only laughed, and the man’s green eyes looked John over. In his usual suit and shined shoes, Andino made John miss the fact he hadn’t worn proper Armani in months. Instead, he’d dressed down with jeans and T-shirts.
“Shit, you didn’t hear a word I just said, huh?” Andino asked.
John’s gaze drifted to a very patient, quiet Siena. “Not really, no. Sorry, man.”
Andino clapped John’s cheek with a gentle pat as he chuckled. “Nah, it’s okay. You’ve got a good reason to be off your game today. I guess they didn’t fill you in on who I was bringing along to visit, or what?”
“Leonard has his odd ways.”
“Sure, sure.”
“It’s good, though.”
So good.
John wasn’t the type who appreciated surprises, but this was far more than fine. Surprises were unknowns that he couldn’t prepare for, and he much preferred to prepare for an unknown. This, though? He didn’t mind this surprise at all.
“Anyway,” Andino said, turning to stand beside John. His cousin gestured in front of them. “I said, I hope you don’t mind that I brought someone else to properly meet you. I mean, I know this place is supposed to be sacred for you, and all. Focusing on you, but I might not get another time to do this before you come home.”
Yes.
The woman standing at Siena’s side.
Haven.
John had noticed the woman, of course, but his mind always tended to focus in on the most important things first, and then everything else second. Siena was, by far, the most important thing standing on the walkway in that moment when it came to John and his life. And shit, he had been counting down the days until he would get to see Siena again. Not that he had known today would be the day.
No offence to Haven.
Or Andino.
John said none of those things out loud.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Andino asked again.
John shook his head. “No, man. Of course, not.”
“Good. I want you to meet the girl I’m going to marry, you know. Properly fucking meet her, John. Not hear things about her from someone else, or see her in passing. Actually meet her with me. Take some time to sit down and have a real conversation with her. I talk about you all the time, and she’s a little out of the loop about me and you. Kind of a big fucking deal to me, and everything.”
John’s brow rose high as he took in his cousin a second time. Andino never looked more nervous than he had in that moment. His cousin scrubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw, and his gaze kept darting back to Haven like he didn’t want to take his eyes off her for even one damn minute.
Huh.
John knew that look.
He had that look.
Every time he looked at Siena, that was.
It was kind of strange for John to see his cousin so off-balance in this way. And marriage? Genuine, honest to God, going to settle down marriage?
John never thought he would see the day. Not where Andino was concerned, anyway. His cousin just wasn’t the type to settle down into a monogamous relationship where something like forever and love might get thrown in the conversation. Not to mention, Andino was usually the guy who liked to poke fun at a man who did get his dick tied into a knot over a woman.
This was a whole one-eighty.
So yeah, John did a double-take.
“Seriously?”
Andino nodded. “Yeah, man.”
“I thought … I mean, the family didn’t have a high opinion of her a few months ago, and all. I thought they had made it clear she wasn’t acceptable, or some shit. You kind of gave me the impression you didn’t know what the hell you were doing about them, her, or the rest.”
“It’s not about them.”
Fact.
He knew that all too well. Sometimes when it came to their family, the best thing a man could do on the personal side of his life was shut the fuck down. Keep everything closed up tight. Make it clear nothing was open for discussion.
John didn’t know if that’s what Andino had done when it came to Haven, or not. It also really didn’t fucking matter.
Good for Andino.
Whatever it took to get what the man wanted.
John laughed, and clapped his cousin on the shoulder. Dragging Andino in for a quick, tight one-armed hug, the two men’s laughter colored up the front yard of the facility. Andino hugged John back with a firm hold.
Some of John’s unease about leaving the facility started to drift away in those few seconds. Despite how his disorder often colored up his impressions and perceptions of his family, he still found himself reminded time and time again of their loyalty and love for him.
No, he didn’t mind at all that Andino brought his girl along. He appreciated it, really. He would make sure to take time and speak with Haven while she was there because it was what she, and Andino, deserved.
Besides, the woman had to be something interesting to catch Andino Marcello’s eye, and steal his fucking heart.
But for now …
“Give me some time with Siena,” John said quietly as he pulled away from his cousin. “It’s been too long.”
Andino stepped aside. “You got it, John.”
All John needed to do was hold his hand out in Siena’s direction, and she instantly darted forward to catch it with her own. The second her warm palm fitted in his, and her fingers wove around his own, John’s world tilted back to its proper axis once more.
Strange how that worked.
It had been months since he looked at her--talked to her—and yet it took only one single touch from her to settle him. His restless heart calmed, and his tight chest relaxed. Everything that was right and good in his world was currently holding his hand. It was just a gesture. A small act of affection, but it was everything and more to John, too.
Siena’s blue eyes met his, and her sweet smile grew a little more. Her olive-toned skin flushed with a happy pink when he bent down and caught her lips in a quick kiss. Maybe he should have asked if that was okay with her, but the way she kissed him back said it was just fucking fine, anyway.
He had a million and one things to ask.
About her.
Them.
The outside.
The families.
Business.
The war she had alluded to the last time she was there with him.
So damn much.
And yet, all John wanted to do was kiss her. He only wanted to drag Siena closer, wrap his arms around her, and breathe her in. All her familiar warmth, scent, and love. All of her.
The world ceased to exist.
Nothing else mattered.
Unfortunately, the facility had goddamn policies about public displays of affection, and that forced John to pull away from the kiss far sooner than he wanted to. Siena only grinned and kissed the pad of his thumb when he stroked her bottom lip.
“Damn, I missed you,” he said.
Through thick, lowered lashes, she watched him. “Did you?”
“Every day.”
“Every single day?”
John smirked. “First thing on my mind in the morning.”
“What about at night?”
“Last thing I think about before I go to sleep, bella.”
Siena’s love colored her happiness. John knew his wasn’t always as easy to see because he made a great effort to keep those vulnerable parts of himself well hidden from the world. It had become such a habit that he worried now whether or not the people who deserved to see his love could actually see it.
People like Siena.
She had her ways of reminding him everything was just fine. Her palm came up to cup the side of his face, and her thumb stroked his cheekbone.
“I missed you, too.”
“Walk with me,” he demanded.
Siena nodded, and tucked in close to his side as they moved off the main walkway, and headed onto the cobblestone path that led all over the facility’s private, protected grounds. John took a quick look over his shoulder, and found Andino was still standing side by side with Haven. His cousin hugged the woman in close, and kissed the top of her head when she laughed about something.
Yeah, John most definitely knew that look his cousin sported.
Siena’s quiet little hum brought John’s attention right back to her. Glittering eyes looked him over, and she reached up to stroke his face once more with her fingertips. “I wish I had more time today.”
John tried not to frown, and failed. “Andino didn’t say anything about you leaving.”
“I only have a couple of hours before I have to be back. Yoga ends at two, so.”
“Yeah, still doing that, huh?”
Siena let out a hard breath, and looked away from him when she spoke again. “It’s the only way I can get out of my brothers’ sights for more than five minutes. Or hell, one of the enforcers they’re always sticking me with.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.
Not at all.
“So what, they haven’t figured out that you sneak away when you’re supposed to be at yoga, yet?” he asked.
“No.” Siena shrugged. “But I’ve only done it when I need to do something, or meet someone.”
“Meet someone?”
“Andino, mostly. Sometimes it’s someone else.”
“Meet them for what?” he pressed.
“Not important.”
John tugged on his girl’s hand, and the action made her look at him. “It is important, amore. Why are you meeting people behind your brothers’ backs, and what’s happening that people aren’t telling me about?”
“A lot.”
“Like what?”
Siena glanced over her shoulder, and back down the path. They had gone far enough that neither of them could see Andino or Haven any longer. John doubted his cousin would leave him alone for very long, especially not if the visit wasn’t meant to last.
“Andino doesn’t want me—”
“Fuck what he wants,” John said. “It’s me asking right now.”
Siena looked down at the path. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s happened over the past little while since you came here. At first, the families tried to avoid a feud between them with more peaceful means. When all that went to shit, the violence really got started.”
“You said war before.”
“That’s the impression I got from my brothers.”
“But was it?” he asked.
Siena shook her head. “Not like it is now. It’s bad now.”
Fuck.
“No one’s mentioned this to me when they visit,” he said.
Siena cleared her throat. “You have to focus on you.”
“I’m aware, but—”
Quick as a blink, Siena had turned on her heel, and stopped John from walking any further on the pathway. Her hands came up to press against his chest, and her fingernails dug in just enough to make him suck in a sharp breath.
She tipped her head up, and pressed a fast kiss to his lips. Just like that, everything he was worrying about was gone in an instant.
The girl had many talents.
Distracting him was just one.
“I promised Andino I wouldn’t tell you,” Siena whispered against his lips. “Please just focus on you for the time you have left here, John.”
“I am,” he assured her.
His hands cupped her face, and he kept her close enough that she was forced to keep her eyes on only him. Nothing else but him.
He needed to see her, too.
“They mean well,” she said. “You have to trust them.”
He heard her.
He understood.
It still was hard.
CHAPTER ONE
STIFLING WAS NOT a word Siena Calabrese used often, but at the moment, it was the one that best fit her life. Hot, stuffy mid-June air blew through the hallway of her oldest brother’s brownstone. It reminded her that it wasn’t only the two men looming at her back making her feel like she was roasting with suffocation. Even the muggy weather had hot, sticky hands around her small throat.
So was her life, now.
“Greta, Giulia,” Siena greeted.
The two teenaged girls stepped into the brownstone with guarded eyes. As they always did. As they should. There was nothing in that house—but for Siena, perhaps—that could be trusted, and the girls knew it.
Every time they were faced with their half-brothers, Siena highly suspected Greta and Giulia wondered about their fate. Or rather, what their fate might bring for them today.
Greta more than Giulia, likely. She was, after all, closing in on eighteen faster and faster. Giulia, on the other hand, was only fifteen. She still had a few years of safety under her belt.
Not even the girls’ mother had been able to save them.
Not when it came to Kev and Darren.
“I like the red,” Siena said, reaching out to play with a few strands of Greta’s long, wavy hair. Her half-sister only offered a slight, yet still awkward, smile in response. “I thought you were thinking about something darker?”
Greta shrugged. “Ma liked red.”
Silence saturated the hallway. Both of Siena’s half-sisters refused to look up from the floor, not even after Kev cleared his throat, and Darren let out an exasperated sigh.
“Too bad she won’t be able to see it,” Siena said.
She was only forcing herself to talk because every part of her felt like Greta and Giulia. As though she should hide away somewhere, and avoid drawing attention to herself. That would be for the best—that was what would be the safest for her.
Siena couldn’t do that.
Not now.
Not after everything.
It would be like throwing these two young girls to the wolves. Those wolves being their own half-brothers.
It wasn’t like any of the Calabrese daughters—not Siena, being the only legitimate daughter, or her half-sisters, born to her dead father’s equally dead mistress—could trust their brothers to have their best interests in mind. Kev and Darren had proved over the last few months that their interests were solely tied up in one thing, and one thing only.
Moving higher.
Ruining the Marcellos.
Taking over New York.
Siena’s mind drifted over the months that had passed since her father’s murder, and then John going into a facility. A little bit of February, March, April, May, and now here they were in the middle of June.
Her father was still dead.
John was still gone.
And yet … so much had changed.
So very much was different.
Kev had taken over as the boss in lieu of their father’s death. Darren was, of course, Kev’s right hand man. If only that was all …
A failed marriage arrangement. A missing half-sister. Two others, now orphaned. A war on the streets. Bodies piling up.
Siena shook those thoughts out of her head. She could not afford to get lost in them today, and certainly not right now. It didn’t help that Kev and Darren were at her back damn near constantly. She couldn’t move without one of them knowing about it.
Again … so was her life.
But for these two girls?
For her little sisters, so lost without their own big sister to guide them, Siena was present. She forced herself to be present and to do what she needed to do, so they saw a smiling face, and someone they could trust.
Because fuck Kev and Darren.
They would not do to these girls what they had tried to do to their missing sister. Well … to Greta and Giulia, Ginevra was missing. Siena knew the truth—and while right now, the younger Calabrese girls hurt, it would not last forever.
Missing did not mean dead. Someday, they would know that little fact, too.
“Are we all going to linger in the goddamn hallway all day, or have lunch?” Kev asked. “I’m starved.”
Greta and Giulia kept their gazes locked on the floor. Neither of them answered their brother, but frankly, they had learned rather quickly about Kev and Darren. When the two men asked a question, they weren’t actually looking for a response, but rather, an action.
They only wanted well-behaved women.
Very little else.
“Are you hungry?” Siena asked the girls.
“A little,” Greta said.
Giulia dared to look past Siena, and her familiar blue eyes narrowed. “Not particularly.”
Siena let a little smile slip through at the youngest girl’s barely hidden contempt. “I cooked, though.”
The girl’s gaze darted back to Siena in a blink. “Did you?”
“Your favorite.”
“Oh, well … okay.”
“I’m hungry,” Kev repeated.
“Then, go sit down in the damn dining room,” Siena barked over her shoulder.
The warning that flashed in both her brothers’ eyes was enough to tell Siena she was toeing a very thin line with them. Before her father’s death, she used to get away with a hell of a lot more than she did now.
Kev and Darren barely let her breathe. Apparently, even breathing was wrong. Or rather, Siena breathing was wrong.
“Let’s grab some food,” Siena told them.
The girls nodded, and then followed in front of her when she urged the two forward. Greta and Giulia passed by Kev and Darren without saying a word. Siena didn’t miss how the two sisters’ lips curled a bit in their disgust at being close to their brothers.
That could happen when a person was forced to watch brothers you barely knew do things like try and force your older sister into an arranged marriage, not to mention, how they found their mother one morning.
All by Kev and Darren’s hand.
Siena tried her fucking hardest to ignore the awkwardness as the siblings settled into the kitchen together. What else could she do at this point? What else could she possibly do for these two girls—both fighting invisible battles, and confused?
At least, she thought, Greta and Giulia had some freedom even if it was just an illusion. The two lived with an aunt, although the woman was largely paid and happily so by the Calabrese brothers. The sisters weren’t forced to be in Kev and Darren’s presence every single day of their lives. Usually once or twice a week, instead.
Siena, on the other hand …
Well, it all went back to the stifling thing again.
Her brothers were the worst.
She was rarely able to escape them.
It was a couple of hours later before Siena saw her half-sisters off. Shuffled into the back of a black town car driven by a Calabrese enforcer, Greta and Giulia were taken away once more. They were packed up like prized beauties to be brought out and dusted off for showing on another day.
Siena knew it.
The girls knew it.
A fucking shame, really.
“You’re late, Ma,” Kev grumbled.
“I had things to do, son.”
“Things like what, exactly?”
“A friend called.”
Kev scoffed. “Sure, Ma.”
As the footsteps of her mother and older brother came closer to the kitchen, Siena tried to relax the tension in her shoulders. The anger she felt toward her mother reared its ugly head whenever the two were in a damn room together.
Today was not going to be any fucking different.
How could it?
“I really did have other things come up, Kev,” her mother said.
The two were just outside the kitchen, now. Siena didn’t care to eavesdrop, but that had kind of become a part of her job.
So to speak …
“We are trying to put on a united front,” Kev reminded Coraline. “It is the most important thing right now. I’m quite aware of how you feel about Greta and Giulia, but you need to forget about it, Ma. Put it aside for now, so we can all handle our business in this city.”
“Mmm.”
“What?”
“Handle business,” Coraline said. “I suppose we’re going to pretend that another Calabrese Capo was not killed last week, are we?”
“No one is pretending—”
“Well, we can’t forget about that united front, Kev.”
“Ma.”
“I said what I said, didn’t I?”
Kev let out a harsh sigh. “We have a plan—an attack coming up. A few days after the funeral. One of their warehouses on the west end that they think we don’t know about. An answer to the Capo’s death. Darren thought it would be appropriate that we wait until after. Respect to the man, and all that.”
“Sure,” Coraline said. “Your father never would have waited.”
“I am not my father, Ma.”
“Obviously.”
Siena didn’t even bother to look up from the dishes she was washing as her mother and brother slipped into the kitchen. Coraline moved toward the island where a plate of hot food had been left to sit out for her, and looked it over.
“Really, Siena, chicken alfredo?” her mother asked.
Siena kept her attention on her work. “It’s Giulia’s favorite. I was trying to make her comfortable.”
Coraline made a noise under her breath.
It sounded a lot like disgust.
“It might have helped had you shown up like you were supposed to for dinner,” Siena added. “They were looking forward to having an actual conversation with you, Ma.”
Siena did turn around and chance a glance at her mother, then. Coraline looked like something awful had been shoved into her mouth. Horrified, displeased, and disgusted all at the same time.
The last thing this woman wanted to do was greet, be nice to, or handle anything about her husband’s mistress’s children.
It wasn’t like it was the girls’ fault. They hadn’t asked to be born, or for their father to be an unfaithful bastard. Yet, here they all were.
Coraline had been perfectly fine, pleased, and pampered in her life before Matteo’s death. She had not minded turning cheek to her husband’s behaviors, and dalliances with women. She even pretended like she didn’t know her husband’s mistress had once lived in a bigger house than she did simply because she birthed him the same amount of children that Coraline had given to Matteo.
No, none of that had mattered to Coraline before.
Now, with Matteo dead, and the girls’ mother dead, Coraline had no choice.
Despite knowing it might cross one of her brother’s many lines, Siena didn’t mind reminding her mother of her place at the moment. Sometimes, it was the only thing that actually worked where Coraline was concerned.
“It would not look very good for you to shun the only Calabrese principessas della mafia,” Siena murmured, letting her finger edge along the line of the island as she spoke. “Even if those mafia princesses are illegitimate daughters born from a several decades-long affair. You know this, Ma.”
Coraline scowled.
Kev passed a look between the mother and daughter, but said nothing.
“They are not the only principessas of this family,” Coraline said, smiling in that cruel, cold way of hers. “And don’t you forget that, Siena.”
Dread slipped down Siena’s spine.
A cold fear met it with open arms.
Siena knew all too well how open and vulnerable she was to her brothers’ games. She could just as easily be used as fodder for her brothers’ plans as her half-sisters.
And shit …
Maybe better her, than them.
Siena didn’t show her fear, or her weakness. Not to a woman like her mother. Coraline ate that shit for breakfast.
“Maybe that’s what bothers you the most, Ma,” Siena said, shrugging. “That one of the illegitimate daughters will be used before I ever am—the only legitimate daughter. Your daughter. What a fucking shame that would be, huh?”
Coraline’s gaze narrowed.
A silent threat.
A vicious promise.
“Legitimate in name and birth only,” Coraline hissed right back. “We all know how you’ve betrayed this family with all you have done to us, Siena. None of us will ever forget the disgrace you are. Marrying you off to get you off our hands, or getting rid of you by some other means would be a blessing. Nothing more.”
Kev chuckled. “She’s got a point.”
What a life this was.
The disgraced one.
Siena wished she cared.
• • •
The church quieted as the Calabrese family slipped inside. Siena stayed firmly behind her older brothers, yet still in front of her mother. Appearances were everything, and even how they entered a space was now a well thought out event.
Kev stayed a half of a pace ahead of Darren. A subtle, yet still clear, message about which of the two men now ran the Calabrese show. Darren never seemed to mind, as his brother’s right-hand man, seeing as how he still had quite a bit of control himself.
Siena was always made to be in between her brothers and mother—a clear indicator that she was both protected, and watched. Enforcers trailed behind them all. One for each person, and sometimes more.
Somedays, it felt as though Siena couldn’t breathe. Every direction she looked, someone new was watching her. Someone else would be reporting back to her brothers on her latest behaviors.
She found it easier to be compliant and complacent, but inside, she was a raging monster battling against the walls of her cage. A prison cell that no one else could see, sure, but that she was all too aware of when it came right down to it.
Siena’s gaze drifted over the people already sitting down and waiting for the funeral to start. She didn’t linger on one person for any length of time, and she didn’t even give them a smile. What would be the point?
She was only there for show.
Much like her brothers.
At the front of the church, standing at the closed casket of a now-dead Calabrese Capo, was the family of Arty Moretti. Siena stayed back beside her mother as Kev and Darren greeted the dead man’s wife first, and then his oldest daughter, and one son. Both of the man’s children were adults—Siena counted that as a blessing in disguise when it came to this war between the Calabrese and Marcello families.
At least this way, the two were not young children now left without a father. They were already adults into their own lives, and would not be left feeling abandoned and alone. Or … that was her hope for them.
She suspected it still hurt them, of course. Grief was a lot like the ocean—wide, sometimes clear and sometimes murky, and always dangerous. It could swallow someone whole, and drown them in pain.
Siena stepped up to the family when her brothers moved away. As Kev and Darren moved to speak with a couple of their men gathered close by, she and her mother took to comforting the family.
It was also their job.
Another one added to the pile.
And what did they say to these poor people?
“We’re so sorry.”
Sorry our family has taken from you.
“We’re here for you.”
So long as you are here for us.
“He is with God.”
And more men will soon join him.
Because that was the way of war, and that was all that could be guaranteed for these people, and their pain. More deaths would follow, and it would be all the Calabrese family’s fault.
Why?
Siena’s gaze drifted to her brothers again. Sure, they looked as though they fit the part of mafia principes turned kings in their black suits, shined shoes, slicked back hair, and straightened postures. Their cold eyes held little warmth, and their tones delivered orders with a sharp flatness that could both chill, and slice at the same time.
Matteo—during the years that he lived—had certainly trained her brothers well. They stepped into the positions they needed to without hesitation, and without batting an eye. The rest of the Calabrese organization didn’t think to question the brothers when they moved up in power, and replaced others that might have been a better fit. No one said a thing when they first tried to strong-arm the Marcellos into a peaceful deal, and then turned on them when said deal went sour.
Fingers pointed.
Bullets were readied.
Blood spilled.
The city tasted like war now.
Nothing could stop them. Kev and Darren were obsessive in their desire and assurance that the Calabrese family would soon be the one running New York City with an iron fist.
Well, that’s how it felt, anyway. They still had to get the little issue of the Marcellos out of the way. The Marcello family made it very clear that would not be an easy task.
Siena patted the hand of the Capo’s widow, and offered her a smile. A forced smile, sure, and one that didn’t reach her eyes, but who could tell? It was a funeral, after all. No one was supposed to be happy or true.
“Anything you need, I promise,” Siena repeated.
The woman nodded. “Thank you, Siena. You’re such a sweet girl. Your brothers must be so proud of you.”
Siena smiled a little more honestly at that statement. Bitterness coated her tongue with the taste of bile, and she patted the woman’s hand once more.
“You have no idea,” she murmured.
As quickly as Siena had greeted the woman and her adult children, she turned away from them, and followed behind her now-moving brothers. Kev and Darren weaved through the group of men who had come to talk to them, and made for their designated seats.
Only because this was not their family’s funeral, and this was not their church, did they sit in the pew directly behind the family. Unfortunately, while sitting, there was no chance for Siena to hide her displeasure or discomfort behind her brothers’ backs. She was forced to take a little more care with her appearance, and the mask she put forth.
Darren looked over at her. “Did you really have to pick a purple dress?”
“It’s a dark color.”
“Black is appropriate.”
“I’m fucking sick of black, Darren.”
All she ever seemed to wear anymore was black.
Once this was all over—she had not forgotten what Andino Marcello told her months ago when she was ripped away from John, after all—she was never going to wear black again. Not unless someone fucking forced her into the color.
This won’t be forever.
Those words rang and rang.
They echoed and echoed.
She kept them close.
What else could she do?
A few minutes before the service was supposed to start, murmurings passed between the people in the pews. Heads began to turn in the direction that the whispering started. Hot, humid heat from the outside slipped up the church’s aisle.
Siena turned, too.
She wanted to see, too.
There, at the back of the church dressed in black on black and standing in a close line of at least ten men, were Marcellos.
The boss. His men. John’s father.
Dante Marcello—the boss of the family—smiled and ticked a finger forward. His men moved behind him as he took a step forward, and then another. Slow, purposeful strides. A confident, uncaring stroll.
Beside Siena, her brothers and mother hissed back and forth between one another. Clearly, they had not been expecting this move.
Siena was kind of impressed.
“How fucking dare they?” Kev asked.
“Stop sitting there—do something,” Darren snarled.
“What should he do?” their mother asked. “He cannot make a scene in this church.”
No, Kev certainly couldn’t.
Once again, it looked like her brothers were bowing down to the Marcellos. It seemed as though not every battle was started and finished with bullets, blood, and funerals. Some battles were won with killer smiles, and a simple show of power.
Siena was starting to believe she should keep score.
Calabrese family—zero.
The Marcellos—one.
• • •
It was almost funny how one simple action could change all kinds of circumstances. Suddenly, the enforcers that rarely left Siena alone when she was outside of her brothers’ sights were now fully distracted by the show happening inside the entrance of the church.
With the funeral over, it seemed Siena’s brothers had finally decided to take action with the Marcellos.
Better late than never.
Siena hung back behind the crowd—her interest in watching men verbally spar over their growing feud was nonexistent. None of this would do her or the cause she was silently fighting for any good at the end of the day.
She kept one eye on her mother as Coraline edged along the crowd. Her mother’s eagle eye was fully pointed on Kev, Darren, and the Marcellos.
Siena never would have taken her mother for a woman who involved herself in mafia politics, or the business of men. And yet, there Coraline was on a daily basis. Doing exactly those things with her sons, and never thinking twice about it.
Who knew why.
The name she carried.
The man—now dead—she had married.
The legacy behind her.
The promise of one ahead of her.
Siena didn’t know.
It wouldn’t matter when this was over.
A form slid in beside Siena. She stiffened a bit at the man’s presence, and the scent of his familiar cologne. He wouldn’t typically be so bold, but it seemed like everyone around them at the moment was currently distracted.
Andino smiled a bit when Siena looked at him. “What do you have for me?”
This little game of theirs had started months ago. It started with nothing more than a single sentence in passing from Andino--perhaps you should take up a hobby … like yoga. Back when there had seemed like a chance of settling this feud between their families with something like a marriage was possible, he had given her that line, and she ran with it.
Yoga it was.
It was the only time—two hours twice a week—that her brothers allowed Siena any kind of privacy and peace. The enforcers stayed outside the complex. She slipped out the back. Andino was always waiting.
John’s cousin was fighting this war in a far dirtier way.
Siena respected him for it, really.
“Well?” he asked again. “What do you have for me?”
“A west end warehouse,” Siena said. “An attack in a couple of days. Retribution for Arty’s death. That’s all I know.”
Andino’s face cleared of emotion, and his gaze hardened. “All right. You don’t know what, or how many—”
“I would tell you if I did. You know that.”
Andino’s hand touched her shoulder lightly. “I know.”
She glanced back at him again. “I miss him.”
John.
She always missed him.
She hadn’t seen him in months.
Andino nodded once. “I know that, too. Soon, Siena. I know he’ll be getting out soon. He made the choice to stay in the facility for this long because of his own health. He chose stability. That’s the thing about John, and being bipolar. I don’t think he’s ever really chosen stability before now. And with that comes taking a hard, long look at a lot of things in his life. I don’t think he felt it was good for him mentally to try handling his personal business while dealing with everything outside of it, too.”
“I want him to be good.”
She wanted John to be healthy, and happy.
Safe.
He was not going to come out to stability, or safety.
Not now.
“He’s going to be fucking great,” Andino said with a grin, “as long as you’re still waiting for him when he’s ready to come back, then nothing else matters.”
“Of course, I’ll be waiting.”
She loved John.
Nothing was ever going to change that.
Andino nodded. “So, hey, what’s the thirtieth looking like for you?”
“Of this month?”
“Yeah.”
Siena shrugged. “Yoga.”
Andino chuckled. “Thought so. I’ll be waiting. We should really go visit John.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, girl, really.”
That made everything so much better.
“Okay, go before someone sees you with me,” she said, flicking her hand at him.
Andino rolled his eyes. “Trust me—they’re all too stuck up their own asses to even think about you right now. You didn’t seriously think this whole show was just about fucking with their heads, did you?”
“Well …”
Yeah, kind of.
Andino smirked. “I will always find a way to get my message in, Siena, no matter how protected they think you are. Do you have a new phone?”
“Yeah, Kev changed it again last week.”
“Same old, same old.”
Siena nodded once. “Random wrong numbers, I know.”
“This whole thing isn’t forever, remember. Soon, you’ll have what you want.”
Not what.
Who.
She reminded herself daily that this wasn’t forever.
No, it was just for right now.
Forever was going to be far more beautiful.
CHAPTER TWO
THE RED CIRCLE around July twentieth both taunted and promised Johnathan Marcello. It was just a date—a single date among many on the calendar. One of the nurses at Clearview Oaks had given him the calendar months ago when he first arrived. Each month showcased a different picture of the facility’s grounds.
The older nurse had suggested that crossing off dates on the calendar would give him some sort of satisfaction. It hadn’t, of course. Not until he knew his release date.
Now, every little black X in permanent marker felt like another chain coming undone from his body. And yet, the closer he got to that big red circle, the tighter the invisible rope became around his throat.
Strange how that worked.
“Nervous, John?”
He spun on his heels to find his therapist leaning in the doorway of his private room. Patients weren’t allowed to have their doors closed unless the doctor was also in the room, and only if the patient was nonviolent. On a suicide watch, the door was never closed. Ever.
“Well?” Leonard pressed.
“For what?”
“Your chosen release date is coming up. Three weeks away.”
John passed the calendar one more look. “I like how you posed that as if I chose when I could leave, when actually—”
“You did choose.”
Leonard smiled when John glanced back at him.
“You made it clear you didn’t think I was ready to go,” John said pointedly.
The older man shrugged. “Yes, well, you weren’t. Every little medication change sent you into another round, and we had trouble getting you settled with the right dose of Lithium. Never mind the actual therapy, John.”
“I am, though. A little nervous, I mean.”
“All normal, considering.”
“I’m looking forward to it, too.”
“As you should,” Leonard replied. “I’m curious, though, what has you the most nervous.”
John laughed under his breath. Running this fingers through his hair, he once again turned to face the calendar. Leonard had a way of pushing John into talking about things beyond the surface of what he presented to the world. The therapist had no problem with really digging into the crux of John’s issues.
About life.
His family.
Being bipolar.
Out of the many, many therapists John had gone through in his life, Leonard was—by far—the best for him personally. Sure, he didn’t always like what the older man had to say. He didn’t particularly appreciate being forced to drag out old issues and dirty laundry to reexamine. That didn’t mean Leonard’s tactics were useless.
They weren’t.
They worked.
They worked especially well for John.
What more could he ask for?
“Well?” the therapist pressed when John stayed quiet. “What has you nervous—reentering life, integrating with your family again … her?”
John swallowed hard.
Her.
Siena.
John chuckled. “Not her. Never her.”
Leonard returned John’s smile. “You haven’t seen the woman in … well, almost four months, now. You sound very sure of that statement, though.”
He was.
It wasn’t like he had a reason to be.
He also didn’t have a reason not to be.
John shrugged. “It’s not her.”
“The rest, then?”
“It’s a mixture of the rest, I think.”
Leonard closed the door behind him, and stepped further into the room. He waved a hand at John, and then gestured toward the seating area next to the windows. So was the therapist’s way when it came to a session. He liked to make John sit, while he remained standing, or pacing. Sometimes Leonard would also sit, but it wasn’t particularly often.
John’s private room was more like a very expensive, yet also clinical-feeling, bachelor pad. He had his own small kitchen with a two-person table. A double bed, and private bathroom. A sitting area with bookshelves and a flat screen television. The walls showcased photographs of mountains and colorful flowers set in clear frames. The floor was a marble stone that somehow never felt too cold in the mornings.
If anything, it was comfortable. Clean, which he appreciated. Simplistic in design, and catered to his private needs. He had a private phone line to make calls out if he needed to or wanted to, but other than a few calls to his mother, he had not used the phone a lot. After all, he was here to get better, and to focus on himself. Besides, the person he wanted to talk to the most—Siena—he had not been able to. For whatever reason, her old number was dead. No one had given him a reason why.
John had been able to make his room at Clearview Oaks feel somewhat like home in different ways.
John opted to sit in one of the white leather recliners next to the window. Leonard leaned against the wall beside the flat screen, and gazed out the window. Next to the backdrop of crisp white walls, the therapist blended in with his stark white hair and jacket.
“Let’s talk, John,” Leonard said.
“You are aware I know why you like to stand and pace while I stay sitting, right?”
Leonard’s gray eyes cut to John with amusement dancing in his thick, lifted brows. “Oh, do tell.”
“When you sit, then I can zone out. I know exactly where you are, and I feel safer to focus my attention elsewhere. The wall, or the clock. Maybe a picture. My hands. Whatever it is, then I don’t have to keep an eye on you because you’re no longer moving around and keeping my attention on you.”
“Keep going.”
“When you move, the kind of man I am, means I have to keep an eye on you constantly. I can’t let you move behind me, or too close to my side. I need to see your hands, and what they’re doing. It takes up a great deal of the focus in my brain, and that makes my mouth vulnerable to letting things slip. If I can zone out, I am far less likely to talk. Or if I do, it’s … as you say, surface things.”
“What people see, not what really is.”
John nodded. “Although, if you would sit, I would talk, too. For you.”
The man’s smile softened a bit. “Would you?”
“I would, Leonard.”
“I thought so,” Leonard replied as he moved to take a seat across from John. “And well done on figuring that strategy of mine out. It only took you … a few months.”
“A couple,” John shot back. “I knew about a month in.”
Leonard chuckled, and wagged a finger at John. “Talk, now.”
“It’s different.”
“What is?”
“Here, to there. Being inside here, and then going back into the outside. One of the first things you told me was that I had to choose stability. Not just for now, or for a while, or even for a few years. I had to choose stability for the rest of my life.”
Which meant meds, even when they made him feel like shit. It meant choosing to get up every single day and take medications regardless of how he felt about it until a better medication could be chosen. It also meant never excusing himself because of being bipolar, but accepting and being honest about it. It meant being honest to those in his life about what was happening inside his mind, and keeping himself accountable.
Stability was a choice.
Because he could just as easily choose to refuse meds, to self-medicate, or to live his life in a constant spiral of hypomania, full blown mania, and depression. A vicious cycle that would continue to hurt him, and those around him.
John chose stability.
He didn’t expect it to always be easy.
“Because in here is routine,” John said, glancing out the window. “Here, I know exactly what time the lights are going to come on, and when I can go outside. I know which channels will be on the television, and what the menu looks like for the next week. I know which meds are coming, and which ones need to change. I just … know everything.”
“Your life is also pretty structured outside of here, too,” Leonard reminded him. “You have made a great effort to set up personal routines that you like to follow, from what time you get up in the morning, to how you clean your house. You’re not leaving an environment like this and walking into pure chaos, John.”
John nodded because the man was right. “Sure.”
“But you have the factor of the unknown out there that we don’t provide in here.”
“Exactly.”
“I understand why that’s a little unsettling.”
“It might help if they told me more,” he said.
John didn’t say who, specifically, but the therapist understood what he meant. The only people who came to visit him—his choice, not others—were his father, and Andino. His uncle, Giovanni, had come once as well, and got the bottle of booze he brought along confiscated. It was, by far, one of the most amusing days since John entered the facility.
Still, when the men of his family came, they didn’t talk about business. They never told John what was happening outside of these walls, or what he could expect once he left the facility. It was a little unsettling because he wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
Were they hiding something from him?
What was it, if they were?
Leonard also knew some of the private details of John’s life that he didn’t share with outsiders. Or rather, the illegal side of John’s life being that he was a made man, and fully engrained in the way of Cosa Nostra.
It certainly helped for these talks.
John didn’t need to skip details, or dance around them in some way. He was able to be honest with his therapist, and because he too knew things about Leonard’s personal life, he did not feel as if it might get him in trouble simply to talk.
All good things.
“I think they intend for you to focus on yourself, and not … the business,” Leonard murmured.
“Funny.”
“What is?”
“I’ve been focusing on the business a lot lately.”
“Because you don’t know what’s happening?”
“Mostly.”
Leonard nodded once. “You’re going to do fine, John. Regardless if you leave here and it is sunshine, rainbows, and puppies, or if it is hellfire, chaos, and anarchy. The unknown can only really threaten your stability if you allow it to dig in a bit too much, if you get what I mean.”
“I do.”
“Good.” Leonard stood, and brushed invisible lint from his pant legs. “I also have another proposition for you before I give you some good news.”
John smirked. “How about you give me the good news first?”
“Nice try. I make the rules.”
Asshole.
“What is the proposition?” John asked.
“You need a therapist when you leave here.”
John stiffened.
This was not a topic he wanted to discuss because it was a sore spot for him. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Clearview Oaks only to need to find a new therapist to see. He was not about to trust someone after the last debacle.
“I can physically feel how much discomfort this is causing you,” Leonard said.
“Yeah, well, what can you do,” John said through gritted teeth. “Nothing, apparently.”
“I would take your file on as a patient outside of this facility. Twice weekly. One weekday, and one day on the weekend.”
The tension in John’s body bled out slowly. “Would you?”
“Sometimes,” Leonard said, “it is more about the patient finding the right doctor, than it is about anything else.”
“Twice weekly, then.”
“Do you want the good news, now?”
John nodded, and stood from the chair. “I almost forgot about it with the whole new therapist thing, actually. What is it?”
“You’ll have visitors tomorrow. Your cousin—Andino—and a couple of people he’s bringing along. Ladies, apparently, if the information he provided is to be trusted. Unlike his father, Andino doesn’t tend to be disruptive when he comes here.”
John only laughed. “My uncle, Giovanni, makes it his first and only goal to have fun.”
“This is not the place for fun.”
“Mmm.”
“You didn’t ask who Andino is bringing, by the way,” Leonard said over his shoulder as he left the room.
Fuck.
He hadn’t.
Too late now.
• • •
“John, my man. You’re looking good.”
He heard his cousin’s greeting, and felt Andino’s firm hug, but John’s gaze was locked on the dark-haired beauty standing just a few feet away. After all, it was kind of fucking impossible for him to pay attention to anything when the love of his life was once again gracing his presence. She was the only thing that ever mattered.
Siena wore the brightest smile that matched the flower printed summer dress accentuating all of her curves and height. A dress that showed off all kinds of leg, and the four inch heels on her feet. She had let her long, dark hair down in soft waves. One of his favorite styles on her because he could wrap his fingers in the silky strands, and get lost. She’d painted her lips a striking red, and those blue eyes of hers never left him once.
Damn.
What had Andino just said?
John didn’t know.
His attention was somewhere else entirely.
“What?” he asked Andino.
His cousin only laughed, and the man’s green eyes looked John over. In his usual suit and shined shoes, Andino made John miss the fact he hadn’t worn proper Armani in months. Instead, he’d dressed down with jeans and T-shirts.
“Shit, you didn’t hear a word I just said, huh?” Andino asked.
John’s gaze drifted to a very patient, quiet Siena. “Not really, no. Sorry, man.”
Andino clapped John’s cheek with a gentle pat as he chuckled. “Nah, it’s okay. You’ve got a good reason to be off your game today. I guess they didn’t fill you in on who I was bringing along to visit, or what?”
“Leonard has his odd ways.”
“Sure, sure.”
“It’s good, though.”
So good.
John wasn’t the type who appreciated surprises, but this was far more than fine. Surprises were unknowns that he couldn’t prepare for, and he much preferred to prepare for an unknown. This, though? He didn’t mind this surprise at all.
“Anyway,” Andino said, turning to stand beside John. His cousin gestured in front of them. “I said, I hope you don’t mind that I brought someone else to properly meet you. I mean, I know this place is supposed to be sacred for you, and all. Focusing on you, but I might not get another time to do this before you come home.”
Yes.
The woman standing at Siena’s side.
Haven.
John had noticed the woman, of course, but his mind always tended to focus in on the most important things first, and then everything else second. Siena was, by far, the most important thing standing on the walkway in that moment when it came to John and his life. And shit, he had been counting down the days until he would get to see Siena again. Not that he had known today would be the day.
No offence to Haven.
Or Andino.
John said none of those things out loud.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Andino asked again.
John shook his head. “No, man. Of course, not.”
“Good. I want you to meet the girl I’m going to marry, you know. Properly fucking meet her, John. Not hear things about her from someone else, or see her in passing. Actually meet her with me. Take some time to sit down and have a real conversation with her. I talk about you all the time, and she’s a little out of the loop about me and you. Kind of a big fucking deal to me, and everything.”
John’s brow rose high as he took in his cousin a second time. Andino never looked more nervous than he had in that moment. His cousin scrubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw, and his gaze kept darting back to Haven like he didn’t want to take his eyes off her for even one damn minute.
Huh.
John knew that look.
He had that look.
Every time he looked at Siena, that was.
It was kind of strange for John to see his cousin so off-balance in this way. And marriage? Genuine, honest to God, going to settle down marriage?
John never thought he would see the day. Not where Andino was concerned, anyway. His cousin just wasn’t the type to settle down into a monogamous relationship where something like forever and love might get thrown in the conversation. Not to mention, Andino was usually the guy who liked to poke fun at a man who did get his dick tied into a knot over a woman.
This was a whole one-eighty.
So yeah, John did a double-take.
“Seriously?”
Andino nodded. “Yeah, man.”
“I thought … I mean, the family didn’t have a high opinion of her a few months ago, and all. I thought they had made it clear she wasn’t acceptable, or some shit. You kind of gave me the impression you didn’t know what the hell you were doing about them, her, or the rest.”
“It’s not about them.”
Fact.
He knew that all too well. Sometimes when it came to their family, the best thing a man could do on the personal side of his life was shut the fuck down. Keep everything closed up tight. Make it clear nothing was open for discussion.
John didn’t know if that’s what Andino had done when it came to Haven, or not. It also really didn’t fucking matter.
Good for Andino.
Whatever it took to get what the man wanted.
John laughed, and clapped his cousin on the shoulder. Dragging Andino in for a quick, tight one-armed hug, the two men’s laughter colored up the front yard of the facility. Andino hugged John back with a firm hold.
Some of John’s unease about leaving the facility started to drift away in those few seconds. Despite how his disorder often colored up his impressions and perceptions of his family, he still found himself reminded time and time again of their loyalty and love for him.
No, he didn’t mind at all that Andino brought his girl along. He appreciated it, really. He would make sure to take time and speak with Haven while she was there because it was what she, and Andino, deserved.
Besides, the woman had to be something interesting to catch Andino Marcello’s eye, and steal his fucking heart.
But for now …
“Give me some time with Siena,” John said quietly as he pulled away from his cousin. “It’s been too long.”
Andino stepped aside. “You got it, John.”
All John needed to do was hold his hand out in Siena’s direction, and she instantly darted forward to catch it with her own. The second her warm palm fitted in his, and her fingers wove around his own, John’s world tilted back to its proper axis once more.
Strange how that worked.
It had been months since he looked at her--talked to her—and yet it took only one single touch from her to settle him. His restless heart calmed, and his tight chest relaxed. Everything that was right and good in his world was currently holding his hand. It was just a gesture. A small act of affection, but it was everything and more to John, too.
Siena’s blue eyes met his, and her sweet smile grew a little more. Her olive-toned skin flushed with a happy pink when he bent down and caught her lips in a quick kiss. Maybe he should have asked if that was okay with her, but the way she kissed him back said it was just fucking fine, anyway.
He had a million and one things to ask.
About her.
Them.
The outside.
The families.
Business.
The war she had alluded to the last time she was there with him.
So damn much.
And yet, all John wanted to do was kiss her. He only wanted to drag Siena closer, wrap his arms around her, and breathe her in. All her familiar warmth, scent, and love. All of her.
The world ceased to exist.
Nothing else mattered.
Unfortunately, the facility had goddamn policies about public displays of affection, and that forced John to pull away from the kiss far sooner than he wanted to. Siena only grinned and kissed the pad of his thumb when he stroked her bottom lip.
“Damn, I missed you,” he said.
Through thick, lowered lashes, she watched him. “Did you?”
“Every day.”
“Every single day?”
John smirked. “First thing on my mind in the morning.”
“What about at night?”
“Last thing I think about before I go to sleep, bella.”
Siena’s love colored her happiness. John knew his wasn’t always as easy to see because he made a great effort to keep those vulnerable parts of himself well hidden from the world. It had become such a habit that he worried now whether or not the people who deserved to see his love could actually see it.
People like Siena.
She had her ways of reminding him everything was just fine. Her palm came up to cup the side of his face, and her thumb stroked his cheekbone.
“I missed you, too.”
“Walk with me,” he demanded.
Siena nodded, and tucked in close to his side as they moved off the main walkway, and headed onto the cobblestone path that led all over the facility’s private, protected grounds. John took a quick look over his shoulder, and found Andino was still standing side by side with Haven. His cousin hugged the woman in close, and kissed the top of her head when she laughed about something.
Yeah, John most definitely knew that look his cousin sported.
Siena’s quiet little hum brought John’s attention right back to her. Glittering eyes looked him over, and she reached up to stroke his face once more with her fingertips. “I wish I had more time today.”
John tried not to frown, and failed. “Andino didn’t say anything about you leaving.”
“I only have a couple of hours before I have to be back. Yoga ends at two, so.”
“Yeah, still doing that, huh?”
Siena let out a hard breath, and looked away from him when she spoke again. “It’s the only way I can get out of my brothers’ sights for more than five minutes. Or hell, one of the enforcers they’re always sticking me with.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.
Not at all.
“So what, they haven’t figured out that you sneak away when you’re supposed to be at yoga, yet?” he asked.
“No.” Siena shrugged. “But I’ve only done it when I need to do something, or meet someone.”
“Meet someone?”
“Andino, mostly. Sometimes it’s someone else.”
“Meet them for what?” he pressed.
“Not important.”
John tugged on his girl’s hand, and the action made her look at him. “It is important, amore. Why are you meeting people behind your brothers’ backs, and what’s happening that people aren’t telling me about?”
“A lot.”
“Like what?”
Siena glanced over her shoulder, and back down the path. They had gone far enough that neither of them could see Andino or Haven any longer. John doubted his cousin would leave him alone for very long, especially not if the visit wasn’t meant to last.
“Andino doesn’t want me—”
“Fuck what he wants,” John said. “It’s me asking right now.”
Siena looked down at the path. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s happened over the past little while since you came here. At first, the families tried to avoid a feud between them with more peaceful means. When all that went to shit, the violence really got started.”
“You said war before.”
“That’s the impression I got from my brothers.”
“But was it?” he asked.
Siena shook her head. “Not like it is now. It’s bad now.”
Fuck.
“No one’s mentioned this to me when they visit,” he said.
Siena cleared her throat. “You have to focus on you.”
“I’m aware, but—”
Quick as a blink, Siena had turned on her heel, and stopped John from walking any further on the pathway. Her hands came up to press against his chest, and her fingernails dug in just enough to make him suck in a sharp breath.
She tipped her head up, and pressed a fast kiss to his lips. Just like that, everything he was worrying about was gone in an instant.
The girl had many talents.
Distracting him was just one.
“I promised Andino I wouldn’t tell you,” Siena whispered against his lips. “Please just focus on you for the time you have left here, John.”
“I am,” he assured her.
His hands cupped her face, and he kept her close enough that she was forced to keep her eyes on only him. Nothing else but him.
He needed to see her, too.
“They mean well,” she said. “You have to trust them.”
He heard her.
He understood.
It still was hard.
