The Guzzi Legacy: Vol 2

by Bethany-Kris

  She stayed.

  For him, she stayed.

  She had things to say to him, and she was mad, yes. Because clearly there had been a lot of things going on in the business side of his life that he hadn’t at least given her a forewarning about, so she could make her own choices, none of that mattered. She loved Marcus, and so she stayed through her fear and her pain because this was where she needed to be.

  Even if this hurt her, too.

  “Hello, what’s your name?”

  “Tiffany Gagnon-Marcello.”

  Cella blinked out of her stupor to find a woman—one she didn’t recognize—had come to sit in the chair next to Tiffany’s. Cara had brought the girl a sandwich and juice from the cafeteria on the second floor, but where the rest of the Guzzis had disappeared to, Cella wasn’t sure. A quick glance around the waiting room let her know they must have slipped out for a moment because the only people left were faces she didn’t recognize filling the chairs around her.

  Including the woman talking to her daughter.

  “And how are you doing today, Miss Tiffany?” the woman asked.

  Her daughter frowned. “Well, I’d be a lot better if I could see Marcus.”

  “I bet. Do you remember what happened today?”

  Always polite, her daughter seemed far too willing to talk to woman and answer her questions. Had that been a man, Cella bet Tiffany would have kept her lips tightly shut. Before her daughter said another thing to the woman dressed in a cheap-looking pantsuit, she spoke up to find out just what this person wanted and who they were.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?” Cella asked.

  She didn’t even try to tamper her tone.

  The woman with brown eyes that seemed warm looked to Cella with a smile that was just as welcoming as her stare. “Emilia Denesry, but most people just call me Constable—”

  A cop.

  That was all Cella needed to hear. In a heartbeat, she reached into the next chair and pulled her daughter right out of it and slightly further away from the woman sitting too close to her. Tiffany looked up at her mother, eyes wide with confusion, but Cella just held tight and didn’t bother to hide the glare she leveled on the cop who rolled her eyes.

  “They thought it would be better for me to get your statement, and one from your daughter, Ms. Marcello. It’s Cella, right?”

  “What task force are you on?” Cella demanded.

  The woman just smiled. “No one said anything about a task force.”

  “Right, but I bet you’re on something. Something specific to watching the Guzzi family, and since you’re looking at me as though you know who I am, you should already know what’s going to be said to you. We saw nothing at the farm. My daughter was in the play equipment when the fire started, and we were too focused on getting her out to see anything else.”

  “Ma,” Tiffany started.

  “Quiet, baby.”

  She kept her tone happy for Tiffany.

  Not so happy for the cop.

  “You should understand, Cella, that being you’re an American on Canadian soil, if you choose not to cooperate with the investigation here, we can take action against you to have you removed back to your country. All it takes is the filing of some paperwork and a couple of calls. Are you involved with Marcus Guzzi in some way? Is that why you want to protect him here?”

  “He was a victim of today,” Cella replied.

  “Or an instigator,” the woman said back.

  Cella’s jaw ached from clenching her teeth so hard.

  Then, the woman’s eyes turned on Tiffany. “As for her ... well, if we have reason to believe your daughter is a valuable witness to this investigation—”

  “She didn’t see anything.”

  “Ma.”

  Tiffany’s whisper had Cella’s panic rising higher. Like her daughter could just tell something was wrong here, and her mother was two seconds away from snapping. It had all been just a little too much. The day had started out beautifully but ended horribly. From the fire to the fucking hospital, and now these cops.

  It was all just too much.

  And with the way her daughter fisted her shirt as though she didn’t want to let her mother go, the tiny tremble of Tiffany’s hands obvious to Cella, all she wanted to do was protect her child. Take her away from this, and let her breathe.

  “But she might have seen something,” the female cop replied, “and that’s another phone call and a few signatures away from getting her pulled into the station for a proper interview. So, would you like to talk now, or later?”

  “Are you threatening me?” Cella demanded.

  “Oh, I’m sure you know how this game is played, Cella. Your father—Lucian. How many times was he arrested during your childhood?”

  Fuck you.

  “My official statement for you is no comment,” Cella hissed.

  The woman’s threats were useless, albeit scary. If only because Cella knew it would take her an hour to get to Marcus’s place, get in her car, and then drive two hours to be back on American soil where this bitch couldn’t do fuck all.

  “How about—”

  “No comment,” Cella repeated.

  That time, she stood from the chair as she spoke. She’d said what she said, and she had nothing more to add. Grabbing her bag from the chair, and keeping her daughter on her hip who was way too heavy to be carried, she headed for the exit of the emergency’s waiting room with the cop still calling her name at her back.

  She didn’t turn around.

  The only thing she needed to do right then was to protect her child.

  Tiffany came first.

  Always.

  “Ma, what did that woman want?”

  Cella dragged in a hard breath, remembering the interviews she’d been forced to go through with police after her husband’s death. Hours and hours of interviews while someone else held and cared for her baby because the police just wouldn’t accept that her husband had been an easy target, and not murdered for any other reason than his connection to her.

  She wouldn’t do that again.

  Couldn’t.

  And there was no fucking way in hell Tiffany would experience it.

  Cella would make sure of it.

  “Hey, hey, where are you going? Are you leaving?”

  Cella had barely made it out of the hospital before someone else decided to take her for another round like she was up for it today. This time, it was a familiar face.

  Chris Guzzi.

  “I have to go,” Cella said, her tone short and her words angry when he stepped in her path to stop her from leaving. “Get out of my way.”

  “Where in the hell are you even going?”

  “Away from here, now move.”

  Not that she expected him to understand.

  She couldn’t explain.

  The memories were back again.

  Killing her again.

  “You can’t just leave—Marcus is going to ask for you, Cella.”

  “I have to go,” she repeated firmly.

  Chris let go of her wrist, his expression disgusted. She hadn’t even realized he’d been holding onto her. That’s how numb she felt from the terror wrapping around her like a cobra ready to slowly suffocate her to death.

  “Ma, I want to see Marcus,” Tiffany said quietly.

  Cella kept walking.

  “Are you running?” Chris called behind her. “What, shit gets tough, Cella, and you have to run? Is that it?”

  Fuck him, too.

  He was probably just as pissed as she was. Just as scared. Except he didn’t know her fear.

  This pain.

  He didn’t know it.

  And she wouldn’t explain.

  “Ma, I want Marcus,” Tiffany said, watery eyes staring up at her.

  Tiffany had been too young that day to ask for her father as they sat in a hospital waiting room while they cried for a man who was already gone. Today, she could ask.

  How was Cella supposed to deal
with that?

  Cella still couldn’t talk.

  Her own tears had finally started coming.

  • • •

  Cella made it across the border a little past twelve at night. It took her longer than she expected to grab all of their shit at Marcus’s place. She barely managed to get her composure to face the border agent who asked for her passport and reason for coming back into the states, along with the request to declare if she had purchased anything in Canada that she was bringing back.

  Somehow, she kept her tears at bay.

  While still dying inside.

  At some point, Tiffany stopped asking for Marcus. Maybe because she noticed that the more she asked for him, the harder Cella would cry.

  Yes.

  God, yes, she wanted to turn the car back around and give her daughter exactly what she asked for. She wanted nothing more than that man who she was sure had finally been granted visitors, which he expected to be them, amongst many others. They wouldn’t be there.

  Because Chris had been right.

  Cella ran.

  Tiffany, the sweet girl she was, so fucking loved by her mother, forever Cella’s very best friend because that kid sometimes felt like all she had in the world, decided to try calming her mother down. As though that was her job.

  All it served to do was make Cella feel like a shitty fucking mother.

  Her kid fell asleep just before the border.

  Cella cried until her eyes burned. Until her throat constricted around every sob she tried to hide, so it wouldn’t wake her daughter up in the back seat. Knowing she couldn’t go one more mile without a worse breakdown than she was already experiencing, she managed to pull off on the side of the freeway and get her phone from the bag in the passenger seat.

  She called the only people that would understand.

  Those who had been there that day.

  That day when she lost everything.

  It felt like Cella was living in that day again.

  She didn’t move after she made the phone call. Didn’t pull back on the highway, and couldn’t be bothered to watch the cars speed on by without even considering stopping to see if the woman in the black BMW needed help.

  She did need help.

  Not from strangers, though.

  Her father got to her in four hours.

  Just the drive to her place would have taken him at least six. From Rochester to her current location, another hour or more. She didn’t even want to know how fast he drove.

  Her brother came with him.

  John took Tiffany from the back seat and let Cella give her daughter a hug and a kiss.

  “Uncle John is gonna take you home, okay?”

  Tiffany sniffled, so confused and tired.

  Cella hated herself more.

  Why couldn’t she do this?

  Why couldn’t she breathe through this?

  “Cella,” she heard John say.

  She met her brother’s gaze.

  He nodded like that was a whole battle won right there. “It’s okay to need a minute—she’s going to fine when you are. It’s okay to not be okay.”

  Of course, John would be the one to say that.

  Of course, because he would know better than anyone.

  “Take her home, John,” Lucian murmured.

  “Say bye to your ma, Tiff,” John told her daughter. Tiffany tried to smile, and wave.

  Cella managed the same.

  “Bye, Ma. Love you.”

  “Love you, too, baby.”

  John moved Tiffany to the other car. She watched the taillights of her father’s Mercedes disappear on the freeway.

  Lucian sat in the passenger seat next to Cella in the BMW, saying nothing, and letting her scream it out.

  Just scream.

  It felt like she’d been doing that for so long.

  Screaming without sound.

  Inside, where no one knew.

  Now it was all coming out.

  19.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to stay in the hospital for another day, fils,” Gian said even as Marcus continued to heave himself from the uncomfortable bed. Honestly, what did Canadians pay all their taxes for if that was the piece of shit they had to rest on? “The doctor said—”

  “I could leave or stay. I’m leaving.”

  Jesus.

  Marcus felt like the floor wobbled under his feet when he stood from the bed, and he was sure that wasn’t supposed to happen. He didn’t acknowledge the dizziness because it would only make his family worry more, and he had other things on his mind to handle.

  “I’ll get the walking papers,” Chris muttered near the door, turning to leave right after.

  “Has anyone else arrived?” Cara asked. “Corrado was coming in, right?”

  “Lands around noon.”

  Marcus let out a hard sigh. The only show of his annoyance, really. “Why? He doesn’t need to come—he has enough things to handle at home with Les and Ginevra, and the kids. I am fine.”

  “Beni will be here Tuesday,” Bene spoke up.

  “Great, are we just having a fucking get well soon party, or ...?”

  He appreciated his family’s efforts, certainly, but he didn’t want or need everyone to gather around him like he was about to die. He hadn’t even almost died. Well ... that depended on who you asked, but Marcus felt how he felt. Simple as that.

  His mother and father shared a look. Then, Gian nodded his head at the door and without needing told verbally, his mother said she was going to step out of the room for a moment. That left Marcus alone with his father, and Bene.

  “I’m checking out,” he told them.

  “I’m not going to argue with you if it’s what you want to do,” Gian replied, “but we should also go over some of the information we’ve gathered since yesterday regarding the bikers and their attack, don’t you think?”

  “What I’d really like to know,” Marcus replied instead of answering his father’s question, “is why no one has told me where Cella and Tiffany are despite the fact I’ve asked at least a dozen times since I woke up this morning.”

  Shit, whatever medication the paramedic gave him knocked him clean out. It was possible—very likely, really—that the doctor had given him something to help him sleep and relax through the night once they figured out he wasn’t suffering from burn injuries, and mostly just needed oxygen to help his lungs.

  He woke up to a room full of people.

  All people he loved, yes.

  Except for two.

  Cella and Tiff.

  Where was she?

  The silence that coated his hospital room wasn’t lost on Marcus. He let his father and brother chew on whatever they didn’t want to say as he shedded the fucking awful, scratchy hospital-issued gown to change into the three-piece suit someone had brought him. He recognized the clothes as his own, so someone must have gone to his house.

  Cella?

  He doubted it.

  A part of him just knew ...

  “Well?” he asked, yanking the pants up around his hips.

  A look passed between his brother and father.

  “Business first, oui?” Gian shrugged, trying to keep a calm disposition, but Marcus could see right through it. “Business always comes first, Marcus, and then we’ll deal with the rest.”

  Fine.

  If that was the game he had to play ...

  “What did the enforcer have to say?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t the enforcer who gave the biker gang any information about your whereabouts this weekend,” Bene spoke up, clearing his throat when Marcus’s sharp gaze turned on him. “We brought him in, questioned him, and nothing came from it. Believing he was lying, the man who did the questioning chose to kill him. In vain, because again, wasn’t him.”

  Marcus’s jaw was beginning to ache from how hard he clenched his teeth. “I’m not following.”

  “The social media accounts for the maple farm,” Gian put in, crossing his arms over his ches
t as he spoke, “had announced it would be closed for the day to the public due to a special guest, as they put it. The guest wasn’t specifically named, but it makes sense they would post about their change in hours. We have it on good faith that the bikers were following the accounts, and thought the farm would be an easy hit.”

  Really?

  Fucking really, though?

  “And a very publicized one,” Bene added, “considering how popular that particular farm is, and the number of tourists that come in and out of it on a yearly basis. The bastards probably thought to hit you where it would really hurt. Force some of this into the public spotlight, and—”

  “Maybe I would have a change of heart about business with them,” Marcus interjected gruffly.

  The harsh flood of irritation through his bloodstream was enough to have Marcus’s vision swimming all over again. He pushed aside the dizziness to throw on the pressed dress shirt before he took his time doing up the buttons. All the while, he cursed in every fucking language he knew inside his head.

  A boss didn’t overreact.

  Not when others watched.

  Not even if those others were family.

  “It was circumstance,” his father said finally, breaking the silence between the three, “and nothing more. They had no idea you were going to be there, and I have no doubt they’re trying to rally now that they know there has definitely been a line crossed.”

  “Oh, you think?”

  Marcus didn’t bother to tamper his attitude, but if his father felt any sort of way about it, the man didn’t say. He finished getting dressed, slipping on socks, then shoes, and finally the blazer resting over the foot of the hospital bed.

  “Where is my goddamn phone?”

  “Cops took it,” Bene muttered, “evidence, they said.”

  “Of course, they did.”

  “Yeah, but the fire ruined it anyway because they couldn’t even turn the fucker on, so.”

  “And if a program can successfully pull info off it?” Marcus asked sharply.

  “Man, since when do you do that kind of business on your personal phone?”

  “Marcus, relax,” Gian murmured.

  How?

  How should he do that?

  “I’m done with the bikers,” he said, settling himself on that fact. “I’m not playing their games anymore, and I have let this go on for too long. My next step for them will be to permanently remove them from the situation.”