by Bethany-Kris
Not to him.
“Try that again,” he told her. “This time, though, with the truth.”
Siena swallowed hard. “I was worried about you.”
That was all John needed to hear. In a second, his desire to have food, and even be near this woman was gone just like that. Andino had been following John around since he found him at the pool hall. Talking about John’s frame of mind and shit he had no business discussing. Things John wasn’t willing to talk about with anybody other than his useless fucking therapist.
“John, wait,” Siena said, standing from the table.
No, he was done.
At least for now.
“I’ll call you,” he told her.
Siena sucked in a sharp breath. “John, I’m sorry.”
Fuck that.
His back was to her in the next breath, and then he was gone. He never walked out of that restaurant so fast before. Unfortunately, the man he ran in to outside the business made his blood boil just as badly.
Matteo Calabrese.
“John,” Matteo said. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Siena again?”
“Actually, I was just leaving.”
“Well, wait a second now. I hear the Marcellos are having a Valentine’s party for the family.”
John hesitated. “Are they? I wouldn’t know.”
Matteo nodded with a chuckle. “Guess you’re not invited then, huh?”
The two men stared at each other as the busy street moved around them. Matteo, a Calabrese man who John both despised and distrusted with every fiber of his being. And John, the one Marcello who always seemed to be on the outside looking in when it came to his family.
Something Matteo always like to point out. Or maybe it was just something that the man recognized, when everyone else seem to want to ignore it.
“You know where I am, John,” Matteo said, “if you ever need somebody to talk to. You know I’m always around.”
Why did that feel like a hand to help him up as much as it did a threat?
The Marcellos were known for their parties. All through the year, the family threw events for nearly every holiday. Everyone in the organization was welcome to attend. It was always an open invitation. Made men, the wives, and their kids. John had become accustomed to these kinds of parties over the years.
Yet, as he strolled through the old Marcello mansion, passing by people he knew, and even his own family, he had never felt more out of place. Like mannequins smiling, waving, and talking to him as if they knew each other, like they were old friends.
Except, like mannequins, they seemed plastic. Realistic to look at, and yet still fake.
In the crowd he picked out his grandparents. Old in their features, yet animated and young in their cheer as they chatted with guests. In the corner, he found Andino drinking something dark red from a wine glass.
He didn’t know if his cousin had seen him. John’s attention was elsewhere.
Like always, the top men of the Marcello organization gathered in the same spot for these parties. The main room where they could see and talk to everyone, and also be the center of attention.
This party didn’t look like it was anything different.
John cut through the people, and headed for the one man he needed to speak to. His father.
Lucian saw him coming, and stepped away from his brothers. “John.”
“You didn’t think to invite me?”
“You didn’t think to answer your phone?”
John shoved his hands in his pockets, and stared hard at his father. The differences between them in that moment were a bright contrast, and easy to pick out. Lucian, in his fitted suit. John, in jeans and a hoodie.
“Have you been talking to Andino, or something?” John asked.
His father frowned. “Why would I talk to Andino?”
Did his father not know? Did none of them know what he had done to a man just a couple of days before in a back alleyway?
“I don’t know if it was you, or Dante, or who the fuck it was,” John said, “but I don’t need any of you sending me shit like you did last week.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play fucking games with me, Dad.”
Lucian took a step toward his son. “John, are you all right?”
John bristled at the question. “Is that all any of you ever think about with me? If I’m okay, if I can handle myself, if my shit is taken care of? I am fucking fine, Dad.”
The level of John’s tone drew attention. His uncles looked his way, and some of the guests. He saw his mother break away from his aunts, and come their way. John had no interest in talking with her, either.
“I only came here to make one fucking thing clear,” John said.
Lucian held a hand up high when Dante stepped closer, as though he were going to step in on the conversation. It kept the Marcello boss from coming any nearer to them. Although, it wasn’t like John gave a fuck either way.
“And what’s that, son?” Lucian asked.
John smirked. “Remember, it’s not my loyalty in this family that ever needs to be in question.”
With that peace said, John turned on his heel and headed back into the crowd. People parted, letting him pass through. Their murmurs reached his ears, but he didn’t really hear what they were saying.
His point had been made.
People would talk.
John was not to be fucked with.
Not by his family.
Not by anyone.
The grogginess in John’s mind was so heavy that he struggled to stay awake as he peeled open his eyes. He wondered how long he had been asleep while he stretched his arms high above his head. He rubbed his palms against his face. The thickness of his facial stubble said it had been far too long since he had a shave.
He stared up at the familiar ceiling, but confusion filled his mind. He knew instantly where he was. It was as comforting as it was concerning.
He struggled to remember the events of the night before. A party for his family. He went, and made a scene. On his way out, he tossed back a couple of drinks. The frantic pace of his mind grew and sped up until he could barely take anything in at all.
Still, he pushed through the clashing and crashing thoughts to dig for more information as to how he got here. He left the Marcello mansion, and that was the last thing John could remember.
He struggled to bring back more memories. His chest burned like he had been drinking hard liquor all night long. The taste in his mouth said he likely had been doing exactly that. A deep pounding headache in his temples only confirmed it further.
But even drunk, or hungover, John wasn’t one to lose his memories. He was not one to forget.
Yet, the space in his head was only a giant black hole filled with nothing, and giving him nothing when he tried to pull something from it.
“John?”
Her soft voice in the bed comforted him, and also made him stiffen. He looked over in the bed to see her staring at him with soft, familiar blue eyes.
“Siena,” he murmured.
Her hand reached out. A tentative touch stroked his cheek, and woke him up further.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“The same way I did yesterday.”
Out of control.
Bulletproof.
Confused.
Pissed off.
Too fast.
Too slow.
Not right at all.
“When did I get here?” he asked.
Siena’s brow furrowed, and she stroked his cheek again with her fingertips. “Showed up here around twelve.”
“And you just let me in?”
“I couldn’t just keep you out.”
Something wasn’t right with him. Everything was wrong with him. He knew it now more than ever.
“John—”
Siena’s words were cut off by his ringing cell phone. The last thing John wanted to do was answer that phone, but he had be
en ignoring it for so long, and putting off too many things. Waking up with no memory and feeling like he was meant one thing.
He crashed.
Hard.
Now, he was scattered in broken pieces and wondering how he had gotten here to begin with.
Picking up the phone John put it to his ear and said, “Yeah, John here.”
“What did you do?”
John rubbed at his eyes. “Andino?”
“The warehouse, John. Did you do it?”
John didn’t know what in the hell his cousin was talking about. “What warehouse?”
“The Calabrese warehouse. The one your crew uses with them. It burned to the ground last night, John. Guess who is blaming you for it?”
John hung up the phone, and stared up at the ceiling. The deadweight settled in his stomach, and a burning dread drove into his heart.
Yet, his mind raced.
Up and down.
Unstoppable.
He shouldn’t have hung up the phone. He should have said he didn’t do it.
Problem was, John didn’t know if that was the truth.
EIGHTEEN
John shoved his legs into his pants. “You’re sure I got here around twelve last night?”
Siena crawled out of the bed. “Yeah, around then.”
She kept the sheet clutched to her chest. It wasn’t like she was trying to hide her body from him, or anything. Most of the night before had been spent with them in bed together. He arrived at her place looking like he was out of his mind, and without a thing to say.
He didn’t want to talk. He only wanted to fuck.
Siena hadn’t been able to turn him away. As much as it killed her to see John like that, and to let him use her like that, she let him in. She had already let him into her heart, her bed, and into her life.
What difference would last night make?
None at all.
Fact was, Siena was selfish. She wanted John. She didn’t care about the rest—those were details that they could handle at another time. She needed him close, and she wanted him with her. No matter his frame of mind, she just wanted him.
So, when he showed up at her door, she didn’t ask questions. She didn’t press him for information, or ask him where he had been. She didn’t demand to know why he hadn’t answered her phone calls or reply to any of her texts. He was there, and that was all that mattered.
“Did I smell like smoke?” he asked.
Siena frowned. “Smoke?”
“That’s what I said!”
Siena straighten on the spot, and clutched the sheet tighter in her fist. “You don’t need to yell at me, John.”
“I didn’t yell.”
“You don’t even hear yourself right now, do you?”
John hesitated when he grabbed his shirt. Instead of putting it on, he stared over at her. The two of them stood like that, staring at each other for a long while before one of them finally spoke and broke the silence.
“Have you seen your therapist?” Siena asked.
John’s throat bobbed with a swallow. “Monday, maybe. Or Tuesday.”
“You’re not sure?”
“One of those days.”
Siena nodded once. “When you did actually see her, have you told her that you haven’t been taking your meds?”
John tensed all over. In a blink, Siena could see how his entire demeanor changed at her simple question. She doubted anyone had outright asked him that lately, if at all. Had he even been around anyone who would dare to ask him that question?
“Have you told her?”
“I’ve been taking my meds,” John said.
“Have you?” Siena asked. “I’ve seen your meds, John. I counted the pills. They don’t add up to the prescription and fill date.”
His jaw hardened as his lips pulled back into a sneer. He turned on her with that look, and she knew something nasty was about to leave his mouth. A defense mechanism, maybe. Or it could have even been his mania still manifesting in a verbal form.
Siena really didn’t know.
She couldn’t let this go.
“Before you speak,” she told him, “think very carefully about what you want to say to me. Consider if I am asking these things to hurt you, or because I care, John.”
His posture softened.
As did his expression.
Siena took that as a good sign.
“My meds aren’t important right now,” John eventually said. “What I need to know is what happened last night.”
“You showed up here.”
“Nothing else? I didn’t say anything? I didn’t tell you anything?”
“No, all you really wanted to do was fuck, actually.”
John shook his head, and pulled the shirt on. “I need to know what happened last night.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then what fucking use are you?”
Siena sucked in a hard breath. His words stabbed at her skin, and cut out her heart. He might as well have just punched her in the chest, and ripped her heart out from between her rib cage. It would have hurt just the same.
“I’m sorry,” John quickly said. “I didn’t mean that.”
And yet, even when he apologized, he was still getting dressed. He didn’t look at her, or see how badly his words had hurt when they made their impact.
He didn’t know at all.
His impulse control, judgement, and empathy was gone out the window.
Entirely.
“I know.”
And she did know.
But it still hurt.
It still worried her.
Then, John’s words came out in a ramble. A mess of thoughts and feelings that Siena could only stand there and listen to, but not do much else. It was more than he had said to her in a long while.
Too long, really.
She thought it was probably the most honest thing he had said in a long while, too.
“The bitch kept messing with my meds,” he said. “First it was I needed to try this, and then try that. Up this dose, and then lower that dose. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. All the meds put me in this goddamn fog that I couldn’t get out of. I would be sleeping twelve hours a day, and I could barely think when I was awake. I told her—I told her again, and then I would tell her again, but all she would do was tell me to give it time. Like I had to let the fucking meds do what they had to do, and let them settle. She wasn’t even fucking giving them time to settle.”
John scrubbed a hand down his face. “She didn’t seem to want to fucking listen to me when I said the one was enough. The Lithium worked for me for the last three years when I was in lockup. She kept saying this wasn’t lock up. I felt like her fucking lab rat.”
Siena came a little bit closer to him, being careful and mindful in her steps. She didn’t reach out, or try to touch him despite how much she wanted to. And oh, how she wanted to.
Her heart ached for her to touch him.
Her fingers itched to feel him.
All of her wanted all of him.
Even like this.
“Back when I went after my sister, I was without my meds for a little while,” he continued, shaking his head with a bitter laugh. “It’s strange how your own head fucks with you—makes you think you’re okay without the meds because you feel better for a split second. I got back after going after Lucia, and I wasn’t in a fog. So, I started dropping the cocktail of meds the bitch kept feeding me.”
“John,” she said, “please let me help you. I love you. You know that, don’t you? You have to know I love you.”
John’s hazel gaze drifted to her. “Do you?”
“You think that I can’t?”
“I think that maybe you shouldn’t.”
“I do.”
John reached for her then, and his arms wrapped around her. He dragged her close. There, in his embrace, she was happy again. They were fine again.
It would only last a moment.
It would ne
ver last forever.
It couldn’t.
“I love you,” he murmured against her forehead.
That was enough for Siena.
That was all she needed.
It made everything else worth it.
John kept Siena close to his side as they headed in a restaurant that looked to be in the midst of renovations. She didn’t recognize the business, and since she was always aware of when her father or brothers bought a new business, she knew this one didn’t belong to the Calabrese.
“Neutral grounds,” John said, as though he could read her mind. “This belongs to a Donati man. They agreed to allow the Marcello and Calabrese families to gather here for this meeting. That way, no one is stepping on anyone else’s toes here, so to speak.”
Siena nodded. “Makes sense.”
Inside the restaurant, she found more people than she expected waiting. She recognized almost all of them. Men from her father’s family, and several people from John’s side.
At the head of the room, her father and Dante Marcello stood toe-to-toe. The two men looked as though they were ready to brawl. She took that as a bad fucking sign.
At Siena and John’s presence, the two men finally looked away from one another. She wasn’t sure that she particularly like their attention on them, either.
“John, move to anywhere except where you currently are,” Dante said.
John didn’t move an inch. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Matteo look at Siena. “I’ve called you five times this morning.”
Her gaze drifted between her father, and her brothers standing with the other men of the Calabrese family. She could feel their judgment, and their silent opinions searing into her skin. She didn’t need to hear them say it, not when she could feel it.
“Busy,” she said.
Matteo coughed as his gaze cut to John. “I bet.”
“Why would you bring a woman here?” Dante asked.
“I brought her here because she asked to come.”
Siena’s fingers tighten around John’s. She no longer wanted to let him go. Something felt like a thorn pricking at her heart. Her worst fear was that someone would take John away from her—because of this, or something else.
It didn’t matter, because the end result would be the same.