by Bethany-Kris
“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.
John would not be with her.
Siena had barely finished getting dressed earlier when John’s phone started to ring again. This time, it was not Andino calling him, but his uncle. I’m eating, was all he said.
He was to be there—at the meeting.
No matter what.
That was the order.
Siena didn’t even think about what it would mean if she went with him to the meeting. She only knew that she wanted to go. John agreed, and so here she was.
“He burned down my warehouse,” Matteo said, his gaze darting back to Dante. “You will answer for that, or he will. I do not care which one it is.”
“You don’t know for sure that—”
Matteo took one more step forward, the threat blazing in his eyes. “Who the fuck else would have done it, Marcello, you? One of your men, perhaps? Did you order it because you felt I was too close? You never did like it when the Calabrese get close to your men. Did you finally have enough?”
Dante’s jaw hardened, but his face gave away nothing. Not an emotion, nothing at all.
“There’s a reason why the Marcellos and the Calabrese don’t mix business,” Dante said. “And you know very well what that reason is, Matteo.”
“And yet,” Matteo said, “you had no problem with my daughter and your nephew.”
“I had every problem with it.”
Matteo sneered, and his eyes drifted to John once more. “Who’s to say he didn’t do it? Everyone in your family knows the man is unstable. Hell, anyone who spends time with him knows it.”
John’s stiffened beside Siena. She held tighter to him when she felt his muscles tense as though he was about to spring forward. His body felt like a winding coil about to come undone.
“John,” she whispered too low for anyone else to hear, “it’s okay.”
It was like he didn’t hear her at all.
“Say that again,” John uttered.
Matteo gaze stayed firmly on John when he said, “It’s no secret that you’re crazy, John. The way you go on sometimes, and the shit you do … this isn’t a surprise. What is a surprise is how long your family was able to keep it quiet.”
Siena couldn’t keep her hold on John after that statement. He ripped away from her side like a bullet shooting from a gun. He was a foot away from her father before someone was quick enough to step in and grab him.
Actually, several people.
And just like that, a meeting that had a possibility to be peaceful and calm was now chaos and violence.
“Say that again!”
John’s words echoed above the shouting men.
Only a laugh answered him back.
Held back by his cousin, father, and uncle, they were barely keeping ahold of John. Matteo gave another one of his sneers. A signature look for her father. Something he always gave to someone when he felt above them, and he wanted them to know they were beneath him.
She was not surprised to see him use it on John.
“I think this meeting is done,” Dante said.
Matteo turned away, and waved a hand to his men. “It was done before it ever began, Dante. We both know that. We’re leaving.”
Siena moved toward John, but she didn’t make it far.
Kev grabbed her arm forcefully enough to leave bruises behind, and dragged her with him. Her protests, and her shouts to be left alone, went unheard. All she saw was the burning hazel of John’s eyes before the restaurant door slammed closed.
• • •
Siena’s heart felt as heavy as her feet. As though cement had been poured in both, and were now weighing her down.
She glanced back at the enforcer who stood with his arms crossed at the car. He kept an eye on her—a threatening eye—as she stood on the sidewalk. Her new best friend, as her father like to say.
She couldn’t go anywhere without the enforcer either driving her, or following her.
Today was no exception.
The enforcer was just one new change in her life since the week before. Her father had also taken her cell phone away, and refused to provide her with a new one. The freedom she had been given with living away from home was suddenly ripped from her grasp. She had been relocated to her parents’ home without any explanation.
Her days now consisted of waking up, working wherever her father told her she had to work, and going home to her parents’ brownstone.
She didn’t know where John was, and had not spoken to him in days. She didn’t even know if he was okay.
“Are you going in?” the enforcer asked from behind her.
Siena gritted her teeth, and forced herself to be polite. There was no need to make the man run back to her father, and report bad behavior. All that would make for was another long night with Matteo raging on.
She didn’t need that.
Nobody needed that.
She was struggling between keeping her father happy, and needing to know something—anything—about John.
“Well?”
Siena looked back at the enforcer. “Yeah, I’m going in.”
“I’ll be here waiting when you get out.”
Unfortunately, Siena didn’t doubt it.
She headed into the business, and was thankful that today, the restaurant wasn’t as busy as it usually was. Instead of heading right for the back to an office to work, she went to the bar first. The blonde acting as the bartender for the day gave her a smile.
“Want a drink?”
Siena laughed. “A whole bottle would be great.”
“Not sure I can do that.”
“How about something to make this day worth it?”
“One of those, huh?”
Siena scoffed—the girl had no idea. “One of those.”
The girl nodded. “Yeah, I got something for that.”
Less than a minute later, the bartender slid three fingers worth of whiskey across the bar in a lowball glass. Siena eyed the drink, but didn’t pick it up. She really wasn’t a big drinker, but she also really needed something to get through the damn day.
“You don’t like whiskey?”
“Not particularly.”
“Throw it back fast, and hold your breath.”
Siena did just that, but the whiskey still burned, and her chest felt like it was on fire when she sucked in a hard breath. At the same time, a deep warmth spread through her blood and body. It was enough to feel like she might make it a couple more hours today without a breakdown.
Anything to get through the damn day.
Siena pushed the glass back to the bartender. “Did you see my brothers come in yet?”
The woman nodded once. “Yeah, both of them. They’re in the back.”
Great.
Not wanting to waste any more time lest Darren or Kev get on the phone to her father, Siena headed for the back of the restaurant. She still walked a bit slower than normal to get that extra minute or two, so she didn’t have to be in the presence of one of her brothers. What a sad mess her life had become.
She heard the voices of her brothers filtering down the hall the closer she came to the office. Kev first, and then Darren.
“The Marcellos are in a fit,” Kev said.
“It worked, though,” Darren replied. “Shame we couldn’t get John to turn on them like Dad first wanted.”
“Can only do so much. Move onto Plan B, when Plan A doesn’t work out the way you want it to. Dad couldn’t get John in close enough, so he pushed him on a little b
it with the file. Still didn’t get enough out of that, so we made it worse by burning the warehouse. See what all that did for us?”
“We’re going to have to be careful for a little while,” Darren said. “On the streets, I mean. I got word it’s going to be all out war once we finish this off.”
“Who would have thought the Marcello family gave that much of a shit about a fuck up like Johnathan Marcello?” Kev laughed. “As if being fucking crazy isn’t enough of a disgrace for his family with the bipolar, now they’re going to back him in this mess, too.”
“You don’t know that. You’re assuming they’ll back him here, but maybe this could be a last straw type of deal for them,” Darren said. “How long has he been like this—how many messes have they cleaned up for him over the years? John’s crazy. It didn’t take very much for us to make it worse for him. I don’t think he can count on his family as much this time around.”
Kev’s laughter came out louder the second time around. “Let’s hope that’s the motherfucking truth. Either way, they’re all going down.”
Siena couldn’t stop her footsteps if she tried. Her heart filled with rage and hate as she stepped in the office doorway. Both brothers looked her way, but neither of them seemed very surprised to see her standing there.
“You’re late,” Kev said.
Story of her fucking life.
“I’m always late,” she said. “It’s nothing new.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got work to do,” Darren said. “So get to it.”
She had other shit to do now, too.
“How fucking dare you?”
Darren’s gaze narrowed.
Kev’s eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”
Siena didn’t bat a lash. “You heard what I said, and I heard exactly what you were just saying, too.”
“Heard that did you?” Kev asked, waving a hand at her as if to flick her away from him. “Listen, Siena, you know enough about this business to know the Marcello family and the Calabrese family can’t mix. The fact that Dad let you go on as long as he did with John should have been a hint that something was up.”
Should it have?
She didn’t think it should.
“How did you know?” she asked. “About John’s disorder, I mean.”
Darren smirked. “We had our suspicions. Rumors travel far and wide in this business, you know.”
“And you forgot about this little thing called browsing history,” Kev added.
Siena’s heart stopped for a split second. She knew exactly what her brother was talking about without even asking for him to explain. The one time she had searched for information about her suspicions regarding Johnathan, she had used a computer in one of Kev’s offices. Sure, she had closed the browser in time, but she should have known better than to trust her brother.
Privacy was an illusion for Siena. She wasn’t actually granted any at all when it came to the men of her family. She should not have assumed otherwise. Look what happened.
Marcellos were right.
The Calabrese family was full of snakes.
And she was looking at two of them.
“Don’t worry,” Kev said, “this will all be over soon. Dad will get what he wants, and we can all move on. This has been a long time in the making, Siena, and you won’t be the one to ruin it.”
“And what does that mean?” she asked.
Kev shrugged from his position behind the desk, saying, “Well, the Marcellos are two seconds away from starting a war with the Calabrese. A war Dad thinks he can win. They just need a little shove.”
“Might as well start with John,” Darren added.
Siena’s soul slipped from her body. She swore it did. Nothing had ever felt quite so painful before.
“You’re a Calabrese, Siena,” Kev said. “You should really start acting like it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“AMELIA WILL see you now,” the receptionist said.
John stood from the chair, and his father followed suit. The receptionist’s gaze widened when the two headed for the office door.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but only John can attend his appointment unless the doctor has otherwise stated for the session.”
“No,” Lucian said, “I will be seeing her, too.”
“I can’t allow—”
“It doesn’t matter what you can’t allow,” Lucian interjected fast. “It matters what will happen regardless of what you say.”
John was only half listening. A part of him was there, and present. Another part of him was somewhere else entirely.
He followed behind his father as Lucian entered the office, feeling like a child again. It reminded him of all those times when as a young boy and teenager he had visited office after office, doctor after doctor, therapist after therapist with his parents. Each one offered something different as an explanation. He had been diagnosed as ADHD, and then ADD, and even by one, as on the autism spectrum. It was difficult knowing that none of those really fit, either.
His parents had never done that to harm him, or anything of the sort. In fact, it had been the exact opposite. They took him to person after person, desperately trying to help John when he was a child. They needed answers, not for them, but for him.
And eventually, they got those answers.
Bipolar.
He wasn’t sure if that was the answer his parents had wanted, however.
Now, here they were again. John was thirty, a grown ass man, and his father was attending yet another appointment. To be fair, Lucian only came after he went through John’s home, and found the massive pile of medications prescribed by Amelia, and then overheard as his son tried to deflect yet another scheduled appointment with the therapist.
John should have had this shit handled. Neither one of his parents should be involved. He didn’t know which emotion to deal with first.
The guilt.
Or the irritation.
The way the two battled against each other was a poison to John’s mind. It was hard to know that his anger was irrational when his mind came up with too many different reasons to justify it. The reasons didn’t have to be good ones, of course, just reasons. It was even more difficult to deal with the guilt when the anger was an easier emotion to feed.
Yet, the two warred.
On and on it went.
Distracting him.
Sucking him in.
Taking him away.
“Johnathan.”
At the sound of his therapist’s voice, John realize that he was actually sitting in her office. Just like that, once more, he lost seconds. More moments gone from his day that he couldn’t explain.
Time erased.
“How long have you known my son was manic?” Lucian asked.
“I’m sorry,” Amelia said, “but I can’t speak about my patient—”
“This is my son,” Lucian interrupted. “And at the moment, what he needs right now the most, is the proper help. And I need to know if that is you, or if you are unintentionally hurting him.”
“Hurting him?” The therapist stood from her chair, and discarded the clipboard and pen in her hand to the seat. “I’ve been treating John since he was released from prison. Yes, I have noticed that he was possibly entering a hypomanic stage, but—”
“But nothing,” Lucian said. “At that point, the discussion ends. At the point you understood, or at the very least suspected that he was hypomanic, your job was to stabilize him. Nothing more.”
“I—”
“Stabilize him,” Lucian echoed again. “Not feed him more medications, or allow the hypomania to worsen into full blown mania by ignoring it.”
“I did not ignore—”
Finally, John snapped out of his daze. He wasn’t sure what did it—his father being his voice when he had suddenly stop learning how to be that for himself after all these years, or the therapist who was blatantly lying. John had tried to tell her for months on end what was happening with him in too many differen
t ways to count.
“I said over and over again,” John muttered, “that it was too many medications. I didn’t need them. I need less, not more. I went through intensive therapy learning how to manage my anxiety and depression because I can’t mix those medications with extra mood stabilizers. Putting them on top of medications I already take only puts me in a fog.”
“Yes, but John—”
“But nothing,” John said, sick, tired, and entirely over this whole charade. “I’m telling you right now what I need. I’ve dealt with this disorder. I’ve went through medication after medication. Not you. Me.”
Lucian looked to John, and frowned. “He is his only voice—you are supposed to be the advocate for that voice, but you weren’t. And for what? To suit your beliefs? Because you believed he didn’t have a grasp on his disorder? What was it?”
Amelia didn’t reply.
Lucian didn’t back down.
“He came out of prison stable,” Lucian stressed. “The most stable he has been in years.”
“It’s normal for those with bipolar to need medication changes!”
Finally, his therapist was able to get out one full sentence without being interrupted. Still, it was the wrong thing to say.
“But did he need it?” Lucian asked.
Amelia tipped her chin up. “I felt so, yes. I felt he could better manage other aspects made more present because of his disorder in this way. Like the depression, and the anxiety. Medication can help with all of that.”
“Yet, he managed fine without extra meds before.”
John glanced up at the clock. He was acutely aware of the ticking sound it made. For some reason, it felt like it was ticking inside his body. Something was counting down inside him, but he didn’t know what it was.
“I stopped taking the other meds, and halved the Lithium to every other day just so I could think again,” John said.
All eyes in the room turned on him.
Not for long, though.
Lucian turned back on the therapist in a blink. “You will hand over his files to whichever doctor’s office contacts you for them. If you so much as breathe a word in his parole officer’s direction that he is no longer having appointments here before we can find someone new, I will ruin you.”