Entangled (Guzzi Duet Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  “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.

&nbs
p; 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 affair 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.”

  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 restau
rant. 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.”