TWO WEEKS AFTER beginning to look for a place of his own, and John finally had one. Well, he’d actually had it for a couple of days, but today was his move in day.
“All the money you have, and you rented a two-bedroom house in Queens,” Andino said.
“Listen, not every fucker is like you, Andi. We don’t all want to have the big mansion in Tuxedo Park.”
“I don’t have a mansion in Tuxedo Park.”
“Yet,” John shot back.
Andino chuckled. “Truth. You do have too much money to be living in a tiny house in Queens, though. Deny it.”
“Money?” John scoffed. “I had money. Now I have investments, and a money manager who doesn’t allow me very much control, man.”
Andino shot John and look, but said nothing. He could still tell his cousin—and best friend—wanted to ask more questions.
“Go ahead,” John muttered.
He unlocked the front door of the rental home while his cousin shoved his hands in his pockets. Andino shifted from foot to foot—maybe he was trying to figure out a way to phrase his question. John didn’t know.
“Was that by choice, or …?”
John shrugged, and pushed the door open. “I mean, mostly. Do you know how much money I blew through during my last manic episode?”
“No.”
“A little under three million.”
Andino coughed hard, and looked like he couldn’t breathe. “In a few months?”
“Yeah.”
“That poor money.”
John laughed loudly as they stepped into the house together. “It’s one of my behaviors, that’s all. Spending money. Hyper-sexuality. Bad decision after bad decision.”
“The second one might not be such a bad thing.”
“It is when you’ll fuck anything that moves just to feel something, Andi. It’s just another reckless behavior to add on top of the already reckless behaviors I seek out in an episode.”
Andino blew out a breath, and then tossed his jacket to a bare corner. “Yeah, I know. I was just … kidding with you.”
His cousin was just about the only person John allowed to kid with him about his bipolar disorder. Anyone else, and he was quick to point out he wasn’t the fucking butt of anybody’s jokes.
Andino meant no harm, though, and he was always down to help John. Or, keep him out of trouble, even. The two had been that way—ride or die—since they were kids.
“Anyway,” John said, waving the moving guys in from the doorway, “now the money manager keeps me on track with everything regarding my trust fund from my biological grandfather. He earns me money, and gives me some to spend. I’m still working with a ten-thousand-dollar stipend every month, plus whatever I make working. He doesn’t get that, you know.”
“Yeah, it’s not clean money, right? Wouldn’t want somebody looking too deep in to how you made it, never mind the government getting easy access to documents that showed no taxes paid on it.”
“Exactly.”
John turned his back to the guys bringing the furniture and boxes in. Some had been in storage while he was in prison, and other things were brand new. Shit he had purchased over the last couple of weeks while he looked for a place.
“You said mostly, though,” Andino pointed out.
“Huh?”
Adriano tipped his head to the side. “When I asked if it was by choice about the money manager, you said mostly.”
“I recognized I had an issue that needed handling.”
“But?”
“Dad threatened to file legal action against me if I didn’t do it willingly,” John admitted.
Andino flinched. “Ouch.”
“Is what it is. So far, my disorder has never been brought into the public record. I don’t want people in this life to know that I am bipolar.”
“Like a target someone might see and use against you, huh?”
“Essentially. We’re all fine and good pretending mafiosi are honorable made men, but the truth is a hell of a lot simpler, Andi.”
Andino nodded. “We see a perceived weakness, and we exploit it.”
“Yeah. Dad knows that, and if it gets him what he wants, he doesn’t mind using the idea that my disorder will somehow get into a public record on me to make me do what he needs me to do. Filing legal action against me to take control of my assets or whatever else due to my failing to take care of it myself would absolutely do that.”
“John, you know Lucian is only looking out for—”
“I know why,” John interjected sharply. “That doesn’t make it right.”
Andino shoved his hands deep in his pockets again. “Point taken.”
It was another reason why John held bitterness toward his father, sure, even if a part of him understood it had been for the best. The thing about Lucian Marcello and his only son was that a lot of the time, John was left feeling like his father was stripping the control of his life away from him.
Slowly.
One by one.
A thing at a time.
Or maybe his father didn’t want to do that at all, and that was just John’s misfiring emotions and brain working against each other again. Who fucking knew?
It didn’t take long for the movers to get all the furniture and boxes inside the house. John simply directed them to drop everything in the middle of the large living room. He was so particular about his things and how it all needed to be placed that someone else doing it could send him into some kind of fit.
Anxiety.
Anger.
Sometimes both.
Sure, his meds helped a lot to keep him settled and allowed him a bit more breathing room to think before he spoke or reacted, but it wasn’t a whole lot of space. Mostly just enough for him to recognize he might be making a bigger deal out of something than it actually was.
That didn’t mean his brain accepted the conclusion, or that the problem still didn’t feel very real to John.
It was hard to explain that to others. How could he explain something when sometimes, he didn’t even know what he was feeling himself?
Andino knew, though. A byproduct of once trying to help John clean up his room as a teenager after his mother, Jordyn, had a fit about the mess.
His cousin looked over the boxes in the Queens house, but didn’t touch a thing. He did ask.
“Anything you want me to help you with?”
John made a noise in the back of his throat, and scrubbed his hands together. A nervous tic that helped to give him an outlet for his simmering anxieties. “Maybe move some furniture once I know where I want to put it.”
“I could unpack some stuff, and just not put it anywhere, too.”
“No, don’t do that.”
Andino put a hand up. “All right.”
There was something Andino was especially good at that John didn’t mind letting his cousin do without looking over his shoulder the entire time.
“I filled the fridge and cupboards yesterday.”
Andino smirked. “Still can’t cook worth shit, can you?”
“I’m learning.”
John tried not to sound defensive, and failed like a fucker. With a laugh and a clap to John’s shoulder, Andino headed for the open concept kitchen. He still talked as he began pulling dishes from the cupboard, and then moved to another one where the food was.
“Right, right.” Andino sighed loudly. “What is with all this organic shit, John? Haven’t you heard of proper butter or sugar?”
“Every little thing helps to keep me at stable levels—diet, exercise, the money manager … all of it.”
“Ah.”
John opted to change the topic. “How was Atlantic City?”
Andino kept his back turned to John. “Interesting. A nice break, anyway.”
“Kind of surprised the boss let you head out for a couple of weeks when you had business here.”
Andino stayed silent.
John didn’t miss it.
“Something up?” John asked.
Slowly, Andino turned around at the island so that John could see his face. Like with so many other things that were affected by his disorder, eye contact was a big thing. For those he trusted, he preferred to see their face and look in their eyes when they delivered him any kind of news that he might perceive as bad.
It just helped.
John braced for the impact.
“Dante didn’t have a choice but to let me take a break,” Andino said.
“Shit, rub some of that magic on me because that man keeps riding my ass about everything.”
“Don’t you want to know why he didn’t have a choice?”
“There’s a reason?” John asked back, joking.
Andino laughed quietly. “Yeah, uh … they want to move me up in la famiglia, John. The end goal is for me to take control after Dante is done.”
Like a boss.
The boss.
A Cosa Nostra Don.
John took in the news, and let it process before he spoke. Not because he felt bad about it, or wondered why. He knew that was the best choice for the Marcello organization. Andino was the best choice, for more reasons than John could name.
Seems John would now have something to discuss with his father when he went to have dinner with his parents tomorrow. Their dinners were already stilted because John didn’t have a lot to say.
“Okay,” John said. “I don’t understand what the problem is.”
Andino blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“A lot of us figured it would be you to do that, John.”
Oh.
“Me, too,” John said, chuckling, “a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
John shook his head. “They’re making the right choice, Andi.”
Andino glanced down. “I didn’t ask for this, John. I woke up being a very content Capo, and good at what I do. It’s what I wanted to do, and they just shoved this at me. Like here you fucking go, so be thankful.”
“You’re the right choice. You already look out for this family like it’s your first job, anyway.”
“Family first,” Andino said, nodding.
“God is a very close second.”
So was the Marcello way.
• • •
“Johnathan.”
At the sound of his mother’s sweet voice, John’s anxiety slipped away. It wouldn’t last for long, he knew, but he enjoyed it while he could.
Bending down, he kissed Jordyn’s smiling cheek. “Hey, Ma.”
Jordyn’s blue gaze took a silent inventory of her son. “You look well.”
“I looked well when I was here a couple of weeks ago, too.”
“Mmhmm, but you don’t come over often enough for me to make sure you are always well, John.”
“Ma,” he said quietly.
Jordyn waved a hand as if to dismiss what she had said. “Never mind. It’s just me thinking out loud.”
John offered his mother a hand to help her up from the couch. He followed behind her as she headed for the kitchen. His mother’s favorite room in the entire house. Despite all her efforts to teach him how to cook, John still sucked.
Jordyn checked the casserole in the oven as she said, “I didn’t know if you were coming today or not, but I made you chicken and salad—all organic, John.”
He smiled, and moved closer to wrap one arm around his mother’s shoulders. He pulled her in for a quick hug because his mother always took care of him even when it was no longer her job to do so.
“Thanks, Ma.”
Jordyn patted his cheek. “I know you have problems to work out with Lucian, but won’t you come visit me more often? I’ve gone three years only seeing you occasionally, and it was always behind a Plexiglas window. The least you could do—”
“I will come visit you more often.”
Her smile bloomed in to a brilliant sight. “That’s my boy.”
Thirty years old, and he was still a boy to his mother. He would blame it on the fact they were an Italian family, and the old saying about Italian mothers and their sons, but he couldn’t. His mother’s heritage sported maybe a twenty percent Italian bloodline—unlike his father’s three quarter bloodline.
Still, Jordyn fit the bill perfectly.
“What are we talking about visits, now?” Lucian asked from the kitchen entryway.
Lucian Marcello was not a loud man, but he was a domineering man. He could easily silence people with a look, or make them uncomfortable with a single, soft spoken word. He rarely needed to use threats or violence to scare people, as a promise and a cold smile worked just as well.
Intimidating best described John’s father.
Lucian didn’t even have to try—he just was.
John nodded at his father, and then headed for the table. “Papa.”
“I missed you when you came in,” Lucian said.
“I was told not to flake on my mother, remember?”
One of those cool, calm smiles curved his father’s mouth. “That you were.”
Lucian crossed the kitchen, and dropped a kiss to his wife’s forehead. He overlooked the food Jordyn was putting together, and then finally turned back to John.
“I heard Andino was helping to get your new place set up.”
“He did.”
“Do you think Queens is the best place when you do most of your work in the heart of Brooklyn, or over in Manhattan?”
Instantly, John’s defenses started to raise. It wasn’t even his father’s fault, but their long history of John’s choices being constantly overturned or undermined by his father made even the simplest of conversations difficult.
Mostly because John refused to open up another avenue where his father might step in and try to change or control something. Lucian hadn’t even implied he thought one way or the other about where John chose to live—he only asked a question.
It didn’t matter.
John’s defenses worked their way up all the same. “I think I have a lot of people and connections in Queens, and some business there, too. It’s close enough to Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’m not concerned, and you shouldn’t be, either.”
Lucian stilled, and eyed John like he didn’t quite know how to reply to that. “I only wanted to know how you felt about it, son.”
“I feel fine about it, Papa.”
“Good. You’re liking the house, then?”
John’s defensive posture and tone lessened when he said, “It’s all right. I grew up in bigger, but I just spent three years in an eight by eight cell, too.”
Lucian chuckled. “Anything is better than a cell, right?”
“You could say that.”
Jordyn gestured for Lucian to come taste what she held out on the spoon. Thankfully, it took Lucian’s attention away from his son for the moment. John was grateful, as it allowed him to take a breath, and settle the rising irritation.
It wasn’t his father’s fault. Lucian hadn’t pushed for information beyond what John had been willing to give. John was simply reactive to these kinds of things with his dad.
Taking his focus away from his father and mother, John realized then that someone else was missing from the table.
His littlest sister.
“Where’s Lucia?”
Lucian passed Jordyn a look, but said nothing. John’s mother quickly went back to putting together the dishes for supper.
John’s youngest sister—the one sibling he was closest to for reasons stemming back to his childhood—still lived with their parents at her age. He tried to make time for her since getting out of prison, but shit kept coming up.
“The last time I saw her was last week after my car finally got shipped in,” John said. “I took her out for a drive. She hasn’t tried to get ahold of me since.”
Which was entirely unusual for his little sister.
Lucian cleared his throat, and came to sit at the head of the table. A seat only reserved for him that no one else was ever allowed to sit in. John wasn’t sure if that was something his father demanded, or a rule his mother made up.
It could have been both, knowing his parents.
“Lucia had to work late at the shelter today,” Lucian said.
John raised a brow. “You don’t sound sure.”
“She’s been … different lately.”
All over again, John’s instincts went into overdrive. If it wasn’t anger, then it was anxiety. If not those, then concern or defensiveness. Sometimes he cycled so fast between them, or ran through the entire gamut of them all at once that it was hard to keep up.
“Different how?” he asked.
Lucian shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, John. I think she’s just made a friend, and while I don’t approve of him, it will run its course soon enough.”
Him.
“Who?”
Lucian sighed. “It doesn’t—”
“It does to me. I look out for Lucia. She’s the only one of my sisters that lets me look out for her. So, who is it?”
“Well, you would probably know him better than I do, but I’ve looked in to him. Renzo is his name.”
John stilled in the chair. “Renzo Zulla?”
Lucian nodded. “That would be him.”
Shit.
A foot solider for a crew John controlled as the Capo. Ren, the guy liked to be called. He grew up poor, and followed the footsteps of his father when it came to running the streets. The guy was nineteen, or maybe twenty.
“I don’t know where she would have met him,” Lucian said, sounding both irritated and confused at the same time.
“I do,” John replied.
His mother looked to him, and so did his father.
“How?” Jordyn asked.
“Me,” John said before scrubbing a hand over his face. “We took a drive, and I had some work to do. Ren was one of those things I had to handle. They didn’t even talk, though. She never even got out of the car.”
“That boy is trouble, John,” Lucian said. “I already had one daughter get mixed up with a man that almost killed her, and I do not want another one falling into the same trap. I don’t know this young man, but I know he did not grow up in a very good situation. That typically means he wasn’t brought up to be a decent man. Hell, maybe he doesn’t even know how to be one. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just don’t want my daughter involved with him.”
John didn’t need to be told.
Renzo was a street kid that would soon be looking at a prison sentence, or he’d simply serve more time on the streets. So was the way of their life—or rather, Ren’s life.
Lucia was not a part of that world.
“I’ll have a chat with him,” John said.
Lucian cocked a brow. “Do you think you should?”
John didn’t even let his defensiveness come out to play this time. “I think if you approach Renzo, he’ll laugh in your face. He knows me, though. It’s not the same.”
“All right.”
That was that.
• • •
John thought this part of Brooklyn was a little upper crust for Renzo’s taste, but this was apparently where the kid was supposed to be today. Well, calling Ren a kid was a little disrespectful considering the guy’s age, but whatever.
Pulling his new Mercedes over into one of the only parking spots available on the block, John turned off the engine. He excited the car, and strolled into the people walking on the sidewalk.
John checked over his phone again—details he had gotten from a friend of a friend about what Renzo’s usual schedule was like through the week. It had taken him a couple of days, but John now had sufficient enough information to believe Renzo was in this area of Brooklyn because of his seventeen-year-old sister.
Apparently, the girl attended a private school for the arts in these parts, and Renzo came to visit her every few days. Today was supposed to be one of those days.
John had no idea how Renzo, or his delinquent parents, were apparently paying for a private school for the girl. He also didn’t care, as that wasn’t any of his business. He simply wanted to let the guy know to stay the hell away from his sister, and nothing else.
Across the street, a familiar sight caught John’s eye. His walk slowed for a split second as he did a double take of the woman coming out of an old bookstore.
John didn’t think he would see her again after the bus incident, not to mention running in to her right here almost two weeks ago.
Their families just didn’t mingle.
Siena.
The woman had lost the jeans, blouse, and messenger bag from the first time they met. Today, she wore a knee-length black dress, suede ankle books, and carried a leather Gucci bag. She seemed caught up in the paperback she held—that was the same as before.
John had shit to do.
A guy to threaten.
A million other things he needed to take care of except Siena Calabrese. The bad blood between their respective mafia organizations should have been enough to keep him on that side of the street. Hell, her grandfather had been the man who killed his biological great-grandfather and the man’s family decades and decades ago. That should have been enough to keep John away.
He was crossing the busy street before he even knew what he was doing. He flipped the middle finger to a car that was forced to stop to let him jaywalk.
Siena still had her head stuck down in the book when John came up in front of her.
“I thought I told you to watch where you were walking around these parts, donna.”
Her head popped up, and those cerulean eyes of hers widened. She didn’t even try to hide the shock of seeing him again.
“John,” Siena murmured.
Now that he was right in front of her, he was able to get an even better look at the body-hugging dress she wore, and the heels that made her legs look fucking fantastic. His gaze traveled over her curves before settling back on her face once more.
“That’s me,” he said, grinning.
A pretty pink colored her cheeks when she returned his smile. “Any reason you’re hanging around this part of Brooklyn again?”
“Business.”
Siena raised a brow. “That so?”
John stuffed his hands in his pockets. “That’s my story.”
“Well, I’m heading to my brother’s club for work. I’m late, so I have to go.”
No, he couldn’t just let her go this time. He was pretty sure the last time they had run in to each other like this, she had meant to ask him out. A phone call hadn’t let her finish the sentence. John had to go right after, and he figured it was what it was.
Fate had different plans, it seemed.
“Can I walk you?” he asked.
“I don’t know, can you?”
Just like that, his job to talk with Renzo was forgotten.
Someone far more beautiful and interesting had all of his attention now.
John chuckled. “May I walk you?”
Siena’s smile softened. “You know what, yeah. Sure, John.”
He moved into step with her as she headed down the road. Before she could shove the book she had been reading in her bag, he grabbed it out of her hand.
All over again, her cheeks lit up with that pretty pink.
John kind of liked it.
Another bare-chested man looked up at him from the cover, although this time, the guy did have a dress shirt opened, and he was working on tying a tie.
John cocked a brow. “Who knots their tie while their shirt is still open, anyway?”
“Oh, my God. Give me that back.” Siena snatched the book out of his hand, and gave him a little glare. “Don’t make fun of my books.”
“I definitely wasn’t. I was just saying that makes no sense.”
“Mmhmm. Sure.”
“The first full-length paperback I ever read was one of my mother’s romances, actually. She was a huge fan.”
Siena grinned. “Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, I was grounded, and couldn’t do anything. She left it sitting around, so I picked it up and started reading. Took me a week or so to get through it—I was nine or something.”
“She never noticed?”
John shrugged. “Yeah, I think she did, but it kept me quiet and out of her hair. You know?”
Siena’s laughter sounded like wind chimes. John couldn’t help but stare at her while she did it. Her delicate features lit up and natural pouty lips curved with happiness. She was quite a sight like that, he thought. Carefree and beautiful.
The heat that shot through his gut was such a foreign feeling that he didn’t recognize it at first. It had been so long since he actually felt attraction and lust together. The past three years had been spent dealing with far too many other things that had very little to do with women, dating, or sex.
It took him by surprise.
“I know you’re heading to your brother’s place for work,” John said, “but do you want to grab coffee or something later?”
Siena’s steps hesitated, and the two stopped altogether on the sidewalk. “I—”
John’s phone rang.
Just like the last time.
Again.
Fuck.
“Sorry,” he told her.
Siena shrugged, and looked away. He didn’t miss the flash of disappointment in her gaze, though.
John answered the phone with a sharp, “What?”
“Mr. Marcello, Dr. Goodane would like to confirm your appointment in two hours.”
Shit.
John checked his watch, and realized he had forgotten one very important thing today. His therapist. It was one of the many requirements of his parole, not that he minded. A good therapist kept him on track with his bipolar disorder, anyway.
He couldn’t refuse. The doctor would have to report a missed appointment to his parole officer. Then, that asshole would get on his ass, too.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
He would just have to leave right now.
John hung up the phone, and turned to Siena. Even though he had to go, he was still determined to get her number, and meet up sometime. Three random run-ins had to be a sign of something, right?
“So—”
Siena held up a hand, and stopped John from saying more. “Hey, it’s okay. Maybe we’ll have another one of these meetings, John.”
She didn’t give him a chance to say anything before she headed down the street. John was stuck staring after her.
Fuck his whole life.
• • •
John tried to brush off the pissy mood as he headed into the therapist’s office. Amelia—a forty-year-old married mother with two teenaged sons whose pictures littered the walls—already sat waiting for him in the chair.
He took the couch across from her.
Twice a week, he had these appointments.
Mostly, he didn’t mind.
Today, he did mind.
“John,” she greeted.
“Amelia.”
Down to business first, he knew.
It was just how she worked.
Amelia looked over the papers in the file. “How’s the change in the dose of the Lithium working?”
“The first few days were a bad fog.”
“We figured that, though, right?”
John shrugged. “It’s still pretty thick most days. The medication fog, I mean.”
“It’s only been a couple of weeks since we changed the dose, right?”
“Something like that.”
Amelia scratched something down to the paper. “I need you to give it some time to readjust, John. Lowering the dose could have bad consequences.”
Sometimes, the meds were just … too much. A hazy fog descended over his brain, and took over everything. A single missed pill, or the wrong dose, could send him into a manic spiral within days.
“Yeah, I know,” John finally said.
Not that he liked it.
“Every person managing their bipolar disorder is different,” Amelia said. “You have to allow the medication time to settle with you, and your disorder.”
“I’m aware. Except I was just fine for three years in prison taking only the Lithium. On your suggestion, I’ve added more medications to that, and all it’s done is put me in a fog. I can’t exactly be productive when my mind is like looking through frosted glass.”
He’d been dealing with this and medications and everything else related to this disorder since he had been diagnosed as an older teen.
It never ended.
“You also deal with depression and anxiety, and the new med change should help with that. We discussed this. It’s why we chose the med change.”
She said we.
Truth was, she decided that.
John went along with it for now. Based on the way the new med regime left him feeling on a daily basis, he couldn’t say how long it would last. Sure, some bipolar people needed more than just one med to manage their disorder—he wasn’t sure he was one of those people based on his past experience. His therapist had a different opinion, but then again, she had only been treating him since his release, and not since his diagnosis.
Some therapists worked that way—they made decisions on medications, and the patients went along with it until they found the combination that worked. He preferred telling Amelia what worked best for him, and having her work that way.
So far, that’s not how this whole thing had gone down.
Amelia rested back in her chair, and said, “For some people, bipolar is just one part of their life. A background thought that they manage with medication and whatever else. So today, I would like to talk about what being bipolar is—and means—to you, John.”
Great.
He chuckled dryly, and toyed with the Rolex on his wrist. “For me, bipolar makes up a great portion of who I am. A lot of my relationships had been forged or broken because of this disorder. How I eat is determined by which foods might hinder or help my mood swings. It controls the fact that the first thing I do in the morning is take several pills because I won’t remember if they’re not the first thing I go to. What else do you want to know?”
“What’s it like for you day to day?”
“Depends on where I am in a cycle,” he replied.
“And where are you right now?”
“Low.”
She raised a brow. “Low as in a depression, or …?”
“No, just fine. There’s low, and then there’s low. I only get really low after the mania breaks. I mean, the depression is always there warring back and forth, but it never gets dangerous for me until after a manic episode.”
“And how does that usually feel for you—depression after mania, I mean?”
“The way depression usually feels. Add in suicidal thoughts manifesting, and you’ve got depression after a manic break for me.”
Amelia didn’t seem to miss the bite in John’s tone if her narrowed eyes were any indication. “You’re not typically this snappy, Johnathan. Is something different? How are you feeling today?”
“At the moment, kind of pissed off.”
“Why is that?”
“Your secretary interrupted me when I was trying to set up a date with somebody.”
Amelia coughed, and hid her small smile by looking away. “Like a woman, or a business thing?”
“What do you think?”
The therapist sighed.
John knew what she was going to say before she even spoke.
“As good as it may be on the surface that you’re trying to get back to a normal routine, you have to remember that you’re still getting assimilated outside of confinement, John. I have to remind you that dating or sex or anything emotionally intense like those things could be detrimental to your success outside of prison while you’re still attempting to adapt to these sudden changes. You have a history of hyper-sexuality, for one. Given how delicate the balance is while we work on med changes right now, I wouldn’t toy too much with that behavior.”
He knew she was right.
His disorder could be fickle—and predictable—in that way. Changes in his life, especially big ones, could easily tip the scales and lead him toward another manic cycle.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he told her.
“Please do.”
It was the best he could do.
Siena was still in the back of his mind, and she didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.