Page 1 of Disgrace

CHAPTER ONE

STIFLING WAS NOT a word Siena Calabrese used often, but at the moment, it was the one that best fit her life. Hot, stuffy mid-June air blew through the hallway of her oldest brother’s brownstone. It reminded her that it wasn’t only the two men looming at her back making her feel like she was roasting with suffocation. Even the muggy weather had hot, sticky hands around her small throat.

So was her life, now.

“Greta, Giulia,” Siena greeted.

The two teenaged girls stepped into the brownstone with guarded eyes. As they always did. As they should. There was nothing in that house—but for Siena, perhaps—that could be trusted, and the girls knew it.

Every time they were faced with their half-brothers, Siena highly suspected Greta and Giulia wondered about their fate. Or rather, what their fate might bring for them today.

Greta more than Giulia, likely. She was, after all, closing in on eighteen faster and faster. Giulia, on the other hand, was only fifteen. She still had a few years of safety under her belt.

Not even the girls’ mother had been able to save them.

Not when it came to Kev and Darren.

“I like the red,” Siena said, reaching out to play with a few strands of Greta’s long, wavy hair. Her half-sister only offered a slight, yet still awkward, smile in response. “I thought you were thinking about something darker?”

Greta shrugged. “Ma liked red.”

Silence saturated the hallway. Both of Siena’s half-sisters refused to look up from the floor, not even after Kev cleared his throat, and Darren let out an exasperated sigh.

“Too bad she won’t be able to see it,” Siena said.

She was only forcing herself to talk because every part of her felt like Greta and Giulia. As though she should hide away somewhere, and avoid drawing attention to herself. That would be for the best—that was what would be the safest for her.

Siena couldn’t do that.

Not now.

Not after everything.

It would be like throwing these two young girls to the wolves. Those wolves being their own half-brothers.

It wasn’t like any of the Calabrese daughters—not Siena, being the only legitimate daughter, or her half-sisters, born to her dead father’s equally dead mistress—could trust their brothers to have their best interests in mind. Kev and Darren had proved over the last few months that their interests were solely tied up in one thing, and one thing only.

Moving higher.

Ruining the Marcellos.

Taking over New York.

Siena’s mind drifted over the months that had passed since her father’s murder, and then John going into a facility. A little bit of February, March, April, May, and now here they were in the middle of June.

Her father was still dead.

John was still gone.

And yet … so much had changed.

So very much was different.

Kev had taken over as the boss in lieu of their father’s death. Darren was, of course, Kev’s right hand man. If only that was all …

A failed marriage arrangement. A missing half-sister. Two others, now orphaned. A war on the streets. Bodies piling up.

Siena shook those thoughts out of her head. She could not afford to get lost in them today, and certainly not right now. It didn’t help that Kev and Darren were at her back damn near constantly. She couldn’t move without one of them knowing about it.