by Bethany-Kris
The man should have retired years ago—he wasn’t willing to give up his shop, though. Never was married, apparently, so he didn’t have a wife or kids to pull him away from work and show him the world.
Siena thumbed through the first few pages of the paperback as she headed out of the bookshop. Her attention was fully engrossed in the opening paragraph introducing a CEO heroine getting ready for what was intended to be the biggest meeting of the woman’s life.
She was so engaged in the book she had waited forever for, that she wasn’t even paying attention to the people blowing by her on the street. It was only a couple of blocks to her brother’s club. Kev had texted her four times and left one voicemail asking where the hell she was and why she was late.
Siena didn’t bother to respond.
Who else was going to cook and scrub their books?
Nobody but her.
He could wait.
Siena flipped to the second page in the book, and not a breath later rammed straight into something hard. Her book went sprawling to the—thankfully dry—pavement, and landed with the cover up. She stumbled backwards, and almost fell herself.
A dark chuckle and a hand wrapping around her back kept her from hitting the ground as well.
The spicy cologne of the man helping her up was the first thing Siena noticed about the guy. His familiar black suit was the second thing.
She stared Johnathan Marcello right in the face as he helped her to stand straight. He flashed her a smile, showing off straight, white teeth and his charm in a blink.
“Two meetings in one day, huh?” he asked
Siena wondered why her throat had gone tight again. Still, she managed to speak. “Sorry about that. I was—”
Johnathan bent down and picked up her book. He eyed the title and the cover, and handed it over with another brilliant smile. “Distracted, I think. I can see why—the guy on that cover looks like he bathed himself in body oil, or something.”
“They do say sex sells.”
That smile of Johnathan’s turned suggestive in a blink. “That it does.”
“It’s actually a book I’ve been waiting forever for,” she admitted. “My birthday is today, and the shopkeeper remembered. It’s my gift from him.”
Johnathan chuckled. “A gift, huh?”
“He’s old enough to be my grandfather.”
“Well, happy birthday.”
“Big, old twenty-five,” she half-grumbled.
Johnathan scoffed. “Old, right. You’re five years away from my thirty, and only when you get to there can you come talk to me about old.”
“Thirty isn’t old.”
And he didn’t look anything beyond twenty-six, maybe.
Johnathan shrugged. “It’s all in how you feel, I guess.”
Siena didn’t believe in shit like fate or any of that kind of nonsense. Not being a numbers girl like she was. She much preferred to see things in black and white. Reality. Written in stone, not a what-could-be kind of thing.
She wondered, however, what the odds were that she would randomly run in to Johnathan like this again. Twice. In one day.
Should she consider that a sign, or something?
Maybe she could try for a third time to see him, except without it being entirely random. More … planned.
The outspoken part of Siena’s personality came forward before she could stop it with trivial things like nerves or anxiety.
“Hey, do you have somewhere—”
Johnathan’s phone ringing loudly inside his pocket stopped Siena from asking him to dinner like she wanted. He pulled out the phone, and put it to his ear while he held up a finger for her to ask for a minute.
“Yeah, John here.” A beat of silence passed, and then Johnathan said, “All right, man. I’m on my way.”
Johnathan hung up the phone, gave Siena a wink, and shoved the device in his jacket.
“Business calls,” he told her. “Try looking up when you walk, huh? Gotta be safe, bella donna. You don’t know the kind of crazy you might run in to around here.”
With a wave, John darted out into the street, and didn’t give Siena another look.
She hadn’t gotten to ask him out.
Maybe that was the sign.
Who knew?
Darren chewed loudly on an apple in the corner chair as Siena strolled into the club’s office. You would think, given the kind of private work she did for her family, that they would allow her the privacy of her own office.
No way.
She almost always worked out of one of their offices.
“Late, aren’t you?” Darren asked.
Siena shrugged as she dropped in the office chair, and turned the PC monitor the way she liked. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Kev isn’t happy.”
Their oldest brother was never happy.
“Kev can chill,” Siena said.
A couple of passwords, and one encrypted file later, and Siena had brought up the dirty books for the club. Next week, she would be at another office owned by her family to scrub out and cook those books, too.
It changed a lot.
Her bachelor’s degree in accounting afforded her the knowledge of cooking and scrubbing books, but her respect for numbers kept her attention focused and interested. That was what mattered most.
She actually liked doing it.
The numbers in the excel charts were a comforting place for Siena. It was all about balances and checks. Numbers were straightforward, and didn’t leave questions behind. Something either added up, or it didn’t.
She liked that.
“Oh, so you finally fucking showed up, did you?”
Kev’s voice—much like their father’s—boomed. It could travel down hallways, and through walls. The men in her family didn’t know how to have a quiet conversation if their lives depended on it.
Siena didn’t look away from the computer screen as she brought up the accounts receivable and payable for the club. The proper books this time—not the ones she was about to make look proper.
“Got caught up in something,” Siena said.
“Something like what?”
Shit.
She didn’t want to mention the bookstore to her brothers. The two didn’t have any respect or appreciation for things like books and escapism. They only respected and understood the life, Cosa Nostra, and their father.
She decided to deflect Kev’s question with one of her own.
“So, I guess Johnathan Marcello is out of prison now, huh?” she asked.
Johnathan’s prison sentence had been widely known across New York. It had been in the news, and even his sentencing had been publicized. It was one of the reasons she had called him infamous, though she thought it might be rude to point it out.
Siena peered over the PC screen.
Sure enough, Kev’s brow had raised as he shot Darren a look. She mentally patted herself on the back.
“Did you know that?” Kev asked Darren.
“I didn’t. How does she know it?”
Both Siena’s brothers looked to her.
“I ran in to him on the bus,” she said, shrugging.
She didn’t mention the street, too.
“I guess we should let Dad know,” Kev said.
Siena almost asked why.
She knew better.
They wouldn’t answer.
THREE
Two weeks after beginning to look for a place of his own, and John finally had one. Well, he’d actually had it for a couple of days, but today was his move in day.
“All the money you have, and you rented a two-bedroom house in Queens,” Andino said.
“Listen, not every fucker is like you, Andi. We don’t all want to have the big mansion in Tuxedo Park.”
“I don’t have a mansion in Tuxedo Park.”
“Yet,” John shot back.
Andino chuckled. “Truth. You do have too much money to be living in a tiny house in Queens, though. Deny it.”
<
br /> “Money?” John scoffed. “I had money. Now I have investments, and a money manager who doesn’t allow me very much control, man.”
Andino shot John and look, but said nothing. He could still tell his cousin—and best friend—wanted to ask more questions.
“Go ahead,” John muttered.
He unlocked the front door of the rental home while his cousin shoved his hands in his pockets. Andino shifted from foot to foot—maybe he was trying to figure out a way to phrase his question. John didn’t know.
“Was that by choice, or …?”
John shrugged, and pushed the door open. “I mean, mostly. Do you know how much money I blew through during my last manic episode?”
“No.”
“A little under three million.”
Andino coughed hard, and looked like he couldn’t breathe. “In a few months?”
“Yeah.”
“That poor money.”
John laughed loudly as they stepped into the house together. “It’s one of my behaviors, that’s all. Spending money. Hyper-sexuality. Bad decision after bad decision.”
“The second one might not be such a bad thing.”
“It is when you’ll fuck anything that moves just to feel something, Andi. It’s just another reckless behavior to add on top of the already reckless behaviors I seek out in an episode.”
Andino blew out a breath, and then tossed his jacket to a bare corner. “Yeah, I know. I was just … kidding with you.”
His cousin was just about the only person John allowed to kid with him about his bipolar disorder. Anyone else, and he was quick to point out he wasn’t the fucking butt of anybody’s jokes.
Andino meant no harm, though, and he was always down to help John. Or, keep him out of trouble, even. The two had been that way—ride or die—since they were kids.
“Anyway,” John said, waving the moving guys in from the doorway, “now the money manager keeps me on track with everything regarding my trust fund from my biological grandfather. He earns me money, and gives me some to spend. I’m still working with a ten-thousand-dollar stipend every month, plus whatever I make working. He doesn’t get that, you know.”
“Yeah, it’s not clean money, right? Wouldn’t want somebody looking too deep in to how you made it, never mind the government getting easy access to documents that showed no taxes paid on it.”
“Exactly.”
John turned his back to the guys bringing the furniture and boxes in. Some had been in storage while he was in prison, and other things were brand new. Shit he had purchased over the last couple of weeks while he looked for a place.
“You said mostly, though,” Andino pointed out.
“Huh?”
Adriano tipped his head to the side. “When I asked if it was by choice about the money manager, you said mostly.”
“I recognized I had an issue that needed handling.”
“But?”
“Dad threatened to file legal action against me if I didn’t do it willingly,” John admitted.
Andino flinched. “Ouch.”
“Is what it is. So far, my disorder has never been brought into the public record. I don’t want people in this life to know that I am bipolar.”
“Like a target someone might see and use against you, huh?”
“Essentially. We’re all fine and good pretending mafiosi are honorable made men, but the truth is a hell of a lot simpler, Andi.”
Andino nodded. “We see a perceived weakness, and we exploit it.”
“Yeah. Dad knows that, and if it gets him what he wants, he doesn’t mind using the idea that my disorder will somehow get into a public record on me to make me do what he needs me to do. Filing legal action against me to take control of my assets or whatever else due to my failing to take care of it myself would absolutely do that.”
“John, you know Lucian is only looking out for—”
“I know why,” John interjected sharply. “That doesn’t make it right.”
Andino shoved his hands deep in his pockets again. “Point taken.”
It was another reason why John held bitterness toward his father, sure, even if a part of him understood it had been for the best. The thing about Lucian Marcello and his only son was that a lot of the time, John was left feeling like his father was stripping the control of his life away from him.
Slowly.
One by one.
A thing at a time.
Or maybe his father didn’t want to do that at all, and that was just John’s misfiring emotions and brain working against each other again. Who fucking knew?
It didn’t take long for the movers to get all the furniture and boxes inside the house. John simply directed them to drop everything in the middle of the large living room. He was so particular about his things and how it all needed to be placed that someone else doing it could send him into some kind of fit.
Anxiety.
Anger.
Sometimes both.
Sure, his meds helped a lot to keep him settled and allowed him a bit more breathing room to think before he spoke or reacted, but it wasn’t a whole lot of space. Mostly just enough for him to recognize he might be making a bigger deal out of something than it actually was.
That didn’t mean his brain accepted the conclusion, or that the problem still didn’t feel very real to John.
It was hard to explain that to others. How could he explain something when sometimes, he didn’t even know what he was feeling himself?
Andino knew, though. A byproduct of once trying to help John clean up his room as a teenager after his mother, Jordyn, had a fit about the mess.
His cousin looked over the boxes in the Queens house, but didn’t touch a thing. He did ask.
“Anything you want me to help you with?”
John made a noise in the back of his throat, and scrubbed his hands together. A nervous tic that helped to give him an outlet for his simmering anxieties. “Maybe move some furniture once I know where I want to put it.”
“I could unpack some stuff, and just not put it anywhere, too.”
“No, don’t do that.”
Andino put a hand up. “All right.”
There was something Andino was especially good at that John didn’t mind letting his cousin do without looking over his shoulder the entire time.
“I filled the fridge and cupboards yesterday.”
Andino smirked. “Still can’t cook worth shit, can you?”
“I’m learning.”
John tried not to sound defensive, and failed like a fucker. With a laugh and a clap to John’s shoulder, Andino headed for the open concept kitchen. He still talked as he began pulling dishes from the cupboard, and then moved to another one where the food was.
“Right, right.” Andino sighed loudly. “What is with all this organic shit, John? Haven’t you heard of proper butter or sugar?”
“Every little thing helps to keep me at stable levels—diet, exercise, the money manager … all of it.”
“Ah.”
John opted to change the topic. “How was Atlantic City?”
Andino kept his back turned to John. “Interesting. A nice break, anyway.”
“Kind of surprised the boss let you head out for a couple of weeks when you had business here.”
Andino stayed silent.
John didn’t miss it.
“Something up?” John asked.
Slowly, Andino turned around at the island so that John could see his face. Like with so many other things that were affected by his disorder, eye contact was a big thing. For those he trusted, he preferred to see their face and look in their eyes when they delivered him any kind of news that he might perceive as bad.
It just helped.
John braced for the impact.
“Dante didn’t have a choice but to let me take a break,” Andino said.
“Shit, rub some of that magic on me because that man keeps riding my ass about everything.”
“Don’t you wa
nt to know why he didn’t have a choice?”
“There’s a reason?” John asked back, joking.
Andino laughed quietly. “Yeah, uh … they want to move me up in la famiglia, John. The end goal is for me to take control after Dante is done.”
Like a boss.
The boss.
A Cosa Nostra Don.
John took in the news, and let it process before he spoke. Not because he felt bad about it, or wondered why. He knew that was the best choice for the Marcello organization. Andino was the best choice, for more reasons than John could name.
Seems John would now have something to discuss with his father when he went to have dinner with his parents tomorrow. Their dinners were already stilted because John didn’t have a lot to say.
“Okay,” John said. “I don’t understand what the problem is.”
Andino blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“A lot of us figured it would be you to do that, John.”
Oh.
“Me, too,” John said, chuckling, “a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
John shook his head. “They’re making the right choice, Andi.”
Andino glanced down. “I didn’t ask for this, John. I woke up being a very content Capo, and good at what I do. It’s what I wanted to do, and they just shoved this at me. Like here you fucking go, so be thankful.”
“You’re the right choice. You already look out for this family like it’s your first job, anyway.”
“Family first,” Andino said, nodding.
“God is a very close second.”
So was the Marcello way.
“Johnathan.”
At the sound of his mother’s sweet voice, John’s anxiety slipped away. It wouldn’t last for long, he knew, but he enjoyed it while he could.
Bending down, he kissed Jordyn’s smiling cheek. “Hey, Ma.”
Jordyn’s blue gaze took a silent inventory of her son. “You look well.”
“I looked well when I was here a couple of weeks ago, too.”
“Mmhmm, but you don’t come over often enough for me to make sure you are always well, John.”