by Bethany-Kris
Some therapists worked that way—they made decisions on medications, and the patients went along with it until they found the combination that worked. He preferred telling Amelia what worked best for him, and having her work that way.
So far, that’s not how this whole thing had gone down.
Amelia rested back in her chair, and said, “For some people, bipolar is just one part of their life. A background thought that they manage with medication and whatever else. So today, I would like to talk about what being bipolar is—and means—to you, John.”
Great.
He chuckled dryly, and toyed with the Rolex on his wrist. “For me, bipolar makes up a great portion of who I am. A lot of my relationships had been forged or broken because of this disorder. How I eat is determined by which foods might hinder or help my mood swings. It controls the fact that the first thing I do in the morning is take several pills because I won’t remember if they’re not the first thing I go to. What else do you want to know?”
“What’s it like for you day to day?”
“Depends on where I am in a cycle,” he replied.
“And where are you right now?”
“Low.”
She raised a brow. “Low as in a depression, or …?”
“No, just fine. There’s low, and then there’s low. I only get really low after the mania breaks. I mean, the depression is always there warring back and forth, but it never gets dangerous for me until after a manic episode.”
“And how does that usually feel for you—depression after mania, I mean?”
“The way depression usually feels. Add in suicidal thoughts manifesting, and you’ve got depression after a manic break for me.”
Amelia didn’t seem to miss the bite in John’s tone if her narrowed eyes were any indication. “You’re not typically this snappy, Johnathan. Is something different? How are you feeling today?”
“At the moment, kind of pissed off.”
“Why is that?”
“Your secretary interrupted me when I was trying to set up a date with somebody.”
Amelia coughed, and hid her small smile by looking away. “Like a woman, or a business thing?”
“What do you think?”
The therapist sighed.
John knew what she was going to say before she even spoke.
“As good as it may be on the surface that you’re trying to get back to a normal routine, you have to remember that you’re still getting assimilated outside of confinement, John. I have to remind you that dating or sex or anything emotionally intense like those things could be detrimental to your success outside of prison while you’re still attempting to adapt to these sudden changes. You have a history of hyper-sexuality, for one. Given how delicate the balance is while we work on med changes right now, I wouldn’t toy too much with that behavior.”
He knew she was right.
His disorder could be fickle—and predictable—in that way. Changes in his life, especially big ones, could easily tip the scales and lead him toward another manic cycle.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he told her.
“Please do.”
It was the best he could do.
Siena was still in the back of his mind, and she didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
FOUR
Siena checked the calendar on her phone again—something she did upwards of twenty times a day. Like all the things she had put in to-do slots would suddenly change or disappear. Everything was still there, including the fact she was supposed to be at Kev’s restaurant over an hour ago to look over some changes he wanted made to his books.
Also, it was the end of August.
How in the hell did two weeks slip by without her noticing?
She was losing it.
That, or she was too busy to have a freaking life.
Siena headed inside Kev’s restaurant, and went to the back offices. She didn’t even stop to say hello to her friend that was waiting tables. She didn’t have the time.
The restaurant was full, though. The scrape of utensils against plates, and the conversations echoed behind her as she slipped into the back hallway.
Funny.
She worked here at least once or twice a month, but she had never actually eaten at the place. No, her whole life just revolved around which business she needed to be at from one day to the next in order to keep her brothers and father happy.
Siena tried to shrug off the irritation as she stepped up to the closed office door. Normally, she would have knocked if a door was closed. Her brothers demanded that she did for privacy. Not today, however.
She was too busy, and lost in her thoughts.
Siena opened the office door, and headed inside. She was still looking down at the calendar on her phone when someone cleared their throat.
Her head popped up.
Kev and Darren were both staring at her.
So was another guy.
She recognized Andino Marcello instantly. Of course, she only knew of the man, and very little else. He usually came to have meetings with one or both of her brothers every couple of months for Cosa Nostra business.
Something about crews, or streets.
Siena didn’t really know.
She wasn’t supposed to.
“Oh,” she said, taking a small step back. “Sorry about that.”
Kev cocked a brow at her. “You don’t know how to knock today, or what?”
“I’m late.”
Darren scowled. “Again.”
“How about you two do even half of the stuff I have to do, and then tell me how well you’re able to manage your fucking time.”
That quieted her brothers.
Siena mentally patted herself on the back.
“I’ll just wait outside until you’re done,” she said.
Kev sighed, and stood from the chair. “No, it’s fine. We were going to continue our discussion over a meal, anyway. Better for you to get to work while you’re actually here. And don’t even think about taking off before the changes are made to the books, Siena.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, or tell her brother off. She only opted not to because Andino was there, and it wouldn’t lead to anything good for her in the end. One of her brothers would tell their father that she had disrespected them in front of a man from another organization, and she would never hear the goddamn end of it.
All of these rules suffocated her.
It never ended.
Siena moved to the side of the doorway as her brothers moved past her to leave the office. Andino followed behind them. He gave her a tight smile, but nothing else.
She wasn’t sure why, but her mouth decided to open up and ask something she had no business knowing. Andino was a Marcello, after all. He would have to know Johnathan. Cousins, or something.
It had been two weeks since she last saw Johnathan on the busy Brooklyn street. She had been so busy that when he got another phone call, she didn’t mind letting him rush off even it was the second time he left her hanging.
Sort of …
“How’s John, Andino?” Siena asked.
The man’s steps halted instantly.
So did her brothers’ in the hallway.
“Pardon?” Andino asked.
“Johnathan. He’s like a cousin of yours, right?”
Andino nodded. “He is, yeah.”
“How is he?”
“Busy,” Andino said, chuckling. “I didn’t know you knew him.”
She could plainly see the way he probed for information without outright asking her, but she didn’t mind indulging him. If only because she was hoping to get a little bit of her own information, too.
“We’ve run in to each other a couple of times, I guess. Talked a bit.”
Andino stuffed his hands in his pockets, and glanced at her brothers who had come closer to them again. Despite how the Marcello man was built, like a linebacker ready to tackle someone, he seemed uncomfortable discussing his family.
&nb
sp; Or maybe it was just because her family was there. The Marcello and the Calabrese families never did mingle beyond business.
Bad blood.
That shit didn’t wash out.
“The last time we talked, he had to run off,” Siena said, shrugging. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”
Andino cleared his throat, and smiled again. “He’s good, Siena. Thanks for asking.”
“Siena, get to work, huh?” Kev clapped Andino on the shoulder, and directed him past Siena. “And mind your damn business, donna.”
She heard her brother’s warning loud and clear, and chose for now, to heed it.
What else could she do?
Once all the men had disappeared down the hallway, Siena headed into the office. She closed the door behind her, and locked it seeing as how she didn’t need or want her brothers interrupting her.
She was a good thirty minutes in to reworking accounts for the restaurant’s books, and the numbers were already starting to bleed together. A knock on the office door made her pop her head up from the PC screen for the first time.
Thankful for the break it would take to get up and unlock the door, Siena shook her wrists and cracked her neck as she stood. She figured it would be one of her brothers on the other side of the door, but it wasn’t.
Andino Marcello stood there.
Hands shoved in his pockets.
A cocked eyebrow.
Smile gone.
The politeness he had shown her earlier seemed to be entirely gone. His warm gaze now felt cold as he looked her over.
Siena’s gaze darted over his shoulder to check for her brothers. Neither Kev, nor Darren stood there with Andino.
“They’re busy—having a smoke in the back,” Andino said, flashing a smirk. “I don’t smoke. At least, not with them.”
Siena wasn’t sure why exactly, but the way he sought her out like this did not feel friendly at all.
“What can I do for you, Andino?” she asked.
“Step inside,” he said.
When she didn’t move as quickly as he wanted her to, Andino simply put a hand to Siena’s shoulder, and moved her inside the office. He kicked the door closed behind him, and completely ignored her indignant shout.
Siena hit his hand from her shoulder, and glared at him. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“What do you want with my cousin?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Is it your brothers—your father, maybe? Did they put you up to engaging with John, or what?”
Siena shook her head, so confused that it wasn’t even funny. “We sat across from each other on the bus, and then randomly ran in to each other on the street a couple of times outside the bookstore where I get my books.”
Andino sucked air through his teeth. “That all?”
“What the fuck is it any of your business?”
He moved closer—just an inch.
It was enough to make Siena take a step back.
“It’s my business because I look out for John. I’ve had his back since we were kids. He doesn’t have very many people thinking about his interests, so I make sure to be one of them. Got it?”
Siena swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Okay, I got it.”
“What else was there?”
“Nothing. We had a walk, chatted a bit, and he asked me to go for coffee once, but we didn’t. Seems like he’s always running off and leaving me hanging, you know?”
Andino simply stared at her for a long while before he finally said, “And no one has said anything to you about John, or the Marcellos?”
“No.” Siena’s gaze narrowed as she added, “You heard my brothers—I ask anything, and I get told to mind my fucking business. I just wanted to make sure John was doing okay. Friends can ask after friends.”
“You don’t know my cousin from a fucking hole in the ground, girl. How can you be his friend?”
“Maybe I would like to be,” she shot back.
Andino tipped his chin up, and continued eyeing her in that intense way of his. It made her want to move back again, or fidget. Something.
“He keeps running off, you said?” Andino asked.
Siena shrugged. “Kind of. I don’t think he means to. I’ve never even gotten his number, or whatever.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to give it to you, then. Ever consider that?”
Ouch.
She ignored that jibe.
“I did only want to check up on him,” she said. “I didn’t mean any harm.”
Andino cleared his throat, and took a step back. It was enough to let the office feel like the large space it was when his imposing presence wasn’t taking up a lot of her fucking air. Christ, the man was something else.
And for Siena?
That was not a good thing.
“How about I help you out?” Andino asked.
“How?”
The man grinned. “John works out of a club every other weekend. For specific people, it’s just easier to find him there than to make him run for them. Not a lot of people know that he’s been using that spot to do his business occasionally. His next weekend working at the club should be in a couple of weeks, if you’re curious.”
“And what does that mean for me?”
“You show up—only you, girl—and maybe you’ll get more than five minutes with him.”
“Just me.”
“I don’t trust your family. No Marcello does.”
Siena pursed her lips in an effort to hide her frown. “Not even me?”
“Not while you still have that last name, anyway.”
It was not as easy to let that insult roll off her shoulders, but she tried.
“Which club?” she asked.
Andino smiled, and this time, it was warm.
Siena was fifty pages into her new novel about a mercenary hero and heroine thrown together by circumstance when a knock on her apartment door interrupted her. She had all she could do not to glare at the door from across the living room.
The few minutes she was allowed to sit down and relax, and someone had to come over. It wasn’t like she had a lot of friends or anything, and her brothers barely wanted anything to do with her unless it related to work somehow.
“The door is unlocked,” she called out.
Siena went back to her book.
However, she eyed her father as he slipped in her apartment. Matteo practically swallowed the space with his large stature. His dark gaze looked over the place, and then skipped to where his daughter sat with a book in her hands.
“Don’t you lock your door?” he asked.
“Why would I?”
“Because it’s safer, Siena.”
“Safer for whom?” She smiled sweetly. “Pretty sure if someone wanted me out of here for whatever reason, they would just break it down, Dad.”
Matteo clicked his tongue at her. One of his many signs of annoyance or disappointment. “This is what you do with your free time—read?”
“Reading is good for the brain.”
She didn’t bother to add how reading also helped to shut off her brain when she spent eight or more hours a day looking at numbers, and falsifying them. Being a bookkeeper and accountant was only made harder by the fact that every book she opened, she had to scrub it clean, and cook it up.
It added more work and time.
Matteo came closer, and seemed to be peering at the cover. “There’s a half-naked man on the cover. What is that garbage?”
“It’s not garbage. It’s a romance.”
“Mmhmm.”
“He’s a mercenary.”
“That so?”
“Apparently. What do you want, Dad?”
Might as well get right to it, she thought. For the three years she had lived in this apartment, she could count on one hand the amount of times her father had come to visit her. Typically, her mother came over a couple of times a month, but Matteo never joined her.
Besides,
Siena spent enough time with her father through the week when she worked. Him and her brothers.
She didn’t need more time with him.
“I can’t visit my daughter?” he asked, taking a seat on the couch beside her.
“You don’t typically make an effort to, no.”
Matteo chuckled, and the force rocked them both on the couch. “Perhaps I’m making an effort to do just that, Siena. Your mother is always telling me how there’s more to you than the numbers in your head.”
She side-eyed her father, and doubted every single word he spoke.
She still kept quiet.
Matteo continued talking, anyway. “Besides, you are my daughter. My only—”
Siena couldn’t keep quiet at that statement. “You have three daughters with Joy Kennedy.”
The reddening of her father’s cheeks almost made her grin. She held it back, but still took great satisfaction at the sight.
“Yes, well, I meant my only legitimate daughter,” Matteo grumbled.
“I’m sure Ma appreciated that when she found out about the other ones.”
“We’re not talking about that right now, Siena.”
No, they never did.
Another rule to add to the pile.
Nothing was discussed that her father didn’t approve. That absolutely included his mistress, and the children she birthed him.
“As I was saying,” Matteo muttered heavily, giving her a pointed look, “you are my daughter. I don’t think I need a reason to check in with you every once in a while. Do I?”
Siena was desperately trying to focus on the words in her book, and not whatever information her father had come here to pry out of her. That’s the only reason she figured he was there. Her lack of focus on the book made it difficult to ignore Matteo.
Besides, if she pissed him off, he would just make the next couple of weeks a living hell for her when it came to work.
He was not very sly in that way.
“I guess so,” she finally said.
Matteo smiled, and patted a beefy hand to her knee. “Good. How about you go make me a coffee?”
Great.
Bookkeeper, and a server.
Perfect.
Siena tossed her book aside with a soft sigh, and stood from the couch. Her father followed behind as she headed for the kitchen. With the electric kettle turned on, she kept her back turned to her father as she pulled out instant coffee, sugar, and a mug from the cupboard. At least this way, she figured her father might get the hint that she was not up for conversation.