Page 155 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

Anything to get through the damn day.

Siena pushed the glass back to the bartender. “Did you see my brothers come in yet?”

The woman nodded once. “Yeah, both of them. They’re in the back.”

Great.

Not wanting to waste any more time lest Darren or Kev get on the phone to her father, Siena headed for the back of the restaurant. She still walked a bit slower than normal to get that extra minute or two, so she didn’t have to be in the presence of one of her brothers. What a sad mess her life had become.

She heard the voices of her brothers filtering down the hall the closer she came to the office. Kev first, and then Darren.

“The Marcellos are in a fit,” Kev said.

“It worked, though,” Darren replied. “Shame we couldn’t get John to turn on them like Dad first wanted.”

“Can only do so much. Move onto Plan B, when Plan A doesn’t work out the way you want it to. Dad couldn’t get John in close enough, so he pushed him on a little bit with the file. Still didn’t get enough out of that, so we made it worse by burning the warehouse. See what all that did for us?”

“We’re going to have to be careful for a little while,” Darren said. “On the streets, I mean. I got word it’s going to be all out war once we finish this off.”

“Who would have thought the Marcello family gave that much of a shit about a fuck up like Johnathan Marcello?” Kev laughed. “As if being fucking crazy isn’t enough of a disgrace for his family with the bipolar, now they’re going to back him in this mess, too.”

“You don’t know that. You’re assuming they’ll back him here, but maybe this could be a last straw type of deal for them,” Darren said. “How long has he been like this—how many messes have they cleaned up for him over the years? John’s crazy. It didn’t take very much for us to make it worse for him. I don’t think he can count on his family as much this time around.”

Kev’s laughter came out louder the second time around. “Let’s hope that’s the motherfucking truth. Either way, they’re all going down.”

Siena couldn’t stop her footsteps if she tried. Her heart filled with rage and hate as she stepped in the office doorway. Both brothers looked her way, but neither of them seemed very surprised to see her standing there.

“You’re late,” Kev said.

Story of her fucking life.

“I’m always late,” she said. “It’s nothing new.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got work to do,” Darren said. “So get to it.”

She had other shit to do now, too.

“How fucking dare you?”

Darren’s gaze narrowed.

Kev’s eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

Siena didn’t bat a lash. “You heard what I said, and I heard exactly what you were just saying, too.”

“Heard that did you?” Kev asked, waving a hand at her as if to flick her away from him. “Listen, Siena, you know enough about this business to know the Marcello family and the Calabrese family can’t mix. The fact that Dad let you go on as long as he did with John should have been a hint that something was up.”

Should it have?

She didn’t think it should.

“How did you know?” she asked. “About John’s disorder, I mean.”

Darren smirked. “We had our suspicions. Rumors travel far and wide in this business, you know.”

“And you forgot about this little thing called browsing history,” Kev added.

Siena’s heart stopped for a split second. She knew exactly what her brother was talking about without even asking for him to explain. The one time she had searched for information about her suspicions regarding Johnathan, she had used a computer in one of Kev’s offices. Sure, she had closed the browser in time, but she should have known better than to trust her brother.

Privacy was an illusion for Siena. She wasn’t actually granted any at all when it came to the men of her family. She should not have assumed otherwise. Look what happened.

Marcellos were right.

The Calabrese family was full of snakes.

And she was looking at two of them.

“Don’t worry,” Kev said, “this will all be over soon. Dad will get what he wants, and we can all move on. This has been a long time in the making, Siena, and you won’t be the one to ruin it.”

“And what does that mean?” she asked.

Kev shrugged from his position behind the desk, saying, “Well, the Marcellos are two seconds away from starting a war with the Calabrese. A war Dad thinks he can win. They just need a little shove.”

“Might as well start with John,” Darren added.

Siena’s soul slipped from her body. She swore it did. Nothing had ever felt quite so painful before.

“You’re a Calabrese, Siena,” Kev said. “You should really start acting like it.”