Page 228 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

SEVEN

“Kev and Darren aren’t going to be following us around all day?” Greta asked.

Siena gave the older of her two half-sisters an amused look. “You know, it would benefit you greatly to tone down the attitude when you use one of their names. Not because you have to like them, but because a little respect will go a long way with those two.”

Greta cocked a brow. “But I don’t respect them.”

“Yeah, I got that. Me, either.”

“I don’t get your point, then.”

Siena grabbed her bag from inside the hall closet, and skipped over a light cardigan or jacket. It was still boiling hot, even at the end of July. She didn’t need to be adding extra layers at the moment.

Turning to face the seventeen-year-old, Siena said, “But you like having a little bit of freedom, don’t you?”

“You call being taken from my school, and shoved into a private school freedom? Or losing my mom, and being forced to live with my aunt freedom? How about the fact I can’t even go to the movies with friends because one of them is a guy? That’s not freedom, Siena.”

No, it wasn’t.

Not normal freedom, anyway.

That was part of the whole problem neither of her two half-sisters realized. Nothing about their life was normal, and it was a damn shame, really. They had grown up almost entirely removed from the life Siena had lived as a principessa della mafia.

Maybe that had been because their mother demanded it from Matteo—that he already had one legitimate family to use to further his mafia agenda. Or, it could have been because her dead father didn’t believe his illegitimate daughters would do anything for him in the grand scheme of things.

Siena really didn’t know.

Frankly, none of that mattered, either.

Not now.

“Matteo is dead,” Siena said.

Greta flinched. “I know.”

It was strange to Siena in a way to see someone—other than her mother and brothers—grieve over her father’s death. It seemed, somehow, that her half-sisters had a different opinion from hers on the man who helped to give them life.

They loved Matteo.

They talked fondly about him.

Siena couldn’t say the same.

“And your mom, too,” Siena added. “She’s also dead.”

“Do you think I don’t know all of this?”

Greta’s angry tone was matched only by the red flush covering her cheeks. Siena had hit a nerve, but that was exactly her point.

Someone had not properly sat these girls down, and explained what their life was going to be like from here on out if they didn’t hurry up, and do something. What that something was, however, depended on the girl.

“Exactly,” Siena murmured, staring her half-sister in the eyes, and refusing to look away. “They are dead, and so everything that they promised you for your life will no longer happen. You want to go to college, Greta? Will it further the family—will it further Kev or Darren somehow?”

“Well—”

“Or better yet, will college or something else make you a better house wife when they find a man to marry you to like they tried to do with Ginevra?”

Greta’s mouth slammed shut.