The Guzzi Legacy: Vol 2

by Bethany-Kris

  “Was that the second surprise?”

  “I mean, I couldn’t tell my mother no because you were coming, and I wasn’t willing to tell you not to come this weekend because she had something planned. Tiffany will have fun with all the kids, and I know my mother will be very happy to see you there with me. My brothers will certainly drive me up the wall because at least one of them has a big mouth, and he knows something is happening here with you and me—Chris, that is. My father will be there to keep everyone in line, as he usually does. A pretty typical Guzzi gathering. I figured it just worked.”

  Cella laughed. “It definitely works, Marcus.”

  The elevator jerked before finally coming to a stop at the top floor. Doors slid open to welcome them into the penthouse, which already looked far different from how it used to. Even the entry hallway with its high, vaulted ceiling was bare of furniture, photographs, and the other artwork that had given it life, even if it was an old life.

  A lot of the items that had filled the penthouse before were already removed. He’d been here when the team of movers Cella had hired were first granted access to the place to begin the process of taking out the old to get it ready for the new. A lot of it went into storage for his parents to decide what to do with after the surprise was finally revealed. Some of it, like cabinetry and appliances, had already been given the okay from his father to be sold or donated as they wouldn’t need it for anything.

  “You go do what you’re going to do,” he told her as they stepped into the penthouse, “envision, or whatever else, and I’ll find a place for this one to lay down.”

  Cella nodded, standing up on her tiptoes in her ballet flats to press a kiss to the back of her daughter’s head. Just as fast, she gave Marcus a quick kiss, too.

  “Some of the furniture for the living room was already delivered, right?”

  “All under plastic until your team comes in to do their thing.”

  “Perfect,” she said, “then just put her there.”

  “That was the plan. Now, go work.”

  She did.

  Marcus watched her go.

  • • •

  Marcus carefully pulled the plastic wrap away from the cream-colored leather piece of the sectional that would undoubtedly take up a good portion of the living room area in the penthouse once it was all put together properly. The damn thing was huge. It came in six pieces. How Cella managed to find something that big, he didn’t know.

  It was a good choice, though.

  It would comfortably sit fifteen or more people, and considering how big his family was when they all got together and they all used this penthouse frequently when one of his brothers from out of the country came to visit, it would work well for their needs. The leather, which as far as he knew was going to be treated once the couch was ready to be set up, would take a beating from the kids and many people that would use it. Stains wouldn’t be a worry when any liquids would roll right off it, and the light color scheme matched the white walls Cella decided to keep in the space to go along with the large floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed in all the light.

  And right now, the piece of the couch served his purpose of finding somewhere comfortable and safe for Tiffany to sleep. Once the plastic was discarded to the floor, he slowly laid the still-snoring girl to the couch, cautious about not making too much movement or noise lest he wake her up. It had been a long day for her going from one thing to another in the city, never complaining but always wide-eyed and ready to have more fun with whatever Marcus had planned for her.

  Shrugging off the blazer he’d brought along for the day just in case, he used it to cover Tiffany while she shifted on the couch to find a better sleeping position she liked. Which apparently just happened to be on her stomach, face turned into the back of the couch, with her hands under her head to act as a pillow. He wasn’t sure if that was entirely comfortable, but another thing he’d learned from all the kids in his family was that children could sleep literally anywhere if they were tired enough, and not be any worse for wear because of it.

  Once he was sure Tiffany would stay sleeping, he set his phone down on the floor, turning the playlist on with the volume down to low to play through the songs she had seemed to like in the car earlier. At least then, with the place so empty, the echoes of her mother working or their conversations wouldn’t wake her up, either.

  Marcus went in search of Cella.

  He found her in what used to be the master bedroom.

  Leaning in the doorway, he admired the new hardwood floors that were far deeper brown with a tone of golden honey throughout the grain. He hadn’t seen it since the workers came in to install it, but he liked it.

  “The floor turned out good, huh?”

  Cella, who was currently standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, turned to face him with a nod. “Yeah, it really did. I’m wondering if it was the right choice now, though, or if I am just thinking crazy things about this space.”

  He had no idea what she just said.

  None at all.

  “I’m pretty sure anything you decide to do with this place is something my mother will love for no other reason than you designed it, Cella.”

  Cella laughed. “Right, you mean even if I take her old master bedroom, because it’s literally the largest space in this penthouse, and turn it into a playroom with everything and anything a kid could want to go crazy ... she would love that?”

  Marcus thought about it for all of a second. “Yeah, absolutely.”

  “Convince me of why, then.”

  “For a couple of reasons—one, she loves her grandkids, and there’s gonna be more in this family, so it’ll be put to use for a long time. And two, because we almost died in this room. Me and her, I mean. She’s never been able to sleep in it since then, or that’s what my father always told me. I know she wanted to change it, but she just got used to using another bedroom whenever she was here. Something like this would really help with replacing those bad memories with something to make new ones.”

  Cella just stared at him.

  Marcus wasn’t sure why.

  “You almost died in this room?”

  Oh.

  Yeah, that.

  11.

  “Don’t think I’m being blasé about this,” Marcus said, “but it happened when I was a very young—still basically brand new, so I don’t remember anything about it, and I only know what happened through my father’s story. My mother has never told me the events through her perspective, and it’s an unspoken rule between my father and me that I will never ask her because it was traumatic. It’s not something she wants to keep revisiting, and I’m more than good with keeping my mother happy.”

  Cella swallowed hard, the lump in her throat growing painfully. It nearly kept her quiet, but still, she managed to say, “Sure, okay. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “My father was married before my mother came along to a woman who had manipulated him into the marriage with lies and a false pregnancy that she later said she miscarried. She had her reasons, apparently, for needing a marriage. Basically, to get away from her situation at home, and she thought using my father would work for that. After they married, she left ... for all purposes, my father was separated from his wife for quite a while before my mother came along.”

  “Except, there’s no such thing as divorce in Cosa Nostra, Marcus.”

  “My mother didn’t know he was married.”

  Cella dragged in a heavy breath. “Ouch.”

  “Anyway,” he said thickly, standing straighter in the doorway and shoving his hands loosely into the pockets of his slacks, “that’s their story ... but the wife came back into the picture because my father took over the family, and circumstances brought her back into the fold. His wife became involved with someone in the family—sexually and otherwise—while my mother was pregnant with me. She then committed suicide but not before making this man believe it was entirely my mother and father’s fault. Oh, she was
pregnant with the man’s child, too, when she did this.”

  God.

  He was wrong.

  Marcus thought he would sound indifferent or unbothered but he came off as the exact opposite. Clearly hurt by a past that he didn’t even remember and had only heard through other parties involved, it was obvious that it affected him. Or maybe it was the fact that it was something that hurt his parents, and that was why he showed emotion talking about it.

  Either way, it killed her.

  Cella stayed quiet and let him keep talking.

  “The man attacked my mother in this room—I was in a thing that she used for me to sleep on the bed as he beat her and tried to strangle her. He intended to kill me, too. Clearly, he didn’t succeed because we’re all still here, but that’s the story.”

  The only thing she felt was okay to say?

  “I’m sorry.”

  Marcus shook his head, lifting those broad shoulders of his even as he offered her a thin smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes like it usually would. “We’ve all got a story—our family’s is just a little darker sometimes.”

  Didn’t she understand that?

  “We’re all like that,” she assured, “we just keep it to ourselves.”

  “You think?”

  Cella knew it.

  Her sister?

  Beaten in the back of a limo by an ex who tried to murder her years later.

  Her mother?

  Practically a slave to a biker gang before her father found her.

  All her cousins?

  They had stories, too.

  Her aunts ... uncles. They had theirs to tell as well when they felt like it. It was a big piece of what made their family such a strong unit. They all knew what it was like to need support and love surrounding them in their darkest moments.

  “Yeah,” she told him, “we all have a story. A past, Marcus, it’s part of what makes us who and what we are, and I’m only just starting to learn that, you know? I was never bitter about being born into this life they made for me, but I was never quite sure that it was what I wanted, either. I’m just coming to learn that perhaps I should be grateful about the parts of my life they gave me that I love, and focus less on the pieces that have taken from me when I wasn’t willing to give those things.”

  “People forget, Cella.”

  Their stares met.

  Her still standing in the middle of the room.

  Him in the doorway.

  “Forget what, Marcus?”

  “That everyone sacrifices in this life of ours. Oh, we call it the good life, right? And it is when it’s good, because then it’s so fucking great, but those times make us forget that if we haven’t already sacrificed to be these people, then we soon will.”

  Cella sucked in another lungful of air, her eyes burning from tears she refused to let fall. “I think I’ve sacrificed enough.”

  Marcus nodded, and in five long strides, he’d crossed the room to come stand in front of her. His hand found the side of her cheek while his thumb stroked the line of her cheekbone before he pulled her in for a kiss that almost felt like the parts of her heart that were still a little broken had begun to mend again.

  Because of him?

  This thing they were doing?

  Most likely.

  She’d deal with it later.

  Marcus kissed her one more time, softer although it didn’t linger because he held her stare as he said, “I agree, bella. You have absolutely sacrificed enough—let yourself be happy now.”

  • • •

  “Ah, Marcus brought you along again, did he?” The dark-haired, blue-eyed man winked at Cella as he leaned over the table on the back terrace of the Guzzi mansion to grab a piece of cut watermelon which he gave to the baby hanging off his hip. “He must really want to keep you if he brought you back for another round with this family, huh?”

  “Alessio,” Cara chided.

  Well, tried.

  The man in question only laughed and shrugged.

  “Little bites,” he quickly told the baby on his hip with brown eyes that looked nothing like his. They matched the eye color of the man standing next to Ginevra across the back lawn with their toddler daughter dancing in a waterfall of bubbles her uncle, Beni, was currently making for her. Still, Alessio interacted with the child the same way he did the little girl who did have blue eyes. “Careful, Lev. Jesus, gonna give Dad a heart attack here.”

  The baby boy—who recently turned one, according to Cara when the woman filled her in on all her sons’ wives and their large brood of children—smiled back at his father with a toothless grin that was filled with chewed up watermelon.

  “Gross,” Alessio muttered.

  “Gwoss,” the baby repeated.

  “Anyway.” The man’s attention came back to Cara and Cella who were currently working to chop up more fruit for the kids while they waited for the pizza to be delivered to the mansion. “I was kidding, Cara, you know that. And Cella,” he added, giving her a smile, “it really is great to see you around again. If Marcus knows what’s good for him, we’ll see you more often, yes?”

  “Okay, you go help with the rest of the kids now,” Cara ordered with a laugh.

  Alessio did as he was told, chuckling the whole time.

  Cella shook her head. “Is he always like that?”

  Cara made a noise under her breath. “Depends on the day with Les, really. He’s like Corrado, which is maybe why they’re such a good fit together, when he has his days. Moods, as Gian likes to say. They come and go.”

  Huh.

  Interesting.

  Cella stared out across the grass where Ginevra stood up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the underside of Corrado’s cheek. She always figured ... someone else’s bedroom and life were theirs to do with as they wanted so long as everyone was adults and consenting to what would happen. That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious about a lot of things.

  She didn’t want to be ignorant about it, however.

  “And how does ... is she their wife ... or, I guess they both couldn’t marry her, right? Is she married to one of them?”

  “Ginevra?” Cara asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, no, uh, Corrado and Les married last year, actually, for legal reasons regarding the children. Mostly because they were concerned if something happened to one of them when only one man’s name could be on the birth certificate then it kind of allowed them a loophole for custody reasons. I mean, those are circumstances no one wants to think about but ...”

  “Necessary in their situation, right?”

  Cara nodded. “Exactly. Anyway, the boys married but it wasn’t an affair, they didn’t want a celebration, and it was Ginevra that suggested it. It happened at the courthouse in New York, Christopher flew in to be a witness for Corrado, and I believe Les asked one of his adoptive fathers to witness for his side.”

  “They don’t wear rings or anything, I noticed.”

  “Little tattoos. Venn diagrams on each of their index fingers. All three, not just the boys.”

  Oh.

  Well, she hadn’t noticed that, either.

  Cara glanced her way, asking, “What was the question about Ginevra that you were going to ask me?”

  “Just ... how does she fit in there, I suppose.”

  “Perfectly,” Cara replied without even thinking about it, “she fits with them perfectly. A good balance to the boys, and I don’t think they would be the same today had she not come along.”

  “Hmm.”

  Cara grinned a bit. “A little unconventional, I know.”

  “If it works, and they like it, I love it.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it.”

  Cella laughed under her breath. “I think a lot of things in this world would be better if people adopted that perspective, but that’s just me.”

  “Well, I don’t disagree.”

  They went back to chopping the fruit, Cara focused on the task, and Cella enjoying the view
of the family with all their kids playing together. It was a lot of people to keep up with, but she did her best to try. No one seemed offended if she mixed up one of the kids’ names, or something silly like that. Tiffany didn’t have any problem at all fitting right in with the rest of them.

  Currently, she found her daughter in the middle of the French gravel pathway jumping up and down beside Marcus as he finished tacking up the horse that had been attached to a small carriage. The only animal on the property, Cara had told her, because otherwise, they didn’t have enough time in the day to take care of it all and animals deserved love and attention, too.

  “He loves taking the kids out for rides,” Cara said, noticing her staring at the horse. “Chris had him shipped in from Mexico for Val ... Butter, that’s his name. He was hers there, and after a bit of negotiating on his part with her sister-in-law, she allowed him to bring the horse to Canada.”

  “He’s beautiful.”

  “Isn’t he?”

  “Ma! Come on!”

  Cella’s attention flew back to her daughter, who was now being lifted into the carriage by Marcus. He turned her way, too, and with a wave of his hand, she knew what they both wanted. So did Cara, it seemed.

  “Go ahead,” the woman told her, grinning like she didn’t mind being left alone to finish slicing the fruit. “Enjoy your day—have fun. That’s all we want while you’re here with us.”

  “I don’t mind helping.”

  “I know, but he would like to spend time with you, and that matters more to me. Besides, I’m sure you don’t want to spend your last day here working to feed all these people, hmm?”

  Actually, she didn’t mind that at all.

  “One ride,” she told Cara, “and then I will be back to help you serve the pizza when it gets here.”

  “You’re a very sweet woman, Cella.”

  So was Marcus’s mother.

  “Besides,” Cara added, “I won’t complain about the extra help, and it gives me the chance to work on this waiting list of yours that I hear you have for your design clients. How might I get myself to the top of that?”

  Cella pointed at the woman, taking a step away from the table. “Ah, now I see what’s happening here.”