Page 8 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

“Lying is a terrible habit, Johnathan.”

It was.

But John was too damned good at it.

“Oh, il mio ragazzo!”

John barely heard the words come out of his mother’s mouth before he was engulfed in tiny arms that squeezed him nearly to death. For such a tiny thing, his mother was strong as hell. She literally knocked him off balance forcing them both to spin in a half circle, so they were facing the front door and not the large entryway like before.

“Hey, Ma,” John said, letting her crush him for all she was worth.

Gio grinned as he strolled on by.

Asshole.

He could have helped John a little. Physical expressions of emotions and John had never mixed well together. Not unless he was the one doing the expressing. And when he physically expressed emotions, it usually never ended well for anyone involved. Mushy, lovey nonsense didn’t do very damned much for him, either.

Jordyn squeezed her son harder. “I missed you.”

“You saw me a few months ago, Ma.”

“So?”

John bent down when Jordyn finally loosened her grip around his chest and gave his mother a quick kiss to the cheek. “So nothing, Ma. I missed you, too.”

Jordyn’s face lit up with happiness.

Guilt stabbed at John’s insides.

He didn’t verbally express his feelings very well, either. He felt a lot of shit, and that was just the by-product of his disorder. Processing, understanding, and communicating his inner thoughts and emotions was difficult. It had clearly been too long since he’d given any affection to his mother if her joy over a simple admission was any indication.

“Liliana couldn’t make it down from Chicago with Joseph,” Jordyn said as she fiddled with John’s crooked tie. “She tried, but she couldn’t get out of the shifts at the hospital.”

Liliana, John’s younger sister, had married a man involved with the Chicago Outfit. John barely remembered the wedding, as he’d been right in the thick of his manic episode.

“But she’s coming down next month,” Jordyn added.

“Lucia?” John asked.

“She’s here,” his mother said about his youngest sister.

“And Cella?”

John’s other sister, also married but to a man who was unaffiliated to the mob, had never been very close to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t shown up for his welcome-home-slash-birthday party.

“She’s here, sneaking food while everyone else waits to eat,” came a darker, familiar voice from behind John.

Jordyn took a step back from her son. John spun on his heel only to come face to face with his father.

For John, it was like looking in an aging mirror. As he grew up, almost everyone he knew felt the need to point out how much he resembled his father. A twin, they said. Hazel eyes that matched John’s looked him up and down. His father smiled a little, making the sharp lines of his features soften briefly. Even at sixty, Lucian Marcello stood tall and straight, matching John’s height at six feet, three inches tall. Lucian commanded a room with his no-nonsense demeanor and his blunt attitude. He could also be intimidating with his quietness and watchful eye.

“Son,” Lucian greeted.

“Hey,” John replied.

“You look good.”

“I hope so.”