Unraveled (Guzzi Duet Book 1)(51)
“I’m not caught up in any sort of mess, Zia.”
“For your sake, I sure hope not, Cara.”
The news program switched to the oncoming weather for the last few days of April, leading into May, and Cara shut the television off. She let out a hard breath, frustrated at herself that she had once again succumbed to her curiosity and checked the news.
She had been checking the news for three damn weeks now.
Every night, she swore that something new popped up dealing with the Guzzi Cosa Nostra family. Something violent—someone else shot, a body found, a drive-by on a restaurant—and another funeral coming up.
Cara never watched the news, if she could help it. But after her own shooting weeks ago, she had turned the television on while she ate her supper to see what was being said. It was then that she learned just how volatile and violent the streets of Toronto were becoming for made men in the city.
She stayed out of family business for a reason.
She didn’t ask questions.
She knew better.
This was exactly why …
Her curiosity once again got the better of her, and Cara watched the news over and over, checking for new stories that might be popping up. She read the Canadian news blogs, because more often than not, reporters hidden behind a screen had more information to offer about crime families and the goings on than what was offered on television programs.
The Guzzi family was in an uproar.
They had been that way for a while.
Gian had never told Cara about it, not properly. She didn’t blame him for that, because she had made it clear on more than one occasion that she simply didn’t want to know.
The death toll was piling up.
The violence was escalating.
Cara’s drive-by shooting had been just one event, amongst several attacks. According to sources—though she wasn’t sure how trustworthy those could be—the Guzzi family was struggling with an upheaval of power after their long-time boss had died. Gian’s grandfather, that was. It appeared as though lines had been drawn between the younger and older generation of men in the family, and it had violently spilled over onto the streets.
It didn’t look good.
It sounded all kinds of bad.
Cara worried.
Constantly.
It was every single reason why Cara hadn’t wanted to get too involved with Gian in the first damn place. The life he lived was not a right to have in their world. It was nothing more than a privilege that made men and their families fought to keep.
Position. Power. Respect.
That’s all the mafia had ever been.
And it scared the hell out of her.
For what felt like the millionth time, Cara forced herself not to grab her cell phone and dial Gian’s all-too-familiar number. She had asked for space and time to think, and he had been gracious enough to give it to her without argument. He had not called, not messaged, and he hadn’t sent one of his guys to her door with a gift. Even her shadow—the bodyguard that had seemed to come out of thin air—had receded to being simply a faraway annoyance whenever she looked for him. The guy wasn’t gone altogether, but she rarely saw him now unless she really searched the crowd hard.
Cara already knew that she was going to fail at staying away from Gian, never mind actually ending whatever they were to one another. She was going to fail because she neither wanted to stay away, nor end their fucking mess together.
But she didn’t know how to deal with what would also inevitably come with all of that.
The news programs.
The worry.
The violence.
Her fears …
Cara didn’t know how to deal with any of that.
Gian had been right—he couldn’t and he didn’t pretend to be someone that he wasn’t. It was her who looked the other way. There was going to come a time when Cara wouldn’t be able to turn cheek to the sides of Gian that frightened her, and once she did, there would be no way to look away. There would be no more pretending.
Before Cara fully understood her actions, she had grabbed for her phone and dialed a familiar number, but it wasn’t Gian’s. She listened to the ringing echo through the speakers as she waited for her brother to pick up the call. She didn’t entirely expect Tommas to answer, as more often than not, he called her or she left a message.
But on the fourth ring, he did pick up.
“Ciao.”
For a whole ten seconds, Cara didn’t respond.
All of the sudden, she didn’t know what to say.
She heard the speaker crackle with an annoyed huff before Tommas muttered, “Cara, is that you?”
“Yes,” she finally said.
“Something wrong?”
Cara glanced at the blank television screen, and considered how to answer that question. “How do you do it, Tommas?”
Her brother cleared his throat, and then she heard him shuffle around as though he were getting out of bed. “You’re going to need to make more sense, if you want a proper answer.”
She couldn’t help but notice how tired he sounded. Not sleep-tired, but a fuck-this-world kind of tired. It was so unlike her brother. He was laidback, cool, calm, and collected. Always.
Cara had never known Tommas to be anything else.
“Are you sure nothing is wrong?” Tommas asked, when Cara stayed silent.
“Nothing serious.”