Unraveled (Guzzi Duet Book 1)(2)

It never would.

“I’m not going back to Chicago,” Cara said after a long stretch of silence.

“Ever?” Tommas asked.

There was no judgement in his tone. He’d asked it with very little emotion, as though he already knew exactly what her answer would be.

“Not if I can help it, Tommas.”

Cara waited for those words to sink in, hoping that her brother finally got the point. She loved Tommas, even if their relationship was strained from years of separation and the past. She knew that Tommas loved her, too.

“I don’t think you understand how difficult it is to get up in the morning. I pass her bedroom and try not to breakdown. I still have all of Lea’s things. They litter this apartment from top to bottom.” Cara couldn’t bear the thought of getting rid of any of it. But she could barely stand to look at it all, either. “The apartment—and even Toronto—is basically the same thing. I struggle daily, to even leave the apartment and get done what I need to do. Every place I visit, all the sights I see, are touched by a memory of Lea. And that hurts,” Cara said quietly.

There was a lot she didn’t say, too.

Her college marks were suffering, her dream of becoming a therapist diminishing with missed classes. Frankly, she needed to be the one talking to a therapist, but that meant opening the front door and going outside.

It felt like her heart was ripping apart at the seams, the second her hand touched the front doorknob. She was leaving behind the only tangible ties to her sister that were not merely memories.

She was so useless like this.

Broken.

Incomplete.

Without.

“Cara,” Tommas said.

The softer tone her brother used brought Cara from the black abyss that was her thoughts. Her new constant companion.

“Yeah, Tommy?”

“I know it’s hard—”

“Harder, actually,” Cara interrupted.

“I’m sorry. I want to do something to help, but I need you to give me some kind of direction here, Cara. Or how to help. What do you need me to do?”

Leave me alone, she thought. Stop making me remember. It hurts.

Cara would never say those things to her brother, as they would hurt him.

It had been his people who had taken her sister away, even if it hadn’t been him, directly, who had pulled the trigger. It was still the Outfit. Tommas was an Outfit man. Cara didn’t know how to separate Tommas from the organization.

It was dirty money, bad blood, stained histories, and pain.

“Cara?” Tommas asked again.

She took a deep breath and rolled from her side to her back on the bed. A comforting place that she rarely left, now. Slinging her arm over her face, she blocked out the light that filtered in through the blinds.

“Just give me some time,” Cara settled on saying.

“Is more time actually going to help, Cara?”

“I don’t know.”





Cara stumbled from her bed. The persistent knocking—the bitch of a thing that had woken her up in the first place—continued to echo throughout the quiet apartment.

She’d made it perfectly clear to everyone that she wanted to be alone. She wasn’t without family in Toronto. She had her aunt and uncle, a couple of cousins, and a few friends from school.

As for the family side, Cara tried to stay away from their business as much as possible. Unless it was for something she couldn’t excuse her way out of, Cara tried not to intrude on their lives. And usually, they didn’t intrude too much on hers.

Well, before Lea died. She had seen more of her aunt and uncle since Lea’s death than she wanted to admit. She wished they would all go back to the polite greetings and occasional meet ups.

For good reason … It didn’t seem to matter where Cara lived, Canada or the USA, she couldn’t escape her family’s legacy.

The Rossi family—from the Canadian side, all the way to the American—was marked by crime. The mafia had weaved itself through her family tree from the very distant members, to her closest relatives. Cara needed distance from her family, and all the rest of the shit that they were involved in, as she always had. Now, though, since Lea’s murder because of the mafia, she needed that distance even more.

“Cristo,” Cara swore in Italian as she neared the front door to the apartment. The knocking had yet to cease, and that only kicked her irritation up to another level. “I’m fucking coming, relax.”

Cara flicked the deadbolt lock, and yanked open the door with more force than was necessary. She didn’t even bother to wipe the scowl off her face. She was not expecting who she found waiting.

Bambi Emmi.

For a long while, Cara simply stared at the young woman until Bambi’s usual wide smile faded a bit. In a tight, red dress that fell at her mid-thigh, and complimented her ruby lips and dark hair, Bambi was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Cara, with her crazy, red, curly hair and blue eyes, had never quite felt inferior when standing next to Bambi, though.

Their previous meetings had been passing, brief moments when Bambi’s friendship with Lea had managed to involve Cara as well, and politeness was expected.

“Hi,” Bambi said, shifting the diamond-studded clutch she held from one hand to another.

Cara said nothing.

She didn’t know what to say, truthfully.