JOHN LEANED BACK against the bar, and grinned wide at the sight of the man coming through the front doors of the Brooklyn pub. Andino brushed invisible dirt from his black tweed jacket as the door swung closed behind the three men who followed him in.
Andino’s gaze swept the floor—a predatory gaze, in ways—as he looked for the fucker who had demanded a meeting with him for no other reason than because they said so. A meeting that needed to happen this very day. On Andino’s release from jail. There couldn’t be another time.
John hadn’t given any other information about the meeting, either. Not that it was him who called it, or why he thought he had any kind of clout to call in a meeting with a Cosa Nostra Don. Knowing his cousin like he did, John figured Andino would show up just to make a point to whatever dumb fuck called him in that he answered to absolutely no one.
Seemed he had guessed right, after all. His cousin didn’t look very pleased.
John smiled wider.
Finally, Andino’s gaze found John leaning against the bar, and for a split second, his posture softened. His cousin took him in standing there once more, and raised an eyebrow from across the floor.
It was as though Andino was silently asking, Really, John?
“Hey, we have to get our kicks from somewhere, man.”
Andino let out a laugh, and crossed the floor. His hand came out fast, and struck against John’s already outstretched palm to clap, and then shake. Despite not being a physically affectionate kind of guy, John still pulled Andino in for a one-armed hug before he let him go again.
John took his place leaning against the bar once more as he flicked his hand at the two enforcers of his lingering close by. “Go have a drink, cafones. Relax a minute. We’ll be staying a while before we move onto the next thing.”
“You got it, boss.”
Off the men went without a look back.
Andino, too, gave the two men who had followed him inside the bar a quick wave and a, “Scatter.”
They scattered.
“You look good,” John said, smirking. “I guess jail did something decent for you after all, huh?”
Andino flipped him the middle finger before taking one of the many stools at the bar. He gestured at the bartender with two fingers, and said, “Whiskey, neat.”
Then, his attention was back on John.
“I can’t believe you hauled my ass down to this dirty fucking pub for a drink hours after I get released.”
John shrugged, and tipped his glass of water up for a drink. “Hey, I let you have some time with your wife. Mostly because she threatened everyone who even suggested they wanted to be at the house when you got home, but that’s a story for another day. Bet you used and enjoyed every fucking minute with her, too.”
Andino didn’t deny it. “Yeah, and then I get a call about some arrogant, stupid fuck demanding a meeting with me like he’s got some kind of right to.”
John chuckled. “I knew you would come here just to beat someone’s skull in.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to do, yeah.”
Figures.
“Also,” Andino said as he grabbed the glass of amber liquid from the bartender.
“What?”
“Thanks, John.”
John nodded. “About time I save your ass for once, I guess.”
Andino laughed hard. “Let’s not make it a habit.”
“You are the one with the level head.”
“You’ve got your good qualities, too,” Andino replied in kind.
Turning their backs to the bar, both men overlooked the quiet pub in comfortable silence. John enjoyed this—kind of needed it, really. It had been too long since he just sat down with Andino and did nothing.
“You must be busy as hell lately,” Andino noted, shooting John a look.
“Christ, you don’t even want to know.”
“Try me.”
“The Calabrese organization is a mess. Mind you, it’s a mess I can handle, and one I am handling just fine. It’s still a goddamn mess at the end of the day. I suspected a lot of the men would be difficult, and they are at times, but they’re coming around too.”
“How many did you have to kill to get them that way?”
John cleared his throat. “Half a dozen, or so.”
“Better than I thought.”
“Funny,” John drawled. “It’s not even the men, really. It’s more than that. Their business is shit, Andi. They’ve depended on their affiliations with other families, and small time gangs to keep their crews moving product, and making money. I don’t know if some of the younger made men even know how to go out on the streets, and hustle up a dollar. It’s fucking outrageous. Imagine being the boss who drove your organization to that kind of breaking point. They’re a goddamn shame.”
Andino smirked.
John didn’t miss it. “What?”
“Wasn’t it you and Siena they called the disgrace of your families? Seems they had something to be hiding in their own closets. Makes sense why the brothers were so adamant about trying to get in more on our business. A slice they could take and claim for themselves, I suppose.”
He scowled. “Yeah, well, now I’m left with what’s left of what they were trying to hide.”
Andino nodded. “Yeah, but you were always one of the best Capos the Marcello famiglia ever had, man. Those men have the best to learn from, John. You’re going to do fucking fine, and be raking in all the money.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Better be. I don’t need to be wasting my time—I’m trying to live my life, for Christ’s sake, not spend the rest of it working the streets as a Don.”
“You’ll get it straightened out. I have no doubt. I see you’re all fucking dressed up, too.”
His cousin reached up, and flicked one of the silver buttons on John’s blazer.
“Armani,” Andino said, cracking another smug smile. “The boss only wears the best.”
“I’ve been wearing Armani since I was sixteen,” John said, shaking his head. “The thought of wearing different brands when I know this one fits me well, and doesn’t bother me, makes me want to stick an ice pick in my temple.”
Andino’s brow lifted high. “That’s a little … over the top.”
John shrugged again. “Being bipolar sometimes is.”
And he had his habits for a reason. Things he ate, and the stuff he did. The clothes he preferred to wear, and even the brand of shoes he had bought for years. He was always going to be a little particular, picky, moody, and obsessive.
It was just who John was.
“So what are you doing today?” Andino asked after another minute of silence.
“Taking a break from work to pester your dumb ass.”
Andino shook his head, and grinned. “After, I mean.”
“Taking my fiancée to meet Lucia.”
“Bit that bullet, did you?”
“I waited long enough,” John murmured. “I was not waiting one second longer.”
“Not really by choice that you had to wait, man.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“How do you think little Lucy is going to be with Siena?”
John scoffed. “Siena, she’ll love. It’s me she hates, Andi.”
“Not forever.”
“Right now is hard enough.”
Andino tipped his glass high. “Truth. Consider, though, that she feels so strongly in a negative way about you at the moment because she felt just as strongly about you in a positive way. That means good things—the bridge is not yet burned.”
“Actually, that just makes me feel like even more of a piece of shit. She trusted me, and I took something away from her that she cared about.”
“Give it time. Better days are ahead, John. Far better days are ahead.”
Sure.
But for how long?
• • •
John stayed a few paces behind Siena and Lucia as the two navigated The Annex. Usually, he liked the market because it was yet another place where he could be surrounded by people, but he didn’t need to engage them at the same time. He was all for anything that put him in a crowd, but didn’t make him the center of attention at the same time.
He was only good with that when he wanted it.
Today, though, John was starting to feel like a third wheel as he watched Siena and Lucia chat, and laugh together. He was not privy to their conversation as he didn’t want to intrude, mostly. Lucia had barely given him a hello when he picked her up earlier, but she took to Siena damn near instantly.
Small blessings.
He was counting those up.
“John, you’re out of that jam you like, right?” Siena asked over her shoulder.
Lucia’s gaze drifted to her brother when Siena mentioned his name, but just as fast, hazel fire turned to dark ice in a blink. She looked ahead once more, and didn’t grace him with anymore of her attention.
John sighed.
Siena didn’t miss the exchange, and frowned. Had his youngest sister not been standing right there, he would have reassured Siena everything was fine. He couldn’t do that, so instead, his love was left to try and fix things.
John had come to learn that about Siena.
She was a fixer.
“We can grab some of the jam on the way out,” he told her. “Don’t worry about it, bella.”
He meant for her not to worry about more than just the jam, and hoped his unspoken message got the point across. He seriously doubted that it did, though. Siena just didn’t work that way when it came to John.
Always looking out for him.
Always having his back.
“No, I can make a trip around. I need to grab something else that way, too. You and Lucia keep going. She wants to grab—what is that, again?”
Lucia didn’t look at John as she said, “Some bagged tea.”
“Yeah, so take her,” Siena said, dropping his sister’s arm and giving him a pointed look. “And I will meet you at the entrance on the way out of the market.”
John tried not to scowl as Siena dropped a quick kiss to his lips and murmured, “Stop pouting, John.”
He was not fucking pouting.
“I will meet you at the entrance,” John grumbled.
“Good.”
Her hand patted his cheek affectionately, and then she was gone. Quickly disappearing into the crowd of people. Just as fast, one of the two enforcers that were following along, but also keeping their distance, split away from his partner without needing to be told. He followed behind Siena without her ever realizing he was even there.
That left John.
And Lucia.
Alone.
Together.
Fuck.
“Well, come on, then,” Lucia said with a cool tone and a dismissive wave. “It’s cold, and I don’t want to freeze out here for too long.”
John chuckled dryly, but followed along behind his sister. “You didn’t mind five minutes ago when Siena was here.”
He saw Lucia’s shoulders stiffen from behind.
“Yeah, well …”
Time to bite another bullet.
“What do you need me to say, Lucia?” John asked quietly, speaking to the back of her head because she still wouldn’t even look at him. “Tell me what to say so that we can move on, and I will do that. Sorry isn’t going to be good enough—I get that. So what will do it for you?”
For the briefest second, his sister’s posture softened. She stopped walking, but the people continued to blow by them in the market. No one around them seemed to feel the tension biting pain passing between the two siblings.
Slowly, Lucia turned around to face him. The coldness in her gaze had finally left, but he wasn’t all too sure that he liked what replaced it, either. A line of watery tears that were damn near ready to fall, but somehow, she held the floodgates back.
“You’re right,” Lucia said quietly, “sorry won’t be good enough, John.”
“But I am sorry.”
She nodded. “Now.”
“The day it happened. The day I found you. The day Renzo was taken away. That very second, Lucia, I was sorry. That was not what was supposed to happen.”
Her jaw hardened, and goddamn, she looked so much like their father in that moment, it was unreal. Only their dad could hold back his emotions with a hardened jaw, and clipped words.
Lucia didn’t do that, though. “Did you know he hated me?”
“Who?”
“Renzo,” Lucia said. “At first, he thought I was just some little rich bitch with an air-filled head, and a pretty face. I didn’t know what it was like to be poor, or to struggle. I didn’t know the streets, or how hard they are on people like him. I didn’t know what it was like to come where he comes from, or how to survive without a trust fund.”
“Lucia—”
“He was right, too. And maybe I should have thanked him for making that obvious to me, you know? He woke me up. It took thirty days to change my life, and seconds to make it worse all over again.”
John scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and glanced away. Silently, he dug in the inner pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a piece of information he had been keeping hidden for a while. He always planned to give it to Lucia, sure, but at the right time.
Now seemed like that time.
“Here,” John said.
Lucia eyed the folded up piece of paper. “What is it?”
“A better apology.”
His sister plucked the paper from his hand, but never took her gaze off him all the while. It was almost like she thought he was going to jump out and snatch the paper back, or some kind of nonsense.
Lucia unfolded the four squares of the paper, and silently read over the information. He saw the way her gaze flicked back and forth—how her fingers tightened to crumple the edges of the paper, and the way her eyes filled up with tears all over again.
“You don’t have to say anything,” John told her. “Not thank you, or fuck you, or anything, Lucia.”
“Does Dad know you got this for me?” she asked.
John shook his head. “Nope. It’s also not about Dad. It’s about us. Sometimes, I think Dad just worries too much about us. He wants us to be safe, and happy, and fulfilled. In the process, his protective nature sometimes smothers us, too. And that’s just Dad—he is who he is, and we have to love him regardless, Lucia.”
“I do love Daddy, but—”
“You’re angry with him, too.”
A single tear dropped down Lucia’s cheek, but she didn’t move to wipe it away. “So fucking mad, John.”
“It’s cliché, kiddo, but what’s meant to be, will be, and fuck the rest.” John pointed at the paper, and said, “There’s your lifeline, Lucia. You want to talk to Renzo—you want to know? He’s right there. I’m sorry it’s not more.”
Lucia clenched the paper harder, and looked up at her brother. “This is perfect, John.”
He smiled. “That’s all I wanted to—”
His words cut off when a scream filled The Annex. A terrified scream that was accompanied by several other shrill shrieks. People began to scatter like horrified rats shoved in a very small space. One shoved John, which caused him to ram into Lucia. He grabbed hold of his sister with a fucking death grip to keep her from being shoved to the ground.
“What is happening?” Lucia asked.
John had no idea.
Another shrill scream echoed.
Someone shouted, “She’s got a gun!”
John’s blood ran cold. He didn’t have any reason to think this was an attack on him, or Siena, but for some reason, he just … knew.
It had to be.
His luck had run out.
“Don’t fucking move,” he told his sister when he shoved her behind a vendor tent.
“John!”
“Don’t move!”
John didn’t look back as he darted in the direction that everybody was now running from. The same direction that Siena had went in earlier to get his fucking jam.
Jesus Christ.
For jam.
He would be lucky if he could ever put the shit in his mouth again after today. At the moment, it only made him want to vomit at just the thought alone.
John rammed through the oncoming people—he barely heard their shouts of terror, and he faintly registered the fear on their faces. He was laser focused on one thing, and one thing only. He didn’t care about anybody else at the moment.
Siena. Siena. Siena.
His heart thundered her name. The organ practically jumped into his throat, and beat even harder there, too.
“You ruined us, you little bitch! Everything our family worked for, you ruined it! You disgraced our name, and our legacy and for what? So you could spread your legs for some Marcello—”
“Ma, put the gun down. Please, put the gun down. You’re scaring people.”
John pushed through the last few people, and came to an abrupt stop only fifteen feet away from the entrance of The Annex. Siena stood in a cleared circle with her mother only a couple of steps away.
Coraline Calabrese.
That fucking bitch.
John hadn’t been able to get a lead on the woman once she disappeared after Darren’s death, but he hadn’t been too worried. He thought—stupidly, clearly—that the woman was just that … a woman. Not one with any power, or capability to hurt them. She could go away and lick her wounds about her shattered family in private, and maybe come back to beg her daughter for forgiveness in the future.
He had been wrong.
So wrong.
They were going to pay for it.
Siena held up her hands, and in one, held the jar of jam John liked. A bright red, sweet mix of raspberries and strawberries. Her position almost looked resigned—she spoke so calmly, and without fear.
John reached for a non-existent gun at his back at the same time Coraline pulled back the hammer on the revolver. He didn’t have a gun on him; it wasn’t safe given his position, now. He had too much attention from cops and detectives, and his probation said he couldn’t have any firearms on his person, legal or otherwise.
That’s why he kept the enforcer’s close.
Where the fuck were they?
Coraline’s gun lit like a sparkler on the Fourth of July when she pulled the trigger. Another gunshot rang out right after.
John was already darting into the circle. His arms were already opened to grab Siena … or in this case, to catch her.
He fell with her.
On damp pavement.
On cold ground.
Unfeeling.
So numb.
The jar of jam shattered—spilling sweet red all over the ground. It mixed in with the blood pumping from the love of his life in his hands, and the woman resting face-first on the ground with a blown out skull.
Siena stared up at him from his lap as red bloomed over her chest. It soaked through her white, off-the-shoulder dress in the most morbid way. “John.”
Panic and rage and fear and pain washed through John’s senses all at the same time. He had never been very good at handling this kind of thing.
He raged.
Roared at the man who had shot Coraline.
Shouted at Siena, too.
“John,” she breathed.
Dots of blood peppered her lips. Losing pink, and gaining the wrong shade of red, he thought.
“Look at me,” he heard himself say. “Keep looking at me, my girl.”
She did.
And then she didn’t.
The noise in John’s mind and emotions became impossibly louder. It became far more painful. It couldn’t be contained.
He raged on.
• • •
“They were only trying to defuse the situation, John,” someone said.
“Which is exactly what enforcers are taught to do,” someone else added.
“You don’t want them going out with guns blazing all the damn time—that’s not how we fucking work, and you know it.”
“They did their job, son,” was the next sentence flung his way. “Coraline is dead—he took the shot the second he knew he had no choice.”
Over his shoulder, John hurled with venom, “A fucking second too late!”
Silence answered him back.
His emotions were up.
Then they went way down.
Like a fucking swinging pendulum. One he couldn’t possibly control no matter how much he tried to hide his issues.
He knew it was because today had just been too much—too much stimulation, and too much happening. His meds were not meant to combat these kinds of mood swings caused by traumatic events.
He tried to force himself to be quiet so his outbursts lessened.
John went back to staring at the clock.
Three hours in surgery …
Three more hours to go.
Or, that’s what the nurse said when she came with an update.
Siena’s heart had been nicked by the bullet. It ricocheted off a rib, punctured her lung, and grazed her heart. She’d been drowning and choking in her own blood while she laid in his lap, and that killed him.
He was never going to forget that.
Nothing was going to take that image away.
“And you want me to fucking let them go without punishment?”
His snarl echoed back in a silent waiting room.
He had tried to be quiet again.
He failed.
“John?”
He blinked as he stared at the clock. Every ten seconds, on the dot, he blinked again. Like a fucking robot. He heard them talking—his family, and his men. He heard their words and their justifications.
Part of him knew they were right.
Part of him didn’t give a fuck.
That part was the one with bloodstained skin, and hatred in his heart. That part was the one who wanted to punish every stupid fuck that had failed to protect Siena today. That part was dead and dying and full of a rage so hot, it could only be the color black.
Like his mind.
Tar black.
“John?”
He looked to the side as someone tugged on his jacket, and found Lucia staring up at him. Her red-rimmed hazel eyes were a stark contrast to his dry, blazing gaze.
“Is she okay?” Lucia asked.
John shrugged, but even the action felt like it took too much effort. “I don’t know.”
“John, we need to talk about the enforcers—”
He found the men staring at him over his shoulder again—his father, uncles, Andino, and his own men.
They wanted to talk.
He wanted to kill.
John looked back at the clock. “I don’t need to do anything at the moment.”
Besides, his choice for those enforcers had already been made.
She lived—they lived.
It was that simple.
It was in God’s hands now.
John’s hands were tied.