Unraveled (Guzzi Duet Book 1)(5)

“Would she recognize me as her son, otherwise?” Gian asked back.

“Point taken.” Frederic finished the last of the whiskey in his glass, and set it on the corner of his desk. “I’ll leave you two alone, then. Keep it at a dull roar, Dad. The room upstairs will be waiting when you’re done.”

“Yes, yes.” Corrado waited until his son was gone from the office, and the door was shut, before he spoke to Gian again. “The new club is opening tonight, sì?”

“Opened a while back, actually. This is the first night I’m going in to see the place in action. It’s fashionable to be late, or so I’m told.”

His grandfather chuckled. “Only when a boss is not involved, or …?”

Gian smirked. “Or you are the boss. I know, Grandpapa.”

“You have to learn, Gian, even the stupid, small things. Someday, I won’t be here to repeat this same, old shit to you every day of your life, and then who will? How will you remember when the time is most important?”

“You’re going to be here forever,” Gian said, “so what in the hell do you mean?”

“Not forever.” Corrado sighed, turning to face the window. “I’m as old as dirt, and you know it. There are too many people who continue to remind me of how old I am, Gian, and how it would be better if I stepped down for—”

“Fuck those people.”

A dark laugh escaped his grandfather as he turned back around. “Yes, what you said.”

Unfortunately, what his grandfather said had a lot of merit. Most Cosa Nostra bosses did not live long enough to see eighty-five. Never mind the fact that Corrado had already held his position for forty-five years. Bosses usually retired their seats before their age started to become too prevalent, as no good made man wanted to be seen as weak or senile to his men.

And now, their famiglia had gotten to a point where there were, at times, three generations sitting around the table with a voice wanting to be heard. His grandfather’s generation, men of his father’s age, and then their sons, too. Younger made men who didn’t get much of a voice.

Gian didn’t fall entirely into the young Capo category, considering he was his grandfather’s underboss with his own seat at the table, but he understood and sympathized with their frustrations.

“Well, I’ll send you off then, since there’s nothing to chat about that can’t wait until morning,” his grandfather said, passing him by with a clap on the shoulder.

“My evening is never as important as you are. I can wait.”

“It’s fine, just the usual nonsense with the men. I was thinking maybe we could work to erase some of the lines between the generations if we sat down and talked about it, but it can wait until tomorrow. Enjoy your evening, Gian, and behave.”

Gian scoffed. “I behave.”

“Define that word, and then we’ll talk.”

Corrado was already leaving the office. Gian followed behind his grandfather, only separating at the stairs, where Corrado went up, and he went down to the bottom level of the wing. He expected to leave, as his visit was over, but he found his father waiting at the front door, and nursing another glass of whiskey.

Frederic didn’t see his oldest son approach, and for a moment, Gian was struck at how young his father looked in the dim light of the hallway. It was almost like looking into a mirror, although an older one.

All the men in his family shared the same dominant traits—a strong, squared jaw, brown eyes with gold flecks, a nose with a straight, sharp slope, and lips that, even when not smiling, almost seemed to be pulling into a grin of some sort, just from their shape alone. Even their hair was the same dark brown, from his youngest brother Domenic, to their grandfather. Gian wore his hair slightly longer, leaving a bit at the top to be styled if he wanted, while keeping the sides sheared short.

“He didn’t keep you up there long,” Frederic noted.

“You know how he is.”

“I do.”

Something in the lilt of his father’s tone caught his attention, and not in a good way.

“What is it?” Gian asked.

“Corrado needs to slow down, Gian.”

“I’m aware. Tell him that.”

“I have, and so have his doctors.”

Gian’s brow knotted together. “Pardon? He won’t go to his doctors for more than a checkup or a flu shot.”

Frederic glanced down the hall, behind Gian, as though he were looking for someone to be standing there. No one was. “He’s not going to tell you, if he didn’t tonight.”

“Tell me what?”

“That he’s not well. Some strange results showed up in his bloodwork. He went in a month ago to have another round of tests.”

“He didn’t tell me about any tests.”

His father sighed, tipping his glass higher for another sip. “I think he tells no one. I know because I’m the surviving son, I need to know.”

Gian didn’t like where this was going. “What is it, then? What’s wrong?”

“Colon cancer, it seems. Aggressive. He’s supposed to start treatment within the week, but you know how he is.”

Corrado wouldn’t put himself in any situation that would give another made man in the organization a chance to point at him and call him weak—unable. This would do that, entirely. But not getting aggressive treatment would mean certain death, wouldn’t it? If the cancer was already at an aggressive stage …