by Bethany-Kris
Especially … numbers.
“Isn’t it always black cars, and ten under the speed limit for Capos?” Siena asked.
“For some, maybe.” Johnathan chuckled. “My car is still in shipping somewhere between the Rust Belt and here.”
“But is it black?” she asked.
Johnathan smirked. “Possibly.”
“And do you drive ten under the limit?”
“Possibly.”
“I knew it,” Siena said, winking. “So, for now you’re slumming it on a bus, then?”
“I don’t mind the bus. I get to be around people without actually engaging with people.”
Siena lifted a single eyebrow. “Is that a shot at me—I shouldn’t be engaging you, or something?”
Johnathan’s grin deepened, and he looked her over once more. “Nah, I don’t mind engaging you, Siena.”
“It’s just a shame my last name is Calabrese, huh?”
He waved a hand, and said, “It is what it is.”
Johnathan looked out the bus window, and stayed silent for a few moments. As the bus stopped to let more people on, and a few off, Siena took the chance to take Johnathan’s profile in. A lax, easy smile. Strong lines shaped his jaw and cheekbones. A single dimple in his right cheek peeked out whenever his grin deepened. His bottom lip was slightly fuller than his top, and his olive complexion spoke of his Italian bloodline.
He had to be at least six-foot-three, or taller when standing up. The black suit he wore looked cut perfectly to his form—a lean, yet fit, form. The diamond incrusted Rolex on one wrist, a leather band embossed with something on the other, and black leather shoes gave credence to the wealth the Marcello family had.
Everything about Johnathan screamed handsome, bad news, and entirely interesting to Siena. His good looks certainly couldn’t be denied, and his last name—without needing him to confirm or deny—was enough to tell her he was probably mixed up in la famiglia.
The interesting bit, though, was a little harder to explain.
Other than how he looked at her?
Something different from how his dark grin made her pulse quicken?
Maybe it was because the Marcello family kind of felt like an enigma to her. She knew they were real, and heard enough about them to respect how they controlled New York. Yet, at the same time, the Marcellos were also illusive. A crime organization just like her father’s, but one her family only whispered about over the years.
Johnathan was, essentially, one big mystery.
Just like his family.
Straight, thick brows gave him a disinterested expression, except when he turned his hazel gaze on her. The cool, calm demeanor of Johnathan Marcello was shattered when someone got a good look at his eyes—a wild, lost man stared back.
Johnathan glanced away from the window. He caught Siena staring at him like a foolish girl, but she didn’t look away.
“Yes?” he asked.
Lying really wasn’t her forte.
She wasn’t very good at it.
“You’re very handsome, Johnathan,” she said.
Those dark eyes of his flashed with something unknown before he said, “I prefer John.”
“John.”
“Yeah.”
“What I said remains the same, John.”
Siena was not usually so bold. Daring statements like those to a man like Johnathan could possibly get her in trouble, all things considered.
Still, she said it.
It had to be said.
He arched a brow. “Why did you call me the Johnathan Marcello earlier?”
Siena cleared her throat. “You’re a little infamous, aren’t you?”
“Me?”
“All the Marcellos, really.”
Johnathan nodded. “I suppose.”
Then, the bus came to another slow stop. Johnathan glanced out the window, and cussed before he stood up. His back was already turned to her, and he was heading for the door when he looked back over his shoulder.
All over again, with one single look, Siena’s heart thumped hard in her throat. A rhythm that intrigued and frightened her.
How did he do that by only staring?
Why couldn’t she control her own body?
“Maybe I’ll see you around, bella.”
Siena stilled.
He’d called her beautiful.
“Maybe,” she agreed.
Johnathan didn’t hear her.
He had already exited the bus.
• • •
“You’re late.”
Matteo’s voice boomed over the bustling Brooklyn restaurant. Siena’s father was a lot of things, but overwhelming was highest on the list. He towered over her mother who stood next to him at the table, and was wide enough that Siena’s arms couldn’t reach all the way around him when she hugged him.
“Traffic was bad,” Siena told him. “Hi, Dad.”
Matteo scowled at her when she stepped back. “Taking the bus again?”
“I like the bus. It’s … responsible.”
And it gives me a little less time with you.
She didn’t add that last part out loud.
Siena knew better.
“You have a brand new Lexus sitting in your apartment’s lot,” her father said, shaking his head full of dark brown hair, although it had started to thin a bit at the top. He didn’t like for anyone to point it out. “I bought you that car for you to do your business, and get to places on time, Siena.”
“Oh, leave her alone, Matteo. So, she likes the bus, who cares?”
Siena’s mother—Coraline—smiled sweetly at her daughter. She returned the smile, but hers wasn’t as honest or wide.
Sure, she loved her parents.
They had given her life, after all.
The two were still … difficult. Siena had grown up as the afterthought in her parents’ lives. Her brothers, Kev and Darren, had always taken center stage with Matteo and Coraline. Siena, on the other hand, had simply been given direction and restrictions. Rules she was meant to follow with no questions asked, and a set path in life chosen by these two people in front of her.
It certainly left her with a bitter taste.
“Because riding a bus with the money she makes is undignified,” Matteo said.
“Or economically and fiscally smart,” Siena put in.
Matteo passed her a look, and narrowed his gaze. “No, I told you what it is.”
Yes, undignified.
Heaven forbid she ride the bus with the rest of the lowly people. She might catch their poor people cooties, or something.
Siena had all she could do not to roll her damn eyes. Matteo wouldn’t like that, either. Respect needed to be shown at all times when it came to her father. He expected nothing less from his children.
At least that was one thing she had in common with her brothers where their father was concerned. Matteo treated them all equally in that respect. One of the only fucking things.
“Sit, sit,” her father demanded with a wave at the table.
Matteo didn’t bother holding out a chair for Siena, but he did for his wife. Siena pulled her own chair out, and sat down. She was hoping this lunch with her parents would be over quickly enough because she had a million other things she’d rather be doing.
Coraline reached across the table to tap the napkin in front of Siena. “You’ll be staying a while—act like it, sweetheart.”
Damn.
Siena picked up the napkin, flicked it open, and set it on her lap. At least the place had decent food, and that would make this lunch slightly more bearable. For now, anyway.
Matteo waved at a waiter who was handling another table. At the sight of her father gesturing for him, the man instantly left the couple whose coffees were not yet poured, and came their way.
So was the way of Matteo Calabrese.
He did not like to wait, or be left waiting.
He did not like to be ignored.
He was king of the room, always.
Luckily for her father, Matteo owned this particular restaurant. Actually, he owned quite a few businesses, and so did Siena’s older brothers. Between restaurants, clubs, used car dealerships, a couple of barber shops, pizza joints, a laundry mat, and a pub in Manhattan, they had more businesses than they knew what to do with.
None of the men in her family seemed particularly good with numbers unless it included counting up their profits for the month. Taxes were a thing to be avoided at all costs. Every single nickel and dime needed accounted for at the end of the day.
Given how they used their legal businesses to hide their illegal profits from the criminal side of their lives, her father and brothers needed someone good with numbers. Someone who could scrub books clean, and hide dirty cash.
They needed her.
Siena was … exceptional with numbers. She could take a business’s books, hide a couple of hundred grand in dirty money through different receivables accounts, and push the cleaned money straight out the other end.
It was the one thing she could do that her brothers could not. It was the only reason why Siena suspected her father hadn’t tried to force her into some arranged marriage to get the responsibility of her off his hands.
After all, a girl was only useful if she wasn’t useless.
Without numbers … without her talent of scrubbing books for her father’s Cosa Nostra, that’s all Siena would be. Entirely useless to the men in her family.
It gave her a little bit of control. She had no problems running with it every chance she could. It wasn’t her fault if Matteo and her brothers couldn’t see that she was manipulating them sometimes to get what she wanted.
“Mr. Calabrese,” the waiter said with a smile. “Good afternoon, sir.”
“Yes, yes, I’m ready to order now.”
“Pen’s ready, sir.”
Like always, Matteo ordered for himself, his wife, and Siena. Had her brothers been there, he would have ordered for them, too.
Anything her father could control, he did. Even if it was something as simple as what they wanted to eat for lunch.
“Shoo,” Matteo told the waiter with a flick of his wrist. “I’m hungry.”
“Yes, sir.”
The young man—who didn’t look old enough to be serving liquor, likely—darted off, and headed right for the kitchen. He didn’t even go back to the table where the couple was still waiting with their still-empty coffee cups.
“New boy,” Matteo told Coraline. “I like him so far.”
“He seems quiet,” her mother agreed.
“For now.”
Then, Matteo turned his dark eyes on the phone he had pulled from his inner jacket pocket. Just like that, Coraline and Siena were dismissed from the man’s attention. Coraline didn’t really seem all that bothered, as she simply stared out the window at the passersby on the street.
Siena was never more aware of how much she took after her mother in appearance and behavior than in that moment. Sure, her slyness and attitude came from her father, not to mention her determination to get shit done.
The rest?
All her mom.
From the blues of her wide eyes, to the caramel of her long, wavy hair. Standing side by side, the two only reached five-foot-seven in four-inch heels. Their full lips curved the same way when they smiled, or smirked, and even the button nose was compliments of her mother’s delicate features.
The physical appearance was about as far as it went, though.
Coraline was quiet, and quick to bend to the whims of the men around her. Siena was far more likely to find a way out of it, or speak loudly enough for someone to listen.
Her mother was happy in her place, spoiled and content. She never batted an eye at the three daughters her husband fathered with a mistress over the period of twenty years, or the fact that mistress lived in a bigger house than she did.
Siena was not the kind of woman to stick her head in the sand.
She just couldn’t.
She certainly wasn’t going to turn her cheek, and pretend like the men in her life were some kind of good, godly creatures who gave back to society, and attended church every Sunday. Sure, they did those things—they also sold drugs, laundered money, blackmailed anyone they could, and murder was always at the top of someone’s to-do list.
Coraline could pretend all she wanted about her family, and live in her gilded cage of clouds where the bad stuff didn’t touch her.
Siena’s feet were still firmly planted on the ground.
She liked it here better.
“Don’t pull this tardiness nonsense on your brother later,” Matteo said.
Siena’s attention was back on her father in a blink. “Pardon?”
“Later—you’re heading over to Kev’s club, aren’t you? You’ve got books to scrub for him.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t be late again. It’s rude, Siena.”
“I know, Dad. I won’t be late.”
Lies.
She would make sure to be late.
Besides, she did need a couple of new books to put on her nightstand. The old bookshop a couple of blocks away from her brother’s club sounded like a good place to get lost in for an hour or so.
If she could do it, and get away with it, then what was stopping her?
It was the Calabrese way.
• • •
Siena thumbed through the brand new paperback of a romance she had asked the old shopkeeper to order in for her well over a month ago. Sure, she had an e-reader and could have purchased a digital copy instantly, but she still liked a good old paperback once in a while.
“How long are you gonna caress that book, girly?”
Siena gave Eugene a smile.
Well in to his seventies, Eugene had been supplying Siena’s addiction to romance and thrillers since she was seventeen or so. Sometimes, she came in the shop just to help him rearrange shelves, or unload the new releases for the month. He didn’t need to be lifting things, anyway. His aged face showed more wrinkles when he smiled, and told the story of his life.
“I’m going to touch it and love it for as long as I want to, thank you,” she said, smiling sweetly.
Eugene sighed. “You and those damn romances. You’re going to give yourself an unhealthy outlook on men. No real life man will stand up to the kinds of heroes in those books.”
Siena shrugged. “My standards are already pretty sky-high.”
The man chuckled hoarsely. “As they should be, Siena. You take the book, and have a good day, sweetheart.”
“You didn’t ring me up yet.”
From the other side of the counter, the man winked. “Call it even for you doing my books last month for the quarter.”
Siena gave him a look. “Yeah, and I saw how much you’re making, too. So, let me pay for the damn book.”
“No way. It’s all yours. I already paid for it. You thought I would forget, I bet.”
“Eugene.”
“I remembered your birthday was today. Twenty-five.”
“Eugene.”
The old man smiled. “You didn’t ask for a thing to do my books, girly. Plus, you filed my taxes last year and wouldn’t let me pay you for that, either. Consider it payback, and a birthday gift. It’s just a book.”
“I didn’t want anything,” she replied, giving him a look.
It literally took her all of an hour to do his books, and twenty minutes to file his taxes.
Eugene shrugged. “The least you could do is allow me to buy you a book—one you’ve been waiting a long time for me to get. I know you have one of those fancy e-reader thingys. You could have just as easily gotten yourself a copy on that reading thing, and not from me. It’s one book. Don’t worry about it. Your reading addiction keeps me in business.”
Siena knew that was only partly true. She still adored Eugene for saying it. Both sets of her grandparents had died—one after the other over the span of a decade. Before she ever even reached sixteen
years old.
Now, at twenty-five, she kind of felt like she had found a stand-in for a grandparent with Eugene. Seeing him once or twice a week made her whole day.
Leaning across the counter, Siena pulled Eugene in for a tight one-armed hug. “Thank you, Eugene.”
“Ah, no need for that. You let me know if the book is as good as you wanted it to be, okay?”
Siena tapped the paperback against her palm, and cocked a brow. “Even though you think romance novels are just trashy sex scenes now?”
The old man laughed. “Now, I read some … mostly because you made me, but they’re okay.”
“Just okay?”
“How about you don’t go getting unrealistic ideas in your head about what a real man is, huh?”
Siena nodded. “I won’t.”
“But make sure he treats you like a queen.”
Exactly.
“Got it.”
Eugene waved at the door. “Have a good day, Siena. By the way, I know that’s a series, and I have already ordered the following two for you. This time, you can pay. They should get here in a couple of weeks.”
“Grazie.”
“Ciao,” Eugene replied in kind, butchering the Italian greeting.
It still made Siena smile as she headed out of the bookshop. Eugene didn’t need to make her feel special by saving or buying her books, or greeting her the way she greeted him every time she entered or exited his shop. Yet, he still did all of those things.
She suspected he was the one and only reason why people like her kept going back to him, and his bookshop. Because he was so sweet, he cared, and he never forgot to make someone who came into his business feel important while they were there.
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.