by Bethany-Kris
John knew that, but it still made his anger rear its ugly head. His saving grace was being able to control it now, whereas he couldn’t before.
“By the way,” Gio said as he pushed the gas pedal harder.
“What?”
“Happy birthday, John.”
A drop of tension crawled down John’s spine as his uncle pulled up to the iron-wrought gate. A long, twisty driveway led up to a mansion with two wings, three floors, a pool, and a guest house out back. The estate rested on six acres of property in Tuxedo Park.
The Marcello family home was massive.
“Passcode, please,” a robotic voice commanded from the speaker Gio was talking in to.
“Seven, two, six, nine, five, five,” his uncle replied.
“Please speak your name clearly for voice recognition.”
“Giovanni David Marcello.”
The speaker buzzed for a split second before the gate shuddered and began to open automatically. Gio pulled the car through the opening the moment the vehicle could fit through. It never failed to amaze John how careful and protective their family was about keeping their private lives hidden from public view. He understood, of course, but it was still amusing.
“Voice recognition?” John asked. “When did Antony have that put in?”
“A year ago.”
“Why?”
Gio stilled in his seat. “Just because, I suppose.”
“Are you being purposely difficult, or what?”
Quickly, Gio put the car in park at the mid-way point on the driveway between the gate and the house.
“He put it in because he’s not young, John. He’s eighty-seven, and he doesn’t like to be reminded of the things he’s not capable of doing at his age. He’s not quick on his feet, his eyesight is terrible, and he wants his wife to feel safe.”
“What happened to the guard he had?”
“You’ll see,” Gio muttered as he put the car in drive again. “Just don’t say anything to him about his age or the changes. It bothers him and then Cecelia gets pissy.”
“I got it.”
“Good.”
John found the guard in question the moment the front entrance to the Marcello home was in full view. Dressed in all black, the man rested beside a dark sedan with a cigarette in one hand and a gun at his waist. John knew the man had to be the guard because no one else was permitted to smoke in front of the Marcello home. They had areas designated for that sort of thing.
“He’s keeping him closer,” John noted.
“Yeah.”
“Any particular reason why?”
Gio shrugged. “You can never be too safe.”
Why didn’t John believe that?
“Hey,” Gio said quietly.
John gave his uncle a look. “Hmm?”
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
His tension was still there, dancing hand in hand with his anxiety. Three years in lock-up was a long time to be gone. How many things had changed since he’d went to prison? How much more distance had he forced between him and his family in that time?
Gio turned the car off and put his hand on the door handle. “For the record, John …”
“What about it?”
“I thought you made the right choice three years ago.”
John’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“When your father bribed the judge with the option of an institution or jail time. I thought you made the right choice.”
Well, that was not what John expected to hear.
“Why is that?”
“Because despite how irrational everything you were doing seemed to be, I don’t believe for a second that any hospital in the country would have sorted you out like prison did. Thirty days in an institution with a couple of therapists, new meds, and little else wasn’t what you needed. Time was what you needed, John. You still got the doctors, you got the meds, but you also got the break. You made the right choice.”
John let out a slow breath. “Who else feels that way?”
Gio laughed. “I know what you’re asking without outright asking it.”
“So?”
“Your mother is probably at the front door about ready to blow it down and come out here.”
John nodded, knowing his uncle wasn’t going to answer his question. “I better get my ass in the house before she comes out.”
“Yeah, probably. I bet your father is waiting, too.”
“We haven’t talked a lot since I went in.”
“All you had to do was pick up the phone, John.”
John glanced at the mansion. “I know.”
“Lucian thinks you made the right choice for you. In case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Lying is a terrible habit, Johnathan.”
It was.
But John was too damned good at it.
“Oh, il mio ragazzo!”
John barely heard the words come out of his mother’s mouth before he was engulfed in tiny arms that squeezed him nearly to death. For such a tiny thing, his mother was strong as hell. She literally knocked him off balance forcing them both to spin in a half circle, so they were facing the front door and not the large entryway like before.
“Hey, Ma,” John said, letting her crush him for all she was worth.
Gio grinned as he strolled on by.
Asshole.
He could have helped John a little. Physical expressions of emotions and John had never mixed well together. Not unless he was the one doing the expressing. And when he physically expressed emotions, it usually never ended well for anyone involved. Mushy, lovey nonsense didn’t do very damned much for him, either.
Jordyn squeezed her son harder. “I missed you.”
“You saw me a few months ago, Ma.”
“So?”
John bent down when Jordyn finally loosened her grip around his chest and gave his mother a quick kiss to the cheek. “So nothing, Ma. I missed you, too.”
Jordyn’s face lit up with happiness.
Guilt stabbed at John’s insides.
He didn’t verbally express his feelings very well, either. He felt a lot of shit, and that was just the by-product of his disorder. Processing, understanding, and communicating his inner thoughts and emotions was difficult. It had clearly been too long since he’d given any affection to his mother if her joy over a simple admission was any indication.
“Liliana couldn’t make it down from Chicago with Joseph,” Jordyn said as she fiddled with John’s crooked tie. “She tried, but she couldn’t get out of the shifts at the hospital.”
Liliana, John’s younger sister, had married a man involved with the Chicago Outfit. John barely remembered the wedding, as he’d been right in the thick of his manic episode.
“But she’s coming down next month,” Jordyn added.
“Lucia?” John asked.
“She’s here,” his mother said about his youngest sister.
“And Cella?”
John’s other sister, also married but to a man who was unaffiliated to the mob, had never been very close to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t shown up for his welcome-home-slash-birthday party.
“She’s here, sneaking food while everyone else waits to eat,” came a darker, familiar voice from behind John.
Jordyn took a step back from her son. John spun on his heel only to come face to face with his father.
For John, it was like looking in an aging mirror. As he grew up, almost everyone he knew felt the need to point out how much he resembled his father. A twin, they said. Hazel eyes that matched John’s looked him up and down. His father smiled a little, making the sharp lines of his features soften briefly. Even at sixty, Lucian Marcello stood tall and straight, matching John’s height at six feet, three inches tall. Lucian commanded a room with his no-nonsense demeanor and his blunt attitude. He could also be intimidating with his quietness and watchful eye.
“So
n,” Lucian greeted.
“Hey,” John replied.
“You look good.”
“I hope so.”
“Seems prison has its benefits, hmm?”
John let the comment roll off his shoulders, knowing his father hadn’t meant it as an insult. “I think it did for me.”
“How was the drive?”
“Long,” John answered.
Lucian chuckled. “With Gio, any drive is long.”
“He talks a lot.”
“That he does.” Lucian jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “As I said, Cella is here and sneaking food. We’re letting it go what with the pregnancy and all. She has to feed the baby.”
John cleared his throat. “I didn’t know she was pregnant.”
“Phones work, John, even in prison.”
Ouch.
That comment didn’t roll off like the first one did.
“Lucian,” Jordyn said, coming to stand beside her son. “Don’t.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened before he frowned. “Mi scusi, I’m sorry. That was out of line, son. I’m happy you’re home. We all are.”
John wished he could say the same, but for a split second he was back to feeling like the outsider in his family again. No one in particular made him feel that way directly, but the disconnect he experienced with his own father made everyone else seem distant, too.
“John!”
The shout of his name drew John’s attention away from Lucian.
John stiffened when his cousin, Andino, moved past his uncle with a wide grin. Andino stood toe-to-toe with John. Before the incident that landed John in prison and nearly took Andino’s life, the two cousins had been inseparable.
Ride or die, their family said. Because the two cousins always found trouble together. They had always been close, best friends even, and one mistake ruined it all.
At twenty-eight, Andino was the closest cousin in relation to his own age that John had.
“Jordyn,” Lucian said with a pointed look in his wife’s direction, “… why don’t we go let everyone know that the man of the hour has arrived.”
“Sure,” Jordyn replied.
With a squeeze of her hand on John’s arm, his parents disappeared.
“It’s good to see you, man,” Andino said.
John smirked. “And you, cugino.”
Andino grinned at the Italian word for cousin. “I would have made the trip up to see you, but I wasn’t sure if that was good for you.”
“I wouldn’t have turned you away, Andi.”
Andino held out a hand.
John passed it a wary glance.
“John?” Andino asked.
“Yeah?”
“We’re good, man.”
Just like that, three words ripped away the concern John had about his friendship with Andino.
“Are we?” John asked.
Andino didn’t drop his hand. “Family first, John.”
John shook his cousin’s hand. Home started to feel a little more real. The distance keeping John and his emotional attachments to his family at bay began to close.
“I hope you don’t mind a crowd,” Andino said.
John cocked a brow. “I never do.”
“Good, because the whole damn city might as well be here to welcome you home.”
“Seriously?”
“Open invitation to anyone in la famiglia, man,” Andino said, chuckling. “I don’t think anyone refused it.”
Huh.
“I have to start looking for a place,” John said.
Andino took a drag off his cigarette, and eyed his companion in the Lexus. “I told you that it was all right if you stayed with me for a bit.”
“I like being alone, Andi. It’s not about you.”
“Fine. You’ve only been home a couple of days, John. Give it a bit of time. You’ve got a lot of adjustment to do. Work in to it all slowly. You don’t have to do it all at once.”
John disagreed. He wanted to get back to his old routine of things as quickly as he possibly could. Part of that was not being under his cousin’s watch all of the damned time. It wasn’t Andino’s fault because the man was just following orders. But John felt suffocated all the same.
“I still need to find my own place.”
Andino tossed his nearly finished cigarette out of the window. “We can do that.”
“Good.”
“So hey, I’ve got to handle some business over at one of my restaurants. Are you interested in coming or do you have things to do?”
John shrugged. “I’ve got shit to do.”
“I’m not giving you my car.”
Laughing, John said, “I don’t need it, asshole.”
But he did need to get his own and soon. It was in the works.
“I’ll take the bus,” John added. “The warehouse is only a couple of blocks from here.”
“Careful and clean, right?”
John glowered. “Back off.”
“I’m just making sure.”
“It’s on the up. It’s your goddamn guys I’m working with.”
“I know,” Andino said. “But not all of those fools are good, either. I’ll see you later.”
John climbed out of the Lexus without another word to his cousin. As Andino pulled away from the side of the road, John strolled down the sidewalk to where the bus stop was and waited. Less than ten minutes later, a bus heading straight into the heart of Hell’s Kitchen pulled over, and John stepped in the vehicle.
Pulling out a phone from his pocket, John dialed his father’s cell phone number as he walked toward the back of the bus with his eyes on the ground.
“Ciao,” Lucian said when he picked up John’s call.
“Hey, Dad.”
“John.”
“I’m not going to make it for dinner. Give Ma my apologies.”
Lucian sighed heavily. “Why not?”
“Business in the Kitchen.”
Technically, it was a lie. He didn’t have to work today if he didn’t want to, but he needed something to do other than be under his cousin’s watch. John simply didn’t want to go through another round with his parents and their concerns. He needed space and time to breathe. He needed to be his own person without everyone else’s worries and influence.
His parents didn’t understand.
“Breakfast tomorrow then,” Lucian said.
“I—”
“It’s not a request, John,” his father cut in harshly. “When you flake on your mother, I expect you to make it up to her.”
“Fine, tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Lucian hung up the call before John could.
Shoving his phone in his pocket, John took the first seat he could. Glancing up from his clenched hands that rested in his lap, he came face-to-face with sapphire eyes.
John blinked.
The woman smiled.
She had a tablet in her hands and one earbud in her ear. A messenger bag rested at her feet, drawing John’s gaze down to the leather boots she wore. Skinny jeans showcased the length of her legs and the curve of her hips. He didn’t recognize her, but something about her was familiar.
Tucking a strand of her caramel-toned curls behind her ear, the woman met his gaze again. His mouth went dry and he didn’t have the first clue of why. Maybe it was because he’d spent three years in prison, and the only females he’d had contact with since he got out were family.
Or maybe it was because the girl was fucking beautiful.
Every part of him knew it.
“Hi,” she said, still smiling.
“Hi.” John grinned back. “Johnathan Marcello.”
“The Johnathan Marcello?”
John chuckled. “There’s only one alive in this city, as far as I know.”
The woman’s smile turned wider. “Siena.”
“Like the city in Italy?”
“Just like that,” she replied.
“A last name?” John asked.
“C
alabrese. It’s very nice to meet you, John.”
Shit.
TWO
Johnathan’s eyes widened, and Siena grinned at the sight. Surprise looked good on the man. His confident smile earlier had sharpened his strong jaw and chiseled cheekbones, and made her think, I bet he could kill a woman with that smile. Stop her heart with a look, and restart it with a wink.
The surprise, though?
That took his sexiness, and turned it almost boyish in a blink.
“You didn’t know who I was?” Siena asked.
“Marcellos don’t tend to … mix a lot of business with the Calabrese family.” Johnathan’s confident grin took over once more, and his gaze traveled over her form. “You must be Matteo’s daughter.”
“One of a few,” she replied.
Johnathan cocked a brow. “I only know the Calabrese boss to have one.”
“The three illegitimate ones don’t get much recognition in the family.”
Across from her on the bus, Johnathan cleared his throat.
“Ah, I see,” he said.
So was the way of their life.
Nobody ever said being a principessa della mafia was an easy thing. In fact, it was one of the most suffocating things to be. All the rules and expectations that never ended. Having a Cosa Nostra boss for a father—and high-ranking brothers—left a young woman like Siena under their control and demands.
She was used to it, now.
Twenty-five years dealing with it all had done that to her.
“Kind of strange to see a Capo riding on a city bus,” Siena said.
“And what do you know about Capos, donna?”
The way he called her woman, and his hazel gaze drifted down over her jean-clad legs left a heavy feeling thumping in her throat. Siena was used to men staring—a byproduct of having taken after her exceptionally beautiful, but cold, mother. She wasn’t, however, used to a man like Johnathan doing it.
A man connected to the mafia. One that might face punishment from her father or brothers for disrespecting their family name by treating one of their women in any way that wasn’t honest and pure.
Like she was some angel.
Or a saint.
Siena was none of those things.