Page 26 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

Lucian cleared his throat, and came to sit at the head of the table. A seat only reserved for him that no one else was ever allowed to sit in. John wasn’t sure if that was something his father demanded, or a rule his mother made up.

It could have been both, knowing his parents.

“Lucia had to work late at the shelter today,” Lucian said.

John raised a brow. “You don’t sound sure.”

“She’s been … different lately.”

All over again, John’s instincts went into overdrive. If it wasn’t anger, then it was anxiety. If not those, then concern or defensiveness. Sometimes he cycled so fast between them, or ran through the entire gamut of them all at once that it was hard to keep up.

“Different how?” he asked.

Lucian shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, John. I think she’s just made a friend, and while I don’t approve of him, it will run its course soon enough.”

Him.

“Who?”

Lucian sighed. “It doesn’t—”

“It does to me. I look out for Lucia. She’s the only one of my sisters that lets me look out for her. So, who is it?”

“Well, you would probably know him better than I do, but I’ve looked in to him. Renzo is his name.”

John stilled in the chair. “Renzo Zulla?”

Lucian nodded. “That would be him.”

Shit.

A foot solider for a crew John controlled as the Capo. Ren, the guy liked to be called. He grew up poor, and followed the footsteps of his father when it came to running the streets. The guy was nineteen, or maybe twenty.

“I don’t know where she would have met him,” Lucian said, sounding both irritated and confused at the same time.

“I do,” John replied.

His mother looked to him, and so did his father.

“How?” Jordyn asked.

“Me,” John said before scrubbing a hand over his face. “We took a drive, and I had some work to do. Ren was one of those things I had to handle. They didn’t even talk, though. She never even got out of the car.”

“That boy is trouble, John,” Lucian said. “I already had one daughter get mixed up with a man that almost killed her, and I do not want another one falling into the same trap. I don’t know this young man, but I know he did not grow up in a very good situation. That typically means he wasn’t brought up to be a decent man. Hell, maybe he doesn’t even know how to be one. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just don’t want my daughter involved with him.”

John didn’t need to be told.

Renzo was a street kid that would soon be looking at a prison sentence, or he’d simply serve more time on the streets. So was the way of their life—or rather, Ren’s life.

Lucia was not a part of that world.

“I’ll have a chat with him,” John said.

Lucian cocked a brow. “Do you think you should?”

John didn’t even let his defensiveness come out to play this time. “I think if you approach Renzo, he’ll laugh in your face. He knows me, though. It’s not the same.”

“All right.”