Page 61 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

John shrugged. “Sure, don’t see why not.”

“Our history with the Calabrese family makes certain things tricky,” Dante added.

“History—like their grandfather killing my great-grandfather, you mean?” John asked.

Giovanni coughed.

Dante cleared his throat. “Yeah, exactly that history.”

“To be fair, Carl Calabrese is dead now,” Andino said.

“That kind of shit doesn’t wash out, Andi,” John murmured. “They killed my family—even if Lucian was already adopted into the Marcello family—to take over, and nothing else. They wanted the seat, so they did what they had to do. My biological great-grandfather doesn’t even have a proper grave. We don’t know what they did with him.

“Bad blood like that doesn’t wash out,” John finished sharply.

“No, but we do put the stains aside for the sake of business,” Dante said. “But we never fucking forget they’re a bunch of snakes, John. There’s a difference.”

John didn’t entirely like that, but it was what it was.

Siena Calabrese was a whole other issue.

She certainly wasn’t like her brothers, and that made all the difference to him. However, he hadn’t seen her in months. He meant to check in on her once he returned from finding his sister, but one thing after another thing kept coming up.

A new crew.

More business.

Family.

A cousin nearly getting killed in Cancun.

John wasn’t even overstating it. He bet none of that shit would make a difference to Siena because like a prick, he had bailed on her.

Women took offense to that.

“Well?” Dante asked.

John looked to his boss. “I can handle the fucking Calabrese.”

Andino snorted from his perch on the desk. “You can start by not calling them the fucking Calabrese, John.”

Yeah, he would try.

No promises.

Johnathan found his father sitting in the small library downstairs. Lucian sipped from a neat whiskey while he flipped through a newspaper. He looked laidback, and entirely relaxed. Like the man who never stopped moving had finally taken a break.

It was an unusual sight.

“You wanted me to come find you?” John asked.

Lucian looked over the edge of the newspaper. “Seems the stock market is up two points.”

John’s brow furrowed. “All right.”

“And some action movie is breaking box office records.”

“Okay.”