It was decided.
The best sight in the morning was Cara on her knees, face buried into a pillow to muffle her sounds, while Gian got a mouthful of her cunt from behind, and stuffed her ass full of his fingers. He loved the way her body trembled with the need for release, and how sweat had slicked up her spine from being teased over and over.
Crazy red hair.
Flushed skin.
Sweet pussy.
Wild eyes met his over her shoulder, when he added a third finger to Cara’s ass, and replaced his mouth on her cunt with just the pad of his fingertip massaging her clit. It was the way her hips swayed and her muscles contracted that drove him crazy. She was so fucking tight around him, and he couldn’t fucking wait to get his cock feeling that, too. She always begged so well when something was filling her ass.
Yes, the very best.
“You want to come so badly, don’t you?” Gian taunted Cara, kissing her lower back between each word.
Her reply came out breathless and high—so very pretty and strained. “You know I do, Gian. Please.”
“My greedy girl. So fucking needy. Come, then.”
His mouth was back between her thighs in a heartbeat, sucking hard on her clit while his fingers pounded deeper into her ass to stretch her open. She loved that, he knew, though it had been a while. He was going to make sure it wasn’t as long between this time and the next time.
Cara’s cries turned the sweetest kind of desperate, and then muffled into the pillow as her body tensed all over. Gian chose not to complain about being unable to hear her coming, but only because he got to taste it, instead.
And sweet Jesus, she tasted heavenly when she came.
Like his own personal tart candy.
Gian had just gotten his cock lubed up, had a fistful of Cara’s hair wrapped tight around his hand, when familiar soft cries broke through his lustful haze. A baby’s cries, he realized. It took Gian far too long to realize it was his baby that was crying through the monitor on the nightstand.
Cara laughed when he stiffened above her and let go of her hair. Turning over, she leaned up and kissed him hard on his slack lips—grinning in a know-it-all sort of way. “Sorry, Gian. Raincheck on that for tonight. Either learn to fuck faster, or stop demanding I be so loud.”
“But … but …” He looked down at his fully erect, lubed cock that was aching. “But …”
He really needed to fucking come now.
Cara’s palm patted him square in the middle of his forehead, as though she were stamping something there with her hand. “Parents call that being cock-blocked. Welcome to the club.”
“Cara!” Gian shouted over his shoulder as she headed for the bedroom door. She only shrugged in response, slipping on a nightie and then a robe to fully cover up. “That’s not fair at all, mon ange!”
“Shower, and take care of it yourself, I guess.”
Holy sweet baby Jesus!
“I don’t need to take care of it myself! Cara, I haven’t taken care of myself in a decade, for fuck’s sake.”
Cara’s head popped back in the doorway. “Seems you do, actually. No better time to get reacquainted.”
She was loving this.
Gian knew he was bested—by a baby and his lover, it seemed. He could have waited, of course. Marcus liked to sleep in the mornings after his feedings, and Gian could always drag Cara back to bed and punish her for her smartass remarks, plus relieve himself in the process. It sounded like a good idea, except his fucking balls hurt like hell all of the sudden.
And that wasn’t good at all.
Gian was a ten-minute kind of morning man. Ten minutes was all he needed to jump in the shower, get dressed, and head out for the day. It was a routine he had perfected over the years. That day, it failed him entirely. It took him thirty minutes just to get through a goddamn shower, and while he got the job done, he hated every fucking second of it.
Cara was right.
He was going to have to learn to keep her quiet, or settle with a faster fucking.
He liked neither of those options.
All dressed and ready for his day—albeit in a slightly shittier mood than he suspected he would have been, had he gotten to be balls deep in Cara before seven AM—Gian headed for the kitchen. His walk slowed as voices filtered down the back hall, and it took him all of three seconds to go from shit mood to rage.
“Thank you for letting us up to talk, Miss Rossi.”
“Yes, Gian was never so kind, unless we had a warrant,” Detective Seeley added with a chuckle.
“I didn’t actually let you up,” Cara replied coolly. “I was told I had guests and allowed entrance without asking for details. Not the same thing. My mistake. Don’t think it’ll happen again.”
“Sure, well—”
“What do you want at seven-thirty in the morning?”
Gian held back from entering the kitchen, instead lingering out of sight in the hallway. There, he could still hear the conversation, but the detectives wouldn’t know he was within hearing distance. Shit, he didn’t know if they were aware of his presence in the penthouse at all.
“How long have you been living here, again?” Detective Seeley asked.
“I’ve owned the penthouse for a couple of months or so. Why?”
“Curious. Where is Gian this morning?”
Cara said nothing.
The detective chuckled. “You’re not sure or he’s with his wife?”
Gian stiffened, anger flooding him all over again. Using his wife to annoy, offend, or bother Cara in any way just seemed like a prick move on the man’s part.
“Where Gian is can’t be any more or less important than whatever the fuck you want,” Cara replied sweetly.
“Little ears are listening, Miss Rossi.”
“I’m sure my son will hear worse.”
“With a mob boss for a father, I would tend to agree.”
Another dig.
Cara only laughed. “Right. Moving on. What do you want, or again, you can leave. Mornings are busy with a baby, as I’m sure you know.”
“We’ve gone over some of your interviews and statements with police after the latest attack, and wanted to go through other details with you that you may not have been aware of. Or rather, some suspicions we have that may be of interest to you, where Gian is concerned.”
“I’m sure they won’t concern me at all,” Cara said flippantly, “but you can try.”
“Never say never,” Seeley replied all too cheerfully. “Shorty before your attack, you found yourself in a bit of an awkward situation, didn’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Photos of you were distributed. See, the shelter reported the photos, as the owner assumed you too would be opening an investigation into such a matter.”
Gian swore he could feel Cara’s tension when she said, “I don’t know exactly what kind of legal action I could have taken for those, but I assure you whatever the penalty, it would not have fit the crime or made me feel any better.”
“Are you aware that Gian’s father-in-law was the person to distribute those photographs?”
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.