by Bethany-Kris
And a car ride with his wife.
Fun.
“Here,” Gian said, digging his cell phone out of the paper bag. The device was dead, and needed a charge. “You brought something to charge this, right?”
“Sure did.”
Chris never failed.
“I should have brought you a new suit to change into,” Elena said.
Gian passed her a look, noting the red dress, matching heels, and wide-brimmed sunhat she wore. For the most part, the hat had been a good shield between them, keeping them from needing to look at one another, never mind talk.
“Why would you do that?”
“You know how Daddy is,” she said quietly.
Gian went back to staring out the window. “He’s the one who wanted this dinner, Elena, knowing I was fresh off release. He can deal with a wrinkle in my shirt.”
“Still …”
“And you don’t need to be bringing me anything,” Gian added.
Elena sighed. “Sure.”
Gian glanced back at his wife again, taking note of the nervous edge in her posture and her hands fidgeting in her lap. Chris caught his boss’s reflection in the rearview, but quickly turned his gaze back on the road.
“You haven’t seen Gabriel since I went in, then?” Gian asked.
Elena shrugged. “I didn’t have to. He was in for a while, too.”
“He was released a month before me.”
“I made excuses.”
“Two blocks away, boss,” Chris said from the driver’s seat.
“Merci,” Gian replied, though he continued watching Elena. “Smile pretty and nod at whatever he says, because that’s what he likes to see from you. Keep your replies quiet and well-mannered, as that forces him to be polite, too. Don’t give him shit to pry into, where our lives or this marriage is concerned; neither of us wants or needs that. Thirty minutes, at the most, and I’ll excuse you. How’s that?”
Elena frowned. “You don’t have—”
“What good is your husband, if he doesn’t at least look out for you, Elena?”
Her posture softened a bit. “I don’t always treat you well, or I haven’t, I guess. Don’t be surprised when I don’t expect the same in response, Gian.”
“I have always looked after you where your father was concerned, Elena. Even before I knew that’s what you were using me to do for yourself. Let’s not pretend like this is anything different. It’s the rest—the lies you told, the way you fucked me over, and the shit we don’t have together that I can’t be bothered with now. I’m not going to work toward any kind of real marriage with you, and you don’t want me to, either. I need to stay married to you for appearance, respect, and an oath I took, and you need to stay married to me to keep your father away. Nothing more, nothing less. This, your father, I will always protect you, and you know it. You shouldn’t expect any different, not when I have never given you a reason to think otherwise.”
She didn’t reply.
He didn’t need her to.
“Well, fuck,” Chris grunted as he pulled the SUV over to the side, and killed the engine.
Gian would have asked what the problem was, but he didn’t need to. A news van had parked outside the restaurant, with cameras turned in their direction. “Why in the hell are they here?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, boss.”
Jesus Christ.
“Your release was publicized,” Elena pointed out.
“So then a news van shows up at the jail,” Gian replied, “not the restaurant where I’m meeting your father.”
“Gabriel, then?” Chris asked.
“Why would he do that? He’s not in any better of a position than I am at the moment, and could afford to stay out of the fucking spotlight for a bit.”
Gian hadn’t been the only organized crime boss arrested in those raids. Gabriel’s sentence had been lighter by a month, sure, but the man still went in. Besides that, Gian wasn’t exactly low profile in the city of Toronto.
Long before his family’s name had been synonymous with crime, the Guzzis had become rich by striking gold in one of Canada’s only gold mines. They were old money and with that had come a socialite lifestyle that spanned generations, his included. He didn’t enjoy that side of life as much as his parents had, or even as much as his sister currently did, but his face was well known, much like his last name.
“Pay them no mind,” Chris said, “and I’ll scare them off when you’re inside, boss.”
Gian nodded, thankful. “Great.”
Unfortunately, the second Gian stepped out of the car, he could feel the fucking camera burning into him. He was very aware that his face would likely be on the news that night, and that didn’t exactly make him jump for joy.
The born and bred gentleman he was sent him to Elena’s side of the SUV. He opened her door, and offered a hand to help her out. She didn’t pass the cameras a single look, but she did lean in and give Gian a quick kiss on his cheek.
Then, just as fast, she murmured in his ear, “For Daddy to see.”
For them, it was always a show.
It always had been.
It had to be.
He hadn’t expected the kiss, and it took a great effort for him not to pull away from Elena, but he managed.
Elena kept her hand firmly tucked into his elbow as they entered the restaurant. Unsurprisingly, Gian found the place quite empty of patrons, and only a couple of wait staff waiting for them at the front.
“Your father owns this place, doesn’t he?” Gian asked.
“Yes.”
Wonderful.
“How nice of him to close it down for the day, just for us. That’s a great way not to draw any fucking attention.”
It was a great way to make a scene, by closing down a busy restaurant for a day, only to have two crime bosses of rival families show up for a sit-down together.
Fuck.
Gian hated Gabriel Canali for many reasons, including the woman hanging on his arm currently. The bastard could not be trusted.
Elena’s false smile grew as the woman wearing a standard black dress led them through the restaurant, closer to the front windows. His wife leaned into his side, her hand tightening on his arm with a fierceness that damn near hurt. Yet, her smile never faltered, not even when she first caught sight of her father.
Gabriel was a bull of a man, with his torso as wide as he was tall. Dark-eyed, black-haired, and with a soul as dirty as shit, the man was intimidating at first glance.
A Camorra boss of a clan that liked its violence to the extremes, and its money as dirty as it could get, Gabriel held no loyalties to anyone but himself. He didn’t follow the same kinds of rules in life that Gian, or other made men did, as Camorra clans were, simply put, out for the betterment of their own positions.
Gabriel had killed nearly every single one of his rivals off. All except for the Guzzi family.
Gian had too much pride to let a cocksucker like Gabriel force his hand more than he had already done. As it was, he’d married the man’s daughter, was stuck with her until the day one of them died, and that was more than enough punishment for Gian, regarding getting mixed up with the Canali Camorra clan.
Far more than enough …
“Gian,” Gabriel greeted, pushing his large girth up from the head of a table. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Gian nodded, taking the man’s hand for a shake. “It is.”
Then, Gabriel turned his gaze on his daughter. “Elena, mia reginella.”
My little queen.
Gian felt his wife’s fingernails dig into his skin through his suit jacket.
“Daddy,” Elena greeted politely. “How are you?”
“Well, although not as good as your husband, seeing as how he’s free today. You only get one free day to have fun after a sentence, and then it’s back to work. I’m happy to see he’s spending it with you.” Gabriel chuckled darkly. “I can’t say I ever did that for my wife when she was alive.”
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Elena said nothing, but she didn’t move from Gian’s side, either. She had her sore spots, and her father was one of them. In a way, Gian thought it might do him well if he cared less, that he had a colder heart, so he could send Elena right back to her father’s cruel hands to do with as he wished.
Fortunately for Elena, Gian was not that cold, callous, or cruel.
Even if he wished he was.
No woman deserved to be beaten, used as a toy, or traded for the pleasure of men and blackmail like Elena had been for the majority of her life under Gabriel’s demands. It wasn’t exactly a secret in their family. It was not freely talked about, either.
“Sit, sit,” Gabriel demanded, waving at the table. “The food is coming soon.”
Near to the second they were all seated at a table, food was brought out from the kitchen by a chef and a waiter, served to each of them. Gian was at least grateful to get a few bites of a decent meal shoved into his face before the Camorra boss began talking again.
“Are you ever going to give that husband of yours a bambino or two?” Gabriel asked his daughter. “I might like a grandchild, too, Elena.”
Elena kept her head down as she replied, “Someday.”
Gian forced the lump of food down his throat. “Not everyone wants children.”
“All good Italian men do,” Gabriel said. “Although, considering it’s been four years since the two of you married, is it more that you don’t want any or that you can’t have any?”
Elena stiffened in her seat.
Gian kept his focus on his father-in-law. “Children are not on the conversation menu tonight.”
“Just curious. She did lose your first child, didn’t she? Shortly after the wedding. Perhaps those abortions Elena had didn’t serve her well, after all. How many was it again, cara, five?”
“Daddy, don’t start—”
“Elena, are you finished?” Gian asked, interrupting his wife from taking her father’s bait. “Eating, I mean.”
She nodded. “I am.”
“Chris is waiting outside for you.”
Elena didn’t need to be told again. She got up from the table, said a quick goodbye to her father, rubbed a hand on Gian’s shoulder as she passed, and then she was gone.
“I was only asking,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “No need to send her out. She can handle her own, Gian, I assure you.”
Gian held back from punching the man in the throat. “Yes, and then I’m the one who has to deal with her emotional backlash from handling you and your nonsense for the next week. No, thank you, Gabriel. If you’re going to throw my wife’s abortions in her face, maybe stop to consider who forced her into those, as well. What was she, sixteen the first time? The police chief, wasn’t it?”
Gabriel didn’t even blink at the accusation. “It kept me from getting tossed behind bars on a five-year sentence.”
“Shame. Those five years could have done her a world of good.”
“She’s not as innocent as you think, Gian. You’re under some impression that she didn’t understand what she was doing for all those years—she knew. She knew perfectly well.”
This was an emotional, manipulative game that Gabriel liked to play with his daughter, far too often. He couldn’t use her to do his bidding now, so he liked to mess with her in other ways. Sometimes, Gian thought his wife and father deserved one another for their despicable behavior toward each other and other people. Other times, like now, he didn’t want to sit back and watch Gabriel hurt Elena simply because he could.
“What did you really want today?” Gian asked. “What did you want by asking me here?”
“To warn you,” Gabriel said before he took a hearty sip of whiskey from a glass. “I couldn’t do that when you were in jail, and your men are already well versed on staying away from me and mine.”
“For good reason. Warn me about what, exactly?”
“I was arrested and put in for four months because of you. Or rather, my affiliation to you was enough to have them watching me, and then serving me with warrants that garnered the charges I received. I don’t care about the details, Gian, I care about my freedom.”
“Don’t we all?” Gian asked dryly. “Get to the point, so we can go our separate ways and pretend like this didn’t happen until the next time.”
“The point, you arrogant fuck, is that you’ve clearly got a rat problem somewhere. Someone, likely one of your fucking men, is feeding information to the police. And that’s not surprising, considering all the shit you stirred up after your grandfather was killed. Corrado was a good man, fit for his position. You, on the other hand, are a spoiled, cocky, ignorant—”
“If we’re going to trade insults, my demand is that you let me go first,” Gian murmured. “It’s only fair, considering. Otherwise, I’ll take a pound from you for every name you throw at me without it being deserved.”
Gabriel ground his teeth loud enough to be disturbing. “You find out which one of your useless cunts are talking to the police, or I will do it for you.”
“Who’s to say it’s not coming from your end?”
“It’s not.”
“Well—”
“Figure it out,” Gabriel interrupted, “or I will tear through your streets and do it myself.”
“Are we done?” Gian asked, standing from the table.
“Very much so. Tell my daughter to behave, Gian, though I am sure you’re keeping a proper eye on her. Women like Elena need that sort of control. She needs to be on a very short leash, because her bite is far worse than her bark, believe me.”
Gian didn’t bother to respond to that, instead turning on his heel and heading for the front of the restaurant. He was gone from the business, and into the waiting SUV, before the cameras even realized he had stepped back out.
This time, Gian sat in the front seat beside Chris.
Elena sat in the back, glaring out the window.
Chris handed over Gian’s charging cell phone, still plugged into the cigarette lighter. “Here, it’s been going nuts. Probably trying to catch up with all the shit that it’s missed out on these past few months.”
“Thanks. Drive.”
The enforcer did as he was told.
“What did he say when I was gone?” Elena asked from the back seat.
“Ignore that fucking bastard,” Gian replied.
He was more interested in checking his phone. A brand-new message scrolled across the screen, one sent within the last few minutes.
From Cara.
Twenty-eight weeks today, it read. He could see, through looking at her messages for the past several months that she had sent him a text like this for every week that he had been locked up.
Gian smiled.
Elena leaning over his shoulder quickly made his brief happiness dissipate. He turned his phone’s screen off, but he wasn’t sure if Elena had seen the messages, or not. Of course, if she had, that didn’t mean she would understand what they meant.
“I’d like to go to the mansion,” his wife said.
“Be my guest. I’m going to the penthouse.”
She sat back in the seat, unbothered and cold once more. “Good.”
Elena dropped her pretense and her mask, as she had gotten what she wanted where her father was concerned, and didn’t think she would have to worry about him again for a while.
Gian expected nothing different.
“Good God, be careful, Claud!” Daniele leaned over the railing, shaking her head. “You’re going to throw out your back again, you stubborn mule.”
“I could have gotten the landlord’s son to help bring the box up,” Cara said, two steps above her aunt.
“Will you donnas shut up? Knock it off,” Claud barked down below in the stairwell. “It is one goddamn set of stairs and a crib. I can handle this.”
Daniele sighed. “I see an emergency room visit in our near future.”
“Oh, just go get the apartment door open!”
“Fine, throw your
back out! I don’t care.”
Daniele cared, Cara knew.
Even as her aunt stalked down the hallway, huffing, she still looked back over her shoulder with concern to see if her husband was coming. Cara leaned over the railing to see her uncle scratching at his jaw while he stared at the crib.
“I’ll get the landlord’s son to come help,” she told her uncle.
“I had a son to help, but where is he now, Cara?”
She only stared at her uncle, unsure of how to answer that. She had no idea where Constantino was. There had been no funeral, no memorial, or anything to suggest he was dead, yet her uncle spoke like Constantino was buried somewhere, or dead in a ditch.
“So, do you want me to get you help, or not?” she asked.
“Not, girl. Not.”
“Zia was right, you are a stubborn mule.”
“She only uses that word because she’s too polite to call me an ass!” Claud shouted as Cara followed the path her aunt had taken.
“I’m not too polite, you fucking ass.”
She was grateful that her aunt and uncle had been sweet enough to pick out a nursery set for her, as once she was no longer able to hide the fact she was pregnant, they were the first people she had told. She had told her brother second.
A whole lot of questions followed, from both ends. To be fair, Tommas asked a whole lot less questions than her aunt and uncle. Questions about the father, or the fact she was just a few months off graduating. That led them into the fact the baby would come soon after, or shortly before, graduation. Then, even more questions about the baby’s father.
Cara supposed the questions were normal, given her circumstance. She chose not to answer specific ones, while she gave vague answers for others.
She rubbed a hand over her twenty-eight-week pregnancy swell to soothe the jabbing elbows of her unborn son driving into her organs. Inside her apartment, Cara found her aunt moving a few pieces of small furniture out of the hallway to make it easier to get the crib inside what had been Lea’s bedroom.
Cara finally got around to cleaning it all out.
She had a reason to now, after all.
“The rest of the nursery set will be delivered,” Daniele said, “so at least for the rest of the furniture, you won’t need someone to carry it in.”