by Bethany-Kris
No, Cara was not.
Because Gian hadn’t told her.
Fuck.
Cara handled the news with grace. “I had not known.”
“I suppose you’re also unaware that the man is also now dead,” Seeley said quieter.
“I did know that but only because his funeral was plastered in the news. Seems to be a big thing in the city lately—organized crime, I mean. I’m not sure why the man’s death should matter to me, though.”
“You don’t think the two are connected?”
“I—”
“You’re not that stupid, are you?” the other detective interrupted. “Someone distributes racy, compromising photographs of you that effectively ruins you, and suddenly they show up dead.”
“Again,” Cara drawled, “I’m not sure why the man’s death should matter to me. I wasn’t aware he distributed the pictures. I didn’t know him at all.”
“Seems he knew you.”
“Well, his daughter might,” Cara replied carefully.
“She was the one who had been given the photographs in the first place,” Seeley said as though the information were nothing. “All though, clearly she used the items for a purpose we did not intend, after pulling the files from Gian’s phone.”
It wasn’t nothing to Gian.
It was everything.
He hadn’t considered Elena having anything to do with the photos of Cara being distributed, because he’d known without question she hadn’t had his phone. At least, not long enough to get inside the device. He even locked his fucking bedroom door when he was forced to sleep at the mansion.
Cara was quiet for a long while before she said, “You pulled my photos from Gian’s phone.”
“His first arrest included warrants for electronic devices, and we found some images. He was arrested again after the shooting at the shelter—”
“All charges dropped,” Cara interjected with heat in her tone, “and for good reason.”
“Nonetheless, he was taken into custody again and the phone was removed from his person. I can’t help if a few image files were removed from the device at that time, too.”
“That’s fucking illegal! How dare you?”
Marcus whined at his mother’s high shriek.
“It’s standard procedure in a case like that for any electronics on a detainee to be searched,” the detective said, “which is exactly what happened.”
“But not for you to remove images, thank you very much. Not to mention, my images. And what business is it of yours—what effect would it have on Gian’s previous arrest or the arrest after the shooting—to take my private photos and … why in the hell would you take my fucking photos off his phone like that?”
“We had proof he was in a relationship with you, clearly.”
“But why? What did you need that information for and what good would it do you? It wasn’t exactly a goddamn secret. Those images did nothing but hurt me, and other people. That was it—nothing more.”
Gian knew exactly why.
He had never considered that it was the detectives who had removed his photos of Cara from his phone. Only because, like Cara, there was no real benefit to doing so for the police. He didn’t use his phone to do any real business that would get him in trouble, and so he had never had an issue with handing the device over to cops during his arrests.
Clearly that had been a mistake.
While taking more photos off his phone after the shelter shooting had been … borderline illegal, it wouldn’t matter if the detectives never intended to use those images as pieces of evidence they needed to legally obtain. It would only matter to them if the images could help them in some way.
Like for someone on the inside of Gian’s life.
Someone they could hurt.
Someone they could use.
Perhaps, someone they were already using.
Elena had always liked her tit for tat. She gave something, she expected something back. It was always that way, no matter who she was dealing with.
Gian finally found his rat.
The fucking cunt.
“You need to leave,” Cara said firmly, bringing Gian from his thoughts. “Now.”
“We aren’t finished talking quite yet, Miss Rossi. We thought this information might—”
“What, sway my opinion on Gian? You do realize I consented to those photos, I thoroughly enjoyed having my hair pulled, ass spanked, and his cum painted up and down my body in each and every one. I liked when he got the camera out to play. What I don’t like, is that you assume telling me about his recklessness with the phone, or the way you came about the images, should affect my opinion on him. And as far as his father-in-law, may the man rot in pieces. I bet he got exactly what he deserved, and while I am sure you thought suggesting Gian did that would frighten me, it doesn’t bother me a bit. Get out, now.”
Gian waited in the hallway until the penthouse was quiet again, except for Cara’s soothing hums to the baby in the kitchen. It was as though the meeting hadn’t happened at all, but she still looked to him with sad, knowing eyes when he came out of his hiding spot.
He dropped a quick kiss to her forehead, lingering there for as long as he could, and then giving one to his son’s head, too.
“I have to head out,” he said.
Business like this couldn’t wait.
Cara nodded, questioning in her gaze but never letting the words fly out of her mouth. “Okay. I love you, Gian.”
He kissed her again. “Always, mon ange.”
The Guzzi mansion was much quieter than Gian expected it to be for a weekday. He found there was no doorman waiting to take his coat and keys, as usual, and even the maid was nowhere to be seen. It rubbed him the wrong way, if only because he knew how much Elena liked to be attended. She liked being served as though she were a queen in her big castle. He hadn’t minded indulging her nonsense, if it kept her happy and out of his hair.
Clearly, he had overlooked too much about his wife.
He had been stupid.
He should have killed her long ago.
Gian chose not to question the lack of people in the mansion, only because it benefitted him. He didn’t need to demand someone get out, and no one would even know he had been there. A clean job was the best kind of job, after all.
It took Gian far too long to find Elena in the mansion, because she wasn’t inside at all. He found her sitting outside, with her back turned to him, as she sat on a wicker chair and overlooked the back property. An entire empty bottle of wine rested on its side at her feet, a blanket spilling around her frame in the wicker chair that she was using to cover up with.
“Elena,” Gian called quietly, already spinning the silencer into the barrel of his gun.
Easy.
Fast.
Simple.
He didn’t even care about clean up, or the trouble that might come his way for this. It just needed to be done. Some things were just better done.
“Elena,” he said again when his wife didn’t respond.
Her shoulders moved slightly, and her head bobbed a bit, but that was all the response his wife gave to the call of her name. But, it did mean she could hear him.
“Your father warned me and I should have listened,” Gian said. “He told me women like you know exactly what you’re doing, even when everything says you don’t know at all. You needed a short leash, he said. I thought, why. I give her everything she wants because she doesn’t want me, so why should I worry about how far she goes? I should have listened, Elena.”
Unsurprisingly, his wife didn’t talk or move.
Gian took another couple steps across the large back deck, closer to her position. “The only thing you ever wanted was to be free, wasn’t it? Something I couldn’t give you, but by no fault of my own. It was your games—your schemes—that got us here, and you thought you could play your way out of them again. Get me locked up for good, maybe. File a divorce then, when it couldn’t be contested and it
wouldn’t matter anyway. You would have it all and the rest wouldn’t make a fucking difference.”
Still, he got no response.
Elena’s arm slipped off the arm of the wicker chair, falling out from beneath the blanket. Maybe it was the ashen tone of her skin, or the slackness in her opened hand, but Gian knew right then that something was very wrong.
He clicked the safety on his gun, and tucked it away, crossing the space between him and his wife in three short strides. He came around the front of the chair, already bending down to grab her by the shoulders.
Elena was conscious, but barely.
Glassy-eyed.
Slack-mouthed.
Discolored lips.
Gian’s hands skipped to her face, and he tipped her head up to make her dazed gaze lock on his. Still, her eyes wavered, flickering between whatever she was seeing and whatever was just beyond her reach. She was cold to the touch, but not quite a dead-cold. Her breathing turned shallower with each inhale and no matter how high Gian tipped her head, he couldn’t seem to clear her passageways.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
She smiled, chilling and fleeting. “This is even better, you get to be here. It doesn’t hurt me at all, but it will for you.”
What?
On her lap, two opened prescription bottles lay empty.
Gian’s gaze darted back to the ashy face of his wife. “Elena, what did you do?”
“He’d have f-forgiven me for everything,” Elena said, her voice barely breaking a whisper, “but not for what I did to you. He wouldn’t have forgiven me for hurting you—I had to make you hurt him instead. Don’t you see?”
“Who?” Gian demanded, holding her face tighter. “Who, Elena? Your father?”
What difference would that make, now?
Gabriel was dead.
She shook her head, though it was weak and faint, her eyes glassier than ever. “No.”
“Who?”
“And if I can’t be happy, Gian, then neither can you. Neither can you. I’ll take it all away—all of them.”
He swore he watched the life drain out of her eyes in that moment—how death crept in around her pupils, and darkened them for good. She almost felt colder in his hands in that moment, if it were possible. Perhaps it should have made him relieved, as his problem was gone, and she had done it to herself, but he only felt empty.
And lost.
Because who.
Who had she meant?
The empty prescription bottles clanged to the deck, and Gian broke out of his daze. He picked one up, just to look at it and see what exactly Elena had used to end her life. The strong painkiller was not what caught his attention first—it was the name written on the label, to whom the prescription had actually been prescribed.
Domenic Guzzi.
Two bottles.
Both empty.
Both Dom’s.
Gian couldn’t move; he couldn’t take in air.
His brother wouldn’t …
Couldn’t …
Gian only came out of his stupor when he heard a faint buzzing coming from somewhere beneath the blanket covering Elena’s body. He found her phone tucked into her side, and was surprised to find the device unlocked. A quick check confirmed his worst fucking fears.
A constant stream of incoming messages—each getting progressively more panicked and desperate than the last—from Domenic, which had started just an hour before. Several calls, one that was picked up, and the rest had not been. Gian scrolled up through the new messages to find what Elena had started messaging to Dom just an hour before.
He’s never going to let me go.
He’s got her, anyway.
I’m done.
This is it, Dom.
I love you.
Don’t blame yourself.
It was him.
He did this to us.
And to top it off, she had even texted a picture of the empty pill bottles. Her intent had been clear, and even right up until the bitter end, she couldn’t help herself.
Elena had to manipulate.
She had to hurt someone.
Elena’s final words to Gian made a hell of a lot more sense when Domenic’s final text came in. He’ll never be happy, either, not after today.
Even in her death, Elena was selfish to those who had either cared, loved, or protected her in some way. Gian wasn’t surprised at all.
This also wasn’t the time for him to wonder about it. Something in his brother’s last message told him that he had far more pressing matters to deal with. Unfortunately, it looked like Dom might have a few minutes ahead of him.
It’d been a while since Gian prayed.
It still felt like breathing.
Cara had just set a sleeping Marcus into his wicker moses basket when she heard the familiar ding of the penthouse elevator ringing out in the hallway. She figured it was probably just Gian coming back, considering how long he had already been gone. Setting the wicker basket on the middle of her bed, where the baby was safe, she headed for the attached bathroom, slipping out of her robe as she went.
A hot, nearly-overfilled bubble bath was waiting.
After her morning, she deserved it.
“Cara?”
Shit.
Apparently, the bath was going to have to wait.
She had wrongly assumed the person coming into the penthouse was Gian. It sounded like Domenic. She quickly shrugged her robe back on and left the bedroom, tying the sash securely at her waist as she rounded the first corner leading out of the hallway.
“Cara, are you home?”
The buzzing of her cell phone echoed from the bedroom—she always put the ringer on silent when Marcus was sleeping. Surely, Dom could wait a second.
Cara nearly spun back around to go to the buzzing phone, but it stopped. Then, it started right back up again.
What the fuck?
“Yeah, just give me a second,” Cara called back.
“Gian here?”
“No, he had something come up this morning.” Cara was one step away from reentering her bedroom when Dom appeared at the end of the hallway. “I’ll be right out. Did something happen?”
Dom shrugged. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
Her heart stopped for a split second. “But something did?”
He didn’t answer. In the bedroom, her phone continued buzzing away. Persistent and wanting her attention, clearly.
“Let me grab my phone,” Cara said to Dom, “before it wakes up the baby.”
Dom’s strange, cold expression didn’t change a bit, but he waved her off anyway. Cara didn’t think it was entirely odd, considering Gian’s brother was one of the few people she hadn’t gotten close enough to that she considered him a friend of sorts. The man was always respectful and polite, but he didn’t go out of his way to be friendly with her at all.
She hadn’t minded. She understood some people—some of Gian’s men or family—wouldn’t be comfortable with her or her relationship.
Cara turned her back to Dom and headed into the bedroom, only to realize that was probably the biggest mistake of her life. She hadn’t even taken a single step inside the room, before Dom was suddenly behind her. For such a big man, Cara barely heard him make a sound.
He had a fistful of her hair and was dragging her to the floor in an instant. The pain that radiated through her scalp and down her spine shot through her nervous system like a thousand needles. Dom didn’t seem to mind her first struggle, easily overpowering Cara with his size, forcing her to her back, and then smashing her head into the floor.
Her tears were already starting to form in her pain and confusion. Those emotions were nothing compared to her fear. She had done nothing to Dom, nothing to justify his fists raining down on her body, or his mocking laughter as she begged for him to stop.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t talk,” he snarled.
Why?
What?
Whil
e Cara had never felt close to Dom, or even friendly with him, the man above her now was not one she had ever seen before. It was like his entire face had changed, his expression—nearly dead looking—was one of a monster.
It was as though he wasn’t seeing her at all. It was as though his eyes weren’t looking at the mother of his nephew, or a woman who had never spoken badly about him or any of his family. He didn’t care who she was, because she was just something to deal with.
Something to dispose of.
Her initial shock was quickly overcome by the scream she released. A scream that woke her sleeping baby.
Marcus’s wail filled the bedroom. Cara’s heart dropped into her stomach as Dom’s next hit hesitated, and he glanced up at the bed, like he was just realizing then that the baby was in the room, too. And like with her, he didn’t look at the small wicker basket with the familiarity of a man looking at something he should have cared for, on some level.
Cara’s panic ran into overdrive just like that. She had been far too shocked and unsure before to really react, though she had tried stupidly to get out of the way of the slaps and punches. Now, with a single look at a man who she thought might kill her son for a reason she didn’t understand, desperation really kicked in.
It kicked in fucking hard.
The taste of blood bloomed in her mouth, and pain radiated from her face to her chest, but Cara didn’t care about any of it. All she heard was her crying son, and the racing beat of her heart. Her struggle under the weight of Dom increased and she struck out at him. All she had to fight with was her hands, her fingernails. But she used them the best she could, punching Dom as hard as she could and feeling her knuckles crack from the impact of busting his mouth. Her fingernails dug deep into his face, scoring lines from his eyes to his lips as she bucked and kicked out her legs in an attempt to gain some kind of traction.
“Don’t fucking fight,” she heard him snarl above her.
Cara didn’t listen.
She wasn’t sure how she possibly could.
“He couldn’t just let her be,” Dom howled as his hands enclosed Cara’s throat. He squeezed hard, taking away her air and making her lungs burn. “He’d never let her be happy, not like he wanted to be. Fuck him, and fuck you.”