Giovanni (27 page)

“Can you confirm what he’s saying?”

“Some,” Cody replied, shrugging. “His speculations are as good as mine, though. I don’t have access to Franco’s thoughts and he didn’t discuss anything of the sort with me. I know what he said to my sister and how he treated her; I know how he used my plans for his own gain and worked my father silently into the deal. His ideas beyond that are his own.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Maximo said solemnly.

“This is bullshit!”

“Franco, you’re treading thin ice with your yelling,” the Don warned. “Anything else, Giovanni?”

“Franco is manipulative, abusive, and entitled. You’re well aware of his issues. You were the one who brought them up to me. He’s given you every reason to be displeased and distrustful of him, but very little else.”

“As have you,” Maximo stated.

“True, but I’ve admitted mine. Can he do the same? I doubt it.” Gio sighed, letting the air out slowly as he said, “I’ve disrespected you and your house, and for that, I am sorry, Maximo. But she was mine long before she was ever his, and he had no right to try and take her to begin with. If you want to kill me for my transgressions, you’re free to do so. I accept it, but you’re damn well going to know the snake waiting to bite at your feet while you do it.”

“Fuck you!” Franco shouted from his spot behind the desk. The rage finally spilled over. Gio could see it in the twitch in Franco’s cheek and the darkness of his eyes. In a split second, Franco was leaping over the desk towards Gio with his hands balled into fists ready to strike. “I’ll fucking kill you myself!”

Before Gio could react to the oncoming attack, Maximo moved in one fluid movement. The gun was taken from Cody’s hand and pointed in the opposite direction from Gio, leveling straight between Franco’s eyes. It stopped him dead in his tracks with a widening gaze that oozed fear.

“Shut up, you fool,” Maximo snarled at his son, his finger curling around the trigger. “Sit down, or I will blow you back into that chair. Right now, Franco. Do not make me ask again.”

“
Papà
…”

“I am not your father here. I am the Don. Sit.” Slowly, Franco did as he was told. Maximo’s shoulders were rigid with his fury. A trembling wracked his spine though his hand holding the gun was steady. “Cody, please escort Giovanni from my property.”

Gio blinked, unsure of what he just heard. “Excuse me?”

Apparently, Cody didn’t quite believe it either. “Boss?”

“Get him out of my house and off my property. Call him a taxi, or give him a fucking car to use to get him away from here and quickly. I do not care. Hurry, before what little fucking patience I have is gone.”

Gio didn’t need any more encouragement. He was gone from the room in a breath, pushing past the two shocked enforcers. Cody was fast on his heels, their booted feet leaving behind echoes as they pounded fast along the hall and down a staircase. It was the only noise in the house until a crash sounded from the upstairs.

Gio didn’t stop in his half-jog to listen to the shouts ringing down. He didn’t care what happened to Franco, now. 

“Would you have done it, killed me, I mean?” Gio asked Cody as the younger man escorted him through the downstairs to the front door. “Even knowing I was telling the truth?”

“Yes.” Cody shrugged. “Sorry.”

Gio smirked, nodding. He would have, too. “Don’t apologize. It’s good.”

Cody stopped abruptly. “How is that good?”

“Because, if it’s a going to end up being you or them, always choose you, Cody.
Always
. That’s Cosa Nostra. It’s how this life rolls and I’m well aware of it. Fuck, I live by it. Keep following the rules, and you’ll be just fine. Max needs a new novice. I can’t see him trusting a lot of people around him right now. If he takes your honesty for what it was in there like I think he will, you’re already leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.”

Cody cleared his throat, shifting from foot to foot like he was uncomfortable. “You didn’t choose you.”

“How so?”

“My sister. You chose her, not you.”

Gio chuckled. “No, you got it wrong. I chose us. Kim and me, we’re a team in life. Love makes it work out that way. And I’ll always choose us.”

• • •

Gio checked the dashboard clock on the taxi, noting the late time. He called his father at the airport shortly before he got on the plane and again when he landed. Antony wanted to send a car or come pick up his son, but Gio refused. The long drive would give him some much-needed space to wrap his mind around everything that happened.

The taxi pulled ahead far enough to allow Gio to speak into the entrance gate speaker. Gio reached out of the window and hit the appropriate button to start the process to open the gate leading to his parents’ home.

Gio typed in his code and waited for the gate to open. When it did, the taxi driver pulled in past the entry and stopped. “You want out here, or do you want me to drive you up?”

“Here’s fine,” Gio said.

“You sure? It’s quite a walk and it’s damn cold outside tonight.”

Only ten minutes from the gate to the doorstep. God knew Gio had walked it enough in his life, especially when his father was pissed off at him as a teen and took his car keys away. The worst fucking punishment for Gio was to keep him confined and Antony knew it.

“It’s good, really.”

Gio dug for his credit card and paid the tab. He was thankful Max’s idiots hadn’t demanded he hand over his wallet along with his phone and gun. Chances were, they planned on letting him keep it so there would be something to identify his body when it was found.

Needing to get his mind away from those morbid thoughts, Gio slipped out of the taxi, taking his two bags with him. Another thing the idiots had forgotten about—his things he left in the rental car at the McCarran airport.

Gio took his time walking up the driveway, knowing the people inside the house had already been alerted to his entrance from the security system. It was cold out, but it wasn’t bad. Snow crunched under his feet. There was maybe a couple of inches on the ground. With his bags slung over his shoulder, he twisted the wedding band on his finger, mulling over the events of the day and how different his life was going to be now.

He was okay with it.

So okay.

Was he stupid and reckless? Yeah, but Gio understood risk like nobody else. It was almost always slanted to his favor.

“Gio!”

His head popped up at the familiar tenor of his lover calling his name. He’d been so stuck in his thoughts he hadn’t realized how quickly he walked the entire driveway. It was dark as hell, given it was well after one in the morning, but the light coming through the opened front door illuminated Kim’s figure in a halo of brightness.

Instantly, Gio smiled.
Cristo
, he hadn’t realized how much he missed her just being separated for only a half of a day, but he did. Crazily so.

Kim didn’t hesitate to come flying down the steps of the mansion entrance. Gio let the bags fall off his shoulder as he started his own jog to meet her halfway. She jumped into his open arms, knocking him back a foot or two at the force. Gio managed to keep his balance as her legs wrapped around his waist and her lips met his.

Gio dropped to the snowy asphalt on his backside, keeping a tight grip on Kim’s face with his hands. He pinned her in place, taking in all of her kiss, taste, and scent that he could in the quiet, cold, dark wide-open space. He ached being this close to her, knowing she was his and only ever would be.

“Love you, love you, love you,” Gio chanted as Kim sighed through his kisses dotting her jaw. “
Dio
, how I love you,
Tesoro
.”

“Never again,” Kim whispered fiercely. “Promise me, Gio.”

“Never,” Gio said, chuckling before giving into her candy mouth all over again.

The lights for the driveway and front of the house suddenly turned on, bathing the entire area in a glow as strong as daylight. Gio didn’t care who watched, he kept holding and kissing his wife all the while.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“I didn’t know you were flying back from Vegas tonight,” Dante said to his brother, eyeing Kim. “Whatever the fuck this is, it better be good enough to get me out of bed, you know. I’m too tired for your usual shit.”

Giovanni cleared his throat, smirking. “It was a last minute thing. I won’t be back for a while.”

Antony snorted behind his desk, not even bothering to look up from the papers he was surveying. “I think we can safely say Giovanni will not be returning to Vegas ever, and any businesses he’s involved in down there will be worked through third parties.”

“Oh, why’s that?” Dante pulled off his suit jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair before giving Lucian a slap on the back. “Where’d you disappear to, man? We were supposed to meet for dinner at Cazza.”

“Jordyn called me after she came to talk to Dad about his schedule next week. I thought someone would have called you, too.”

Dante cocked a brow. “What am I missing here? I suspect it has something to do with Nunz’s daughter being here and not in Vegas. Aren’t you the one marrying Max’s son?”

How did he know that? Kim didn’t get the chance to ask.

“How in the fuck do you know who she is?” Giovanni asked.

“Language, Gio,” Cecelia chided. 

Kim felt awkward. Four of the people in the room she’d only just met. As far as Dante went, she didn’t know him at all. These were her family now, she reminded herself, but it didn’t make her unease disappear.

“I had to go out to Vegas a couple years ago to deal with Nunz for Dad.” Dante shrugged as he fell back into a chair. “Saw her around. Best to know who the daughters are first, Gio. That way you’re not messing where you shouldn’t be and you won’t end up swallowing bullets for chasing the wrong female.”

Antony chuckled. Cecelia smacked his shoulder in response.

Kim scowled at her new brother-in-law. “Wow. Thanks.”

“Hey, he’s got a point,” Lucian muttered quietly. “If he followed that idea, Gio might not have gotten himself into this mess in the first place.”

“Don’t
hey
her, Lucian, or I’ll knock your goddamn teeth out. There is no mess,” Giovanni said firmly. “It’s all good. I took care of it. Back off.”

Lucian shrugged. “Just saying. He did have a point.”

“Knock it off, Lucian,” Jordyn told her husband. “Not the time.”

Dante looked at Giovanni. “What mess?”

Giovanni crossed his arms. Kim didn’t like how this was going. “Vegas was fun, nearly got myself killed. Thanks for asking.”

“That’s nothing new. What fucking mess, Gio?”

Antony cleared his throat, gaining the attention of the room. “Dante, cool it.”

“No, I want to know what’s going on here,” Dante replied. “If it’s not one thing with Gio, it’s another. Issue after issue.”

“There is no issue,” Giovanni growled. “It’s taken care of.”

“You sound like a broken record. Why is she here?” Dante asked, pointing at Kim. “Hello, by the way.”

Kim didn’t bother to hide her annoyance when she said, “Hi.”

“This is not going well,” Cecelia told Antony quietly.

“Leave them be,” he responded, sounding almost bored. “They’ll work it out or beat it out like they always do.”

Great. All three brothers looked like snakes getting ready to uncoil and attack. Kim couldn’t help but wonder if this was a regular occurrence or just an unusual event.

“Isn’t she engaged to Franco?” Dante asked, tipping his chin in Kim’s direction. “Last time I checked, he was still in Vegas. She’s clearly not.”

Giovanni seemed to get even more pissed off with that question. “How did you know she was the one Franco was engaged to?”

“Nunz only has one daughter, Gio. I knew who Max was talking about at the Commission. You didn’t answer my question. Why is she here?”

“
She
has a name,” Kim snapped, finally aggravated enough to speak up. “And you can ask her.”

Dante straightened a bit in his chair, eyeing Kim with a little more curiosity than before. “Not to be an asshole or anything, princess, but this isn’t Las Vegas. We’re not in your home, so why you’re involved in this conversation, I don’t have the slightest fucking clue.”

“She’s here because she is my
wife
,” Giovanni ground out through his teeth.

“And you’d do well to remember that the next time you let your attitude come out,” Cecelia added from behind the desk. “You will not disrespect a woman in this home, Dante. Certainly not one of your brothers’ wives.”

Giovanni’s hand on Kim’s back clenched. “Apologize.”

Dante’s mouth dropped open as he glanced back and forth between his mother and Giovanni. “What did you just say?”

“I said apologize to my wife.”

“Your
wife
,” Dante hissed. “She’s engaged to—”

“Don’t say that bastard’s name again,” Giovanni cut in, staring his brother down. “She’s my wife, that’s the end of it.”

“When did this happen? I’m not going to like this, am I?” Dante asked.

“Nope,” Lucian chimed from his spot against the wall.

“When did the engagement to Franco end?” Dante asked, flicking his gaze to Kim.

“Yesterday,” Giovanni answered.

“And when did you marry her?”

“Yesterday evening.”

For a long while, Dante said nothing, only watched his brother. Kim understood there was a lot going on beneath the surface that she couldn’t see. There were rules they were all expected to follow. Giovanni had broken them. It was bad for the Marcello family.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Dante said low, standing from his chair.

“Go to hell,” Giovanni muttered.

“No, I’m serious. How did you even make it out of Vegas alive?”

“Carefully.”

Dante turned to his father, scowling. “That’s just … What he did is okay with you, now?”

Antony cocked a single brow. “Do you want me to be unhappy that he’s happy and alive?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Giovanni sighed. “It’s over with. Let it go.”

“Is Franco dead, or Max?” Dante asked, the sarcasm oozing.

“No,” Giovanni said. “I’d say it ended more like a truce, for me, anyway.”

“Then it’s not over. We have to sit across from them at the Commission every damned year, Gio! That should be a fun one to play out. Thank you. You just made the next decade of my life hell on earth. Where you leave off, Dad has to pick up. And when he’s done, who the fuck has to handle it then?
Me
.”

“We can safely assume Gio won’t be welcomed at the meetings any longer,” Antony put in. “It will keep the peace for him to stay away.”

“Like that makes a difference,” Dante replied. “It looks bad on the Marcellos all the way around the board and you know it.”

“Be that as it may,” Antony drawled, reverting back to his bored expression. “We’re a family first. We will either stand together to support one another as a united front or we’ll stand aside and point our fingers while we crumble. Take your pick, Dante.”

Dante gritted his teeth. “That’s unfair. He really screwed up this time and it’s not something that can be swept under the rug.”

“I’m aware. We will handle it.”

“This is a good thing,” Cecelia said softly. “Gio found someone he loves. The rest will work out. It always does.”

“That’s true,” Antony agreed. “We’ve only ever succeeded in this family.”

“And,” Cecelia said, her hand coming to rest on her husband’s shoulder, “… it’s a good time to have another celebration for the Marcellos. I refuse to act like this marriage is something that should bring shame on us. It doesn’t. It’ll be nice to celebrate this along with Lucian’s and Jordyn’s news, too.”

Dante blinked at his mother, confused. “What news?”

This time, it was Lucian’s turn to look uncomfortable. The oldest brother rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the ground. Even Giovanni seemed confused beside Kim, waiting for Lucian to speak up.

“We’re expecting. Jordyn’s twelve weeks along. We wanted to wait until Gio was back before we announced it.
Mamma
figured it out a couple of weeks ago and told Dad, but they’ve kept it quiet for us.”

Giovanni was the first to speak, smiling widely. “Really?”

Lucian laughed, giving his wife a look filled with adoration. His excitement was palpable. Kim didn’t understand why he seemed so nervous to announce the pregnancy earlier. “Really. Crazy, right?”

“Congratulations,” Giovanni said. “That didn’t take long.”

“Gio!” Kim admonished.

“Well, it didn’t.”

“It’s all right, Kim,” Jordyn said, giggling. “I’m now used to the fact that he has practically no filter whatsoever.”

It took Kim a minute to realize there was still one brother in the room who hadn’t spoken in regards to the pregnancy announcement. She didn’t seem to be the only one. As the rest of the family settled down, all eyes turned to the second oldest Marcello brother.

“Dante?” Lucian asked, shifting back to his previous nervousness.

Without a word, Giovanni slid his arm around Kim’s waist and pulled her to his side. “Come on,
Tesoro
. I imagine you haven’t had a proper tour of the house.”

Giovanni had just gotten Kim out of the office when she finally heard Dante speak again.

“Yeah, congrats, man. That’s … great.”

Not a second later, Dante was out of the office, closing the door behind him and slipping past Giovanni and Kim in the hall. That just left her more confused than ever. Was he really so much of an asshole he couldn’t be happy for his brothers?

“What was that?” Kim asked Giovanni.

Giovanni grimaced in the direction his brother had disappeared. “That was Dante being reminded he’s in a similar position to Franco and can’t have what he wants. He doesn’t like being reminded.”

“But the baby … that’s a good thing, right? Why wouldn’t he be happy for them?”

“Something else he’s reminded he can’t have,” Giovanni answered vaguely.

• • •

Kim found herself exploring the expanse of the Marcello mansion alone. Giovanni had taken her for a walk on the grounds before leaving her in the library saying he needed to handle something privately. 

The noise coming from a floor below caught her attention and she followed it until she came to a set of French doors that weren’t entirely closed.

The sounds she’d heard wasn’t so much noise as it was shouts. Angry, pissed-off-at-the-world kind of shouts. Kim hadn’t noticed anyone after the meeting in Antony’s office earlier and thought the other two brothers must have gone to their respective homes. Clearly she was wrong.

Pushing the doors open a little wider, Kim could see the space beyond them was a gym of sorts. Not overly large, but more than big enough for a lot of equipment and a big mat set-up for sparring. She wished the boys were just sparring.

Instead, Giovanni and Dante both wore boxing gear and were going toe to toe on the mat. Lucian stood off to the side, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, watching. A reddish discoloration that hadn’t been there earlier colored up his right cheek. Kim guessed at some point, he must have been fighting, too.

Why were they fighting?

She couldn’t quite understand the yelling to make out what in the hell was going on.

“Kim?”

She turned fast on her heel at Jordyn’s voice.

“Do you know they’re—”

“Yep,” Jordyn interrupted smoothly. “Like Antony said earlier, they’ll either work it out or beat it out. I prefer this option.”

“Why?” Kim asked, aghast. “They’re beating the hell out of each other.”

“Because they have absolute shit for communication skills when it comes to one another. If they try to talk it out, we all suffer for weeks. Believe me. I would much rather have Lucian’s mind where it needs to be than know he’s worrying about the fight he had with his brothers. Better to let them battle it out and be done with it. They’ll probably be in there until morning.”

Christ, it already was morning!

“I’m supposed to let Gio do that?”

“Why not? Seriously, by tomorrow morning, they’ll be happy, joking, and over it. Maybe with an extra couple of bruises. If you think Cecelia minds, she doesn’t. She was the one who demanded the mats get put in so they’d quit tearing up her flowers outside when they were teenagers.”

“But—”

“Listen, if you’re worried about Gio getting his teeth knocked out, that’s pointless. Gio can hold his own. He’s the youngest of three and needed to learn quickly how to keep up or step up. By the way, Dante isn’t as bad as he seems. Give him another chance. Let him apologize and accept it gracefully when he manages to pull his head out of his ass. Today was just a shitty day for him, I think. That’s what family does—we forgive. And this is the best family.