Page 314 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

His heart thundered her name. The organ practically jumped into his throat, and beat even harder there, too.

“You ruined us, you little bitch! Everything our family worked for, you ruined it! You disgraced our name, and our legacy and for what? So you could spread your legs for some Marcello—”

“Ma, put the gun down. Please, put the gun down. You’re scaring people.”

John pushed through the last few people, and came to an abrupt stop only fifteen feet away from the entrance of The Annex. Siena stood in a cleared circle with her mother only a couple of steps away.

Coraline Calabrese.

That fucking bitch.

John hadn’t been able to get a lead on the woman once she disappeared after Darren’s death, but he hadn’t been too worried. He thought—stupidly, clearly—that the woman was just that … a woman. Not one with any power, or capability to hurt them. She could go away and lick her wounds about her shattered family in private, and maybe come back to beg her daughter for forgiveness in the future.

He had been wrong.

So wrong.

They were going to pay for it.

Siena held up her hands, and in one, held the jar of jam John liked. A bright red, sweet mix of raspberries and strawberries. Her position almost looked resigned—she spoke so calmly, and without fear.

John reached for a non-existent gun at his back at the same time Coraline pulled back the hammer on the revolver. He didn’t have a gun on him; it wasn’t safe given his position, now. He had too much attention from cops and detectives, and his probation said he couldn’t have any firearms on his person, legal or otherwise.

That’s why he kept the enforcer’s close.

Where the fuck were they?

Coraline’s gun lit like a sparkler on the Fourth of July when she pulled the trigger. Another gunshot rang out right after.

John was already darting into the circle. His arms were already opened to grab Siena … or in this case, to catch her.

He fell with her.

On damp pavement.

On cold ground.

Unfeeling.

So numb.

The jar of jam shattered—spilling sweet red all over the ground. It mixed in with the blood pumping from the love of his life in his hands, and the woman resting face-first on the ground with a blown out skull.

Siena stared up at him from his lap as red bloomed over her chest. It soaked through her white, off-the-shoulder dress in the most morbid way. “John.”

Panic and rage and fear and pain washed through John’s senses all at the same time. He had never been very good at handling this kind of thing.

He raged.

Roared at the man who had shot Coraline.

Shouted at Siena, too.

“John,” she breathed.

Dots of blood peppered her lips. Losing pink, and gaining the wrong shade of red, he thought.

“Look at me,” he heard himself say. “Keep looking at me, my girl.”