by Bethany-Kris
She didn’t know what to make of him at all.
“You work with your brothers and father, don’t you?” Lucian asked.
John’s fingers squeezed Siena’s thigh at his father’s question. She, too, was surprised Lucian had engaged her outright in conversation. He hadn’t done that yet, except to say hello earlier. Very little else.
Siena answered quickly. “I do.”
“Doing what?”
“I handle all the bookkeeping and accounting for them.”
Lucian’s brow raised at that statement. She wasn’t sure if it was surprise, disbelief, or interest. He gave nothing away. Hell, it could have been all three.
“For all their businesses?” Lucian pressed.
The chatter at the table had all but stopped. All eyes were on their interaction. John had yet to step in and speak, but Siena was grateful he didn’t.
“All of it,” she replied.
Down at the other end of the table, Dante spoke up. “I don’t think you understand what my brother means when he says all of it, Siena.”
She passed a look down the way. “I do know what he means. And yes, all of it.”
Criminal.
Legal.
She did it all.
Siena wasn’t supposed to talk about those things outside of her immediate family, but she wanted that one thing to be clear. She didn’t say things she didn’t mean, and she understood exactly what these men were.
“Smart girl,” said the redheaded woman beside Dante.
His wife.
Catrina.
And she was wearing red, just like Coraline said.
“And how does your father feel about …” Lucian waved between Siena and John before saying, “This whole thing.”
“Fine, I assume.”
Lucian’s lips curved a bit—not a complete smile, but not the expressionless, grim line he had been sporting. “You assume?”
“Matteo has no issues with speaking up about things he doesn’t like,” John said, finally coming into the conversation. “If he had a problem, he would let me know.”
“You. Not her.”
John stiffened in the chair. “That’s what I said, Dad.”
“That implies a friendliness, Johnathan.”
Silence coated the room heavily again.
A second later, Antony said, “If everyone is finished eating, I think it’s time we take this conversation upstairs.”
“I agree,” Dante said.
John looked to her—a silent question in his gaze. Siena patted his hand still squeezing her leg. “I’m fine.”
“Now.”
Their words were too quiet for anyone else to hear.
“I will be fine.”
John nodded once. “All right, love.”
Once all the men were gone from the table, the women started an entirely new conversation. Cecelia made every effort to bring Siena into the chats, and she appreciated it.
Down the table a couple of chairs, John’s other cousin turned to Siena. Catherine, her name was. Beside her sat the only man who hadn’t followed the rest—Cross.
“Are you really that good with numbers?” Catherine asked.
Siena laughed, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m really that good.”
“I can make money.”
“But you can’t hide it, huh?”
Catherine smiled. “No, I can’t hide it. I mean, someone does it for me, but it’s always good to know more people.”
Siena shrugged. “You know where to find me.”
With that, Siena felt like she might have made another friend in the Marcello family.
Only another couple dozen to go …
It was good half an hour later before the Marcello women stood to clean the table. Without being asked, Siena got up to help. She and Catherine ended up handwashing dishes while the others cleaned up the dining room and kitchen.
Cross poked his head in the entryway where there was only a couple of plates left. “Hey, babe, you want to come look at something for me?”
Catherine dropped the dishrag. “You good?”
Siena nodded. “I can handle the rest of this.”
“Thanks.”
Shortly after Catherine left, Siena realized she was all alone in the kitchen. She didn’t really mind. It allowed her quiet time to go over the events of the day.
She was lost in her own mind when someone else saddled up beside her at the sink. She didn’t realize Johnathan’s mother was standing there until Jordyn Marcello picked up one of the washed plates to dry them.
“I thought we should talk, Siena,” the woman said. “And since this is the first time my son has left your side, now seems as good of a time as ever to do it.”
Siena wasn’t sure why … but that didn’t sound good.
“What about?” Siena asked.
Jordyn set the dried plate aside. “My son. What else?”
“Considering you’ve barely spoken to me at all today, it’s not a big surprise that I’m shocked.”
The light laughter from Johnathan’s mother was unexpected. Siena found herself smiling when Jordyn winked.
“I didn’t mean to seem standoffish or cold, Siena.”
Siena shrugged. “Yeah, well …”
“But I worry about my son. All the time, and every single day. He’s thirty, so he doesn’t let me have any say now. I still worry. I wonder, though, do you?”
“What?”
“Worry about him?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I THINK WE could have done this on any other day,” Antony said as the Marcello men headed toward his office. “The no business on Sunday rule barely exists anymore, son.”
“This isn’t business, this is—”
“Family,” Antony interrupted. “Except it falls in both categories, and you know how I feel about that, Dante.”
“All right, Papa.” Dante spun around on his heels in front of the two oak doors that led into the office. He pointed at his father, and then at Lucian, and Andino, too. “All three of you can stay outside for this. Gio can join me, but only because I think he’s neutral.”
John had no idea what his uncle meant, but Dante was the boss. He made the calls, not any of them. It was his choice to make.
“Dante,” Lucian started to say.
“No, I don’t want to hear it, brother.”
“At least allow Andino in for Johnathan, then.”
“No,” Dante said simply. “He’s another one that needs to learn a thing or two.”
Andino’s hard gaze settled on the wall, and his posture was stiff enough to be fucking ice. John saw all of those things, sure, but he didn’t take them in properly for what they actually meant. At the moment, he was too pissed off to think about anything other than his own anger.
“It’s my office,” Antony said, his old voice sharpening with a warning.
Dante nodded. “And if this is going to be a problem, then I will move this discussion elsewhere. Speak now, or don’t.”
Antony said nothing.
Dante waved a single hand at John and Giovanni to follow him. John caught sight of his father shaking his head, and scowling just before the doors closed behind them—a sure sign of Lucian’s disapproval.
Likely with John, all things considered.
Hadn’t his statements at the table been enough to tell John that?
Inside the office, Dante headed for the desk. He stood behind it, but didn’t take a seat in the large chair. “Choose some place to sit or stand, but do it fast.”
Gio took a seat next to the window. John stayed standing in the middle of the room.
“I’m good,” he said when the boss shot him a look.
“For now,” Dante replied.
“What do you want, boss?”
Dante smirked, and looked up at the ceiling like he was sending out a silent prayer. “Where is this rudeness coming from, John?”
“I think after the little show downstairs, no one should expect me to be
pleasant.”
“And how about your show, huh?”
John straightened on the spot. “What show?”
“Bringing that woman to our church. Having her here for dinner with our family.” Dante pointed a single finger at him, and then shook it with a laugh. “You didn’t even consider for one second to call me and ask if that would be okay. No, you just did it. You know what kind of statement that is to bring a woman with you to church. We do not do that for just anyone, and—”
“She isn’t just anyone to me,” John replied.
In his chair, Gio cleared his throat. “That’s a heavy statement to make, John. You’ve been seeing her for how long, now?”
“On and off after I was released—steady for a couple of months.”
“That long?” Dante asked.
John shrugged. “Yeah, that long. But I guess we’re going to pretend like you didn’t already know that because you’ve had people watching me since I got out.”
“John, that was my choice to do because of your history.”
He didn’t reply, simply scoffed with a nod. What the fuck else could he do? At every turn, someone else in his family had to remind him how little they actually trusted him. It stung like nothing ever had before.
“And I didn’t know it was a steady thing,” Dante countered. “It concerns me even more to know it, actually. Why any Calabrese woman would be crawling into bed with a Marcello man is concerning, all things considered about our families.”
“Why, because she can’t want me?” John asked. “Because it can’t be just a me and her thing, it has to have something underhanded to go along with it, too?”
“Knowing them—”
John’s thin control snapped.
It had been holding on by a thread.
“Jesus Christ,” John exploded, “she is a fucking woman!”
Dante barely blinked at his rage. “A woman who apparently has a hand in the Calabrese business—albeit behind the scenes. Still, it would not be a stretch to think she is close to her father, or brothers. That perhaps her loyalty to them is far more than her loyalty to you, or even us.”
John clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails bit into his skin, and broke the surface. It was better than punching his uncle like he wanted to do.
“That’s what it comes down to—loyalty?” John asked.
“Her last name is Calabrese, Johnathan. She is their daughter—a woman from their family. How many times do I need to explain this to you before you understand it?”
Rage vibrated through John’s bloodstream. A thick, beating thrum of hot anger that filled him up, and ate through his heart all the while. It had been a long damn time since he had gotten this angry, this fast.
Yet, he embraced it.
He wasn’t scared of it.
Right then, he kind of needed it.
“You know nothing about Siena,” John returned. “Nothing to make any kind of assumption that she is feeding them information, or fucking me over for them.”
“Do you know?” Dante countered. “Would you know it if it were happening? Could you even see it happening?”
Damn.
The sharp slice of betrayal stabbed John in his chest. Over and over. Every single word his uncle said only cut worse.
“Because I must be entirely fucking incapable at anything like that,” John said, his voice quieting. “Paranoid, sure. Unstable, yeah. So much so, that you don’t even trust me to be a capable made man. So fuck it, she’s got to be one of those things, too. That’s what it is, right?”
Dante tipped his chin up. “I did not say that, John.”
“You said enough, boss.”
“Your bipolar has—”
“Everything to do with me,” John interjected. “It is everything that is me, and you know it. Except you use my disorder as a crutch—something to hold me back, or justify your shit. That stops, now.”
“John, he doesn’t mean to do that,” Gio said quietly. “None of us mean to do that, honestly.”
He ignored his other uncle.
Dante ignored Gio, too. In fact, the boss switched topics entirely.
“You have handled the Calabrese side of the business since December, haven’t you?” Dante asked. He didn’t give Johnathan a chance to respond before saying, “And you see, I know Andino barely did a thing with them. He didn’t meet them for dinners, and have private chats with the boss. He spent as little time as possible with Matteo’s two sons, and kept them at arm’s length at all times. But what do you do, John?”
Again, he didn’t give him time to answer.
“You date his daughter,” Dante said, letting out a bitter laugh. “You work hands on with the Calabrese brothers when you could easily delegate the jobs to men on the crew. You’re seen coming and going at all hours from Calabrese businesses, and I know you’ve had private invitations from that family.”
For Siena, John held back from saying.
He did a lot of that for her.
“So,” Dante continued, leaning forward with his hands splayed on the desk, “perhaps, John, you can understand why I am wary of how close you are getting to that family. Our history with them is long, and tainted. They are snakes—they cannot be trusted. Except you seem to be doing exactly that.”
His uncle knew nothing.
John felt like that was the story of his life, though. He could talk, talk, and talk more. He could explain that all of those were either situations he had been put in to, or something involving Siena, but it would do them no good.
Dante would not care.
Why?
John was a Marcello.
Siena was a Calabrese.
“You don’t know who she gives her loyalty to,” Dante said, “and you can’t trust her with it, Johnathan.”
“So says you,” he replied.
He refused to say much else, though.
“Marcellos will do a lot of things, but getting into bed with a Calabrese isn’t one of them. Or, it wasn’t. You may think that she’s a woman, and she’s fucking harmless, but the rest of them are most certainly not, John.”
Siena wouldn’t hurt a fly. Shit, she probably couldn’t hurt a fly when it came right down to it. She was pure and good and gold. Everything that John wanted.
Dante didn’t seem to care.
“You’re telling me that she isn’t going home tonight to feed her father information about us, and our family?” Dante asked. “Do you really trust her that much? You know how the Calabrese are, Johnathan. Do you know how very different your world might have been had a Calabrese not ruined it?”
John’s nerves prickled with irritation. “I bet you probably would not be sitting where you are had things been different, actually.”
Dante’s jaw stiffened.
Point made.
“Is it your loyalty that I have to be worried about, then?” Dante asked. “Not hers, but yours, John.”
At that statement, Gio did stand from his chair. “Dante, come on.”
John was over it. That one remark from his uncle had effectively ended the conversation for him altogether. Nothing else Dante said would make a difference to him, now.
“Nah, it’s fine.” John laughed, dark and hollow. “Fuck him.”
“John!”
Dante’s roar hit his back.
It didn’t matter.
He was already gone from the office.
John headed down the hallway, bypassing his father, grandfather, and cousin. He didn’t hear anyone following him, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was find Siena, and get the fuck out of there. Do something else with just her …. Anything except being in this house, with these people.
“John, wait, son.”
His father’s words came just as he rounded the second floor’s staircase. Lucian caught him by the back of his jacket, and yanked hard enough to spin him around.
“Look at me,” his father said.
John found familiarity staring at him from his father�
�s eyes. He also found a raised Marcello there, too. Not born, no, but raised.
“You’re all the fucking same,” John told his father. “Every single one of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Lucian looked upward in the direction they had come from. “Give Dante some time, John. Old habits die hard in this family and business—this is one memory for us that cannot be washed out in one run. You have to give it time.”
“Like you give a shit. You couldn’t have been clearer downstairs going on like you were with Siena at the table, Dad.”
Lucian frowned. “I feel people out differently than my brothers do, that’s all.”
“Bullshit. Like I said, you’re all the same.”
“Don’t you see—can’t you see—I’m on your side, John? There’s a reason he wouldn’t let me in that office. Are you even listening to me right now?”
He didn’t care. His perception of his father was colored heavily by his anger, distrust, and everything else that put distance between them.
Lucian said one thing, but John heard another.
It had always been this way.
Neither of them could fix it now.
• • •
“Where’s Siena?”
Catherine looked up from the tablet her boyfriend was showing her. “What?”
“Siena. She’s not with everybody else in the theater. Where is she?”
“Probably still in the kitchen,” Cross said, lifting a brow. “That’s where Catherine left her.”
“Did anybody think to ask if she might like to join them, so she wouldn’t be alone?”
Catherine frowned. “I was with her—we were washing dishes. She’s really nice, John.”
“Quiet,” Cross added.
John tried to soften his defensive stance a bit, but it was hard after the shit show upstairs. “Yeah?”
Catherine—his favorite cousin next to Andino—nodded. “Yeah, I really like her.”
“Even if she is a Calabrese?”
Cross scoffed. “That old bullshit again?”
Yeah, that old bullshit again.
John only shrugged.
“So, the kitchen?” he asked.
“The kitchen,” Catherine said before going back to whatever Cross had been showing her.