Page 85 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

ELEVEN

“Come on, Lucia,” John muttered. “Pick up the damn phone.”

He drummed his fingers to the leather-wrapped steering wheel, and glared at the form leaning against a car just ahead of his. At the moment, he had something else to focus on other than the fact Andino was following him around.

Like his goddamn sister, and the fact she wouldn’t answer his calls. None of them. He’d called repeatedly since she went back to California, but he got nothing back. Not even a fuck you text.

It was driving him crazy.

John wanted to fix shit with Lucia, but he couldn’t do that when she wouldn’t even let him speak to her. Apparently, his sister was not messing around when she had told him after Christmas that she planned to have nothing to do with the rest of them.

Fuck.

“Call me, Lucia,” John barked into the message when the phone beeped.

He shoved the phone in his pocket, and got out of the car. Staring at the warehouse across the road, he tried to relax a bit before he had to do business. He didn’t need to go in there already in a bad mood.

“What, you’re going to act like I’m not fucking standing right here or something?”

“That’s exactly what I plan on doing, Andino.”

To make his point clear, John slammed the door of his Mercedes shut, and crossed the street without as much as a wave at Andino. Grumbling something under his breath, Andino pushed off his own car, and headed after John.

“Wait a second, man.”

“I have fuck all to say to you.”

“Listen, I came all the way down to this part of the city to talk to you today, John. The least you could do is fucking listen to me for five minutes.”

“No, the least I could do is what I am doing. Ignoring you, and not beat you into the ground for the shit you pulled on me.”

“Hey—”

“And how the fuck did you know I was going to be here today, anyway?” John asked.

He never turned around.

Andino’s footsteps kept following behind.

“Kev and Darren Calabrese do the same shit every month. Today is the day the crews get together with the Capos, and everything gets worked out for the next couple of weeks. I figured since you kept letting my calls go to voicemail, I might as well come here.”

“Maybe you should have taken that as a goddamn hint.”

And left him the hell alone.

John wasn’t asking for a whole lot.

A little over a week after the men of his family cornered him—or that’s how it felt—and John was still not over it. In fact, he felt worse about it than he had that morning.

They didn’t trust him.

Not to get shit done.

Not to make the right choices.

Nothing.

To put the icing on that cake, they had to try and dictate his fucking romantic life like it was any of their goddamn business. It wasn’t. He wouldn’t allow them to think it was, either. That shit was never going to be on the table for them to meddle in.