by Bethany-Kris
Elena didn’t respond immediately and Gian shot a look over his shoulder to find she was staring at the floor, silent. She was as cold as ice, but there were buttons that a man could push, and she reverted into a shell of herself.
Gian had pushed that button.
“I could have phrased that better,” he said.
Elena shrugged one shoulder. “I choose not to underestimate my father. He used me from the time I was fifteen to do his bidding and play his games, right up until the day I met you. It’s only because he believes I’m no longer useful to him that he keeps a distance now, you know.”
Gian grunted, displeased. “Yes, and then you used me. So how different are you two, really?”
“I used you to get away.”
“It doesn’t justify the mode, Elena.”
She only smiled. “It got me what I wanted. I never needed to fuck another man to benefit my father, I only needed to fuck you. And after that, I didn’t even need to do that, Gian. So yes, I got what I wanted.”
“Yes, stuck in a marriage with me. Where we despise one another, where you lied to me about everything and tricked me with a fake pregnancy, and then losing—”
“I apologized for all of that!”
Gian spun fast on his heel, not hiding his anger. “That’s the problem. You think because you spit out a few sad words, that it fixes what you did. It doesn’t fix it, Elena. You’ve trapped me into this fucking hell with you. I’m so goddamn happy that you don’t mind because of all the wonderful things you have, because fuck me, right? Fuck me and everything I might have wanted from life, Elena.”
“I was taught that feelings didn’t matter in this life, Gian. Only the end goal. Perhaps you should learn the same. My bad, that I happened to meet my goals before you did.”
Feelings only mattered when they were hers.
That was what she meant to say.
Gian was not stupid.
“Get the fuck out, Elena.”
“In a minute.”
Gian snarled a warning at his wife over his shoulder, done with her nonsense and games for the day. Elena barely reacted. In fact, she continued standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and her eyes nailed to his back.
“What do you want that you haven’t already bothered me with?” he asked, reaching his limit of patience.
“Who were you really with last night?”
Gian’s shoulders stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
“Who were you fucking?” Elena carefully enunciated each word. “That’s why you didn’t come here last night or to church this morning, right? You’ve got scratches all down your back. Jesus, she must have liked whatever it was you were doing to her. Doesn’t that hurt? That’s one thing you’re quite good at—making a woman come again and again, I remember that well. Did she scream your name like a good little whore? Was it loud enough to drown out me and everyone else filling your thoughts?”
Gian reacted only to the fact Elena used the word whore. He spun fast on his heel. Elena took a giant step back, far enough out of the doorway that Gian was able to grab the door and slam it closed without hitting her.
Her voice stopped him before he closed it completely.
“Oh, someone’s touchy. Is it her again, Gian, the one from before?”
Gian let the door slam in her face, determined not to give Elena a thing unless she pried it out of his dead hands. When a man gave her an inch, she took a mile and ran with it until he was a bleeding, useless, broken mess trailing behind her. It was just what she did, it was what she had been taught and Gian refused to ever play those games with his wife again.
The last time he had, he’d lost. Lost his freedom. Lost his rights. Lost what he thought was his child. He just fucking lost.
So no, fuck her, and her games.
“Cara, right?” Elena asked from behind the wood. “That’s her name, isn’t it? Are you screwing that whore again?”
“Go to hell, Elena, before I fucking send you there.”
She laughed at him.
He wasn’t surprised.
Story of their life …
“Elena didn’t want to come?” Celeste asked as Gian kissed his mother’s cheek.
He readied to speak the lie he had prepared, but whether or not his mother would fall for it was another story.
“She’s not feeling well,” he said.
Celeste frowned. “She was fine at church this morning. Wasn’t she, Frederic?”
Gian’s father nodded. “Seemed so, Tesoro.”
“Well?” Celeste looked to Gian. “See, even he—”
“She’s not feeling well,” Gian repeated, “and I can’t make her come to dinner when she isn’t up for it, Ma.”
“Fine.”
His mother didn’t sound particularly happy about it, though. He wasn’t about to complain that Elena stayed home.
“What’s for dinner?” Gian asked.
Celeste waved a hand, beckoning her son and husband to follow. Gian walked alongside his father, a few paces behind his mother, as Celeste described the meal that was waiting for him. As good as it sounded and for as hungry as he was, he only wanted to eat, spend a few minutes talking, and then get the hell out of there.
Cara would be waiting at his place for him.
Maybe …
He’d sent her a text earlier and gotten a reply. She had been at the penthouse then, but whether or not she still would be was another story.
Cara had a bad habit of overthinking.
Not that Gian blamed her.
“Sounds delicious, Ma,” Gian said.
Celeste preened over her shoulder. “Of course it does.”
The family had just sat down for their meal when the phone call came in. His parents’ maid handed the phone over to Gian with wide eyes before she bolted out of the room. Celeste and Frederic watched him like two hawks as he put the phone to his ear.
Gian tried to hear what Elena was saying through her panic, but he could only make out a few words.
They were enough.
They were too much.
Cops.
Warrants.
The mansion.
Get here, now.
Gian only made it outside of his parents’ place. The cops were already waiting for him there, too.
Apparently, the mansion was one of many places served with warrants, and he was just one of many men to find themselves in hot water with police. His father-in-law’s house that was just an hour outside of Ottawa was another. Gian found himself in the back of a police cruiser and his hands cuffed, before he could even tell his father what to do.
“The charges?” Gian demanded from the officer.
The man shrugged, but before he shut the door, he said, “Ask Seeley when you get to the station. He said you two had missed your meeting this week.”
Gian realized then that he was fucked.
He just didn’t know why.
Cara had forgotten how comforting and familiar Gian’s penthouse was for her. All the tall ceilings, the warm whiteness of the rooms, and the wide windows that could make someone feel like royalty looking down on the city—it was beautiful.
The walls of the penthouse had heard her secrets and given her a safe space, all those months ago. They had shut out the world and let her learn who Gian Guzzi was underneath his charming, mysterious mask. Or rather, who she had thought he was.
He’s still the same man, her mind whispered, but with added baggage.
Yes, if only it was that fucking simple.
Cara learned, as she snooped through Gian’s office and wandered into his walk-in closet, that the penthouse still held pieces of her time from before. One of her chokers hung from a small brass hook in the jewelry case, resting alongside a half of a dozen Rolex watches. Bangles she had slipped off her wrist still sat in a glass bowl. A jacket she remembered tossing over the bedpost one night in her haste to get in the bed with that sinful man had been hung up in the closet alongside Gian’s things.
> Gian had no reason to keep her things; to leave the items where she had placed them, or to move them to safe spots where she could find them again.
And yet he had.
Gian kept the tiny pieces of her with him. Cara didn’t know if that was because, one day, he planned to return them. Maybe he wasn’t willing to scrub her from his penthouse or his life.
There was something else that became painfully obvious as she snooped. His wife held no place in his personal spaces. The woman was nowhere. No clothes, makeup, pictures, or mementos. It was as though—only here—she did not exist.
Or perhaps he didn’t want her to.
Cara also didn’t want to think on it for too long. Thinking for her almost always led to overthinking, and that was a problem. She already knew Gian loved her, and she didn’t think for a second that he would say something he didn’t mean, but it was all the rest of the details that came along with it where she hesitated.
Cara didn’t want to hesitate.
Not for Gian …
She decided, when it was just after dinnertime and she was still at Gian’s place, that it was the only reason why she was there. Comfort and familiarity. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cara was also pretty damn good at lying to herself.
And overthinking.
She should have been gone hours ago. Instead, she stayed, putting the shower in the master bath to use, and then ordering in food for lunch and supper. She had answered the one text from Gian earlier in the day, but he had yet to send another.
Cara didn’t know if that was a purposeful move on Gian’s part, or not. It would certainly be smart of him, to let her have the few hours that kept them apart without his voice in her head so she could work through her shit. She was always working through something.
It was only after supper time had long passed, that Cara began to think something might be wrong. She shot Gian another text and got nothing in response.
Cara was just slipping on her shoes to leave the penthouse, after sending another text to Gian that explained he could call her when he had time, when the elevator into the penthouse opened. Chris—Gian’s man that had kept an eye on Cara months ago—rushed into the place with a black messenger bag clenched in his hand.
He only hesitated when he saw Cara coming down the hall.
“Sorry, I thought you might be Gian,” Cara said.
Chris cleared his throat and glanced back at the elevator. “Boss brought you over?”
“Last night.”
The man didn’t even look surprised. “All right. You should head out.”
The lilt in Chris’s tone made Cara stay right where she was. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing that you need to worry about, miss.”
“It’s Cara.”
“I still know your name and I still prefer what I use.”
Cara frowned. “Because I’m not his wife, or—”
“Because respect matters,” Chris interrupted as he slid past Cara in the hallway. “Now, I’m serious. Get out of this building, preferably within the next ten minutes or so.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t leave anything behind, did you?”
“Why aren’t you answering my questions?” Cara demanded.
Chris pulled open a drawer in the decorative hallway table, and yanked out a gun, dropping it into the bag. Cara gaped like an idiot, wondering how she had never noticed that weapon there before and how many others might be hidden in the penthouse.
Then, she had an even more pressing thought.
Why was Chris here?
He never used to come inside Gian’s penthouse without permission. No one had ever done that, from what Cara remembered. If he was doing this now, was it because of the weapons? Did he know where they were, or most of them, and did he need to get rid of them for some reason?
“Chris—”
“Okay,” Chris said, turning to face Cara with a blank expression. “Cara, you need to go unless you feel like getting dragged down to a police station to explain why you are in the boss’s place, and what you were doing here with him, amongst many other things they’ll ask. If you left something that will say you, specifically, were here, then get it and go. I don’t have the time to baby you out of this place, I have shit to do.”
Cara still didn’t move. “Where is Gian?”
“Right now, he’s either in lock up or being questioned. Based on whatever they picked up at the mansion, their warrant for this place was on the way. Do you want to be standing there when they get here or what?”
Shit.
“I should go,” Cara said.
Chris nodded. “Yeah, do that, and fast.”
Cara had just walked out of the front doors of the building when the first cruiser and unmarked car pulled up on the side of the road. The officers and one plain-clothed detective with his badge hanging around his neck, walked past her as though they had no interest in the redhead leaving the building.
She hailed a cab, and didn’t take a real breath again until she was back at her place, and hidden in her bed.
What just happened?
The question kept banging around in her head. Cara didn’t even know how to answer.
“I’m starting to think that you don’t know how to return a phone call.”
Cara almost fell off the stepladder she was using to put away groceries in the pantry at Carolina’s House. “Jesus, Zia, make some noise.”
Her aunt, Daniele, only cocked an eyebrow in response.
Carefully, Cara climbed back down the ladder, ignoring the way the floor swayed a bit under her feet when she wasn’t so high up anymore. Her new issue with heights and vertigo was becoming annoying, but she ignored it.
Ignoring it was easier than dealing with what it meant.
“I’ve called you three times this week,” her aunt said.
Cara shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
And avoiding.
She had been avoiding everyone and anything related to the Guzzi family, the police, and the current investigation into their business for three entire weeks. That also meant ignoring her own family, mostly her aunt and uncle, who had been just one of many to be dragged into the city for questioning by police.
Cara knew better than to get involved.
Gian wouldn’t want her to, she was sure of that.
Of course, Cara had been keeping up with what she could. It seemed Gian had found himself in jail under a half of a dozen weapons charges, and according to the news, the weapons had been found at the Guzzi mansion. The weapons didn’t entirely relate to the investigation’s main objective—whatever that was, as the info hadn’t been offered—but the unregistered, illegal weapons were still grounds for charges.
Canada did not like guns on the streets, especially not illegal guns.
Given Gian’s name and affiliations, a previous arrest for assault with a weapon, and his ability to up and leave the country, simply because of the amount of zeros in his bank account, he was remanded to the jail until his trial. A trial which was likely going to be sped up when Gian accepted a shorter sentencing term for a deal that was offered regarding the charges.
Or so Cara heard …
She was trying not to get involved. She was trying to keep her head low and stay the hell out of it all, so then she didn’t get dragged into a mess, too. That was the message passed along to her during a late-night visit from Chris. The man had shown up at her door with those instructions from Gian, and very little else.
Cara didn’t have much of a choice but to agree.
As it was, her life was already a fucking mess for more reasons than just Gian’s arrest. She didn’t plan to add to it with stupidity.
“Did you need something specific?” Cara asked her aunt. “Because I really need to get done here, so I can go home and work on my essay due next week.”
“No, I just worried about you, Cara. You haven’t called, or been around. I wanted to check up on you. I know you’re here a lot
throughout the week when you’re not at school, so I thought I would drop by today since I was in the neighborhood.”
Her aunt seemed sincere enough.
Cara decided to placate the woman.
“I am fine, Zia. But I am busy, really. I promise, I will make it up to you, and come over for dinner this weekend. I have nothing else better to do, okay?”
Daniele pursed her lips, but eventually smiled and nodded. “Fine, that sounds good. And you are well, aren’t you?”
“Yes, why?”
“You’re looking a little green today, that’s all.”
Cara swallowed the nauseous feeling building in her stomach and crawling up the back of her throat. It was not the easiest thing to hide—especially when the random vomiting spells hit at the most awkward of times—but she managed.
“I’m fine,” Cara assured. “I’ll even call you when I get home tonight after work, all right?”
“If you’re sure …”
“Perfectly sure, Zia.”
Cara’s lies and false smiles seemed to do the trick. Her aunt left with a demand that she had better call that night, and show up for dinner on the weekend. She barely heard her aunt’s footsteps fade away before she made it to the garbage can in the corner to throw up.
Her hands shook as she tried to steady herself for the second wave of sickness that almost always followed the first round.
The biggest question of her life had been answered that morning when she pissed on a plastic stick, and a small window blinked with a single word over and over again. At seven days late, and a multitude of other symptoms, Cara knew the answer. She still took the test, half praying it would come out one way, and yet feeling a mess of relief, joy, and absolute chilling fear when she finally knew for sure.
Pregnant.
The pregnancy test was still in her purse. It was probably still blinking that goddamn word. Cara was too scared to check. She wasn’t ready for it to be real.
Not yet.
“Miss Rossi.”
Cara stiffened at the sound of Chris’s greeting behind her. She turned the lock in her apartment door to close it up, and turned to face the man. He smiled at her. “You could have knocked on the door.”
