Page 126 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

“That long?” Dante asked.

John shrugged. “Yeah, that long. But I guess we’re going to pretend like you didn’t already know that because you’ve had people watching me since I got out.”

“John, that was my choice to do because of your history.”

He didn’t reply, simply scoffed with a nod. What the fuck else could he do? At every turn, someone else in his family had to remind him how little they actually trusted him. It stung like nothing ever had before.

“And I didn’t know it was a steady thing,” Dante countered. “It concerns me even more to know it, actually. Why any Calabrese woman would be crawling into bed with a Marcello man is concerning, all things considered about our families.”

“Why, because she can’t want me?” John asked. “Because it can’t be just a me and her thing, it has to have something underhanded to go along with it, too?”

“Knowing them—”

John’s thin control snapped.

It had been holding on by a thread.

“Jesus Christ,” John exploded, “she is a fucking woman!”

Dante barely blinked at his rage. “A woman who apparently has a hand in the Calabrese business—albeit behind the scenes. Still, it would not be a stretch to think she is close to her father, or brothers. That perhaps her loyalty to them is far more than her loyalty to you, or even us.”

John clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails bit into his skin, and broke the surface. It was better than punching his uncle like he wanted to do.

“That’s what it comes down to—loyalty?” John asked.

“Her last name is Calabrese, Johnathan. She is their daughter—a woman from their family. How many times do I need to explain this to you before you understand it?”

Rage vibrated through John’s bloodstream. A thick, beating thrum of hot anger that filled him up, and ate through his heart all the while. It had been a long damn time since he had gotten this angry, this fast.

Yet, he embraced it.

He wasn’t scared of it.

Right then, he kind of needed it.

“You know nothing about Siena,” John returned. “Nothing to make any kind of assumption that she is feeding them information, or fucking me over for them.”

“Do you know?” Dante countered. “Would you know it if it were happening? Could you even see it happening?”

Damn.

The sharp slice of betrayal stabbed John in his chest. Over and over. Every single word his uncle said only cut worse.

“Because I must be entirely fucking incapable at anything like that,” John said, his voice quieting. “Paranoid, sure. Unstable, yeah. So much so, that you don’t even trust me to be a capable made man. So fuck it, she’s got to be one of those things, too. That’s what it is, right?”

Dante tipped his chin up. “I did not say that, John.”

“You said enough, boss.”

“Your bipolar has—”

“Everything to do with me,” John interjected. “It is everything that is me, and you know it. Except you use my disorder as a crutch—something to hold me back, or justify your shit. That stops, now.”

“John, he doesn’t mean to do that,” Gio said quietly. “None of us mean to do that, honestly.”

He ignored his other uncle.

Dante ignored Gio, too. In fact, the boss switched topics entirely.