Page 72 of Loyalty

Johnathan’s gaze darkened with a barely hidden hate as he looked at Darren. “My father was adopted by Antony and Cecelia Marcello. That’s why he took their surname.”

“Even if he was birthed by a goomah, he was still a Grovatti.”

Johnathan flashed a smile—cold and sharp in a blink. “We certainly are, and don’t you forget it, either.”

• • •

Siena hid in the sunroom the very second she was able to get away from the dinner table without earning herself a glare from her father. No one seemed to notice when she left, thankfully.

She toyed with the velvety leaves on one of the corner plants as she ran over the things that had been said at the dinner.

It still felt like a set up.

She still couldn’t prove that it was.

“The information that your father neglected to mention was that your grandfather killed my great-grandfather.”

Siena stiffened at Johnathan’s voice, and then stood straight up. She spun on her heels, and found him leaning in the doorway of the sunroom.

“How did you know I was back here?” she asked.

He shrugged, and swirled the still-full glass of whiskey in his hand. “I skipped out on them by saying I had to use the bathroom. Apparently there’s none on the bottom floor of this brownstone, so I’m going to pretend like I got lost.”

Siena swallowed hard. “But you came looking for me.”

Johnathan flashed a warm smile, and his hazel eyes drifted over her, unashamed. “Yep.”

She refused to let this man in again. She would not let her walls down for him after the stunt he pulled on her.

Siena brought her cold demeanor out to play again. “Did I not make myself clear at the restaurant, or what?”

Johnathan looked down at the glass of whiskey, and then stretched his arm out to dump the contents in a potted plant on a shelf. “Shame to waste liquor and all, but I don’t drink even for a boss.”

“You could have refused.”

His gaze cut back to her. “Made men cannot refuse any boss. I would not be here tonight, if I could.”

Oh.

She heard what he didn’t say.

“Was that the truth?” she dared to ask. “About my grandfather and your great-grandfather?”

Johnathan’s lips curled at the edge—a sneer that roughened his handsome face, and gave her the answer before he even spoke it out loud. “Every bit of it, yeah.”

“Huh.”

“That’s what you have to say?”

“What would you want me to say?” she countered.

Johnathan tipped his head back, and that intense gaze of his stabbed in to her with reckless intent. Like he had caught something he really liked in his sights, and he was ready to snatch it up.

It just happened to be her in his line of vision.

Fuck.

“I don’t expect anything from you, Siena Calabrese,” Johnathan said. “But I hoped you might let me say a few things.”