Unraveled (Guzzi Duet Book 1)(33)

Cara scoffed. “You do see me, right? Because nothing about this screams beauty at the moment.”

Her hair was wild. Her eyes were sleepy. She had shoved on his forgotten dress shirt instead of her clothes because it was easier. She needed coffee, food, and a shower, and then she might be half presentable to the public.

Gian’s hand tangled into her messy hair as he brought her closer for a kiss to her cheek. “Shut up and take the compliment, Cara.”

Well, then …

“Fine, but I’m all fucked-out, so don’t think you’re getting laid for that one this morning.”

His laughter came out dark and heady, waking Cara up even more. “Fucked-out, that’s a new one.”

“I need more time being awake to properly converse like a real human.”

“Well, let’s get some food in you and then see how you feel,” Gian said.

Cara followed behind him as he headed toward his penthouse’s kitchen. “Now is probably the best time to ask this, then, huh?”

“Ask what, Cara?”

“Who that guy—Frankie—was last night, and why he called me Lea.”

Gian’s steps came to a full stop.

Cara damn near ran into his back.

Slowly, he turned to face her, his amusement from earlier gone entirely. “You’re not going to drop that, are you?”

“As much as I like you on your knees, eating my pussy like it’s the last thing you’re ever going to taste, no, that’s not going to work today. If that’s what you meant to say.”

Gian’s lips pressed into a thin, unimpressed line. “Cara—”

“I dealt with the distraction last night. Try the truth today, please.”

“I don’t know a lot about it.”

“Tell me what you do know, Gian.”

He crossed his arms, and Cara matched his posture in the hallway. She wasn’t moving a damn inch until he started talking. Simple as that.

“Sometimes, Frankie runs in the same circles as me, but we’re not friends, not like Constantino and I are. But like I said, sometimes we run into one another. As far as I know, from passing mentions or seeing them out, Frankie went out with Lea for a while a year back or so. Those were the few times I actually saw her or came in contact with her.”

“Like a few dates, or …?”

“I think it was more than that,” Gian admitted, “but I can’t say for sure, and there’s certain things men don’t ask each other in this business, when women are brought around.”

Cara’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Lea didn’t have a boyfriend before she died, and even before that, there was no one she talked about.”

Sure, her sister went out and did her own thing. Lea had a social life that didn’t include Cara a lot of the time, because she wasn’t into that sort of thing. But a man? A boyfriend, for months? Cara didn’t think so.

“As far as I know, it ended a couple of months before Lea died,” Gian said with a shrug. “I only know that because … well, because I do.”

“Because why?”

Gian scowled. “Because Frankie got married to the broad that ended up pregnant with his kid; he married her, and it was the right thing to do. That’s what a man is expected to do when he knocks a woman up—marry her as soon as possible. I don’t know the personal details because that shit is private. I know what was presented to me like it was to everyone else.”

Cara suddenly felt like someone had sucked all the air out of her chest. “What?”

“Sometimes, it’s better to drop things, Cara.”

“Did Lea know he was running around with someone else?”

Gian barely blinked. “Maybe it didn’t make a difference to her at the time.”

It did to Cara.

It was all the same to her.

She thought her twin would have felt the same.

“I think I want to go home,” Cara muttered.

Gian didn’t even try to convince her to stay.

Cara needed to think.

She couldn’t do that with Gian around.





“Johnnie was pulled out of the lake this morning,” Constantino said. “All limbs attached, though, so clearly they wanted us to know.”

Gian rubbed a hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. “Fuck.”

“Edmond is making a point.”

“Or the older generation did it,” Gian pointed out.

“It’s still for the boss, Gian.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m saying—”

“Johnnie had a verbal disagreement with one of Edmond’s favorites the night after your car went boom last week, and all of the sudden, he shows up dead.” Constantino scoffed, quickly adding, “Not to mention, he’s the second body this week, but he could have been the third in two weeks, had the bomb on your car been successful.”

Constantino was making all kinds of sense, even though Gian wished it didn’t have to be this way. The sudden surge of violence on the streets between the younger and older generation of made men in the Guzzi Cosa Nostra was disconcerting, but not entirely a surprise.

The younger men had taken the bomb on Gian’s vehicle as a personal affront, as though it was the boss’s one way of removing the last person the men thought might give them a voice. Any verbal or physical action that disagreed with the boss was suddenly met with severe punishment—to make a point, to make the men sit down, and shut the hell up.