John + Siena: The Complete Duet

by Bethany-Kris

  “Well,” Siena said, giving her in-laws a smile, “I guess we’re planning a gender reveal.”

  SEVENTEEN

  John followed Andino through the old mansion in silence. Side by side, the two men took their time heading to the upstairs office where—far more than once—they had both been dragged to in order to get yet another lecture about the importance of their last name and maintaining the dignity and respect of being a Marcello.

  Now, he couldn’t forget it.

  He didn’t think their legacy weighed as heavily on Andino’s shoulders as it did for his own, but John couldn’t say for sure, and he’d never thought to ask. Better he didn’t, maybe. They all had their own things to handle.

  Nonetheless, the mansion brought back a lot of memories for John. Colored with nostalgia in every single corner, the past was never far from his mind when he was here. Every step he took inside the place, he could relive five different memories from years long past. He looked forward to the many more they were sure to make with their own children here.

  The legacy lived on.

  Once the two were inside the old office that didn’t get nearly as much use as it used to, John closed the door behind them.

  John was the first to speak. “Do you remember how they used to drag us into this office every single time any of them had something to say to us?”

  Andino laughed under his breath. “Seriously, every time we came to this mansion. At least fifty percent of the time it was because I kicked somebody’s ass for talking shit about you behind your back. Man, I fucking hated when they did that.”

  He grinned.

  Because it was true.

  “I worry,” Andino said, turning to face John with his hands shoved into his pockets. He shrugged his broad shoulders and glanced to the side as though he might find something interesting to stare at on the far wall. John understood the need to look away—it was always easier to admit your wrongs when you didn’t have to look someone in the face while you did it. “And you know, Haven likes to tell me I can become an even worse asshole in that case.”

  John cleared his throat, rocking on his heels while he replied, “You certainly can.”

  His cousin sighed.

  The silence raged on.

  John simply waited it out.

  Sometimes, in this life with men like them, it was all about the waiting game. And the thing with Andino and John was the fact they were best friends. Always had been and always would be. Until the very fucking end. From the time the two of them were put together when they were still wearing diapers, they’d forever had each other’s backs.

  Yeah, sometimes shit happened. Sometimes, they had moments like these. They always came back, though. Just had to wait it out.

  Andino turned back to John, meeting his cousin’s gaze as he said, “I’m sorry.”

  John nodded. “For being an asshole, or questioning my ability to do what I need to do?”

  “Fuck, do you know Haven does that shit to me all the time? Makes me explain every single reason I’m sorry, what I did wrong, and why it was wrong. Drives me crazy.”

  “Her right to do so. She is your wife.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’m fucking with you,” John said, laughing under his breath. “I don’t need you to explain shit, Andi. Although, if not for your wife, you’d be a lot less tolerable, let me just say. I hope you know that woman really is your better half, man.”

  “She is. I’ll never deny it.”

  At least Andino knew it.

  “Same for your wife,” Andino added quieter.

  “I know.”

  All too well, really.

  “And I talked to Pink,” Andino said, shifting from foot to foot. The only show of his nerves. He had so few tells, but growing up alongside him had allowed John to know every single one of them. “Seems he’s fine to stay right where he is working with you—he makes a good underboss, doesn’t he?”

  John swallowed hard. “We’d not talked specifics.”

  “I did. He was my man—hand-picked. I’ll never have another one like him.”

  “Are you pissed I took him from you?”

  “Not really. You need him more than I do.”

  “Good point,” John muttered. “Like Michel, though, he’s not a made man.”

  “Doesn’t have to be. You’re a small family—and the faction works from Marcello business now, so it’s all on us to make the calls.”

  Right.

  “It’s good to be the boss,” John said, chuckling.

  “Isn’t it?” Andino grinned. “And what about Michel?”

  “It’s on my to-do list.”

  “Oh, you have one of those, too, huh?”

  “Apparently.”

  John found Michel lounging on the back terrace with a glass of whiskey he’d nursed down to the ice in the bottom. “You got a minute?”

  Michel peered up at John. “For you, always.”

  “Hmm.”

  He took a seat beside his cousin and for a long while, said nothing. Instead, he stared out over the back property where the darkness clung to every corner. Overhead, the black sky was painted with a yellow moon and dotted with stars. Funny how he related more to the sky and stars at night than he did anything or anyone else.

  He was dark, too.

  Dark thoughts.

  Dark heart.

  Dark soul.

  Occasionally colored with bright, pretty things.

  Michel broke the silence first. “I always wanted to be something more than just a made man.”

  “You are.”

  “I am. I’m a husband and a father. A doctor. Yet, I keep going back to my roots, huh?”

  John grinned.

  How could he not?

  “You are a Marcello,” he replied.

  Michel sighed. “I liked being on the outside of business the most.”

  “But do you really?”

  “I don’t know. Certainly thought I did, though.”

  “You don’t owe me shit, Michel. Don’t think you have to keep working in this famiglia because of me. I—”

  “You and Andi made it easy for me to come back and … well, what is it that I even do?”

  That was easy. “You have my back.”

  Michel threw him a look.

  John returned it.

  “How’s Gabbie feel about all of this?” John asked, referring to the man’s wife.

  “She told me it was inevitable.”

  “She’s probably not wrong.”

  “Dad said the same.”

  John did laugh at that one. “You know they all wanted this even if they never explicitly said it to us.”

  “You mean, all of us in the family business carrying it on?”

  “Yeah, exactly that.”

  Michel let out a heavy breath. “Yeah, they did. I know.”

  Well, shit.

  It was what they all did best.

  EIGHTEEN

  Cupcakes were passed around the table—each with a mixture of pink or blue frosting on the top with tiny little baby shoes shaped from vanilla-flavored fondant. Siena had no clue what colored cream would be in the middle of the cupcakes once they bit into them. Her doctor’s office had sent over the gender of their child to the bakery in Manhattan that delivered the cupcakes to her earlier in the day.

  Now, all their family had gathered.

  It was time to find out what their baby would be.

  A sweet little boy or a precious tiny girl.

  She hadn’t thought much about it, really. Like her husband, she didn’t have a preference one way or the other. All she really wanted was a healthy baby. And no matter what, she loved her child already.

  “Your turn,” Siena whispered to John.

  He laughed, but she heard the stress in the sound. He smiled for their gathered, waiting family, but she saw the tension in his shoulders.

  The further along in her pregnancy she became, the more changes she saw in John. Never towar
d her, but just him in general. She recognized his lack of sleeping, and his up and down moods. She saw his methodical cleaning, planning, and organizing even when he tried to hide it.

  She wished he wouldn’t hide it.

  It was so much harder to settle him back when he hid it.

  Leonard would be at their house when they got back—waiting for John, as the man always did. Twice a week, and sometimes more if John felt it was needed, his therapist came for an in-home session.

  They never opened up a discussion about John’s mental health to anyone who asked. They didn’t talk about his meds, his therapy, or anything.

  Their choice.

  John’s choice.

  Leonard, however, would be there tonight because Siena had made a call and asked for him to come, not John. Sometimes, she needed to do that. Sometimes, she had to be the voice when John was not letting his come through loud enough.

  John took the one cupcake Siena offered to him—the only one left. Everyone else around them already had one, and now they were just waiting on him, too.

  “My turn,” John echoed.

  Siena nodded, and smiled. “I love you, John.”

  “I know you do.”

  She always would.

  “Everybody at the same time,” Siena said, directing her comment at the room, yet never looking away from John. “Okay?”

  “You got it, babe.”

  “Now.”

  Everybody bit into their cupcake, and blue frosting colored up the middle of the sweet cake. John stared at the sweet in his hand for a long while, and Siena reached over to wipe a bit of blue frosting from his bottom lip while cheers lit up the room.

  “It’s a boy!”

  “A boy!”

  John barely blinked as his father crossed the room to clap his son on the shoulders, and congratulate them. Jordyn followed behind Lucian, and did the same. Siena and John took a moment to take the congratulations, and the ones that followed from everyone else.

  But soon, the room settled, their family faded as John looked at Siena, and it was just them once more. No one else.

  He had wanted this gender reveal.

  For his family.

  To allow them in.

  Sometimes, he still found it hard to let them in.

  The pregnancy was one thing he continued to try to open up for them, but especially for his mother and father.

  “Luciano, then,” John said.

  Siena smiled wider. “Luciano Johnathan Marcello. And he will be perfect, John.”

  So perfect.

  Just like his father.

  Siena hung back in the entryway of the living room. Just out of view of Leonard and John where they sat on opposite ends of the couch while they talked. Without question, when Siena asked for the man to be at their home when they arrived, Leonard agreed.

  “I didn’t want to bother you,” John said. “I know you’re—”

  “You’re not a bother, John. You’ve never been.”

  “Even if all I want is to talk?”

  “That’s what I do best,” Leonard replied, never missing a beat.

  Siena smiled at that.

  Satisfied that her husband had what he needed, and desperately hoping everything that was weighing on John would release him soon, she stepped out of the room to leave him and Leonard alone to their chat. They didn’t need her there, she hadn’t been invited into it, and she never felt like it was her place to join anyway.

  She was fine leaving them to it.

  In the kitchen, her in-laws waited with a green tea hot and ready for her. She took it from Jordyn with a smile who offered the same back.

  Lucian’s gaze drifted over Siena’s shoulder to where the darkness of the hallway led to the living room. “Better now?”

  Siena nodded. “Much better.”

  “Good.”

  They hadn’t asked to come. John did. Siena figured … that was progress. Then again, their whole marriage had been that. Every day they spent together was simply one step at a time when at one time, they weren’t supposed to be at all. She’d take every single step with John as long as he wanted her to.

  The rest?

  It was all a bonus.

  NINETEEN

  Five months later …

  “Harder.”

  Smack. Smack. Smack.

  “Tuck that elbow in tighter, John, come on.”

  Smack. Smack. Smack.

  “Faster, let’s go.”

  Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.

  Each of John’s blows landed one after the other with no hesitation against the heavily padded gloves Cree kept high for him to punch. Nothing worked to blow off steam quite like beating the hell out of something did, but in a healthy way. Or that’s what they kept telling him. Hey, it kept him from getting arrested, and he also had a place to go to work out all the anger that seemed to constantly bubble far too close to his surface.

  While he didn’t get to see the man nearly as often as he used to—business in Vegas kept Cree busy—he still came into town once a week to visit with his adopted son who lived in Brooklyn with his spouses, and he made sure to call John in for a round.

  Yeah, he didn’t even call them sessions.

  Not even close.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,” Cree said through John’s raining punches, counting down to what would be their third five-minute break for him to get some fluids and take a breath. It was also encouragement for John to start hitting as hard and fast as he could, ignoring technique and posture for the moment because that was always how they worked. “Four, three, two … one.”

  John dropped his hands first and took two bouncing steps back from Cree, grinning behind his mouthguard at the same time. His words came out a bit garbled, but the other man in the ring seemed to understand him just fine all the same. “Better, yeah?”

  “Far better,” Cree agreed as he pulled the mitts from his hands. He pulled off his own gloves and threw them to the mat at his feet. Tossing his mitts aside, too, Cree headed for the corner of the ring where the water bottles waited with condensation gathering in droplets and dribbling down the sides. He tossed one to John, saying, “Here—drink.”

  He did.

  A half a bottle in one go.

  This was hard work.

  But good work, too.

  It focused John’s brain in a way nothing—except for maybe fucking his wife—did. He was grateful for this. As a younger man, fighting had simply been a means to an end for John. Something to do with all that anger and rage that constantly festered at the slightest of provocations. His temper was legendary.

  This helped that.

  A great deal.

  Cree turned back on John but his gaze drifted to somewhere behind him. “Ah, that’s your man, isn’t it?”

  Spinning around to find who he was referring to, John watched as Michel—smart and entirely out of place in his three-piece suit inside the gym—approached the ring. For the most part, neither his cousin nor Pink stepped in when they knew John was having a session with Cree or Leonard. They didn’t take away from his time, and he appreciated that.

  “The news you wanted on the upcoming deal with the …” Michel passed a look to Cree, and then went back to John as though he was waiting for the okay. “We good?”

  “Cree is fine,” John replied.

  Not that Michel knew, but Cree had his own hand in organized crime by way of training assassins. It wasn’t really the time for that conversation, though.

  “Well, good,” Michel said, sighing. “Anyway, the deal is a go so long as you have a personal meeting with the distributor first.”

  Of course.

  Everybody wanted a seat with the boss.

  “Thanks,” John told his cousin. Then, he pointed at the entrance to the gym saying, “Door’s that way unless you plan to change out of that suit and get in this ring.”

  Michel grinned. “Probably not. Later, man.”

  “Later.”

  “That on
e—he’s got an Irish wife, yeah?” Cree asked.

  “He does. Gabbie.”

  Cree hummed under his breath. “Makes a lot of sense.”

  Turning on the man, John asked, “What makes sense?”

  “Things.”

  The asshole was always doing that shit.

  “So, business is good?” Cree asked, picking up John’s gloves to ready him for a second round.

  “Great.”

  “And you?”

  “Waiting on my boy to greet the world.”

  Cree smiled widely.

  A rare sight.

  “Well, that is a good thing to be waiting for,” Cree said. “Now, let me get a pair of gloves on, and we’ll see if I can bruise that face of yours this week.”

  John laughed. “Fuck you.”

  “Sorry, my husband doesn’t share.”

  Jesus.

  That was Cree for you.

  ***

  John didn’t even get the chance to finish the session that day with Cree before a phone call came in from his mother. Who just conveniently happened to be out with his wife shopping and running other errands.

  Siena’s water broke on a Manhattan street.

  She labored for hours.

  John was right there for every single second of it.

  Then, his boy made his way into the world. All eight pounds, five ounces of him. Dark-haired, and hazy-eyed. Squalling and perfect.

  Luciano “Lucky” Johnathan Marcello. He wasn’t the first of his name. Not even the second or third, but John bet he would be the best all the same.

  In those first few seconds when he met his son and fell in love instantly, John knew everything would be just fine because look at all he had. Sometimes, he still felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. In that moment, he stopped waiting for it to happen.

  As for his life?

  John would change nothing.

  Not a single thing.

  *

  Did you enjoy John and Siena’s love story? Are you ready for your next BK read? You may be interested in John’s parents’ story in Lucian—the family’s next underboss meets a woman he can’t possibly ignore once he lays eyes on her … and that might mean trouble. For everyone.