Page 168 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

But she had to try.

More conversation drifted down from the office, giving Siena a bit of hope that she still had a few seconds left to spare. Siena ran from the top of the stairs, and down the hall when her father’s voice rang out first.

“Loyalty is hard to come by in this life. You need to take it from those who have always proven they’re willing to give it to you.”

“Every Marcello knows loyalty doesn’t come from a Calabrese,” Johnathan replied. “You forgot that even though I bleed Grovatti blood, I’ve always been a Marcello man.”

Bang.

The gunshot was so loud that Siena flinched. The scream caught in her throat as she rounded the doorway to her father’s office.

She thought for sure …

Every part of her believed …

A gun fell from John’s hand.

Her father bled out as his body slumped over the desk. Blood trickled in a thick stream from the circular wound in his forehead.

John looked over his shoulder.

Siena stared back, unafraid.

“I’m not sorry.”

Didn’t he know?

“You don’t ever have to be, John.”

He never had to apologize to her.

Not for himself.

Siena stayed close to John in the bed. His features were relaxed, telling her that he had finally slipped into a deep sleep.

She had never seen him so out of it before.

It had only been those brief few seconds in her father’s office when he had seemed lucid and understood what was happening around him. And then as easily as his mind was clear and right, he was lost again to some place she couldn’t bring him back from.

It had only been his father and cousin’s arrival minutes later that saved John from doing something else he might have regretted later.

Siena made only one demand.

Take him to his own home. Let him wake up in his bed. Somewhere he would recognize instantly. A place that was comforting and familiar to him. He would have chosen his own home, she knew.

Lucian had agreed to bend to that one demand. He didn’t give her much else, though.

“You know,” came a voice from the doorway, “it isn’t usually this exciting with John.”

She found John’s father standing there watching her. She didn’t care how she looked resting beside John while he slept, and stroking his face.

This is where she wanted to be.

So, she didn’t move.

“Oh?” she asked.

Lucian chuckled dryly. “No, these episodes have become less and less frequent over the years, and not nearly as severe as they once were. Maybe that’s why when they do happen, they take us all by surprise.”