by Bethany-Kris
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.
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU FUCKING asshole!”
Andino looked up from the papers on his desk, and narrowly missed John’s oncoming fist by ducking. “Shit.”
It didn’t make a difference. John landed a punch to his cousin’s jaw on the second swing, anyway.
The hit connected hard enough to send Andino’s head flying to the side. John was already bracing for the impact that was sure to come back at him. Andino didn’t disappoint. His cousin pushed out of the chair faster than he could blink, and came at him.
John was quick enough to duck the first swing Andino aimed for his head, but forgot that his cousin was a south paw, and sneaky as fuck. Ducking like he did only gave Andino the chance to land a hard punch against John’s fucking kidney.
Jesus Christ.
That hurt.
Andino shoved John into the office door. John went right back for more. He shoved Andino hard, too, knocking his cousin into the chair, and desk. Not that it kept Andino down, or anything. He came right back for more, too.
So was their way.
Soon, the two cousins were pounding fists into one another on the floor of Andino’s office, while the employees in the kitchen worked on like nothing was happening. Just another day working for Andino Marcello, apparently.
This wasn’t the first time the two had gone to blows over something, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes, this was just how they dealt with any kind of shit between them, but this time, it was different for John.
He was pissed.
Really fucking pissed off.
Where in previous fights he would make sure to keep his punches clean, and not hit Andino somewhere it would do lasting damage—like his face—John just didn’t care. He needed to get some of his goddamn anger out, and since Andino had been the cause of that anger in the first damn place, here they were.
It didn’t take long before Andino figured out John was not going to calm, or back down. He tried holding John down, but that didn’t do anything for either of them. Andino got his own hits thrown in, too, but John barely felt them at all.
Maybe after the third or so punch John landed to Andino’s head did the trick—he didn’t really know what it was—but his cousin figured out this was not like every other time they went to blows.
Either way, Andino pulled back, and rolled away from John. He laid to his back on the floor, and stared up at the ceiling. It took all the willpower John had not to roll over, and start fucking up the man again.
Outside the office, dishes clattered. Footsteps echoed just beyond their space as the employees continued to work.
It would be comical.
If it wasn’t so fucking sad.
“So fucking lucky Snaps wasn’t here today,” Andino snarled under his breath.
John let out a hard exhale, and scrubbed his now-sore hands down his face. “Where is he?”
“Haven took him to the spa.”
Side-eyeing his cousin, he said, “The fucking spa.”
“He likes it, okay. They rub him down, bathe him, and give him treats. It’s their thing—she takes him once a week.”
“He goes to the spa once a week. Are you serious? He’s a dog.”
“A dog that would have ripped your face off for this bullshit.”
Fair enough.
“Fuck,” Andino muttered, touching the spot above his eyebrow with his fingertips. “I think you cracked something in my face.”
“Not going to apologize for that.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
John’s jaw clenched so hard, his goddamn molars ached. The anger that had damn near controlled him for the entire day before, and this morning, was still entirely present. Apparently, there was no getting rid of it.
He tried using one of Leonard’s techniques, which meant John had to make a conscious choice to put his reactive nature aside when something got to him. Whatever it might be—anger, or something similarly overwhelming. He needed to try and give it some time to settle, and then handle it appropriately.
Clearly, that had not worked.
Here he was.
“They change your fucking meds, or something?” Andino asked.
That hit a nerve.
John’s fist came out like lightening, and landed hard to Andino’s kidney. His cousin’s air came out in a sharp whoosh, and then a low fuck followed right behind. Sweet satisfaction curled through John.
“Don’t take cheap shots at me about being bipolar, or my meds. You fucking asshole.”
“All right, all right. I kind of deserved that one,” Andino grumbled through pants of air. “Jesus Christ, that hurt.”
“You deserved it a little more than kind of, prick,” John replied. “You’re putting her in a lot of fucking danger, Andino.”
“What, who?”
Oh, so now his cousin wanted to play dumb?
John wasn’t up for that.
“Siena.”
“Shit, John—”
Quick as a blink, John rolled over, got to his knees, and then stood from the floor. Andino stayed right where he was on his back, and looking up at John. In a way, it gave him the feeling that his cousin was the weaker between them for the moment.
In a sense.
It didn’t matter who was the weaker one between them. Either way, John still had shit to say, and he needed it to be heard. He needed Andino to fucking hear him, and get it. Really fucking get it. He wasn’t playing these stupid games anymore, and he didn’t want Siena to be playing them, either.
“Siena showed up at my place the night before last,” John said, “you know, after Kev Calabrese croaked at his birthday party. Somebody poisoned him, huh?”
Andino lifted a single brow. “Word made rounds, yeah. What about it?”
“That’s how you want to play this?”
“John, come on, now.”
“You had her do that job, Andi.”
Andino sucked air through his teeth, but his cold gaze never wavered from John for a second. “It needed to be done, and I couldn’t trust anyone else to do it. Who the hell else is that close to those brothers, John?”
“Any one of their fucking men, Andino!”
“Couldn’t turn one. Or rather, I couldn’t trust one to turn them. That’s not my goal in this—that’s not the job I need to be concerned about at the moment. I just need those goddamn brothers out of the fucking way. That’s it.”
John didn’t have the first clue what his cousin was talking about. “You’re trying to ruin that family, but you don’t want the task of controlling them once you’ve done that?”
Andino rolled his eyes. “She got it done. What else is there to say?”
“Stop putting her in these fucking positions, that’s what. At first it was just getting information from her which was dangerous enough considering how controlled she is by that family—now this?”
“Is it because you think Siena is too innocent to kill a man, or because you don’t want her dirtying up those pretty hands of hers?”
John forced himself not to kick Andino as hard as he could in the guy’s ribs. It took a hell of a lot more effort than he thought it would. “You’re purposefully being an asshole right now, and I don’t appreciate it.”
