Cara & Gian: The Complete Guzzi Duet

by Bethany-Kris

  He enjoyed having visitors. It kept him sane.

  Two more months, he told himself.

  That was all he had left, and he would be out of this fucking hell.

  “And what did you expect, mia cara bella?” Gian asked as she sat down.

  “A Plexiglas window and phones, maybe,” Cara said, taking in the visitor’s area.

  “It’s a jail, not a prison. I’m in on a non-violent offense. The only prison they would be willing to send me to, is halfway across the country, and by the time they got me the spot, I’d only have a month to spend there. It’s pointless.”

  “It’s easier here?”

  Gian nodded. “Quieter, less issues. Not so many inmate politics. More visitations. The guards aren’t … completely fucking useless.”

  Cara gave him a look. “It’s not supposed to be a vacation, Gian.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, if they make it easy, then they make it easy.”

  “I’m also kind of shocked at the attire.” She waved at him.

  Gian glanced down at the drab, gray uniform he wore on a daily basis. “I miss a good suit, to be honest.”

  “At least there’s no cuffs.”

  “Not until I’m escorted back to my cell, anyway.”

  “I wasn’t told what to expect here,” Cara admitted.

  “But you still came.”

  Her blue eyes flashed to him instantly, a love and wariness reflecting there. “Of course, I came, Gian.”

  “I’m sorry it took this long for us to have a visit.”

  “I had a lot going on, anyway.”

  Gian chuckled. “Or you’re making excuses so that I don’t feel like shit.”

  Cara winked. “You’ll never know.”

  Oh, he did.

  He loved her for it, too.

  “Your brother didn’t say much, though,” Cara said under her breath, shooting a look over her shoulder. “Not about anything, Gian.”

  Dom stayed just far enough away from the table to allow the two privacy. Gian sent his brother a grateful nod, which was quietly returned. Dom had too many opinions to name where Gian and Cara’s odd relationship was concerned.

  “Dom is … Dom,” Gian said lamely.

  “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  Gian tried to hide his frown. “It’s not you personally, Cara.”

  “What is it?” His gaze dropped down to her rounded stomach, and Cara’s hands cupped the swell quickly. “Oh, well then.”

  “He doesn’t know what to think of it all,” Gian explained.

  Cara nodded once. “So it’s more you, that’s what you want to say. Not me, you.”

  “In a way, sure. Except he can’t say shit to me because I’m the boss, brother or not. He’s in a shitty situation where his opinion is not welcome, but he still wants to give it. Not that any of that matters. Enough about this, Cara, tell me about my baby.”

  The sweetest, prettiest smile bloomed on her features, lighting up her whole face. That was one of the things Gian missed seeing the very most. Even worse, he missed being the one to make Cara smile. He felt that he had given her far more reasons to frown.

  “Halfway there now,” Cara said. “Twenty weeks this week. He’s very active, makes for interesting prenatal appointments when he keeps moving away from the wand as they’re trying to hear his heartbeat. I would let you feel, but he’s quiet right now. For once.”

  Gian was sure his heartbeat had stopped for a split second. “He?”

  Cara pulled a small roll of sonogram photos from her purse, and slid it across the table to Gian. “A boy. So far, a very healthy, active boy, Gian.”

  He looked over the sonograms, taking in the shadowy profile of a baby in the middle of the picture. The tiny slope of a nose, and the roundness of his cheeks and lips were the most prominent features. Another photo showcased five small toes of a perfectly formed foot. The final image was a strange mixture of shapes that Gian didn’t understand at all.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Cara used the tip of her finger to outline the central image. “What do you think?”

  His laughter rung out in the quiet visiting area, gaining the attention of several other inmates and their family. “Shit, really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Definitely a boy, then.”

  “You couldn’t miss it if you tried, once it’s pointed out,” Cara said, shaking her head.

  “Thank you for bringing this, Cara.”

  “I have copies for me, too.”

  “I know, but—”

  “He’s your son, Gian, so why wouldn’t I bring this to show you? We might have unfinished business, but he’s brand new and he has no baggage. You know?”

  “Yeah,” Gian agreed. “Come here.”

  He hooked his finger at her, willing to take the scolding or whatever other issue that might pop up for what he was about to do. Cara, always trusting when it came to him, even when she didn’t have the first clue of his motives, leaned closer at the table, until he could cup her face and bring her in the rest of the way.

  Gian kissed Cara quickly on her painted red lips, feeling her smile grow when he kissed her twice more in quick succession. “God, I love you. You know that, huh?”

  Cara nodded. “I know, Gian. I just don’t understand why sometimes.”

  “Because you’re you, Cara. And you’re mine.”

  He figured that should be simple enough.

  It was enough for him.

  Having Cara close was not necessarily a good thing for Gian. Now that he had her there, he wanted to drag her into his lap, tangle his fingers into her hair, and hide away from the world that never left him alone. She was his peace, even if she couldn’t possibly know it.

  Gian settled for resting his palm over the slight, hard swell of her stomach. “Two more months, Cara, and then we’ll have all the time in the world to deal with the unfinished business.”

  “Don’t look forward to doing that too much, Gian.”

  “I love you. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters,” she argued, “to me.”

  “The details matter to you. The details aren’t us in the grand scheme.”

  “We’re part of the details, whether you want to admit it or not.”

  “Cara—”

  “Yeah, I know,” she mumbled when he kissed her cheek. “You’re impossible.”

  “I am,” he willfully, and happily, admitted. “More so when it comes to you.”

  That didn’t mean that Gian was stupid, of course. He knew there was a lot that had been left unsaid between them. There were details of his life and his marriage that bothered Cara on a moral and ethical level. She didn’t want to be the other woman in his life, but his only woman. He knew these were all things that would somehow need to be dealt with, but he believed—stupidly, maybe—that because he loved her, and he knew that she loved him, it would work itself out.

  It had to.

  Gian only noticed the guard approaching when the man was just a few steps away from the table. “My apologies.”

  The guard gave a short nod. “Hands in view, Guzzi.”

  Gian put his hands on the table, and moved an inch or two away from Cara. She frowned at the guard, as the man walked back to his previous post.

  Before either of them could talk again, Dom had stepped up to the table, and cleared his throat. “We’ve only got a few more minutes left, Gian.”

  “Oh,” Cara said, looking to Gian. “Well, I’ll step out into the waiting area, and let your brother sit and chat for a minute.”

  “You don’t have to do—”

  “Sure I do, he’s your brother.”

  Cara gave Gian another quick kiss before she left the table. Dom offered her a strained, awkward smile as she passed him by. Gian waited until Cara was gone completely before he turned his attention on his brother.

  “You’re here every week,” Gian grumbled. “I get ten minutes with her and you interrupt me. Why?”
/>
  “I always have people with me,” Dom said like it was obvious. “I never get the chance to chat with you privately. Now seems like a good time.”

  Gian grinded his teeth, irritated with Dom’s justification. “What do you want to chat about?”

  “How do you know you can trust her?”

  “Who?”

  “That woman. Cara.”

  “Because I just do, Dom. That’s how.”

  “So, she says she’s pregnant, that it’s your child, and you just believe her, no questions asked?”

  “I’m trying really hard right now not to get pissed off at you, but you’re making it difficult.”

  “Why, because I’m asking you hard questions?” Dom asked.

  “No, because you question her, asshole.” Gian looked back in the way Cara had gone, wishing she had stayed right where she was instead. “You question the motives and morals of a woman who you don’t know from a hole in the ground. You question her actions and her behavior with me because of me, Dom, because of the choices I made. You’re so easily willing to think ill of her because I love her, not because she’s done anything to deserve it. That’s why you’re pissing me off. It has fuck all to do with me, and everything to do with her.”

  “You said yourself that it’d been three months since you two were together. Then what, one night does the trick?”

  Gian sighed, and rubbed a hand over his face.

  He needed a fucking shave.

  “I’m just saying,” Dom muttered, “because the last woman who told you she was pregnant with your kid—”

  “The last woman was Elena, and Cara Rossi is the furthest thing from her. The two are not comparable. Cara has no motives to lie to me, Dom, not like Elena did.”

  “One would think you might be a little more careful.”

  Gian shook his head. “It’s my child and she’s mine, too. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to approve of it, because you don’t matter where she and I are concerned. It would be great, if you and a lot of other people learned that fucking lesson, and fast.”

  “What about everybody else?” his brother asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Ma and Dad. Your wife. When do they get to learn you’ve got a child on the way with your mistress?”

  Gian bristled at that title being so easily thrown at Cara like she deserved it. Maybe it was then that Gian could truly understand why the details bothered Cara so much. It was never him that would be questioned for their choices or the results of their behavior together, it would always be her that needed to answer for it.

  That was unfair.

  “All right,” Gian said, standing from the table, “I’m done here.”

  He gestured at one of the guards.

  Dom stood, too. “Gian, you owe me—”

  “I owe you and everyone else, fucking nothing. That’s why I’m the goddamn boss, and no one else is. I answer to those I choose to and you are not one of them.”

  “And your image, your respect, your wife, or our family? What about that? How do you think Ma is going to feel when she finds out you knocked up some woman when she’s spent the last couple of months trying to befriend your wife?”

  Dom didn’t get it.

  He wasn’t listening like he needed to.

  “I gave you the button too soon,” he told his brother. “I spent decades under Corrado, learning how to be this man who didn’t question what he was told to do, or how to do it. I learned how to not speak out of turn, even when it killed me to stay quiet, and who knew his place amongst other made men. Decades of my life were spent this way, Dom, from the time I was a child, until he gave me my button, so that I could sit where I am today, and have my given respect. Clearly, you could have benefitted from that same upbringing, but because you didn’t, I have to deal with your disrespect and bullshit. I should have listened to my instincts instead of my feelings where you were concerned this past summer. You’re not ready for a button—to be a made man—when your disrespect clouds a discussion with your boss.”

  “You’re my brother first.”

  “Then, when you were unmade and just a man, you were my brother first and could afford to have a damn opinion about my life,” Gian snapped back harsh and fast, uncaring of who heard him say the words. “Then, I was your brother first, Dom. Now, I am your boss. Learn the fucking difference. Learn it fast, before you force my hand and my gun. If I were any other boss, you would not be alive right now. Do not forget that the next time you feel as though your opinion should be shared.”

  Gian didn’t wait to hear Dom’s response or for the guard to make his way over. He headed toward the guard, meeting him in the middle with his wrists already out and ready for the cuffs, so he could be transported back to his cell.

  He would rather spend the rest of the day in his cell than deal with his ignorant brother.

  Another day, he told himself.

  There would always be another day.

  Gian would have been pleased to say that the remaining two months of his sentence had flown by before he even knew what was happening, but that hadn’t been the case. He had never been more aware of how long sixty days could be until that was what his freedom had been reduced to.

  It probably didn’t help that for the majority of the time he spent in his cell, he was thinking about Cara, and when he would be able to see her next. It gave him something to do, and something to look forward to. Visits had been planned, but shit just didn’t pan out properly.

  Not even a conversation was had. The silence in his head when he was alone could be deafening.

  As he dressed in the three-piece suit that he had handed over to the jail in exchange for their uniform, and fixed the Rolex watch around his wrist, Gian only had one thought in mind.

  Cara.

  He had come to a few conclusions when he was kept from her—more so than when he had chosen to stay away before. She was the blood in his body, the breath in his lungs, and the sun in his life.

  She just was.

  Everything, for Gian, was Cara Rossi.

  Gian had always known those things, of course, but it was a much more intense understanding to come to when a man was alone with nothing but his thoughts and feelings. He had never done particularly well with feelings, after all.

  More so, Gian now wanted to make sure Cara understood that she was all of those things to him and more. He wasn’t sure if he had properly explained all of that to her, and didn’t she deserve to know?

  Maybe if she did know, then Cara might finally understand why details never mattered to Gian where they were concerned. The only details that had ever mattered to him were her.

  Gian also needed to make sure he kept his ass out of jail, because he had too much time to think, and he didn’t want a repeat. He was tired of jail-house nonsense, their fucking schedules, and going to bed when he was told to.

  This was fucking ridiculous.

  He wanted home, Cara, and a good meal.

  It didn’t have to be in that order.

  So, as he slipped into his clothes, fixed his jewelry to his wrist and slid his rings on his fingers, Gian was more than ready to get his freedom back.

  “Sign here,” the nasally-voiced woman behind the Plexiglas window said.

  Gian scribbled his name across the dotted line.

  Just a few steps away now.

  Freedom was so close, he could taste it.

  Gian collected the folder with his release papers and headed for the doors that separated him from the outside world. It could have been worse, he knew, as those five months could have just as easily been spent in a prison.

  It didn’t matter.

  He was ready to be out.

  He wanted his life back.

  “You’re looking terribly happy about something, boss.”

  Gian smiled at the voice that greeted him as he walked out of the jail doors. Chris waited there for him, as that was who he had requested pick him up. He didn’t want an affa
ir for his release. As it was, his mother wanted a dinner, and he had men to meet and greet after being locked away for five months. Because of those things, he already had to put off seeing Cara for at least a day or two, which was bad enough.

  “It’s a nice day for the end of April,” Gian noted, glancing up at the bright sky. “Tell me you brought the SUV with the sunroof.”

  “I did,” Chris said.

  “Good man.”

  “I also brought your wife.”

  There went Gian’s good mood.

  “What?” Gian asked, feeling the beginnings of a migraine. “Why would you do that?”

  Chris jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the SUV. The windows were tinted too dark for him to see inside, but he had no doubt that Elena was sitting in the back seat.

  “She had to come,” Chris said, “and apparently her father knows you’re getting out today, and wanted a meeting before you did anything else. According to Elena, he requested she be there, too. Sorry, boss.”

  “I don’t answer to Gabriel Canali or his fucking wants, and he knows it.”

  “Yeah, I know, but you also don’t go out of your way to irritate the monster that man happens to be, so I made the middle-ground choice that I figured you would want me to.”

  Gian scowled. “I’m going to be late for dinner with my mother, now.”

  Celeste would not be pleased about that.

  “I already took care of it, boss.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s going to come for breakfast tomorrow, at that restaurant you like downtown. Just you and her, maybe your father, too. Also, I figured if you were in a public place, she would be less likely to make a scene about you getting out of jail or the fact you were in jail to begin with.”

  Gratitude flooded Gian where Chris was concerned. The enforcer was decent. He did his job, even if Gian wasn’t always pleased about the way he did it, and he took care of his boss. That was the most important thing.

  “All right, then,” Gian muttered, shooting a look at the SUV. “A dinner with my father-in-law it is.”