SIENA WAS beginning to hate the passage of time. Or rather, how time no longer passed by for her the way it used to. Before all of this had happened—before John came into her life, and was then taken from her—she never paid much attention to getting through her days, or how slowly they crawled by.
None of that ever seemed important before. She got through the days by focusing on her work, and getting lost in books. By using the black and white simplicity she applied to her love of numbers, and the little joys she got in her private moments alone.
Back then, she had yet to find something that was worth counting her seconds, minutes, hours, and days for.
It was no longer that easy.
Now, time felt like a snail sliding ridiculously slow across ice. No amount of work could keep her distracted or focused enough, and she worked all the damn time. Still. Her eyes continued to travel to wherever the clock was on the wall, and she often found herself counting down.
It had become a game of sorts.
Twenty days since I last saw John.
Twelve hours to John’s next phone call.
Three days until yoga.
Whatever she had to tell herself to get through the fucking day, and into the next, that’s exactly what Siena did.
Problem for her was, that method only went so far, and her distractions were not without some kind of consequence. Mostly, her work.
Siena blinked, and rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes. The numbers on the screen might as well have just bled together for all she understood of the mess in front of her. She wasn’t even sure where some of these goddamn numbers had come from, or how she got them to this point.
Her bottom line number in the Excel spreadsheet lit up bright red. A sure sign that the total had ended up in the negative, which meant nothing good because that wasn’t where those numbers were supposed to be. Not even close. That told her she had done something wrong at some fucking point.
But where?
How?
Which account had the mistake?
Siena sighed, and pressed her fingertips into her temples to relieve some of the pressure starting to form there. A migraine from eye-strain and stress, likely. She was getting them far more often than she liked lately.
In her head, she started going back through numbers, accounts, and their individual books. She had worked on at least fifteen different accounts for Kev’s restaurant today—a pretty average day, all things considered.
Still, she needed to find that error.
The books couldn’t ever be filed in the red.
She was paying heavily for her distractions. More hours at a computer fixing books she should have already had done a week or more ago. A sore back, and stiff fingers from working so much because this shit had to be done, and she was the only one doing it for her brothers’ businesses.
“You’re still not done yet?”
Siena quickly glanced up from the numbers on the screen to find Kev standing in the doorway. He stared back at her, seemingly unbothered or unknowing of her troubles. She couldn’t decide if that was a good thing, or not.
“No, I’m not done yet,” she finally said.
Kev looked at the watch on his wrist. “It’s almost five, Siena.”
“I’m aware, Kev.”
She had been watching the clock, after all.
“Jason had shit to do today, Siena. He’s been waiting on your slow ass all day.”
“Jason?”
Who the fuck was Jason?
“Your enforcer,” Kev said as though he were talking to a small, dumb child.
“You know,” Siena replied, “that’s the first time someone has ever told me his name. And that includes him.”
“Huh.” Kev shrugged. “Guess it wasn’t important for you to know.”
Nothing ever was.
“I won’t be much longer,” Siena said, waving a hand and going back to the computer screen. “Tell him a half hour, at most.”
Or she would make it that long.
One or the other.
“I told you—he’s got shit to do,” Kev said. “Just go. It’s not like you can’t pick up where you left off tomorrow, or something.”
Except that’s not how Siena had been taught to do things, and work. It was not the proper way to do things. What accounts she opened and started in a day, she had to finish inputting and calculating numbers.
That way, there was less chance of more mistakes should she come back to it, and forget her place. In her business of cooking and falsifying books, she could not afford very many goddamn mistakes before it became noticeable.
Numbers were unforgiving that way.
Kev didn’t understand.
Arguing wouldn’t help.
Siena decided to take this small blessing for what it was, anyway. There was no way her brother would take her request for a break seriously. He would just laugh, and refuse while telling her she didn’t need a fucking break.
She could be having a stroke, and he would still want her to show up to work the next day. So was her goddamn life.
“Fine,” Siena said heavily as she pushed up from the chair. Quickly, she closed the books out. She didn’t even bother to save the work she had done for the day because it all needed to be redone, anyway. Then, she looked at Kev with raised hands. “I’m done. Happy?”
“I will be when you get out of my office. Jason is waiting in his car outside.”
Good for him.
Kev plopped his ass down in the chair as soon as Siena moved out of the way. He had already put the phone from the desk to his ear by the time Siena stepped out of the office. She closed the door behind her, but it wasn’t enough to hide Kev’s conversation. Like their father’s voice had once done her brother’s also carried through walls.
Siena took the second or two she had to lean against the hallway wall, and press her fingers to her temples once more. Without the unforgiving brightness of the screen in her eyes, the pounding in her head subsided just enough to make the oncoming migraine a little more bearable.
At least, for now.
Behind her, she could hear Kev talking on the phone. She only knew he was talking to Darren—wherever he was today—because Kev used her other brother’s name.
“When it comes to this, Darren, no news is bad news,” Kev snapped.
Somebody needed to give her brothers’ lessons on privacy. Neither of them understood how loud their voices could be.
It was sad, really.
“You’re telling me that not one effort we’ve made to fuck with the Marcello family’s business on the streets—or otherwise—has worked? Not one fucking thing?”
A beat of silence passed.
And then, “Then we’re going to go back to my way—yes, exactly that, Darren.”
Siena should move, as her enforcer was waiting for her, and Kev might come out of the office soon. Still, she stayed right where she was.
“Your way isn’t working either,” Kev snarled. “At least with my way, we were knocking them down. Even if it was one by fucking one. Let’s try my way one more time—something a bit more violent. It’s my choice, and I made it.”
Shit.
That didn’t sound good.
Kev’s conversation continued on with Darren, but Siena only listened for long enough to learn that he wasn’t giving anything about his plans away. Nothing that she could use to tell John, or Andino.
The vibration of the cell phone made Siena quickly step further away from the office door, and dig around inside her bag to answer the call. She put it to her ear, and asked quietly, “Hello?”
“Is Meghan there?”
Siena smirked a little. “Wrong number, sorry.”
As she pulled the phone away a little, she heard the guy say, “Andino is in the back alley of the restaurant. Ten minutes, at most.”
Click.
Siena dropped the phone into her bag, and looked between the bustling restaurant just down the hallway, and the back exit that was just a few feet away. It wasn’t the back alley, but it would lead her to the back alley, plus give her a way back in.
Kev’s conversation was still going full force behind her. It was a risk. But frankly, everything she did lately was risky.
Siena slipped out the exit door, and tried not to roll her ankles as she ran toward the back alley behind the restaurant. Sure enough, she found an unknown red car running in the back alley parked between two other businesses.
Andino didn’t drive a red car, but he was behind the wheel of the vehicle. Siena slipped into the passenger seat without thinking about it.
“New car?” she asked.
Andino laughed. “Borrowed, actually. Your brothers’ people know my shit.”
“Oh.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
Siena looked over at the man. “Sure.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
She scoffed.
“Nothing in this life is ever easy, Andino.”
“Fair enough,” he murmured.
“By the way, Kev is pissed that nothing they’re doing to the Marcellos is working at the moment, so he’s decided to go back to his old ways.”
Andino scowled. “Violent means.”
“You could say that. He didn’t specify what or who, though.”
“Shit.”
“Sorry.”
Andino shrugged. “No worries. I’m hoping this plan I have for you will end a lot of it. Or shit, at the very least, make your other brother stop and reconsider some of his fucking options at the moment.”
Siena’s brow furrowed. “You’re going to have to explain that to me.”
“How much do you care for your brothers?”
All she could do was dead-stare Andino right in the face. She had no appropriate response because none would be good enough. Her care and concern for either one of her brothers was so low, it couldn’t even be measured.
Hate was not a good enough word.
Truly.
“Let me guess,” Andino drawled, “if you don’t have anything good to say, then say nothing at all.”
“Something like that,” she replied.
“That makes this easier. How opposed are you to murder?”
A lump formed in her throat instantly.
His suggestion was blatant, and cold.
Still, Siena barely had to think about it at all. “It’s all for him, right?”
For John.
For them.
For forever.
“I need Kev gone.” Andino passed over a small clear bag with one tablet inside. “Arsenic pressed into a pill. It’ll dissolve quickly in something like liquor, or anything with a good amount of acid.”
“Like juice, or soda.”
“Exactly.”
Siena nodded. “That’s a terrible way to die.”
Andino laughed. “Fuck, you know what, if I wanted easy right now I’d have blown up his restaurant once I knew you were gone from it. Unfortunately, that draws a lot of attention, and I’m trying to follow some kind of rules at the moment.”
Jesus.
That lump was still firm in her throat.
“Make sure there’s a lot of people around, and not only you and someone else. You don’t want suspicion being drawn to you on this, either,” Andino said.
“Definitely not.”
“You don’t have to let me know when it’s done, either. I’ll get word.”
Siena glanced down at the pill in the bag. “John won’t like me doing this.”
Hell, even she was struggling with the idea of actually being the cause of someone’s death. She wasn’t quite ready to use murder in context with everything, but she was not so naive that she didn’t realize that’s exactly what it meant.
John would understand why she dirtied her hands in this way eventually, sure, but that didn’t mean he would like it.
Not at all.
“Well,” Andino murmured, “we’re just not going to tell him until after.”
Yeah.
Shit.
“I should go before someone notices me gone.”
Andino nodded. “Yeah, go.”
• • •
Siena barely blinked, and two weeks passed her by just like that. As though she hadn’t even been a part of it at all. It was strange how when something was weighing on a person’s mind, everything else in their life became inconsequential. Nothing else mattered but that one thing they couldn’t seem to shake.
Not long ago, she had been wishing for time to speed up, and make life a little more bearable. Oh, sure, she could absolutely see the irony in it. Now, here she was wondering where in the hell those two weeks had gone, and how she managed to spend them entirely lost to her own mind.
She felt like she was in a bubble, of sorts. All the time, and never ending. Floating high above everyone else, and looking down on them while they continued living their lives. The world kept moving, but she was frozen—suspended.
She could hear their conversations, and see their expressions and gestures. Yet, everything still felt a little cloudy and muffled to her. She was sure this was what people called an out-of-body experience.
Was it supposed to last this long?
Was it supposed to be this confusing?
Siena didn’t know.
If anyone noticed her disengaged attitude, or distracted behaviors, no one mentioned anything to her about it. Not even John when he caught her zoning out during their early morning phone calls.
For that, she felt most guilty. She couldn’t explain to him, though.
Andino was clear.
Siena just needed to get this done.
And by this, she meant killing her own brother.
Strolling through her mother’s brownstone, Siena saw far more faces than she cared to count. Many, she recognized, but there were a few whom she couldn’t place. Her brothers’ men, their families, and friends.
All the people who should gather for a party when there was something worthy to celebrate. Today, they were celebrating Kev’s birthday. Apparently, a new boss should always have his momentous events celebrated by his men.
Siena didn’t know if that was actually true or not, and she really didn’t care at the moment. Kev was simply celebrating something only to never see it through. He wouldn’t see the end of his birthday—he wouldn’t wake up the morning after being a day older than he was right now.
She had to make sure of it.
She was going to make sure of it.
The filled-to-the brim brownstone was exactly the kind of circumstance Siena needed to get this done. Andino’s warning about making sure many people were around when she did the deed had not been simple. She always figured out ways in her mind about how the murder would be linked back to her.
Not tonight, though.
Balloons, streamers, and banners hung from the ceilings, and decorated the stairwell. A bit juvenile for a grown man, really, but their mother didn’t know how to tone it down when it came to her sons.
A gold and black theme, it seemed. Even the cake had black frosting piped with gold trim. God knew Siena didn’t want any of that overly sweet shit—she would probably throw it back up.
She already felt like puking. Her nerves worked overtime. She wasn’t sure if it was because her anxiety was acting up, or due to the action she was about to take against her family.
Once again, betraying them. Once again, proving she was exactly what they all said.
The shame.
The disgraced one.
It was just too damn bad that none of those thoughts really stopped Siena’s resolve to get this whole thing done and over with.
“Siena!”
Coraline’s sharp bark made Siena hesitate as she tried to pass by a group of gathered men. Turning, she faced her scowling mother standing in the entryway between the hallway, and the living room.
“Yeah?”
“Your brother is going to blow out the candles on his cake, and cut it for everyone to have a piece.”
And that meant what exactly to Siena?
“So?” she asked.
Coraline cocked a brow. “Please have the catering people come in and bring the food into the dining room. They can set it out on the table, and everyone can pick what they want like a buffet.”
Siena wondered if this was her chance …
She didn’t have time to think on it.
“Sure, Ma.”
“Well, hurry up!”
Jesus.
Siena made her way into the kitchen where a catering team had taken over the space. It looked as though they were mostly done with their preparations for the dinner, and wouldn’t need much help moving things into the dining room.
Behind her, Siena heard her mother calling out, “Everyone to the dining room to wish Kev a happy birthday, grab some food, and have a piece of cake!”
People moved through the kitchen to the dining room. More simply used the hallway. Either way, Siena was acutely aware that people were leaving her alone, and she didn’t have anyone looking over her shoulder at the moment.
Winning.
“Excuse me,” Siena said to the lead caterer.
The woman wore the only white hat amongst the rest. She smiled at Siena, asking, “Yes, what can I do for you, Miss Calabrese?”
“We would like the food moved into the dining room as a spread—buffet-style, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“No problem at all.”
One sharp whistle, and the catering crew was moving fast. Soon enough, they had almost everything moved from the kitchen in one go.
On the second round the servers made to the kitchen, Siena slipped out, and headed for the wet bar in the dining room. At her back, people sang Kev happy birthday. She kept her back turned to the people, and her brothers.
No one approached.
No one saw a thing.
She pulled the sleeves of her dress down over her fingers, and worked to open up liquor bottles, and set up the glass. The little pill she dropped into the screwdriver drink dissolved with three quick twirls of the spoon inside the glass.
Siena took a deep breath, and then another. It didn’t help to settle her nerves, but for some reason, her racing heart had slowed down just enough to make her think she was in some kind of control of her emotions.
It was an illusion.
She would freak out later.
Break down later.
Not now, though.
As soon as the happy birthday song was over, Siena turned fast, and slid through the crowd of people already beginning to swarm the table and food. No one seemed to pay her any mind as she pushed through to the head of the table where Kev had decided was his permanent seat for the night.
Her brother had stood to accept a plate of food from their mother. He didn’t see Siena set the glass down next to his napkin, still not letting her fingers touch anything lest she leave something unintended behind. She was grateful she had chosen the long sleeved dress that night instead of the other one she waffled on. Nobody saw her do a thing because like always, she blended in far too well. She was the forgotten one—the useless daughter who nobody thought to watch.
Here, Kev was a king.
Or, he thought so.
He expected people to wait on him—his men, sister, mother, and even his brother. It’s what he had seen his father expect from everyone around them for his whole life, and Siena really didn’t expect Kev to be any different in the grand scheme of things.
He was spoiled.
He was demanding.
He was excessive.
Siena was already at the other side of the dining room and picking up a paper plate to begin filling it with food by the time Kev sat back down in his chair. Not food she would eat, but something she could pick at until the action really got started.
Kev sat his plate of food down in front of him, and laughed at something Darren said beside him in the next chair. He picked up the screwdriver—his favorite drink, as everyone should know—like he expected it to be sitting right where it was … as he was the boss.
Everybody always catered to the boss.
Siena watched Kev down half the drink in one go. He ate a bit—finished the drink off right after. He didn’t make it through a quarter of the way through his plate before he started foaming at the mouth.
Fuck.
Siena had been right.
It was a horrible way to die.
• • •
The hospital bustled with movement and people. In the corner, Siena found her mother sobbing as Darren tried to console Coraline.
It was pointless.
She couldn’t be consoled. One of her prized things were gone.
Kev was dead.
“Are you listening to me, ma’am?”
Siena turned her attention back to the cop taking her statement. She had tossed the small bag the pill had been in on their drive to the hospital—the enforcer had been too busy barking to someone on the phone to notice her getting rid of evidence.
The cop had already swabbed her hands—and everyone else’s, too. Not that any of them were very pleased about that. No one in their business particularly liked to be involved with cops in anyway, but it was difficult to refuse police when something like murder came into play.
Her fingers had never touched the pill, or the items used to mix the glass. She wasn’t the least bit worried about being found out.
Everyone was either too confused, or too scared to realize she had been the one to set the glass in front of Kev just a few hours earlier.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m listening,” Siena said.
“And then what happened after the song?” the cop asked.
“I got my plate ready like everyone else was doing.”
“You didn’t see anyone approaching your brother, or leaving something for him?”
“I saw him talking to my other brother. My mother brought him a plate.”
“Think harder.”
“There was no one,” Siena said.
Her eyes were dry—no tears to be seen. She tried to conjure up some kind of emotional response to make this cop think she was in a state over Kev’s death, but it was kind of pointless. She couldn’t do it.
The man seemed to think it was something else entirely. He touched her shoulder with soft affection, and leaned in closer. “I know it’s a shock—you’ll process all of this in time. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
Maybe she should have felt like the biggest piece of shit for pulling this stunt—for doing this to her family.
Yet, she didn’t.
All she could really think about was … getting out.
The cop turned to talk to his partner, and Siena’s gaze drifted over the people in the waiting room. Her brother and mother were still fully distracted with each other, and the people surrounding them.
Siena’s enforcer was another one distracted by barking into his phone. He’d been doing that all damn night.
She finally had a chance to get out. Five minutes to breathe alone. All she could think about was John.
No one noticed her standing there alone, dry-eyed.
No one noticed her leave, either.
• • •
Siena used the key John kept hidden in a safety box on the back deck of his Queens home to get inside his place. She hadn’t called to let him know she was coming over only because she didn’t dare use the phone given to her by her brothers.
She left the burner phone from John at her place, hidden in a spot where it wasn’t likely to be discovered.
Quickly, she slipped through the dark, quiet house. Upstairs she went until she found John sleeping in his bed. His house was usually locked up tight—she had spent enough nights with him to know the slightest sound or creak would wake him up.
The fact he didn’t move at all as she crossed the bedroom was a testament to how busy and stressed out he must have been. So much so, that sleep was probably his only escape from everything.
She didn’t want to wake him.
She didn’t want to sleep, either.
“John,” Siena whispered.
His name barely left her lips before his eyes flew wide open. Dark hazel darted right, and found her standing next to his bed. He blinked once, and then twice, like he was trying to make sure it was actually her standing there.
John didn’t saying anything.
No, he simply grabbed her and pulled her into the bed with him.
Siena’s sudden laughter was muffled by the hard kiss John leveled to her mouth as his hands gripped fiercely to her sides. He rolled to his back and took her with him. Never once did they break their kiss.
She couldn’t help herself but touch him. In nothing but boxer-briefs, she had all the access to his body that she wanted. Hard lines, and muscles that strained with every movement. The dark dusting of hair that led from his navel to the waistband of his boxer-briefs called her name.
John didn’t say a word—only groaned—when Siena kissed down his throat, over his chest, and kept moving lower. He pushed his lower half against her body when she wrapped her fingers around the waistband of his boxer-briefs, and started to tug them down.
Already, he was hard.
Already, she wanted to taste him.
Soon, she would have to go again. Before the sun was up, likely. Before either of them could possibly talk properly, or get their fill of one another.
It sucked.
But that’s just how it was.
For now …
Siena’s fingers wrapped tightly around the base of John’s cock, and she took the head of him into her mouth. The unique taste of him and his precum burst along her taste buds. He flexed his hips upward making her take damn near all of him into her mouth at once.
Her eyes watered.
She loved it.
Siena stroked him at the same time she sucked him. She let her teeth work magic as they grazed the sensitive skin of his shaft, while her tongue flicked at the head of his dick every time she came back up to the top.
She could feel his heartbeat in his shaft.
Racing.
Thumping.
Out of control.
So close, so close …
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” John groaned.
She looked up through her lashes, and he was already staring at her. Dark hazel met light blue, and Siena was lost for those few seconds.
Frozen.
Perfect.
So happy.
John brought her back from that bubble following her around with one loud, sharp shout of her name. He came hard, held her tight to his cock, and blew his load down her throat. She took every bit of him in, cleaned the rest of him up with her tongue, and then kissed her way back up his chest.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” John muttered into his hand.
Siena kissed the back of it. “Hey.”
He peeked out at her. “Hey. Nice way to wake up.”
She grinned. “Couldn’t help myself.”
“Don’t help yourself more often.”
“Noted,” she said with a laugh.
John cleared his throat, and love reflected back in his eyes as he stared at her “What in the hell are you doing here? Almost got yourself killed, Siena.”
“You would not have done anything to me.”
Silently, he reached his hand under his pillow, and when he slid it back out, a gun came with it. “We’re a shoot first, ask later kind of family.”
Yikes.
“Next time, I’ll call.”
“Please.” He pulled her down for another quick kiss, then asked, “Seriously, though, what are you doing here? Don’t they have you on lockdown, or something?”
“Usually. They’re all kind of … distracted tonight. Being at the hospital, and everything.”
John raised a brow high. “Something happened?”
“Kev, yeah.”
“Siena.”
She looked away, but John’s hand grabbed her chin, and turned her back to stare at him. He wouldn’t let her go, either.
Andino did say after.
Siena couldn’t lie to John.
“Kev’s dead,” she whispered.
John stiffened in the bed. “How? Shot, or something?”
She wasn’t surprised that was the first thing he thought of. A lot of the warring between their families had been violent and bloody.
“No, he was poisoned at his birthday party tonight,” she said quietly.
John blinked, and stilled. “Poisoned.”
Siena shrugged. “Yeah.”
“That’s a very specific way to die. How do you know he was—” John’s words cut off abruptly when Siena glanced away again. The truth was in her eyes. She wanted him to see it and figure it out much more than she wanted to explain it. “Siena.”
She wouldn’t look at him again.
He said her name again.
And again.
“Siena,” John murmured, his hands grabbing tighter to her waist than before. “Don’t tell me you were the one to do it.”
“I did what I was told to do.”
It was what she was best at, after all.