by Bethany-Kris
“I will stay.”
The man gave her a look. “Many don’t prefer to stay and watch, and it can take a while.”
Siena stared back, unaffected. “I will stay.”
Until the bastard’s heart stopped beating.
Until he couldn’t hurt them again.
Until she was safe.
Her sisters.
John.
Siena would fucking stay.
“Okay,” the doctor murmured. “Let’s get started on these final forms.”
The next several minutes were a blur. Siena checking boxes, and signing her signature on too many dotted lines to count. It was all the same thing over and over again, simply reworded a different way, and on a new page.
Did she understand …
Does she agree …
No liability …
“And here,” the doctor said one final time.
Siena scribbled her name a little harder than before.
Done and done.
She stepped back, and found a chair in the corner of the room to make herself comfortable for the next little while. For all the machines and wires hooked up to Darren, it took only a couple of quick minutes to remove them from his body.
“Would you leave that one on?” Siena asked.
The doctor hesitated as his hand hovered over the monitor. “You want me to leave the heart rate monitor on?”
She needed to know.
She had to.
“Yes, if it’s possible.”
The nurse and doctor shared a look before the man nodded once at her. “Yes, I can leave it on. It might be upsetting, however, and—”
“I can assure you it won’t be.”
And it wasn’t.
When his heart stopped …
When it was still …
When it was silent …
Darren was dead.
Siena only felt relief.
• • •
Siena stepped out of the hospital room to find the enforcer that had been placed at the door before she went in had not moved an inch from his post. The man greeted her with a kind smile, and a nod.
“Siena,” he said.
Respectful.
Caring.
Soft-spoken.
This enforcer—a man who introduced himself by name, with a smile, and a handshake the first time they met—was not like any other guard Siena had ever had. He did not treat her like a piece of property to la famiglia that he was simply protecting.
He was not a Calabrese enforcer.
He was a Marcello enforcer.
And he was hers, now.
John had said everything would change the day the bomb blew a week before, and he had not been lying.
Everything was different.
“Pink,” she greeted.
Yep.
That was his nickname.
Pink.
Siena didn’t know how he got it, and she didn’t care to learn. It just made her smile every time she used it.
“You’re the only one who can’t say my name with a straight face,” Pink said.
“Come on, it’s cute.”
“I’ve heard all the comments, Siena. They don’t surprise me or bother me anymore. Come on, the boss is waiting for you.”
“Where did John go?”
“To grab a coffee downstairs.”
“Oh.”
“He’s waiting for you—figured he would get back up here by the time you were done,” Pink explained.
Siena shrugged. “It’s okay. I don’t mind chasing after him.”
She had all the time in the world to do that, now.
Pink guided Siena through the upper level of the hospital, and then down to the main floor where John had apparently gone. They did not find him at the coffee shop, but rather, outside surrounded by several men.
Most of which, Siena recognized.
They were her brothers’ men.
Or … they used to be.
John, in his tweed coat and black Armani suit, with a hand flicking outward to showcase a diamond encrusted Rolex in a dismissive gesture, looked entirely at ease. Despite, apparently, the stiffened postures and angry expressions of the men around him.
“You seem to think you have control now,” John said, “or even that dead men have control of this family now, and I am not very sorry to inform you that you are all mistaken. Your first—and last—mistake with me will be to ever underestimate or question my authority.”
“We don’t answer to you, Marcello, not now, and not—”
“You will address me as your boss, or as the Don, or you will address me from your broken knees with my gun in your mouth. Try again.”
Pink kept Siena back a few steps by holding onto her shoulder with one beefy hand. She saw a few gazes of the men drift in her direction, but they quickly went back to John.
“So, that’s how it is, then?” another one asked. “The Marcellos are just going to come in to our organization, and clean fucking house like this?”
“I’m not cleaning anything,” John said, “this is my house. It has always been mine. Someone else was looking after it for a time. Mind you, they did a shit job about it, but you’ve got a new boss to correct that issue now.”
“This is not your famiglia!”
John pointed a single finger at the man, and then looked over at the guy who had driven him and Siena to the hospital earlier while Pink followed behind in Siena’s car. “He will be the first to learn. Tonight, don’t stall.”
“Yes, boss.”
The man in question made a move like he was going to come forward, and John didn’t wait for him to make the choice. Instead, John was the one to go forward himself until he was standing toe-to-toe with the man.
“Do you have something to say?” John asked. “Now would be the time.”
The man swallowed hard. “You’re a fucking lunatic. Crazy—a shame. No Calabrese man will ever accept you as their boss. You don’t have what it takes, and they’ll ruin you, Johnathan. Mark my fucking words.”
For a brief second, Siena’s heart clenched for John. He had been right—everything was changing for them. Starting with the Calabrese family. He and his men had slid into the organization, and within a week’s time, made it abundantly clear there was new leadership in charge.
That didn’t mean it was easy.
Or that the men were agreeable.
She knew that everything that man had just thrown at John were some of his worst fears being laid out on the ground in front of him to see, and for everyone else to dissect. That he was not good enough—that he would never be.
But they didn’t know him.
Not like she did.
Siena caught sight of John’s slow, cold smile starting to grow. His next words came out calm, and sure. The most sure she had ever heard him speak.
“This is no longer a Calabrese family—there’s a Marcello running this shit now. Keep calling me crazy, and your wife will get you back in pieces. I don’t have what it takes? You think this position just came to me? You think this isn’t mine to take?”
John took another step closer, crowding the man and smiling wickedly all the while. “Check my bloodlines, motherfucker. I was made by men—and raised by men—you can only dream to be. My bloodlines? They’re written in fucking red. Grovatti blood. My life? It’s written all over this city. Marcello legacy. You’ll understand what all that means really soon. It’s a promise. I don’t break those.”
Good God.
She loved this man.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“JAIL-GRAY LOOKS like shit on you,” John noted.
Andino looked away from the clock on the wall to showcase one of his usual easygoing grins. “Right? But fuck, it was this, or the suit I was wearing last week when they threw me in here.”
Yeah, fuck.
“What are you still doing in jail, huh? You should have been out by now, Andi. Arthur Lorde clearly isn’t doing what he’s supposed to be doing. You’
re still fucking in here. They’ve filed charges, man.”
Andino shrugged. “But what do they have?”
“Andino—”
“No video surveillance. Darren Calabrese made sure he picked a spot where there were no cameras around to spot us going in and out. No witnesses to say I did anything except be there. No live victims—the other enforcer Darren brought along died yesterday. They couldn’t even hold you and the other guys, John. They have nothing. Arthur is likely just biding his time.”
John sometimes wished he could have the same bright optimism as the people around him, but his mind didn’t work that way. He first went to the worst place imaginable, and then worked back from that to get to a relatively decent place.
“You’re forgetting details,” John pointed out.
“Do tell.”
“The detectives are hounding everybody. My lawyer’s phone won’t stop ringing. They’re threatening charges on us still, even though they released us. The only reason they’re holding you is in hopes they’ll get someone else to roll for your sake.”
“Maybe someone will do just that,” Andino said. “It would be a win-win all the way around the board. I’ll get out of this shithole, and they’ll get someone to eviscerate on the news, so they don’t have to lose face.”
“You’re missing the point, Andino.”
His cousin sighed, and his green gaze drifted to John’s. “I’m not, man. I get this is not going the way I planned. You’re right, too. I should have been out of here by now, but at the moment, it is a waiting game. This whole life is one giant waiting game, anyway. I can wait for one more thing, surely.”
John knew that feeling.
At first, a little boy waited to grow up, so he could be the same as the men around him. Then the grown-up boy waited to be made. Being a made man only took a man to waiting for several different things—money, honor, death, or jail time.
Funny how that worked.
“Haven is …”
Andino’s gaze darted to John again. “What?”
“Your wife is very upset.”
Putting it lightly.
Haven Marcello was in one hell of a fit. Damn, the woman wasn’t even Italian, but she knew how to raise hell like any good old Italian woman at the end of the day. She was a nasty thing when she thought something or someone was fucking with her life, and her husband.
Not that John blamed her.
This shit was bad.
“You’ll figure it out,” Andino told John.
“Was that part of your plan, too?” he asked.
Andino smiled. “What, leaving you to hold the ball for me?”
“I suppose you could put it that way.”
“Man, I have held the ball for you time and time again in our life. I didn’t mind doing it, either. No, it wasn’t part of the plan, but here we are. I have all the faith that you’ll do whatever you need to do, so we can get back to controlling this fucking city like we were always meant to.”
John nodded. “Ride or die, right?”
“Since the days we were fucking born, John.”
Yep.
It wasn’t long before the damn jail guard came around to knock his baton against the metal table to signal it was time to wrap up the visit. John didn’t know if that was some kind of shit the jail had worked out with the detectives or not, but they didn’t allow Andino’s visitors to linger for too long.
Mostly because the bastards couldn’t stay too close. Certainly not close enough to overhear their conversations—the man was allowed privacy, after all, even if said man was a fucking criminal in jail on suspicion of murdering a handful of people with a simple explosive device.
“Tell my wife—”
John looked at Andino, noting the way his words cut off. “What? I’ll pass whatever along. I know taking your calls upsets her.”
So was the way with women married to a man like them. Those ladies fought tooth and nail for their men’s freedom, but at the end of the day, they were still women looking down a long, hard road that might just lead them straight to hell.
It was a big undertaking.
It wasn’t for the faint of heart.
“I was going to say you could tell her to relax,” Andino said, grinning a little, “but I don’t think you could handle Haven in one of her moods. She’s not like Siena, you know?”
“Definitely not as mild-mannered and sweet, no.”
Andino smirked. “She can be. You just have to stroke her the right—”
“Thanks for that, but no thanks.”
His cousin’s laughter lit up the visitation area. “Tell her I love her, man.”
“Will do, Andi.”
It was the best a man in this life could offer to a woman he loved. His faith, and undying loyalty. He could hope for forever, but promising it was never really a guarantee he could keep. She could share his life, but John wasn’t sure the life was ever really theirs to actually have.
“I’ll be seeing you around,” John said, fixing his Armani blazer as he stood.
No goodbyes.
Those were too final.
“Of course you fucking will.”
John was collecting the items he had been asked to hand over coming into the jail when a familiar detective saddled in beside him. He only knew who the detective was because the guy was giving his best effort to put Andino behind bars for a twenty to life sentence. He was also the same asshole that had been the one to release John as he taunted him about his cousin.
He shoved his phone, wallet, and a roll of cash into his pants pocket, all the while, ignoring the detective. He wasn’t speaking first. Made men didn’t talk to cops of any sort if they could help it.
“No greeting for me today?” Detective Rosencauld asked with a shit-eating grin. “Not even a go fuck yourself for good measure, John?”
“What do you want?”
John checked the time on his watch, and then headed for the entrance of the jail. Rosencauld followed close behind at the same time, never missing a step with John. It was both amusing and annoying.
“Your visit with Andino didn’t last long. Your cousin didn’t have orders to give today, or what?”
“I don’t take orders from Andino,” John replied, opening the doors and heading out into the mid-October day.
Taking over his own organization as a boss meant John answered to only himself, which was something he hadn’t realized he needed in the grand scheme of things. It was simply easier when he was the one calling the shots for his own people.
Not that the Calabrese fools made it easy.
“Is that because he’s family, or …?”
“That’s because none of your fucking business,” John said.
Waiting at the side of the road was a black town car. One of John’s enforcers—one of several men he had brought over from the Marcello side to help control the Calabrese organization—waited with the door already open to the car. Smoke puffed from the tailpipe, telling him the man had kept the engine running during his visit.
“Have a good day,” John said to Rosencauld as he slipped into the back of the car. He went to close the door, but the detective grabbed it at the last second. John gave the man a single look—promised violence silently for stepping in his way. “Do you have something else you need?”
“Just one thing, John.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“No matter who steps in to try and shut this investigation down, I am not going away. Papers can go missing, and witnesses can recant, but I’m still going to be here at the end of the day. Don’t forget it.”
John only smiled. “Keep reaching. You might actually grab something. Heath.”
At the call of his name, the enforcer stepped in to crowd the detective away from the car, and further from John. Heath was a bull of a man—as wide as he was tall, and all muscle, too. He slammed the passenger door shut, and stood in front of it until Rosencauld backed off entirely, and headed for the jail again.
/> “Fucking asshole,” John muttered.
But his mind had found that goddamn detective to be something worth thinking about, apparently. His focus zoned in on the things the man had said, and everything he suggested. Even as Health climbed into the car, and chatted away while he drove, John was still laser focused on a few passing comments from Rosencauld.
No matter how many times John tried to shake the comments, or forget the man who really couldn’t do anything to him or Andino as long as everything went right, the thoughts wouldn’t leave.
It wasn’t even so much the detective as just everything about this whole situation in general. Andino didn’t know, but John had been working to get his cousin out. He didn’t stop—from morning until night. He was sleeping maybe three hours a night, and running all goddamn day, too.
He didn’t feel it, though.
Not exhaustion, anyway.
It was everything else that he felt too much of lately. It was everything else that kept his attention obsessive, and unwilling to let him go. He had been taken out of the deep swell of depression, and thrown into the hyper-focused, fixated state he was now.
That probably should have been a sign.
• • •
John’s gaze zoned in on the clock as voices echoed around him. Leaning back in the kitchen chair, Siena moved around the arguing men like their raised voices and irritation didn’t bother her in the least.
She dropped a kiss to the top of John’s head as she passed his chair at the head of the table. It was the only thing to break his focus away from the clock, and the countdown he had begun silently in his head.
“Coffee?” she asked him.
John shook his head once. “No, thanks.”
“Cake?”
He smiled, because fuck, here she was in his house, and making cake. It was everything he wanted and so much more, but at the same time, he wished that was all they were doing together at the moment.
Instead, they could not focus on the fact they were actually together. That she was with him—had been with him, and waking up in his bed every morning for over a week. No, they had to let other things take center stage in their life at the moment, and deal with it first.
