SIENA CHECKED the calendar on her phone again—something she did upwards of twenty times a day. Like all the things she had put in to-do slots would suddenly change or disappear. Everything was still there, including the fact she was supposed to be at Kev’s restaurant over an hour ago to look over some changes he wanted made to his books.
Also, it was the end of August.
How in the hell did two weeks slip by without her noticing?
She was losing it.
That, or she was too busy to have a freaking life.
Siena headed inside Kev’s restaurant, and went to the back offices. She didn’t even stop to say hello to her friend that was waiting tables. She didn’t have the time.
The restaurant was full, though. The scrape of utensils against plates, and the conversations echoed behind her as she slipped into the back hallway.
Funny.
She worked here at least once or twice a month, but she had never actually eaten at the place. No, her whole life just revolved around which business she needed to be at from one day to the next in order to keep her brothers and father happy.
Siena tried to shrug off the irritation as she stepped up to the closed office door. Normally, she would have knocked if a door was closed. Her brothers demanded that she did for privacy. Not today, however.
She was too busy, and lost in her thoughts.
Siena opened the office door, and headed inside. She was still looking down at the calendar on her phone when someone cleared their throat.
Her head popped up.
Kev and Darren were both staring at her.
So was another guy.
She recognized Andino Marcello instantly. Of course, she only knew of the man, and very little else. He usually came to have meetings with one or both of her brothers every couple of months for Cosa Nostra business.
Something about crews, or streets.
Siena didn’t really know.
She wasn’t supposed to.
“Oh,” she said, taking a small step back. “Sorry about that.”
Kev cocked a brow at her. “You don’t know how to knock today, or what?”
“I’m late.”
Darren scowled. “Again.”
“How about you two do even half of the stuff I have to do, and then tell me how well you’re able to manage your fucking time.”
That quieted her brothers.
Siena mentally patted herself on the back.
“I’ll just wait outside until you’re done,” she said.
Kev sighed, and stood from the chair. “No, it’s fine. We were going to continue our discussion over a meal, anyway. Better for you to get to work while you’re actually here. And don’t even think about taking off before the changes are made to the books, Siena.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, or tell her brother off. She only opted not to because Andino was there, and it wouldn’t lead to anything good for her in the end. One of her brothers would tell their father that she had disrespected them in front of a man from another organization, and she would never hear the goddamn end of it.
All of these rules suffocated her.
It never ended.
Siena moved to the side of the doorway as her brothers moved past her to leave the office. Andino followed behind them. He gave her a tight smile, but nothing else.
She wasn’t sure why, but her mouth decided to open up and ask something she had no business knowing. Andino was a Marcello, after all. He would have to know Johnathan. Cousins, or something.
It had been two weeks since she last saw Johnathan on the busy Brooklyn street. She had been so busy that when he got another phone call, she didn’t mind letting him rush off even it was the second time he left her hanging.
Sort of …
“How’s John, Andino?” Siena asked.
The man’s steps halted instantly.
So did her brothers’ in the hallway.
“Pardon?” Andino asked.
“Johnathan. He’s like a cousin of yours, right?”
Andino nodded. “He is, yeah.”
“How is he?”
“Busy,” Andino said, chuckling. “I didn’t know you knew him.”
She could plainly see the way he probed for information without outright asking her, but she didn’t mind indulging him. If only because she was hoping to get a little bit of her own information, too.
“We’ve run in to each other a couple of times, I guess. Talked a bit.”
Andino stuffed his hands in his pockets, and glanced at her brothers who had come closer to them again. Despite how the Marcello man was built, like a linebacker ready to tackle someone, he seemed uncomfortable discussing his family.
Or maybe it was just because her family was there. The Marcello and the Calabrese families never did mingle beyond business.
Bad blood.
That shit didn’t wash out.
“The last time we talked, he had to run off,” Siena said, shrugging. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”
Andino cleared his throat, and smiled again. “He’s good, Siena. Thanks for asking.”
“Siena, get to work, huh?” Kev clapped Andino on the shoulder, and directed him past Siena. “And mind your damn business, donna.”
She heard her brother’s warning loud and clear, and chose for now, to heed it.
What else could she do?
Once all the men had disappeared down the hallway, Siena headed into the office. She closed the door behind her, and locked it seeing as how she didn’t need or want her brothers interrupting her.
She was a good thirty minutes in to reworking accounts for the restaurant’s books, and the numbers were already starting to bleed together. A knock on the office door made her pop her head up from the PC screen for the first time.
Thankful for the break it would take to get up and unlock the door, Siena shook her wrists and cracked her neck as she stood. She figured it would be one of her brothers on the other side of the door, but it wasn’t.
Andino Marcello stood there.
Hands shoved in his pockets.
A cocked eyebrow.
Smile gone.
The politeness he had shown her earlier seemed to be entirely gone. His warm gaze now felt cold as he looked her over.
Siena’s gaze darted over his shoulder to check for her brothers. Neither Kev, nor Darren stood there with Andino.
“They’re busy—having a smoke in the back,” Andino said, flashing a smirk. “I don’t smoke. At least, not with them.”
Siena wasn’t sure why exactly, but the way he sought her out like this did not feel friendly at all.
“What can I do for you, Andino?” she asked.
“Step inside,” he said.
When she didn’t move as quickly as he wanted her to, Andino simply put a hand to Siena’s shoulder, and moved her inside the office. He kicked the door closed behind him, and completely ignored her indignant shout.
Siena hit his hand from her shoulder, and glared at him. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“What do you want with my cousin?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Is it your brothers—your father, maybe? Did they put you up to engaging with John, or what?”
Siena shook her head, so confused that it wasn’t even funny. “We sat across from each other on the bus, and then randomly ran in to each other on the street a couple of times outside the bookstore where I get my books.”
Andino sucked air through his teeth. “That all?”
“What the fuck is it any of your business?”
He moved closer—just an inch.
It was enough to make Siena take a step back.
“It’s my business because I look out for John. I’ve had his back since we were kids. He doesn’t have very many people thinking about his interests, so I make sure to be one of them. Got it?”
Siena swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Okay, I got it.”
“What else was there?”
“Nothing. We had a walk, chatted a bit, and he asked me to go for coffee once, but we didn’t. Seems like he’s always running off and leaving me hanging, you know?”
Andino simply stared at her for a long while before he finally said, “And no one has said anything to you about John, or the Marcellos?”
“No.” Siena’s gaze narrowed as she added, “You heard my brothers—I ask anything, and I get told to mind my fucking business. I just wanted to make sure John was doing okay. Friends can ask after friends.”
“You don’t know my cousin from a fucking hole in the ground, girl. How can you be his friend?”
“Maybe I would like to be,” she shot back.
Andino tipped his chin up, and continued eyeing her in that intense way of his. It made her want to move back again, or fidget. Something.
“He keeps running off, you said?” Andino asked.
Siena shrugged. “Kind of. I don’t think he means to. I’ve never even gotten his number, or whatever.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to give it to you, then. Ever consider that?”
Ouch.
She ignored that jibe.
“I did only want to check up on him,” she said. “I didn’t mean any harm.”
Andino cleared his throat, and took a step back. It was enough to let the office feel like the large space it was when his imposing presence wasn’t taking up a lot of her fucking air. Christ, the man was something else.
And for Siena?
That was not a good thing.
“How about I help you out?” Andino asked.
“How?”
The man grinned. “John works out of a club every other weekend. For specific people, it’s just easier to find him there than to make him run for them. Not a lot of people know that he’s been using that spot to do his business occasionally. His next weekend working at the club should be in a couple of weeks, if you’re curious.”
“And what does that mean for me?”
“You show up—only you, girl—and maybe you’ll get more than five minutes with him.”
“Just me.”
“I don’t trust your family. No Marcello does.”
Siena pursed her lips in an effort to hide her frown. “Not even me?”
“Not while you still have that last name, anyway.”
It was not as easy to let that insult roll off her shoulders, but she tried.
“Which club?” she asked.
Andino smiled, and this time, it was warm.
• • •
Siena was fifty pages into her new novel about a mercenary hero and heroine thrown together by circumstance when a knock on her apartment door interrupted her. She had all she could do not to glare at the door from across the living room.
The few minutes she was allowed to sit down and relax, and someone had to come over. It wasn’t like she had a lot of friends or anything, and her brothers barely wanted anything to do with her unless it related to work somehow.
“The door is unlocked,” she called out.
Siena went back to her book.
However, she eyed her father as he slipped in her apartment. Matteo practically swallowed the space with his large stature. His dark gaze looked over the place, and then skipped to where his daughter sat with a book in her hands.
“Don’t you lock your door?” he asked.
“Why would I?”
“Because it’s safer, Siena.”
“Safer for whom?” She smiled sweetly. “Pretty sure if someone wanted me out of here for whatever reason, they would just break it down, Dad.”
Matteo clicked his tongue at her. One of his many signs of annoyance or disappointment. “This is what you do with your free time—read?”
“Reading is good for the brain.”
She didn’t bother to add how reading also helped to shut off her brain when she spent eight or more hours a day looking at numbers, and falsifying them. Being a bookkeeper and accountant was only made harder by the fact that every book she opened, she had to scrub it clean, and cook it up.
It added more work and time.
Matteo came closer, and seemed to be peering at the cover. “There’s a half-naked man on the cover. What is that garbage?”
“It’s not garbage. It’s a romance.”
“Mmhmm.”
“He’s a mercenary.”
“That so?”
“Apparently. What do you want, Dad?”
Might as well get right to it, she thought. For the three years she had lived in this apartment, she could count on one hand the amount of times her father had come to visit her. Typically, her mother came over a couple of times a month, but Matteo never joined her.
Besides, Siena spent enough time with her father through the week when she worked. Him and her brothers.
She didn’t need more time with him.
“I can’t visit my daughter?” he asked, taking a seat on the couch beside her.
“You don’t typically make an effort to, no.”
Matteo chuckled, and the force rocked them both on the couch. “Perhaps I’m making an effort to do just that, Siena. Your mother is always telling me how there’s more to you than the numbers in your head.”
She side-eyed her father, and doubted every single word he spoke.
She still kept quiet.
Matteo continued talking, anyway. “Besides, you are my daughter. My only—”
Siena couldn’t keep quiet at that statement. “You have three daughters with Joy Kennedy.”
The reddening of her father’s cheeks almost made her grin. She held it back, but still took great satisfaction at the sight.
“Yes, well, I meant my only legitimate daughter,” Matteo grumbled.
“I’m sure Ma appreciated that when she found out about the other ones.”
“We’re not talking about that right now, Siena.”
No, they never did.
Another rule to add to the pile.
Nothing was discussed that her father didn’t approve. That absolutely included his mistress, and the children she birthed him.
“As I was saying,” Matteo muttered heavily, giving her a pointed look, “you are my daughter. I don’t think I need a reason to check in with you every once in a while. Do I?”
Siena was desperately trying to focus on the words in her book, and not whatever information her father had come here to pry out of her. That’s the only reason she figured he was there. Her lack of focus on the book made it difficult to ignore Matteo.
Besides, if she pissed him off, he would just make the next couple of weeks a living hell for her when it came to work.
He was not very sly in that way.
“I guess so,” she finally said.
Matteo smiled, and patted a beefy hand to her knee. “Good. How about you go make me a coffee?”
Great.
Bookkeeper, and a server.
Perfect.
Siena tossed her book aside with a soft sigh, and stood from the couch. Her father followed behind as she headed for the kitchen. With the electric kettle turned on, she kept her back turned to her father as she pulled out instant coffee, sugar, and a mug from the cupboard. At least this way, she figured her father might get the hint that she was not up for conversation.
Apparently not …
“I wondered if maybe you would be out tonight,” he said behind her.
Siena stiffened. “Why would I be out?”
“You’re twenty-five. Surely you have friends, and you like to do things. Don’t most girls your age?”
“Haven’t you told me for basically my whole life that idle hands and bad behavior would only shame you and the family?”
Matteo chuckled darkly. “That I did.”
“I don’t go out very much, Dad.”
Mostly true.
“No friends, either?”
“A couple.”
“What about men?”
A knot of tension tightened around Siena’s spine. She tried not to show how uncomfortable the question made her as she turned around to face her father.
“Like dating?” she asked.
Matteo nodded. “Exactly that. Are you seeing someone?”
“Would it matter if I was?”
“I should think it would be my business if you were,” he replied.
“Yet, I’m not.”
“At all?” he pressed.
Siena’s gaze narrowed. “Where is this coming from, Dad?”
Because it all screamed strange and odd to her. It wasn’t like her father to care much about her personal life as long as she kept it quiet, and private. As long as nothing she did brought shame to her family, then he never spoke a word about it.
After all, he wanted a compliant, easily controlled daughter. Much like how he preferred his wife, too.
Matteo waved a large hand. “Your brothers mentioned maybe you were dating, and I thought I should ask.”
What?
When would her brothers—
Siena’s thoughts slammed together with a heavy realization. All she did was ask about one single man in front of her brothers, and the first thing they did was run to her father with the information.
Like a bunch of assholes.
She was, however, planning on seeking Johnathan Marcello out in a week at the club he apparently worked out of every other weekend. She even made sure to clear things off her schedule so that nothing would be taking her away.
Siena was not telling her father that, though.
Andino had been clear.
Her family was not welcome.
“I’m not seeing anyone,” she told her father. “At all.”
“Do let me know if that changes,” Matteo said, grinning.
With that, her father moved away from the small island, and headed for the door. As though he were completely finished with their conversation, and now had better things to do that did not include being there with her.
“What about your coffee?” Siena asked.
Matteo looked over his shoulder as he pulled open the door. “I’m not really in the mood to stay and chat longer.”
Yeah, she hadn’t thought so.
He had only come to pry information out of her.
But why?
Why?
Siena filed the strange encounter away in the back of her mind, and decided it was probably nothing.
For now, anyway.
• • •
Despite the name of the club, Heavy Metal had very little to do with scream-o music or hard rock. Siena figured that out the second she stepped inside the joint. The reflective lights and metallic accents left shimmering colors cascading over her body-con red dress, and the matching four-inch stilettos on her feet.
The bouncer at the front of the club had only nodded at her when she mentioned being there to see a Marcello, even though she hadn’t technically been told to do that by Andino.
Whatever.
It got her through the door.
Siena kept a firm grip on the red clutch in her hand as she weaved in and out of the moving people. The flickering lights and bass pounding through the hardwood floors made for quite an experience.
She wasn’t really a partier.
Clubs weren’t her thing.
She did kind of like this, though.
Siena found herself moving toward the bar while her gaze scanned the crowd for a familiar face …
For John.
The bartender came down her way, and tossed a rag over his shoulder. With a warm smile, he asked, “What can I get for you, pretty girl?”
Siena smiled. “Something light.”
“I can mix you up something virgin, but it’ll look like the real thing if you want really light.”
“Sure, do that.”
It was a couple of minutes before the guy came back with her drink. As she paid for it, Siena thought to ask, “Do you know where Johnathan is by chance?”
The bartender cocked a brow. “Marcello?”
“There’s only one, right?”
“That there is. He’s usually upstairs in the VIP, or working out of an office. Either way, you won’t find him on the floor.”
“Thanks.”
“Just tell the guys guarding the entrance that John asked for you, and they’ll let you through.”
Siena laughed. “Even if he doesn’t know I’m here?”
“Only one way to find out.” The bartender winked, adding, “And I bet he won’t say no to your pretty face.”
Well, then …