Unraveled (Guzzi Duet Book 1)(83)

Given how fucking hard it was to find trustworthy people lately, Gian chose to allow Stephan into his very small circle. At least, for the time being. He didn’t have to particularly like the guy, he only had to trust him.

Gian found his brother watching him, doing that damn thing that Dom always did whenever he was uneasy about a situation, and needed a steady, yet invisible support to walk him through. He didn’t blame Dom for being that way at twenty-five. Shit, years ago, Gian had been the stupid kid, wading into the mafia with unrealistic expectations, needing guidance just the same.

He had looked to his grandfather. Who else fit the bill with his last name? Domenic only had Gian to look to, now.

“?a va?” Gian asked Dom in French.

Dom shrugged one shoulder. “Je vais bien, Gian.”

He didn’t look fine.

Apparently, his attempt at using French to probe his brother’s inner emotions without embarrassing him was not lost on Stephan.

“He’s got to learn this shit and how to deal with it somehow,” Stephan muttered, walking forward and leaving the brothers behind. “Treat him like a fragile figa that needs special handling, and he’ll never be more than a walking, talking pussy, boss.”

Dom glared at the Capo’s back. “I don’t like him.”

Gian blew out a breath. Now or never, he supposed. Dom wanted to be in, he wanted his button, he wanted the title of a made man. He needed to understand what all of that meant, too.

Gian slapped his brother on the back and said, “You don’t have to like him; you do have to respect him. Especially now.”

“Yeah, cazzo.”

Fuck was right.

“Let’s get this over with,” Gian said.

Like any good made man would do, Stephan waited for Gian to catch up with him at the entrance of the old pizzeria. Gian was careful to hold the heavy duty garbage bags out at his side, lest any residual fluids leak onto his leather shoes. Stephan held the door open, allowing Gian to go in first, but making Dom hold the door for himself before he, too, could enter.

Dom was lower on the totem pole, and so the actions of those around him would reflect his status until he earned a better title or position. Even if it was something as simple as not holding the door open for him.

It was all about the respect in Cosa Nostra.

A man had to show it long before he was ever given it.

“Look who finally showed his goddamn face,” came a call from within the pizzeria as Gian strolled inside.

Gian ignored the older Capo’s half-taunting tone, but only because for the moment, the man didn’t know the position he was in, compared to his younger counterpart. The older generation of made men in the Guzzi family would always have some left-over feelings after this was all said and done, Gian was sure of it, but he hadn’t been given much of a choice.

At the end of the day, it was Guzzi for a reason.

He was not willing—no matter his age, his lesser years compared to other men, or anything else he might lack—to allow his family’s name to dim in the Cosa Nostra world. His grandfather would never have handed off the boss’s seat, nor his status and respect, to anyone who didn’t share his last name.

Gian wouldn’t do it, either.

He passed a look around the old pizzeria, taking in the many faces of men he recognized, some he’d grown up alongside, others whose feet he had chased under for years. He understood far too well that his actions would have consequences, but he sincerely hoped these men didn’t make it harder on him than it needed to be.

He would hate to have to kill people he considered family and friends.

He would do it, of course.

He simply wouldn’t like it.

“Where’s Edmond?”

“Yeah, where’s the boss?” another Capo asked.

A few men shifted in their seats, ignoring the gazes of the Capos who had asked after the boss. Or rather, who they thought was still the boss.

Gian had figured that word would have traveled by now throughout the ranks of the family, considering how many men had witnessed him murder and take the boss’s seat from Edmond. It certainly would have made part of this whole shit show easier.

No matter.

It seemed only a couple were out of the loop.

They would know soon enough.

Stephan and Dom stayed standing directly behind Gian, ready and willing to keep any man from leaving, if the need arose. Neither of them spoke as Gian tossed the extra large, heavy duty garbage bag to the checkered tiled floor a few feet in front of him.

All eyes went to the bag.

Gian didn’t make a move to acknowledge it, or even to open it.

“Seems we have a lot of problems in this family lately,” he said, still looking from man to man and never skipping a single one. “Seems we can’t get along like proper made men.”

They needed to know—all of them—that what had happened over the last several months, and the blood that had spilled throughout their streets, were all caused by their own hands. It didn’t matter if they had been the ones to pull the triggers. Their culture of avoid, evade, and ignore was enough to make them guilty in Gian’s eyes. Beyond that, the lines that had been drawn between the older generation and the younger made men, had not simply popped up all on its own. It was a divide that had come from unhappiness on one side, and entitlement on the other.

“You did this,” Gian said, loud enough for each and every man to hear.