by Bethany-Kris
Next to her old bedroom, this had been her most favorite space in the Calabrese family home. Barely anyone used the sunroom, except her mother to water the plants twice a week. Siena was almost always guaranteed some form of privacy here.
She sunk in one of the wicker chairs, and overlooked the brownstone’s small, fenced in backyard. A recent storm had dropped a good half of a foot of snow on top of what little bit they already had. Now, covered in a heavy fresh sheet of pristine, sparkling white snow, it looked peaceful.
And cold.
Christmas was over now that it was a week into January, and all the decorations that usually warmed the place had long been taken down. The tree was gone, like everything else. Her mother had never liked to leave anything up for longer than she had to when it came to the holidays.
It was a good thing her mother hadn’t been to her apartment in well over a month. Siena still hadn’t taken her Christmas decorations down—what little bit she put out. Even the small five-foot-high fake tree was still lit up with the gold star twinkling on top in her living room.
Coraline would be aghast.
Maybe that’s why Siena kept it up.
Who knew?
Siena wasn’t sure how long she stayed hidden in the sunroom. Long enough that she wondered if maybe she had missed the dinner altogether, and someone forgot she was even there. It was unlikely, but she could still hope.
Her hope was for nothing.
“There you are,” came a voice from the doorway.
Siena found her oldest brother standing there. Kev looked her over, and then peered around the room.
“You weren’t playing with the plants or something, right?” he asked. “Dad won’t be happy if you mess your dress, or whatever.”
Siena scowled. “First, I’m twenty-five, not a toddler. Try to speak to me like an adult, and I’ll remember not to use big words for you when I respond. Second, what do you want?”
“Time for dinner.”
She waved a hand. “Yeah, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Siena, you could try to be pleasant tonight.”
“No, what I could have done tonight, Kev, was stay at home on my couch under a blanket and watched the newest episode of my favorite show. Instead, I am here. Dressed and prettied up to show off Dad’s beautiful family for whoever he’s putting this show on for.”
“And we’re so awful, right?”
He flashed her a grin.
She smiled right back.
“Something like that,” Siena said.
Kev sobered momentarily. “Seriously, what’s up with you?”
“I don’t know. Nothing in particular at the moment.”
“But still something. I know how women work. You all say nothing is wrong, but in reality, you’re stewing in some kind of shit inside your crazy heads.”
And that, everybody, is one of many reasons why Kev can’t keep a woman.
Siena didn’t say that out loud.
But it didn’t make it any less true.
“You going to tell me what’s wrong, or what?” he asked. “Because I don’t have all day, and they’re waiting for us at the table.”
She shrugged. “Don’t you ever get tired of putting on airs for Dad and his people?”
Kev cocked a brow. “Siena, I am one of his people.”
Yeah, shit.
She hadn’t thought of that, but she should have. Her brothers never understood why she didn’t enjoy being the child of a mafia boss the same way they did. Kev and Darren were revered as sons and made men, while she was the toss-away girl.
This conversation was going nowhere.
And fast.
Standing from the chair, Siena brushed down her skirt. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
“Smile,” Kev said as she left the sunroom.
Siena flipped her brother off over her shoulder instead. How’s that for a smile?
It only took a minute or two for them to get back to the dining room. Siena heard his voice echoing out from the space before she even stood in the entryway.
“Whiskey is fine,” he said.
His voice came out dark and rich.
Like honey.
Fuck.
Siena’s gaze drifted to where Johnathan Marcello stood beside her father and Darren at the small wet bar against the far wall. His stare found hers as Matteo passed him a three-fingered glass of whiskey.
He doesn’t even drink.
Or, that’s what he told her.
Siena was stuck between staring at Johnathan in his black on black suit, and wondering why in the hell nobody had thought to tell her he was the guest tonight. She felt tricked somehow, but she didn’t know why.
After all, her father and brothers didn’t actually know she had history with Johnathan. Or … what one might consider to be a history.
Nonetheless, it was sure to be an awkward fucking dinner.
Johnathan still hadn’t taken his gaze off Siena. Kev passed her in the doorway, however, and that allowed her to break the staring contest for a moment.
She took the chance to grab her chair at the table, and sit down. Fixing the napkin over her lap, she ignored the conversation happening between the men of her family and Johnathan. Soon, her mother was coming out of the kitchen with dishes in hand. She thought to help her mom, but Coraline was quick to tell her to stay put.
It was only once the table was full and wine had been poured that the men finally joined Siena and her mother at the table. Like always, Matteo sat at the head of the table, while her mother sat on the end. Darren sat beside Siena, while Johnathan sat directly across from her, and Kev sat at his left.
Every single time she looked up after grace had been said, he was right there. Looking at her. Talking to someone else, but passing her glances. Never calling her out directly for conversation, but still managing to get someone else to pull her in to it every once in a while.
Before Siena knew it, half of her plate was gone, and she had downed three glasses of a white wine that tasted like rotten grapes and old vodka.
The buzz was just enough to keep her from letting the growing butterflies in her stomach take over completely. Barely …
“Siena,” her father said, “have we ever told you that Johnathan is connected to our family’s history?”
She peeked up from her plate, and her gaze darted between a suddenly frozen Johnathan, and her grinning father.
Something in Johnathan’s stiff as hell posture told her he was very uncomfortable. He picked up that whiskey glass he had barely touched, and tipped it up to his lips. Still, when he sat the glass back down to the table, the liquid level was still at the same spot.
He hadn’t sipped on even a drop.
“No,” she finally said quietly.
Matteo’s grin grew wider. “His great-grandfather was once the boss of the Calabrese—”
“Grovatti,” Johnathan interjected with a dull tone. “Then, it was called the Grovatti family.”
“My mistake, John. You’re right, but it’s been our family for so long now that it’s easy to forget.”
Johnathan’s grip on the steak knife in his hand tightened until his knuckles whitened. Siena again glanced between her seemingly oblivious father, and a very irritated Johnathan.
What was happening?
“Nonetheless,” Matteo said, “Siena, your grandfather Carl took over after Johnathan’s great-grandfather passed on. And that is how this organization came to be.”
The silence that passed over the table felt thick with something Siena didn’t really understand. Haughtiness from one side, she thought, and pain from the man across from her.
Johnathan hid it well, but for some reason, she could see it.
In his eyes.
There, he was hurting.
Siena downed what was left of her fourth glass of wine because she didn’t know what the hell else to do. The bitter, sour flavor stuck to her teeth and tongue, but it was better than talking.
&
nbsp; Awkward was not a good enough word for this dinner.
“I never did understand why Johnathan Grovatti’s bastard son changed names after his father was killed,” Darren said from beside her. “Lucian, I mean.”
Johnathan’s gaze darkened with a barely hidden hate as he looked at Darren. “My father was adopted by Antony and Cecelia Marcello. That’s why he took their surname.”
“Even if he was birthed by a goomah, he was still a Grovatti.”
Johnathan flashed a smile—cold and sharp in a blink. “We certainly are, and don’t you forget it, either.”
Siena hid in the sunroom the very second she was able to get away from the dinner table without earning herself a glare from her father. No one seemed to notice when she left, thankfully.
She toyed with the velvety leaves on one of the corner plants as she ran over the things that had been said at the dinner.
It still felt like a set up.
She still couldn’t prove that it was.
“The information that your father neglected to mention was that your grandfather killed my great-grandfather.”
Siena stiffened at Johnathan’s voice, and then stood straight up. She spun on her heels, and found him leaning in the doorway of the sunroom.
“How did you know I was back here?” she asked.
He shrugged, and swirled the still-full glass of whiskey in his hand. “I skipped out on them by saying I had to use the bathroom. Apparently there’s none on the bottom floor of this brownstone, so I’m going to pretend like I got lost.”
Siena swallowed hard. “But you came looking for me.”
Johnathan flashed a warm smile, and his hazel eyes drifted over her, unashamed. “Yep.”
She refused to let this man in again. She would not let her walls down for him after the stunt he pulled on her.
Siena brought her cold demeanor out to play again. “Did I not make myself clear at the restaurant, or what?”
Johnathan looked down at the glass of whiskey, and then stretched his arm out to dump the contents in a potted plant on a shelf. “Shame to waste liquor and all, but I don’t drink even for a boss.”
“You could have refused.”
His gaze cut back to her. “Made men cannot refuse any boss. I would not be here tonight, if I could.”
Oh.
She heard what he didn’t say.
“Was that the truth?” she dared to ask. “About my grandfather and your great-grandfather?”
Johnathan’s lips curled at the edge—a sneer that roughened his handsome face, and gave her the answer before he even spoke it out loud. “Every bit of it, yeah.”
“Huh.”
“That’s what you have to say?”
“What would you want me to say?” she countered.
Johnathan tipped his head back, and that intense gaze of his stabbed in to her with reckless intent. Like he had caught something he really liked in his sights, and he was ready to snatch it up.
It just happened to be her in his line of vision.
Fuck.
“I don’t expect anything from you, Siena Calabrese,” Johnathan said. “But I hoped you might let me say a few things.”
“Like what?”
She knew better than to ask.
She wished she could take it back instantly.
The words were still out there.
Johnathan’s throat bobbed as his tongue peeked out to wet his lips. “What happened a few months ago, for starters.”
“Nope,” she said.
Just like that, she was done.
Siena moved to push past him in the doorway and head back to where her family was, but Johnathan grabbed her wrist, and yanked her back. “Wait a damn minute, donna.”
In a blink, she was spun around and facing him. Dark hazel, and sharp lines clouded her vision. The hardness of his body fit perfectly against the softness of hers.
All she could see was him.
All she could smell was him.
It was bad, intoxicating, and addicting all at the same time.
“Just … wait a minute,” he murmured softer.
“You don’t deserve even a second,” she replied, trying to level her tone.
“Maybe not, but will you give me one?”
“Why, so we can fuck again, and you can run off one more time? You didn’t even leave me a note, or your number. I don’t know if you expected me to chase you like this was some kind of game, John, but I don’t run after any man. Ever.”
He didn’t even blink.
He barely moved.
She yanked her wrist out of his grasp, and took a step back. “So, no, I don’t really want to hear anything you have to say.”
Siena turned her back to Johnathan, and then quickly disappeared down the hallway. She grabbed her coat and bag from the hallway closet, and then headed for the dining room. Only one of her brothers was still there, and he was pouring yet another drink, it seemed.
Darren, that was.
“Let Dad know I’m leaving,” Siena said as she dug through the bag for her keys. “I have work to do early tomorrow.”
Darren snatched the keys out of her hands the second she pulled them from the purse. “Hell no. You’ve been drinking. You can’t drive.”
Siena glared at her brother, but didn’t try to get the keys back. He towered over her, and she wasn’t going to jump for the fucking things like a child. “Then call me a cab, or get Kev to drive me home. He barely drank anything at all.”
“We’re not your fucking chauffeurs, Siena.”
Ouch.
Because she remembered more than one occasion when she had taken them home after dinners due to drinking.
The bastards.
“Listen, Dad mentioned you should probably stay the night anyway since you’re supposed to be working with him tomorrow at the new dealership or something. You can just follow him in the morning since you don’t know where it is.”
Siena’s irritation grew tendrils inside her heart and squeezed tight enough to kill her. “I want to go home.”
Darren shrugged. “Too bad, I guess you’re staying.”
NINE
John headed after Siena, determined to get her to talk to him for more than five seconds. She disappeared into the dining room, and the Calabrese boss’s oldest son stepped out of what appeared to be the living room at the same time.
“Here, let me take that.”
John handed over the empty glass of whiskey he was still holding. “Thanks.”
“You’re not leaving yet, are you?” Kev asked.
John’s gaze drifted toward the dining room, but went quickly back to Kev. “No, not yet.”
But soon.
John wasn’t about to tell Kev Calabrese that being in the brownstone was a special kind of hell for him. A constant battle between showing respect for the boss of the Calabrese Cosa Nostra, or defending the honor of a dead man.
“My father asked me to let you know he’ll be waiting in his office to chat a little more,” Kev said. “He thought you might have gotten lost or something.”
John forced himself not to look toward the dining room again. Kev didn’t mention having seen John following after Siena, and he wasn’t about to make it obvious. He didn’t know what the woman’s family was like regarding her, men, and dating.
She didn’t need trouble.
Not because of him, anyway.
“The office is on the third floor,” Kev said gesturing at the stairwell. “Last door on the left—he usually leaves it open for us.”
John nodded, saying only, “Grazie.”
Silently adding, for fucking nothing.
The very last thing John wanted to do was sit down with Matteo for longer than he already had. The dinner had been more than enough. Even still, he climbed the flights of stairs, and glanced over the family portraits hanging on white walls because the rules of their life happened to be a hell of a lot clearer than his wants at the moment.
Never shun a boss.
A boss is a boss is a boss, John.
He now understood—in a way—why the Marcellos tended to keep their distance where the Calabrese family was concerned. Friendships made from situations like these only led to men who did not actually like one another, but rather, made nice for the sake of appearances.
But when no one was watching …
That’s when a man really had to worry.
John stood in the open doorway of the Calabrese Don’s office, and tried to keep his posture as least defensive as he could. His arms stayed down at his side, and not folded over his chest. He kept his face expressionless, instead of the scowl he wanted to present.
Respect was not always easy to give.
“Johnathan,” Matteo said with a wide smile.
Too wide.
John didn’t move an inch. “Kev said you wanted to chat a bit more. In private, I take it.”
Matteo nodded. “You guessed correctly. Come, have a seat.”
The man waved at the chairs directly across from his large, cherry oak desk. Behind him, an entire wall was filled with old leather-bound books that lined the shelves. A skyline painting of New York hung on one wall, while a portrait of Carl Calabrese rested on another wall.
All over again, John fought to hide his discomfort.
It was getting harder to do.
John rested into one of the two leather chairs. His fingers clasped around the curved edges of the armrests, and he waited.
For what, he didn’t know.
But something …
Matteo gestured at a glass crystal filled with golden liquid. “Bourbon?”
John shook his head. “The whiskey was enough, if you wouldn’t mind? I have to drive home.”
Of course, he had to pose it like a question to Matteo. As though the man would get to decide whether or not John was done drinking for the night. He couldn’t outright refuse the boss, so he had to try a different approach.
Matteo shrugged his large shoulders, and leaned back in the chair he dwarfed with his stature. “Yes, we wouldn’t need you getting in trouble, all things considered.”
