JOHN STUMBLED from the bed. A muddy sensation filled up his mind. A medication-induced fog had nothing on a manic break. The exhaustion that came on a person when the mania finally left was unlike anything else.
A hell he would wish on no one.
Not even his worst enemy.
It was like a thousand pounds of rocks had slipped into his body to replace his muscles and bones. Cement had been used in place of his blood.
Walking was a chore.
Breathing was too much work.
Being alive was troublesome.
John moved down the stairs of his home, grateful that somehow, he had been brought home—or made his way—to a familiar place. It made this process so much easier to understand. He felt less out of place, even though not a single thing in his life currently felt right.
He took the stairs carefully, navigating one after the other with heavy feet while he held onto the banister. The quiet chatter coming from the kitchen drew his attention in that direction.
He recognized the voices. Andino, and his father. However, there was one voice missing. One voice that he wanted to hear the most.
In the haze of his memories of the week and night before, John distinctly remembered one person standing out the most above all others.
Siena.
Where was she?
Why wasn’t she here?
He was sure that she had been in bed with him the night before. His eyes had cracked open, though they felt like someone had taped them shut, and he had seen her lying next to him.
That had not been his mania.
He had not imagined her there.
So, where was she?
John stumbled into the kitchen. Instantly, the gazes of his father and cousin darted his way. Lucian stood from the table first, and then Andino quickly followed suit.
“John,” his father said. “How are you feeling?”
In Lucian’s eyes, John could see the questions his father didn’t ask. Things about his mind, and what was currently going on up in there.
John didn’t know what he would say if his father did ask. His thoughts were slower, and his mind was not warring between emotions, and trying to process them. He did not have so much shit muddling up his brain, even if it did still feel muddy in ways.
It was better.
Not like it had been.
“Where is she?” he asked.
Lucian looked at Andino, and then back to John. “Who, son?”
“You know who.”
He was not playing this fucking game with them.
Andino took a step forward. A hesitant step. He had a right to be hesitant, John knew. After the weeks and weeks of mania, anyone had a right to look at John in that moment with a little bit of hesitancy.
“Siena?” Andino asked.
Is this twenty fucking questions?
“Where is she?”
Andino swallowed hard. A nervous tic his cousin tried his best to hide, but never quite succeeded with his family. “John—”
“Where is she?”
His roar reverberated through the home. The sound made his head ache even worse, and his heart hurt like nothing fucking else. His soul was slipping from his fingertips, and he couldn’t grab it. He couldn’t hold on to it.
All he wanted was to hold on to it.
“Where is she?”
“We had no choice,” Andino said.
“No choice,” John echoed.
What did that mean?
What did that mean for her?
What did that mean for him?
What did that mean for them?
“They sent for her,” Andino said.
“We had no choice,” Lucian confirmed, “unless we were willing to have them come in on us unprotected, and we were not. Not with you in the midst of a mental break, John. We wouldn’t have been able to get some kind of backup here in time to help.”
John nodded, but the action felt robotic. Just an action his brain told his body to do, but not something he had actually wanted to do.
Silently, he turned around and left the kitchen. He wasn’t quite sure how he made it back up the stairs, but he did. Soon enough, he was in his bed once more. The blankets suffocated him, but he liked it just fine that way. He brought them tighter around himself, until he could barely breathe at all.
The darkness seeped in through his mind, and spread through his body like poison.
He didn’t want to move.
He didn’t want to breathe.
He didn’t want to see.
He didn’t want to feel.
He didn’t want to be.
This was what the mania was like when it finally broke.
A dark nothingness that settled deep within John’s body and psyche. A harsh emptiness that left him lonely, and so out of touch with everything, and everyone. His body ached, and his mind screamed into blackness.
A depression that almost nothing could fix.
Or, that’s how it felt.
John wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that before he felt a hand touch his shoulder over top the blanket. The blanket was tugged away just enough for him to see his father looking down at him.
Lucian tried to give him a smile, but it didn’t feel true. Nothing could be true.
“It’ll be okay John,” his father said. “Another one of those things for us to figure out.”
“Will it?”
How could it be?
“We’ll handle it, John. We always handle it.”
John thought about how easy it would be to fix this problem forever. How simple it would be to take away the one issue that constantly brought his father and the rest of his family so much heartache, and so much trouble.
Him, that was.
He thought of the gun in the bedside drawer. He knew what gun metal tasted like. It wouldn’t be the first time he tried to swallow a bullet.
Wouldn’t it be easier?
He thought so.
He also knew those thoughts—those self-harming thoughts—were not entirely his own. And if he didn’t speak up to deal with them now, they would only get far worse.
John looked up at his father. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Dad.”
With words.
With violence.
With more …
Lucian shook his head. “You always see these things far differently than the rest of us, John.”
Maybe.
“Tell her I’m sorry I had to go again.”
Lucian frowned. “What?”
“Siena. I’m always leaving her with no explanation. I promised I wouldn’t do that anymore.”
“We’ll fix this, John.”
“Sure.”
For now, though …
He had to fix himself.
• • •
“Are you not interested in talking with me at all today, Johnathan?”
The white-haired, bespectacled therapist rarely ever sat down during his sessions with John. The man liked to move, and it was a little disconcerting for him. Especially considering John liked to look at people when he talked to them. See their eyes, and gage their words when they spoke.
His therapist at Clearview Oaks Facility was everything John was not accustomed to. And yet, John looked forward to this hour every day with Leonard.
“I don’t know if I want to talk, no,” John admitted. “I haven’t done much of that today.”
He hadn’t talked a lot at all since he voluntarily admitted himself into the place. That was three weeks ago.
The first week was hell.
Suicide watch all the way.
They didn’t put him in a padded room or anything, but they did the next best thing. They took everything and anything away from him that could be used as a tool to harm himself. Shoelaces, plastic, bed sheets, and more. They even gave him clothes with double sewn hems and no elastics so that he couldn’t pull them apart. When he ate breakfast, someone had been sitting beside him, and he was forced to use a spoon.
For everything.
Even a steak.
All in all, the facility was nothing like a psych ward at a hospital. It was more open, and the staff was welcoming. The grounds were beautiful when he had finally been allowed outside on the second week. His time was spent between his private room, therapy, and roaming between different activities. The expensive facility toted everything from a spa, to a state-of-the-art gym.
“I’ve noticed you don’t rapid cycle,” the man said.
“No, I’m not a rapid cycler.”
“Ever?”
“In mania, maybe.”
Leonard nodded. “That would make sense. In general, though, you don’t find yourself rapidly cycling between highs and lows daily or even weekly?”
“No, not generally. That’s more common in bipolar women, isn’t it?”
“Typically, but I have seen it in men, too. I was curious. Give me a one to ten on the depression today,” Leonard said. “One being good, and ten being the worst. As always.”
“A four, maybe.”
“We don’t deal in maybes, John.”
Of course, not.
“Five.”
Leonard nodded like that was more the answer he expected. “Good. Another couple of days and we’ll start weaning the antidepressants away.”
And begin a new mood stabilizer regime.
John knew how this worked.
What he liked the most about this facility was that his therapist listened. He looked over files from John’s history, and saw the facts staring him in the face. He didn’t deny those facts, or try or push too many different choices on John.
He didn’t need a constantly changing martini of medications. His disorder was most stable when he only had to take one or two.
“So,” the therapist asked as he rounded the couch, “are you going to talk with me today, or not?”
“We talk,” John said.
Leonard tapped the top of his nose, and then pointed the same finger at John. “Safe topics, sure. But not what brought you here, or the things that drove you into your latest manic spiral. You have to deal with all of that so then the next time—”
“I’m prepared.”
“Yes,” Leonard said with a smile. “Exactly.”
“Do I have to?”
Today was just one of those days for John. He was tired, and would much rather be in bed than doing anything else. That’s why he settled on a five and not a four for the depression.
“I think today is a good day to talk, John. You see, you have a visitor coming. I was forewarned by your father during our last phone call that you would greatly like to see this woman who is coming later today. So, I am absolutely not above using the means I have at my disposal to get you talking.”
He had no reason to believe it was her, and yet, something inside knew it absolutely was her.
Siena.
John’s throat tightened at the thought.
“Blackmail, you mean,” John said to Leonard.
The therapist chuckled. “Well, that’s a language you understand, isn’t it? Men like us always understand the language of blackmail.”
Men like us.
Criminals.
Living in shades of gray, and never black and white.
John knew there was a reason his father suggested this facility, and pushed his son to take the opening when it was offered. Something other than the prestigious name, expensive price tag, and privacy it offered.
“Talk?” Leonard asked.
“If I answer one, can I ask one?”
The white-haired man smiled. “I can’t promise to answer, John.”
“Yeah, me either.”
“Tell me, I know you struggled to agree to voluntarily check yourself in this facility. Why is that?”
John swallowed the knot in his throat. “Because everything I have worked to keep from the public would be exposed.”
“Being bipolar?”
He only gave a nod. “My turn. Who are you?”
The man raised one thick eyebrow. “A man who used to be someone entirely different, John.”
“And my father knew who you were before?”
“It’s my turn.”
Shit.
“Yeah,” John said, “I guess it is.”
“Why hide your disorder?”
“Would you want to be known as the disgrace of your family?”
Leonard coughed gently. “Is that how you see your disorder?”
“Bit self-deprecating, isn’t it? That typically isn’t my style.”
“And yet …”
John shrugged one shoulder. “It’s my one thing.”
“Have you ever taken a good look around at your family, Johnathan? Have you looked at the structure of support and unconditional love they’ve built around you? Do you know that your father calls me every day just to make sure you have had one single good day? I know that it is sometimes easier to alienate yourself away from those you love because it’s simpler.”
“I hurt them. All the time.”
“Not all the time.”
That was up for debate.
And not one John wanted to have.
“My turn,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“Mafia, or otherwise?”
The therapist flashed a grin that spoke of years long gone, and a younger man. “Otherwise.”
“Hmm.”
“Your father tells me you’ve met a woman—love, he said. He believed you to be in love.”
“Just how much have you talked to my father?” John asked.
“More than you care to know. Old friends, so to speak. You don’t recognize me at all, do you?”
John’s gaze narrowed. “For business, or otherwise?”
“I diagnosed you, Johnathan, after your first severe manic episode.”
Jesus Christ.
John could do nothing but stare at the man. Leonard simply stared right back, unmoved. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt knowing that he was staring at the man who had changed his life forever with a simple diagnosis. He didn’t know whether to be grateful, or something else entirely.
“It’s been over ten years,” the therapist said, tipping his head to the side a bit as he eyed John, “and of course, you were in a very bad place. They opted not to treat you in a facility back then, and so I referred them to someone who would go in-home.”
“It’s been a little over thirteen years, actually, and I begged them not to put me in a place.”
“I know. Now, about the woman.”
“Siena,” John murmured. “Yeah.”
“Do you think the change in your emotional circumstance and just her in general might have … had an impact on edging you toward the hypomanic stage?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“If anything, she held me back for longer,” John admitted. “I feel like I fucked up at the end with her—that she’s going to feel like I didn’t do enough to keep her with me after everything she did for me. At first, when I realized they had sent her back to them, I was still in a state of suspension; between the manic break, and the heavy depression. I should have gone after her. I should have—”
“Should or could?”
John met the therapist’s gaze. “I wish I had.”
“You checked yourself in here being suicidal, and low functioning. You were fresh off a mental break, and certainly not in any position to be going to war with anybody for a woman, John.”
“How do I tell her that?”
Leonard raised one thick brow. “I don’t think you’ll have to tell her anything. If she is a good woman, she will understand your situation.”
“She is.”
“Pardon?”
“A good woman,” John clarified.
Leonard smiled. “Then, you’ve talked yourself out of that problem. Haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
A bit.
“Hmm,” Leonard said. “Your turn.”
“Specialty?”
The man smiled widely, clearly understanding John’s question without further details. “Cocaine, actually. Smuggling, specifically. See, I am a hobby pilot, John. I think you might call that a—”
“Side-hustle. Nice.”
“It served me well over the years. On you, though, how do you feel about this … Siena?”
John barked out a laugh. “Her, or love?”
“It has to be both, doesn’t it?”
Leonard was right, of course.
John knew it.
“It’s hard to grasp the concept that someone loves me the way she loves me,” John said quietly.
“Self-deprecating again.”
John shook his head. “No, I just never thought that was going to happen. I didn’t look for it—this disorder ruins so many things for me when I bring people close because they can’t handle it, or I shove them away.”
“And she …?”
“Kept coming back.”
“And what does that mean for you?”
“My biggest fear with people is that once they know—or see what this is really like for me—it becomes John with bipolar. She just sees me.”
“John.”
“She only sees me.”
Leonard ticked a finger in John’s direction. “Well done, John.”
“My turn?”
“Your turn.”
• • •
Siena’s gaze was only on John as she entered the facility after being checked in by one of the nurses. The white dress she wore made him think she looked like some kind of angel gracing his life.
Funny.
She had always been like that for him.
A saving grace.
Right up until the end.
The rules of the facility were clear when it came to patients and visitors. Hugs were okay, but any romantic displays were not appropriate or encouraged. Patients were there to get healthy, not go on a date.
Even knowing it might be a mark against him, or another long chat with Leonard about walking the right lines, John grabbed hold of Siena the second she was close enough for him to do it. He dragged her close, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her hard.
The way her lips curved into a sweet smile sent his racing heart slowing down to a more settled tempo. All those nerves finally drifted away. She was still his peace, it seemed. His one place of calm inside a continuous storm of chaos.
He had been worrying nonstop since he found out she was coming. He knew in that second that his worries had been for nothing.
“John,” she whispered.
He kissed her nose. And then her eyelids. Finally, her mouth again.
Someone cleared their throat nearby.
The warning was clear.
John ignored it.
Siena cupped his face with her hands, and she drew him in close again. Not to kiss, but just to stare in his eyes for a moment.
“You look better,” she said.
He laughed.
Damn.
It felt so fucking good to laugh.
“I feel better,” he admitted.
She smiled.
A bright, beautiful smile.
Lighting up his life just like that.
John had a million and one questions for Siena, but the nurse that was closing in said he needed to put a bit of distance between them. It’d be a fucking shame if they took her away from him before he even really had her again.
“Come sit down with me?”
Siena nodded. “Of course.”
The visiting area was not closed to just the indoor areas. They were allowed to go outside, but the heavy snow falling down didn’t look particular warm today.
Siena took a seat next to John on the white leather couch. Her fingers found his, and wove tight.
He had done so much in a very short period of time. He had done so much to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Siena peered over at him. “Never do that, John.”
“What?”
“Apologize for being you. I never want you to do that with me.”
“You do understand everything that happened, and what I did, right?”
“I know.”
“So—”
“John,” she said, leaning in close so all he saw was her, beauty, and life. “You know I love you, don’t you?”
Yeah, he knew.
“How could I not, now?”
Siena nodded. “I always will.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Not for killing her father, but for everything that came before.
Matteo got what he deserved.
Simple as that.
Siena patted his cheek. “Let’s talk about anything other than all of that. I don’t have much time. It was hard enough just to get the time away to be here, John.”
“Yeah, about that.”
“What?”
“How?”
He had been told—during the one visit from Andino—that Siena was being heavily controlled by her brothers. His cousin hadn’t explained much more, only that he had a line of contact occasionally.
Siena smiled slyly. “I took up yoga. It gives me an hour or two a couple of times a week to get away. I sneak out the back.”
“How tight of leash do they have you on?”
Her brothers, he meant.
Siena frowned. “So tight it’s killing me.”
He appreciated her honesty, but … fuck.
“It’s okay,” she added quickly. “It’s not forever.”
He didn’t know how.
He didn’t know anything that was happening beyond these walls. His father and Andino made sure to keep him in a place where he was simply dealing with himself, and nothing else. John knew they were making the right choice in that regard.
If he didn’t take care of himself first, then bad shit happened.
And what happened leading up to this moment could never happen again. Or, he was going to try his hardest to make sure it didn’t happen again to this severity.
“How bad is it?” he dared to ask. “The streets, I mean. The families.”
He didn’t know if she would tell him.
He wouldn’t blame or push her if she didn’t.
Siena’s eyes drifted down to their connected hands. “It’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“It’s war, John.”