Page 59 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

Andino was still kind of new to the position. A whole change that had come about over the last couple of months. Nobody was kidding around when they decided to move him up.

John still felt it was the right choice.

“Careful, I’m allowed to make mistakes since I’m so new and all,” Andino threw back, grinning himself. “I would hate for you to be one of those mistakes, John.”

“You could try.”

The chuckles turned in to laughter, then.

For a moment, it was nice.

It never lasted long.

Not in Cosa Nostra.

Lucian looked to his son. “Did you talk to your sister?”

John scoffed. “Do you mean, did I let her rage at me? Because if so, the answer is yes.”

Silence saturated the room, thick and heavy. It left a bitter taste behind in John’s mouth, but it was what it was. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one on the bad end of Lucia’s moods since she had come home for a break from California.

“It’s almost better when she ignores you, isn’t it?” Lucian smiled sadly. “Never thought I would see the day.”

“We all make choices we sometimes regret,” Dante said from behind the desk. “And so, we have to live with those.”

The boss of their family would probably understand that lesson better than anyone, considering the hell he had gone through with his own daughter recently. No family was perfect, John had come to learn. Not behind closed doors.

Those lessons were the hardest.

They hurt the very most.

“I don’t regret it,” Lucian said, “but I wish she wasn’t so angry.”

“More like … full of contempt, I think,” John said quietly.

Nods passed between the men, and then it was right back to business as usual. Family only got so much time in before the mafia had to come out and play again.

So was their life.

Mostly, John didn’t mind.

As long as they all had Lucia to worry about, they would not be getting on his ass for a while. It was a shitty thing for Lucia, sure, but silver linings were still quite silver.

“Lucian, are you staying or going for this?” Dante asked. “You’re not required to being that you’ve unofficially stepped down, and Andino is here. The option is open, though.”

Even in another man’s house, sitting at that man’s desk, the boss still owned the room. He directed the men, and where their conversation had to go.

Lucian passed John a look, and then went back to his brother. “I think I’ll step out, actually.”

Dante waved a hand as if to say, go.

John was surprised at that turn of events. Decades as a made man—and as the family’s underboss beneath his brother—and Lucian just seemed … done with it all. Ready to move on.

“Find me after you’re done here, son,” Lucian said, clapping Johnathan on the shoulder as he passed him by. “Got it?”

“Yeah, sure.”

For what, though, he didn’t know.