“This was not what I expected.”
Gian waited for Cara to sit at the round table, making sure to keep his hands visible for the watching guards. It was really their only request, besides no overt public displays of affection.
Not that he cared at the moment …
Gian’s attention was snagged by something far more beautiful. Cara, that was, and the way her hand curved protectively around the slight swell of her stomach. He wanted nothing more than to stand and greet her the way he liked, but the guards wouldn’t be pleased.
He enjoyed having visitors. It kept him sane.
Two more months, he told himself.
That was all he had left, and he would be out of this fucking hell.
“And what did you expect, mia cara bella?” Gian asked as she sat down.
“A Plexiglas window and phones, maybe,” Cara said, taking in the visitor’s area.
“It’s a jail, not a prison. I’m in on a non-violent offense. The only prison they would be willing to send me to, is halfway across the country, and by the time they got me the spot, I’d only have a month to spend there. It’s pointless.”
“It’s easier here?”
Gian nodded. “Quieter, less issues. Not so many inmate politics. More visitations. The guards aren’t … completely fucking useless.”
Cara gave him a look. “It’s not supposed to be a vacation, Gian.”
He shrugged. “Hey, if they make it easy, then they make it easy.”
“I’m also kind of shocked at the attire.” She waved at him.
Gian glanced down at the drab, gray uniform he wore on a daily basis. “I miss a good suit, to be honest.”
“At least there’s no cuffs.”
“Not until I’m escorted back to my cell, anyway.”
“I wasn’t told what to expect here,” Cara admitted.
“But you still came.”
Her blue eyes flashed to him instantly, a love and wariness reflecting there. “Of course, I came, Gian.”
“I’m sorry it took this long for us to have a visit.”
“I had a lot going on, anyway.”
Gian chuckled. “Or you’re making excuses so that I don’t feel like shit.”
Cara winked. “You’ll never know.”
Oh, he did.
He loved her for it, too.
“Your brother didn’t say much, though,” Cara said under her breath, shooting a look over her shoulder. “Not about anything, Gian.”
Dom stayed just far enough away from the table to allow the two privacy. Gian sent his brother a grateful nod, which was quietly returned. Dom had too many opinions to name where Gian and Cara’s odd relationship was concerned.
“Dom is … Dom,” Gian said lamely.
“I don’t think he likes me very much.”
Gian tried to hide his frown. “It’s not you personally, Cara.”
“What is it?” His gaze dropped down to her rounded stomach, and Cara’s hands cupped the swell quickly. “Oh, well then.”
“He doesn’t know what to think of it all,” Gian explained.
Cara nodded once. “So it’s more you, that’s what you want to say. Not me, you.”
“In a way, sure. Except he can’t say shit to me because I’m the boss, brother or not. He’s in a shitty situation where his opinion is not welcome, but he still wants to give it. Not that any of that matters. Enough about this, Cara, tell me about my baby.”
The sweetest, prettiest smile bloomed on her features, lighting up her whole face. That was one of the things Gian missed seeing the very most. Even worse, he missed being the one to make Cara smile. He felt that he had given her far more reasons to frown.
“Halfway there now,” Cara said. “Twenty weeks this week. He’s very active, makes for interesting prenatal appointments when he keeps moving away from the wand as they’re trying to hear his heartbeat. I would let you feel, but he’s quiet right now. For once.”
Gian was sure his heartbeat had stopped for a split second. “He?”
Cara pulled a small roll of sonogram photos from her purse, and slid it across the table to Gian. “A boy. So far, a very healthy, active boy, Gian.”
He looked over the sonograms, taking in the shadowy profile of a baby in the middle of the picture. The tiny slope of a nose, and the roundness of his cheeks and lips were the most prominent features. Another photo showcased five small toes of a perfectly formed foot. The final image was a strange mixture of shapes that Gian didn’t understand at all.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Cara used the tip of her finger to outline the central image. “What do you think?”
His laughter rung out in the quiet visiting area, gaining the attention of several other inmates and their family. “Shit, really?”
“Yep.”
“Definitely a boy, then.”
“You couldn’t miss it if you tried, once it’s pointed out,” Cara said, shaking her head.
“Thank you for bringing this, Cara.”
“I have copies for me, too.”
“I know, but—”
“He’s your son, Gian, so why wouldn’t I bring this to show you? We might have unfinished business, but he’s brand new and he has no baggage. You know?”
“Yeah,” Gian agreed. “Come here.”
He hooked his finger at her, willing to take the scolding or whatever other issue that might pop up for what he was about to do. Cara, always trusting when it came to him, even when she didn’t have the first clue of his motives, leaned closer at the table, until he could cup her face and bring her in the rest of the way.
Gian kissed Cara quickly on her painted red lips, feeling her smile grow when he kissed her twice more in quick succession. “God, I love you. You know that, huh?”
Cara nodded. “I know, Gian. I just don’t understand why sometimes.”
“Because you’re you, Cara. And you’re mine.”
He figured that should be simple enough.
It was enough for him.
Having Cara close was not necessarily a good thing for Gian. Now that he had her there, he wanted to drag her into his lap, tangle his fingers into her hair, and hide away from the world that never left him alone. She was his peace, even if she couldn’t possibly know it.
Gian settled for resting his palm over the slight, hard swell of her stomach. “Two more months, Cara, and then we’ll have all the time in the world to deal with the unfinished business.”
“Don’t look forward to doing that too much, Gian.”
“I love you. The rest doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” she argued, “to me.”
“The details matter to you. The details aren’t us in the grand scheme.”
“We’re part of the details, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“Cara—”
“Yeah, I know,” she mumbled when he kissed her cheek. “You’re impossible.”
“I am,” he willfully, and happily, admitted. “More so when it comes to you.”
That didn’t mean that Gian was stupid, of course. He knew there was a lot that had been left unsaid between them. There were details of his life and his marriage that bothered Cara on a moral and ethical level. She didn’t want to be the other woman in his life, but his only woman. He knew these were all things that would somehow need to be dealt with, but he believed—stupidly, maybe—that because he loved her, and he knew that she loved him, it would work itself out.
It had to.
Gian only noticed the guard approaching when the man was just a few steps away from the table. “My apologies.”
The guard gave a short nod. “Hands in view, Guzzi.”
Gian put his hands on the table, and moved an inch or two away from Cara. She frowned at the guard, as the man walked back to his previous post.
Before either of them could talk again, Dom had stepped up to the table, and cleared his throat. “We’ve only got a few more minutes left, Gian.”
“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.
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 restaurant. 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.”
My little queen.
Gian felt his wife’s fingernails dig into his skin through his suit jacket.
“Daddy,” Elena greeted politely. “How are you?”
“Well, although not as good as your husband, seeing as how he’s free today. You only get one free day to have fun after a sentence, and then it’s back to work. I’m happy to see he’s spending it with you.” Gabriel chuckled darkly. “I can’t say I ever did that for my wife when she was alive.”
Elena said nothing, but she didn’t move from Gian’s side, either. She had her sore spots, and her father was one of them. In a way, Gian thought it might do him well if he cared less, that he had a colder heart, so he could send Elena right back to her father’s cruel hands to do with as he wished.
Fortunately for Elena, Gian was not that cold, callous, or cruel.
Even if he wished he was.
No woman deserved to be beaten, used as a toy, or traded for the pleasure of men and blackmail like Elena had been for the majority of her life under Gabriel’s demands. It wasn’t exactly a secret in their family. It was not freely talked about, either.
“Sit, sit,” Gabriel demanded, waving at the table. “The food is coming soon.”
Near to the second they were all seated at a table, food was brought out from the kitchen by a chef and a waiter, served to each of them. Gian was at least grateful to get a few bites of a decent meal shoved into his face before the Camorra boss began talking again.
“Are you ever going to give that husband of yours a bambino or two?” Gabriel asked his daughter. “I might like a grandchild, too, Elena.”
Elena kept her head down as she replied, “Someday.”
Gian forced the lump of food down his throat. “Not everyone wants children.”
“All good Italian men do,” Gabriel said. “Although, considering it’s been four years since the two of you married, is it more that you don’t want any or that you can’t have any?”
Elena stiffened in her seat.
Gian kept his focus on his father-in-law. “Children are not on the conversation menu tonight.”
“Just curious. She did lose your first child, didn’t she? Shortly after the wedding. Perhaps those abortions Elena had didn’t serve her well, after all. How many was it again, cara, five?”
“Daddy, don’t start—”
“Elena, are you finished?” Gian asked, interrupting his wife from taking her father’s bait. “Eating, I mean.”
She nodded. “I am.”
“Chris is waiting outside for you.”
Elena didn’t need to be told again. She got up from the table, said a quick goodbye to her father, rubbed a hand on Gian’s shoulder as she passed, and then she was gone.
“I was only asking,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “No need to send her out. She can handle her own, Gian, I assure you.”
Gian held back from punching the man in the throat. “Yes, and then I’m the one who has to deal with her emotional backlash from handling you and your nonsense for the next week. No, thank you, Gabriel. If you’re going to throw my wife’s abortions in her face, maybe stop to consider who forced her into those, as well. What was she, sixteen the first time? The police chief, wasn’t it?”
Gabriel didn’t even blink at the accusation. “It kept me from getting tossed behind bars on a five-year sentence.”
“Shame. Those five years could have done her a world of good.”
“She’s not as innocent as you think, Gian. You’re under some impression that she didn’t understand what she was doing for all those years—she knew. She knew perfectly well.”
This was an emotional, manipulative game that Gabriel liked to play with his daughter, far too often. He couldn’t use her to do his bidding now, so he liked to mess with her in other ways. Sometimes, Gian thought his wife and father deserved one another for their despicable behavior toward each other and other people. Other times, like now, he didn’t want to sit back and watch Gabriel hurt Elena simply because he could.
“What did you really want today?” Gian asked. “What did you want by asking me here?”
“To warn you,” Gabriel said before he took a hearty sip of whiskey from a glass. “I couldn’t do that when you were in jail, and your men are already well versed on staying away from me and mine.”
“For good reason. Warn me about what, exactly?”
“I was arrested and put in for four months because of you. Or rather, my affiliation to you was enough to have them watching me, and then serving me with warrants that garnered the charges I received. I don’t care about the details, Gian, I care about my freedom.”
“Don’t we all?” Gian asked dryly. “Get to the point, so we can go our separate ways and pretend like this didn’t happen until the next time.”
“The point, you arrogant fuck, is that you’ve clearly got a rat problem somewhere. Someone, likely one of your fucking men, is feeding information to the police. And that’s not surprising, considering all the shit you stirred up after your grandfather was killed. Corrado was a good man, fit for his position. You, on the other hand, are a spoiled, cocky, ignorant—”
“If we’re going to trade insults, my demand is that you let me go first,” Gian murmured. “It’s only fair, considering. Otherwise, I’ll take a pound from you for every name you throw at me without it being deserved.”
Gabriel ground his teeth loud enough to be disturbing. “You find out which one of your useless cunts are talking to the police, or I will do it for you.”
“Who’s to say it’s not coming from your end?”
“It’s not.”
“Well—”
“Figure it out,” Gabriel interrupted, “or I will tear through your streets and do it myself.”
“Are we done?” Gian asked, standing from the table.
“Very much so. Tell my daughter to behave, Gian, though I am sure you’re keeping a proper eye on her. Women like Elena need that sort of control. She needs to be on a very short leash, because her bite is far worse than her bark, believe me.”
Gian didn’t bother to respond to that, instead turning on his heel and heading for the front of the restaurant. He was gone from the business, and into the waiting SUV, before the cameras even realized he had stepped back out.
This time, Gian sat in the front seat beside Chris.
Elena sat in the back, glaring out the window.
Chris handed over Gian’s charging cell phone, still plugged into the cigarette lighter. “Here, it’s been going nuts. Probably trying to catch up with all the shit that it’s missed out on these past few months.”
“Thanks. Drive.”
The enforcer did as he was told.
“What did he say when I was gone?” Elena asked from the back seat.
“Ignore that fucking bastard,” Gian replied.
He was more interested in checking his phone. A brand-new message scrolled across the screen, one sent within the last few minutes.
From Cara.
Twenty-eight weeks today, it read. He could see, through looking at her messages for the past several months that she had sent him a text like this for every week that he had been locked up.
Gian smiled.
Elena leaning over his shoulder quickly made his brief happiness dissipate. He turned his phone’s screen off, but he wasn’t sure if Elena had seen the messages, or not. Of course, if she had, that didn’t mean she would understand what they meant.
“I’d like to go to the mansion,” his wife said.
“Be my guest. I’m going to the penthouse.”
She sat back in the seat, unbothered and cold once more. “Good.”
Elena dropped her pretense and her mask, as she had gotten what she wanted where her father was concerned, and didn’t think she would have to worry about him again for a while.
Gian expected nothing different.