Page 161 of Loyalty

Inside the restaurant, she found more people than she expected waiting. She recognized almost all of them. Men from her father’s family, and several people from John’s side.

At the head of the room, her father and Dante Marcello stood toe-to-toe. The two men looked as though they were ready to brawl. She took that as a bad fucking sign.

At Siena and John’s presence, the two men finally looked away from one another. She wasn’t sure that she particularly like their attention on them, either.

“John, move to anywhere except where you currently are,” Dante said.

John didn’t move an inch. “No, I don’t think I will.”

Matteo look at Siena. “I’ve called you five times this morning.”

Her gaze drifted between her father, and her brothers standing with the other men of the Calabrese family. She could feel their judgment, and their silent opinions searing into her skin. She didn’t need to hear them say it, not when she could feel it.

“Busy,” she said.

Matteo coughed as his gaze cut to John. “I bet.”

“Why would you bring a woman here?” Dante asked.

“I brought her here because she asked to come.”

Siena’s fingers tighten around John’s. She no longer wanted to let him go. Something felt like a thorn pricking at her heart. Her worst fear was that someone would take John away from her—because of this, or something else.

It didn’t matter, because the end result would be the same.

John would not be with her.

Siena had barely finished getting dressed earlier when John’s phone started to ring again. This time, it was not Andino calling him, but his uncle. I’m eating, was all he said.

He was to be there—at the meeting.

No matter what.

That was the order.

Siena didn’t even think about what it would mean if she went with him to the meeting. She only knew that she wanted to go. John agreed, and so here she was.

“He burned down my warehouse,” Matteo said, his gaze darting back to Dante. “You will answer for that, or he will. I do not care which one it is.”

“You don’t know for sure that—”

Matteo took one more step forward, the threat blazing in his eyes. “Who the fuck else would have done it, Marcello, you? One of your men, perhaps? Did you order it because you felt I was too close? You never did like it when the Calabrese get close to your men. Did you finally have enough?”

Dante’s jaw hardened, but his face gave away nothing. Not an emotion, nothing at all.

“There’s a reason why the Marcellos and the Calabrese don’t mix business,” Dante said. “And you know very well what that reason is, Matteo.”

“And yet,” Matteo said, “you had no problem with my daughter and your nephew.”

“I had every problem with it.”

Matteo sneered, and his eyes drifted to John once more. “Who’s to say he didn’t do it? Everyone in your family knows the man is unstable. Hell, anyone who spends time with him knows it.”

John’s stiffened beside Siena. She held tighter to him when she felt his muscles tense as though he was about to spring forward. His body felt like a winding coil about to come undone.

“John,” she whispered too low for anyone else to hear, “it’s okay.”

It was like he didn’t hear her at all.