The Guzzi Legacy, 6
Copyright © 2019 by Bethany-Kris. All rights reserved.
Prologue
Black everywhere.
A sea of black, really.
Cella Marcello felt like everything had become painted with the color. Tainted. Maybe that was the better word for this day and what was happening. Everything was tainted with blackness because wasn’t that the only appropriate hue for grief?
Especially grief like this.
One so hollow.
Empty.
Lonely.
From the suits and dresses surrounding her, worn by people with faces she recognized and—some—she loved to even the clouds above her head. Her emotions. The hole in the ground. The shiny granite headstone with her husband’s name carved with white lettering.
All black.
She saw other colors, of course. The green of the grass, and the gray of the sky. The light rain from earlier in the day left a mist in the air, curling up from the ground and disappearing all around her. A few people dared to wear shades of gray and even navy blues for the day instead of the standard black clothing that accompanied funerals. The silver bangles on her wrist jingled with her trembling, and it didn’t seem to matter how tight she held her child, the shaking didn’t relent.
If anything, it became worse.
How much longer could she hold it in?
How long would it be before she could breathe?
“Want me to take her?”
Cella looked to the side, peering through the black veil that hung down from the rim of her large hat, finding her mother trying to offer her a smile. It didn’t reach Jordyn’s wet eyes, and there in the glistening tears, she found her own reflection. She looked like her mother—soft-featured, round face, a small, sloped nose, high cheekbones, and full lips shaped like a curvy bow. All her sisters, the two of them, took after their mother whereas their brother, John, looked far more like their father.
Except right then, all Cella saw in the reflection was her sadness. How despite the fact that her eyes felt so dry, as though she’d cried far too many tears and couldn’t produce more, wetness still coated her cheeks. She found pain there.
Only pain.
“Cella?” her ma asked again.
She shook her head and tightened her hold on eight-month-old Tiffany when the baby squirmed a bit under her thin cotton blanket. Surely, the girl didn’t need a blanket in this August heat, but with the occasional rain and slight breeze, she didn’t want to take a chance. So, she wrapped her up.
Because that was the thing.
It didn’t matter her husband was dead.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to get out of bed.
That her heart broke.
She was empty.
Life had stopped.
None of that could matter to Cella when she was still a mother. Her child depended on her constantly. Sure, Tiffany didn’t understand why when she called out for Dada in the mornings, William wasn’t there to pull her from her crib for their daily routine, but she made do with her mother. No doubt, she thought her father would be back—he would never be back—but she still had her ma.
And that left Cella to do everything when all she wanted was to do nothing. Except life didn’t work that way. And this wasn’t Tiffany’s fault.
So, she put on her fake smile for her child day in and day out. She tried not to cry in front of her as much as she could, because then the baby would wipe away her mother’s tears, and nothing felt worse than that.
She kept on going. Moving forward. The world continued turning. It was just hers that felt dead now.
“Pretty girl,” Cella’s older sister, Liliana, said as she reached out to fluff the bottom of her pretty summer dress that had peeked out from beneath the blanket. “Just a few more minutes, Tiff, okay?”
She refused to put her daughter in black. Little Tiffany. Named for her father’s sister who had passed as a young girl from childhood cancer. With her head of golden curls that she took from her father, and big blue eyes she took from her mother—compliments of Cella’s own mother, Jordyn—Tiffany wore the brightest yellow dress Cella could find in her closet that would make anyone smile who looked at her. She even added a headband with a big yellow flower to the girl’s head.
Because God …
At least, she thought, if today couldn’t be a day that she smiled … then she wanted others to find a reason to do it. Her husband would have appreciated that. Respected it. Loved it, honestly. William, with his heart of gold and his easy disposition, always tried to make someone laugh first and foremost. He made friends easier than most, and it was hard not to want to be in his presence.
Everybody thinks lawyers are boring, he told her once, so I like to surprise people.
It was exactly why she fell in love with him.
Why she started this life with him.
And then someone took it away.
A handful of dirt was tossed into the hole in the ground, dragging Cella from her thoughts with a vicious intent. She was just close enough to the edge to be able to see her husband’s casket resting down below, yet another item that gleamed black that day.
Still so fucking black.
Like her heart, now.
She found it easier to stare at anything else except things with that color. It was why she missed the priest’s final words as her husband was laid to rest in his grave, and the reason for her distraction as people started flooding out of the graveyard. She heard their condolences, sure, saw their familiar faces as they stopped to give their sympathies before leaving, but it was all just background noise to her grief.
The pain lingered.
Even when she was alone.
More so when she wasn’t.
Still, she tried to thank people. She attempted to put on her brave face with each of their I’m so sorrys or the please call me if you need anything. The platitudes didn’t mean anything to her, but they made them feel better, she supposed.
And besides, this was their way.
The Marcello way.
Even when her soul felt like it was being ripped out of her chest, even if her husband’s young life had ended far too soon all because of the lifestyle all these people here today chose to live when William hadn’t even been a made man, she was a Marcello daughter at the end of the day.
A mafioso principessa. And so, she would smile like one. Say thank you like one. Die quietly inside like one.
Because there wasn’t a soul in this graveyard who cared to hear how Cella blamed them for this—for her heartache, and her daughter’s loss.
She never wanted to marry a made man. So, she didn’t. Her husband died anyway.
It taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget: one couldn’t be not in with this life. There was no from a safe distance when it came to her family. She was who she was. And she sacrificed for it, too.
“Mrs. Gagnon? It’s Cella, right?”
Cella turned her attention away from the spot she’d been focusing on over the top of her daughter’s head to find yet another person had come to say goodbye and give his condolences. His face seemed familiar with all it’s strong, classically handsome lines, and his dark brown eyes only reflected empathy when he stared at her.
Another day, and she might have recognized him.
Today, she only said, “And who are you?”
“Marcus Guzzi—I came in place of my father to pay respects.”
Ah.
Another crime family. A Canadian one, this time. Funny how they all gathered at times like this.
“Well, thank you,” she whispered. “And it’s Marcello. Cella Marcello.”
She’d decided that if only because going back to her maiden name felt less painful than having to explain to each new person she met that her last name belonged to her dead husband.
Marcus nodded once. “My apologies. And my sympathies on your loss, as well.”
“Of course.”
Someone called the man’s name, and he was quick to give her an apologetic smile before stepping away. She might have watched him go, but her attention was back on the hole in the ground and her mind strayed to the man resting in his casket.
Here she was … twenty-five. A mother to one. Widowed and broken. Would it ever get better?
Not for a long fucking time.
Chapter One
Four and a half years later …
“How old are you?”
That question had Marcus Guzzi raising his brow. He didn’t even bother to answer the man as he sat across the table from him. The room quieted all the way around the board; the men surrounding them turned their attention on the two people at the table like this meeting had just become slightly more interesting.
“Well?” the large man demanded.
The stark contrast between the vice president of the Quebec chapter of the Riders—a one-percenter motorcycle club that had a heavy hand in dealing with illegal pills and prostitution between Quebec and Ontario—and Marcus in his three-piece suit was never more obvious than in those moments. Here they were, dining in a five-star restaurant Marcus had closed down to the public for this goddamn meeting, and the VP came with his men in tow, on bikes, wearing their denim and leather.
The disrespect started there.
And it had yet to end.
“Excusez-moi?” Marcus asked, choosing French to reply to the man because he knew the biker—Glen, he went by—was French-born first. His last name, Cote, a testament to his heritage. “What does my age have to do with this conversation we’re trying to have here? Because I am pretty sure the answer is nothing.”
Glen grinned, but it came off as more like a sneer. His French accent heavily colored his words when he replied in English, “I’m wondering if you should even be here sitting at this table, or if I should have waited for something with a few more years and a bit of … understanding about this business of ours, oui?”
Marcus had every urge to grind his teeth right down to the fucking roots because that right there was a low blow, and he didn’t doubt the other man knew it. In the world of mafioso, where Marcus had been born and bred from the moment he took his first breath, if a man sat at the table … it was because he earned his place there. Questioning it only meant more disrespect, and shit, hadn’t he taken enough of that from this asshole today?
He thought so.
“We’re not here to discuss my age,” Marcus said, leaning back a bit in his chair to get back to his previously unbothered, calm disposition before the asshole across the table tried to change the subject. “We’re here to discuss the fact that your club has decided to take issue with the Guzzi organization taking over the maple syrup farm—”
“In our territory.”
Marcus arched a brow. “Let me ask you a question, yeah? Indulge me, you know, in all my ignorance because of my age and whatnot. Would you?”
Any man Marcus had brought into this meeting would have known right away that statement was nothing more than bait. Only a stupid man would take it because once it was thrown out there, it meant Marcus had come to really play. As the underboss of his father’s Cosa Nostra, he didn’t have time to play very much. Everything was serious. Walk the fucking line, type of deal. Three-piece suits every single day, up before the sun rose and walking the streets to do the kind of business, he’d been doing for most of his life.
He was made.
Mafia.
Guzzi.
So, when he took a minute to play, if a fucker was stupid enough to take the bait, he was going to reel them right in. Until he could snap their goddamn necks. The idiot across the table from him included. As he thought, the man took the bait.
Because of course.
“Sure, why not,” Glen muttered. “As if we all have time today, ask me a question, Marcus.”
His jaw ticked.
It’d been Marcus from the moment he walked in the door. Not sir or Guzzi or even mister. As though they were on a first name basis, despite the fact that Marcus repeatedly and clearly corrected the asshole every time he used his first name. Something else to add to the pile of disrespect. He wished he was shocked.
But nope.
“Do you assume when I put this suit on and get in my black Mercedes you saw me arrive in that I suddenly become a man who doesn’t know how to nail your head to the wall with a well-placed bullet?”
Glen stiffened, his tattooed arms bulging when they flexed at his chest. “Is that a threat, Guzzi?”
Ah, so now it was Guzzi, huh?
“My age—it’s three months shy of thirty, by the way—makes zero fucking difference to the fact that if your club doesn’t stay away from the Guzzi’s newest maple syrup farm we’re going to end you. I’ve been kind enough—or gracious enough, depending on how you want to look at it—to give you opportunity after opportunity to make the right choice here. That farm being in the club’s territory doesn’t change the fact it is in our hands. Like every other farm now in Ontario and Quebec, and if you think you’re going to slide in on the profits just because your clubhouse is six miles away, I have news for you.”
Silence echoed in the restaurant.
Good.
That’s what he wanted.
He felt all those eyes on him, waiting for what was going to come next.
“See, I feel the need to remind you now that compared to your fifty or so members within your club, the Guzzi organization is far larger, and our reach extends across this country and beyond. And don’t get me wrong, Glen, I understand that this effort of yours to put your foot in the door with our mafia is your way of proving yourself to your president, it still comes at the expense of my boss’s bottom line, and we just can’t have that. Find someone else to make your patch there worth keeping because it won’t be us.”
Marcus leaned forward a bit, clasping his hands together on the table as he smiled, met the man’s stare, so Glen knew he wasn’t the least bit fucking scared of him, his club, or whatever threat the man might try to answer this with as he asked, “Do you understand me, or would you like to go back to taking cheap shots about my age? Either way, I’m good.”
Glen’s cheek twitched like he was chewing over a response before finally settling on saying, “You’re essentially running a maple syrup cartel in Canada—you get that, don’t you?”
“And?”
Because Marcus didn’t see the problem.
Not only did the Guzzis have a legal venture in harvesting, manufacturing, and selling maple syrup, but it also served as a perfect front for all their illegal business. It was a great way to hide their dirty money and launder it until it was clean. And if this asshole thought just because his little clubhouse and gang were a few miles away that it meant they were owed a piece of that, well …
No.
Simply put, no.
“Listen,” Glen tried to say, “we only think it’s fair that—”
“What’s fair is I let you leave here alive today, and that is all you will get from us.” Standing from the table, Marcus ignored the stares of the men from across the other side of the table. Bikers in their cuts, clearly agitated and ready to roll. Thing was, he wouldn’t be giving them anything to roll with from here on out. “This meeting is over, and it is the only one you will get unless you force my hand. I assure you that isn’t what you want to do. Voyages sécuritaires, mon ami.”
Glen glowered up at Marcus, his bald head reddening from the clear dismissal of a man about half his age. “We’re not friends. How about you remember that?”
Marcus nodded. “So be it.”
Without another word, Marcus turned away from the table, not at all concerned about turning his back to the man. He brought a small army of made men with him, as well, for this meeting. He wasn’t stupid, and before someone could even try to pull a gun on him, they would be dead by his guards.
He walked out of that restaurant knowing this wasn’t the end. For now, though, it was one thing off his list. A list that never stopped growing.
So was the life of a Guzzi principe.
Especially Marcus Guzzi.
Duty always called.
It never ended.
And he didn’t want life any other way.
***
“Did you see this merda?”
Marcus was already bitching before he’d even entered his younger brother, Christopher’s, restaurant office in downtown Toronto. He wasn’t all that shocked to find Bene, his other brother, sitting with Chris at the man’s desk. Of course, on the other side of the desk. No one but the man who owned the space got to sit behind it.
That was all about the respect.
“See what?” Chris asked, never looking away from his computer screen.
“This.”
Marcus tossed the Toronto-focused magazine to his brother’s desk with a grunt that spoke of his utter disgust. The damn rag liked to write all the shit about things they knew nothing about. Usually regarding people they considered to be high society in Toronto, and all of that nonsense. And of course, because the Guzzi family happened to be very rich with a name that carried an interesting, if not murky, legacy … well, the five brothers, their wives, and even their parents were often topics of discussion in the articles whenever the rag thought they could get away with it.
This month, Marcus got to be included.
“I’m getting Dad’s lawyer on their asses—they need to get my fucking name out of their mouths.”
Bene sighed, reaching for the magazine before Christopher even bothered to look away from his computer screen. Soon enough, their younger brother had flipped to the article in question about Marcus which was really just noting that he had attended a charity gala where he danced with a young woman who happened to be the daughter of a prominent Canadian politician.
Except they couldn’t just stop at that.
No, never.
“Oh my God,” Bene muttered, trying and failing to keep his laughter under his breath. “They suggested she’s your fiancée and everything. Where do they come up with this trash? Marcus Guzzi was clearly enamored with--”
“That’s quite enough, reading it once was fine for me. I don’t need someone else to read it to me, too.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
Bene tossed the magazine to the desk where Chris finally decided to pick it up as well.
“It can’t be that bad,” Chris said.
Right.
Yeah.
“You only say that because now when the society rags write about you, they talk about your wife. Same with Bene, or Beni. It’s only Corrado they give a bit of shit about and that’s because after a few years, they still don’t understand how he can fuck two people at the same time.”
“Easy,” Chris murmured.
“I’m just saying. It’s true. I’m the only single brother left, and they put me in that trash every goddamn weekend. I can’t even go out and show my face at a club without them writing about how I am either lonely because I’m alone or marrying some stranger whose name I don’t even know.”
Chris quieted as he read the article, but his eyes slowly widened as he took in the rest of the piece. “Oh, wow. Sources confirmed … We all know that’s fucking bullshit there.”
Marcus ground his teeth harder than was healthy and gave Chris a look from where the man sat in his chair. “See?”
Wasn’t it bad enough that he was three months shy of his thirtieth birthday, and all the made men around him constantly watched him? As though they were waiting for the moment when Marcus would announce a marriage because that was the obvious, required next step in this life of his. For his whole life, he’d been told he would be the next Guzzi boss. He’d be the one to take over after his father was finally finished, which only meant one thing for Marcus.
He needed to be married.
To an appropriate woman.
Which was fine because Marcus fully understood his duty to his family and this legacy. He accepted it long ago, but that didn’t mean he was at that place yet. And it didn’t help to have fucking magazines writing bullshit about him every single time he left his place to go out and have a good time.
The bigger problem was that since Gian, their father, had taken a step back in the public eye as the boss heading the family after his arrest years ago to deflect attention, even more of it was placed on Marcus. Constantly. His brothers liked to joke that Marcus was boring. He didn’t do anything—stayed in, walked the line of their rules, never bending them even the littlest bit, and always doing everything that was expected of him.
That wasn’t entirely true.
Everything he did was judged.
Dissected.
Interpreted.
And Marcus refused to give people more shit to talk about.
Simple as that.
“Ignore it,” Chris said with a sigh, finally tossing the magazine back to the desk, done with it. Marcus wished he could do the same but shit just wasn’t that easy for him. “We’ll get the lawyers to send them a warning, and they’ll back off for a bit.”
Yeah, but for how long?
That was the real question.
“Vanna gets a kick out of it,” Bene said, pulling his phone out to read something on the screen when it buzzed. “Makes bets with me about how many lies she’ll find each week.”
Marcus’s jaw ached. “I’m so glad my frustration is her amusement, Bene.”
His brother shot him a look, arching a brow. “Hey, it’s not like that.”
Yeah, he knew.
Marcus was just … a little sore about the topic.
“And watch your fucking tone about my wife,” his brother added.
He had all he could do not to roll his eyes, but Marcus held it back. Because that’s not what twenty-nine-year-old men with the status of an underboss did, even if that’s all he fucking wanted to do in that moment.
“You know it’s not about Vanna,” he said quietly.
Bene shrugged. “Yeah, I got it.”
And it wasn’t.
Truly.
It took a while, and the first Guzzi son of their generation being born to Vanna and Bene, given the same name Marcus held because that was their tradition … but Marcus moved past what happened all those years ago.
And he loved his godson.
Like nobody knew.
“How’d the meeting in Quebec go?” Chris asked.
“Could have come along, being a Capo and all.”
Chris smirked. “Yeah, but they don’t even wear suits, so …”
“Alessio doesn’t wear a suit,” Marcus returned, referring to Chris’s twin’s one spouse, “and you sit down to dinner with him all the time.”
“I also don’t want to kill Les, you know?”
“Fair enough. And it went fine. I assume they’re going to keep pushing the line, but as long as they don’t jump all the way over it, then I will ignore them for the time being.”
“You think that’s smart?” Bene asked.
Marcus dropped into the chair beside the man. “They’re not worth anything else.”
“For now.”
Right.
That couldn’t be forgotten.
Bene waved his phone. “Someone sending out reminders about the meeting tonight at the mansion. What’s that about, anyway? Since when does Papa call meetings in the middle of the week anymore?”
“Don’t know.”
Both his brothers’ gazes turned on him.
“What?” Chris asked.
Yeah, he was just as confused as to why he didn’t know what their father’s meeting with the made men of the Guzzi organization was about.
“You heard me,” Marcus said, “I don’t know what the meeting is about.”
Bene frowned. “Huh.”
That’s about how he felt, too.
Just huh.
And it wasn’t a very good feeling to have. Marcus hated not knowing. Especially in this life.
“But don’t be fucking late,” he said, standing from the chair and readying to leave. “Never be late when the boss calls, yeah?”
Another thing off his ever-growing list. Checking in with his brothers. He had to do that. Always did it. Who else would? Marcus took care of his family, no matter what. It’s just what he did. No excuses.
“You’re just like dad,” Chris called at his back.
Marcus waved a hand over his shoulder.
Was that supposed to be a bad thing?
***
His father was ignoring him.
Marcus was sure of it.
Although, he didn’t have time to call his father out on the fact because Gian kept moving from man to man at the dinner party—he thought throwing elaborate dinners was the best way to bring all his men together—always out of reach of Marcus, not even giving him the option to ask him for five minutes alone to talk. Not to mention, Marcus also didn’t have the time, considering with all the made men in the family in the same room, everyone seemed to have something to say to him. Or a request to make. A complaint to be let known.
With Marcus being the underboss for the family, he was usually the one left to delegate the men. Whatever they needed or their nonsense, it was left to him to handle it however he deemed fit best for their organization. Usually, he didn’t mind that so much. That was easy shit for him—he handled it no problem.
Tonight, however, it irked him. Because it kept him away from his father.
Who was clearly ignoring him.
“Did you listen to a word I just said?”
Marcus frowned, cursing himself internally for not paying better attention to his mother. A sin in and of itself in the world of Guzzi men considering Cara might as well have been the religion their father preached to his army of sons all their life. It didn’t matter that they went to church every Sunday and prayed in the pews at mass … their mother was their whole world. When she spoke, the rest of them tended to listen.
“Sorry, Ma,” he said, giving her a smile from the side that he hoped charmed away any of her displeasure. “My mind is …”
“On other things?”
“Everywhere, really.”
“Can it be back here with me for a minute?”
He did just that, no questions asked. Placing his drink to the decorative table along the wall, he turned to face his smiling mother to give her every single bit of his attention for the moment. He could go back to dealing with all these men, their issues, and the reason for his father ignoring him later.
His mother needed something. That came first, always. Love, then duty. It was their way.
“What, Ma?”
Cara’s bright eyes showed her amusement as she smoothed back some of the wayward strands of her bright red hair. In her navy dress, surrounded by the wealth of the mansion they stood in, she looked like every inch a queen.
As she should, like their father would say.
“Chris mentioned something about a magazine—”
He made a noise under his breath. “It’s nothing, we’ll handle it.”
“Well, that tells me all I need to know.”
“Which was what?”
“That it bothered you.”
“Of course, it bothers me.”
“But why … because they speculate, or because they tell lies? Either way, it’s easy to ignore it, Marcus.”
Right.
If only shit was that simple.
“It bothers me because they don’t know my life, but they act as if they do. And that is what I don’t appreciate, Ma. Yes, I can ignore it … I often do, but then I see another one, or like today, someone jokingly shoves it under the wiper on my car, and it just pisses me off all over again.”
Cara reached up and patted his cheek with her warm palm. “I’m sorry.”
“We’ll handle it.”
“Right, well … they’re only trying to get readers and sales, so be easy.”
Mmhmm.
He’d try.
“No promises,” he murmured.
At the sight of his father slipping back into the dining room, Marcus was quick to give his mother a kiss on her cheek before he excused himself. He followed after Gian with the intent of finally getting the chance to speak to him about this meeting, which so far had been for nothing, and why his father seemed to be ignoring him.
But by the time he got back inside the dining room, his father was already at the front of the room, heading it like a proper boss should. Lowball glass in hand, he raised it just enough so that the ting of his knife hitting the side of it echoed throughout the space. The noise quieted all the chatting men. Just like that, every gaze in the room turned on the boss who was ready to speak.
They needed to listen.
Marcus stayed back near the entrance, knowing better than to move around when his father spoke to the rest of the men. He didn’t want to take attention away from the boss just because he felt the need to take a seat at the table with the others. Besides, he could stand just fine, and his legs worked perfectly.
He wasn’t paying attention to whatever his father said, instead scanning the faces of the men at the table because that’s what he usually did. It wasn’t that his father became unimportant to him, but quite the opposite. He would learn what his father said later, although he usually already knew exactly what would be said at these meetings. And so, that allowed him the chance to observe the men around them and look for any possible issues while he did so.
It was habit, nothing more.
And so maybe that was why when the gazes of the men at the table suddenly turned on him, like they all knew he was watching them, Marcus looked to his father for an explanation. Gian, still talking, finally had his words heard by Marcus, and his reason for this meeting came into sharp clarity all around the board.
“I will be taking a step back from being the active boss of this family, if only because it’s time, and I think it’s time for someone else to step up—Marcus, of course. I will still make the final decisions when I decide I need to step in until everything becomes final with a new boss taking over, but from here on out, Marcus heads this family.”
He wasn’t quite sure what happened after that or what the others had to say. He was still trying to catch up to speed, and what it all meant.
No. That was a lie.
Marcus understood perfectly well what it meant. So did his father.
Gian nodded his way, saying, “And this gives him time, oui? Time to figure out the details he needs to satisfy this family, and our expectations. There is not a deadline on this; we’re beginning the process, that’s all.”
Yeah, he heard him loud and clear.
So, why did it feel like a timer had started?
Marcus didn’t have time to think about it. Men started talking, and Gian moved away from the table. Someone came into his line of vision, a hand reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. Soon, his brothers, the ones that remained in their organization, Chris and Bene, were there too, ready to chat and give their congratulations.
It wasn’t until much later that Marcus finally got the chance to speak with his father. Long after the men had left the mansion, and the dinner party was over. He sat on one side of his father’s desk, and Gian rested behind it. The two stared at each other for a long time, neither willing to speak first.
Eventually, Marcus murmured, “You could have given me a heads up.”
“For what, something you knew was coming?”
“Or that you planned to do it tonight.”
Gian chuckled. “Someone has to keep you on your toes, Marcus.”
He loved his father.
He did.
People often said they were twins, and considering Marcus was the only one of his brothers that didn’t have an identical twin, it really said something. Right now, though, he thought in moments like these he was nothing like his father.
“You’ll have time to get everything settled,” Gian said, “I give my word.”
Marcus nodded. “All right.”
“I know you have a lot going on—”
“I’ll handle everything.”
He always did.
Gian smiled a bit. “I have no doubt, fils. On another topic, though, could you do me one more favor?”
“What else is there?”
“Something for your mother.”
“Not for business?”
“No, something just for her … our anniversary, but I can’t be too close to the project, or she’ll find out. She always does.”
Marcus had every reason to say no. All his duties, this big shift in the family, too, that would surely change his entire life even more than it already had. He could have said no, and he doubted his father would complain about it.
Still, he said, “I’ll do whatever you need, Papa. You know that.”
It’s who Marcus was.
He didn’t know how to be anything different.
Copyright © 2019 by Bethany-Kris. All rights reserved.
Prologue
Black everywhere.
A sea of black, really.
Cella Marcello felt like everything had become painted with the color. Tainted. Maybe that was the better word for this day and what was happening. Everything was tainted with blackness because wasn’t that the only appropriate hue for grief?
Especially grief like this.
One so hollow.
Empty.
Lonely.
From the suits and dresses surrounding her, worn by people with faces she recognized and—some—she loved to even the clouds above her head. Her emotions. The hole in the ground. The shiny granite headstone with her husband’s name carved with white lettering.
All black.
She saw other colors, of course. The green of the grass, and the gray of the sky. The light rain from earlier in the day left a mist in the air, curling up from the ground and disappearing all around her. A few people dared to wear shades of gray and even navy blues for the day instead of the standard black clothing that accompanied funerals. The silver bangles on her wrist jingled with her trembling, and it didn’t seem to matter how tight she held her child, the shaking didn’t relent.
If anything, it became worse.
How much longer could she hold it in?
How long would it be before she could breathe?
“Want me to take her?”
Cella looked to the side, peering through the black veil that hung down from the rim of her large hat, finding her mother trying to offer her a smile. It didn’t reach Jordyn’s wet eyes, and there in the glistening tears, she found her own reflection. She looked like her mother—soft-featured, round face, a small, sloped nose, high cheekbones, and full lips shaped like a curvy bow. All her sisters, the two of them, took after their mother whereas their brother, John, looked far more like their father.
Except right then, all Cella saw in the reflection was her sadness. How despite the fact that her eyes felt so dry, as though she’d cried far too many tears and couldn’t produce more, wetness still coated her cheeks. She found pain there.
Only pain.
“Cella?” her ma asked again.
She shook her head and tightened her hold on eight-month-old Tiffany when the baby squirmed a bit under her thin cotton blanket. Surely, the girl didn’t need a blanket in this August heat, but with the occasional rain and slight breeze, she didn’t want to take a chance. So, she wrapped her up.
Because that was the thing.
It didn’t matter her husband was dead.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to get out of bed.
That her heart broke.
She was empty.
Life had stopped.
None of that could matter to Cella when she was still a mother. Her child depended on her constantly. Sure, Tiffany didn’t understand why when she called out for Dada in the mornings, William wasn’t there to pull her from her crib for their daily routine, but she made do with her mother. No doubt, she thought her father would be back—he would never be back—but she still had her ma.
And that left Cella to do everything when all she wanted was to do nothing. Except life didn’t work that way. And this wasn’t Tiffany’s fault.
So, she put on her fake smile for her child day in and day out. She tried not to cry in front of her as much as she could, because then the baby would wipe away her mother’s tears, and nothing felt worse than that.
She kept on going. Moving forward. The world continued turning. It was just hers that felt dead now.
“Pretty girl,” Cella’s older sister, Liliana, said as she reached out to fluff the bottom of her pretty summer dress that had peeked out from beneath the blanket. “Just a few more minutes, Tiff, okay?”
She refused to put her daughter in black. Little Tiffany. Named for her father’s sister who had passed as a young girl from childhood cancer. With her head of golden curls that she took from her father, and big blue eyes she took from her mother—compliments of Cella’s own mother, Jordyn—Tiffany wore the brightest yellow dress Cella could find in her closet that would make anyone smile who looked at her. She even added a headband with a big yellow flower to the girl’s head.
Because God …
At least, she thought, if today couldn’t be a day that she smiled … then she wanted others to find a reason to do it. Her husband would have appreciated that. Respected it. Loved it, honestly. William, with his heart of gold and his easy disposition, always tried to make someone laugh first and foremost. He made friends easier than most, and it was hard not to want to be in his presence.
Everybody thinks lawyers are boring, he told her once, so I like to surprise people.
It was exactly why she fell in love with him.
Why she started this life with him.
And then someone took it away.
A handful of dirt was tossed into the hole in the ground, dragging Cella from her thoughts with a vicious intent. She was just close enough to the edge to be able to see her husband’s casket resting down below, yet another item that gleamed black that day.
Still so fucking black.
Like her heart, now.
She found it easier to stare at anything else except things with that color. It was why she missed the priest’s final words as her husband was laid to rest in his grave, and the reason for her distraction as people started flooding out of the graveyard. She heard their condolences, sure, saw their familiar faces as they stopped to give their sympathies before leaving, but it was all just background noise to her grief.
The pain lingered.
Even when she was alone.
More so when she wasn’t.
Still, she tried to thank people. She attempted to put on her brave face with each of their I’m so sorrys or the please call me if you need anything. The platitudes didn’t mean anything to her, but they made them feel better, she supposed.
And besides, this was their way.
The Marcello way.
Even when her soul felt like it was being ripped out of her chest, even if her husband’s young life had ended far too soon all because of the lifestyle all these people here today chose to live when William hadn’t even been a made man, she was a Marcello daughter at the end of the day.
A mafioso principessa. And so, she would smile like one. Say thank you like one. Die quietly inside like one.
Because there wasn’t a soul in this graveyard who cared to hear how Cella blamed them for this—for her heartache, and her daughter’s loss.
She never wanted to marry a made man. So, she didn’t. Her husband died anyway.
It taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget: one couldn’t be not in with this life. There was no from a safe distance when it came to her family. She was who she was. And she sacrificed for it, too.
“Mrs. Gagnon? It’s Cella, right?”
Cella turned her attention away from the spot she’d been focusing on over the top of her daughter’s head to find yet another person had come to say goodbye and give his condolences. His face seemed familiar with all it’s strong, classically handsome lines, and his dark brown eyes only reflected empathy when he stared at her.
Another day, and she might have recognized him.
Today, she only said, “And who are you?”
“Marcus Guzzi—I came in place of my father to pay respects.”
Ah.
Another crime family. A Canadian one, this time. Funny how they all gathered at times like this.
“Well, thank you,” she whispered. “And it’s Marcello. Cella Marcello.”
She’d decided that if only because going back to her maiden name felt less painful than having to explain to each new person she met that her last name belonged to her dead husband.
Marcus nodded once. “My apologies. And my sympathies on your loss, as well.”
“Of course.”
Someone called the man’s name, and he was quick to give her an apologetic smile before stepping away. She might have watched him go, but her attention was back on the hole in the ground and her mind strayed to the man resting in his casket.
Here she was … twenty-five. A mother to one. Widowed and broken. Would it ever get better?
Not for a long fucking time.
Chapter One
Four and a half years later …
“How old are you?”
That question had Marcus Guzzi raising his brow. He didn’t even bother to answer the man as he sat across the table from him. The room quieted all the way around the board; the men surrounding them turned their attention on the two people at the table like this meeting had just become slightly more interesting.
“Well?” the large man demanded.
The stark contrast between the vice president of the Quebec chapter of the Riders—a one-percenter motorcycle club that had a heavy hand in dealing with illegal pills and prostitution between Quebec and Ontario—and Marcus in his three-piece suit was never more obvious than in those moments. Here they were, dining in a five-star restaurant Marcus had closed down to the public for this goddamn meeting, and the VP came with his men in tow, on bikes, wearing their denim and leather.
The disrespect started there.
And it had yet to end.
“Excusez-moi?” Marcus asked, choosing French to reply to the man because he knew the biker—Glen, he went by—was French-born first. His last name, Cote, a testament to his heritage. “What does my age have to do with this conversation we’re trying to have here? Because I am pretty sure the answer is nothing.”
Glen grinned, but it came off as more like a sneer. His French accent heavily colored his words when he replied in English, “I’m wondering if you should even be here sitting at this table, or if I should have waited for something with a few more years and a bit of … understanding about this business of ours, oui?”
Marcus had every urge to grind his teeth right down to the fucking roots because that right there was a low blow, and he didn’t doubt the other man knew it. In the world of mafioso, where Marcus had been born and bred from the moment he took his first breath, if a man sat at the table … it was because he earned his place there. Questioning it only meant more disrespect, and shit, hadn’t he taken enough of that from this asshole today?
He thought so.
“We’re not here to discuss my age,” Marcus said, leaning back a bit in his chair to get back to his previously unbothered, calm disposition before the asshole across the table tried to change the subject. “We’re here to discuss the fact that your club has decided to take issue with the Guzzi organization taking over the maple syrup farm—”
“In our territory.”
Marcus arched a brow. “Let me ask you a question, yeah? Indulge me, you know, in all my ignorance because of my age and whatnot. Would you?”
Any man Marcus had brought into this meeting would have known right away that statement was nothing more than bait. Only a stupid man would take it because once it was thrown out there, it meant Marcus had come to really play. As the underboss of his father’s Cosa Nostra, he didn’t have time to play very much. Everything was serious. Walk the fucking line, type of deal. Three-piece suits every single day, up before the sun rose and walking the streets to do the kind of business, he’d been doing for most of his life.
He was made.
Mafia.
Guzzi.
So, when he took a minute to play, if a fucker was stupid enough to take the bait, he was going to reel them right in. Until he could snap their goddamn necks. The idiot across the table from him included. As he thought, the man took the bait.
Because of course.
“Sure, why not,” Glen muttered. “As if we all have time today, ask me a question, Marcus.”
His jaw ticked.
It’d been Marcus from the moment he walked in the door. Not sir or Guzzi or even mister. As though they were on a first name basis, despite the fact that Marcus repeatedly and clearly corrected the asshole every time he used his first name. Something else to add to the pile of disrespect. He wished he was shocked.
But nope.
“Do you assume when I put this suit on and get in my black Mercedes you saw me arrive in that I suddenly become a man who doesn’t know how to nail your head to the wall with a well-placed bullet?”
Glen stiffened, his tattooed arms bulging when they flexed at his chest. “Is that a threat, Guzzi?”
Ah, so now it was Guzzi, huh?
“My age—it’s three months shy of thirty, by the way—makes zero fucking difference to the fact that if your club doesn’t stay away from the Guzzi’s newest maple syrup farm we’re going to end you. I’ve been kind enough—or gracious enough, depending on how you want to look at it—to give you opportunity after opportunity to make the right choice here. That farm being in the club’s territory doesn’t change the fact it is in our hands. Like every other farm now in Ontario and Quebec, and if you think you’re going to slide in on the profits just because your clubhouse is six miles away, I have news for you.”
Silence echoed in the restaurant.
Good.
That’s what he wanted.
He felt all those eyes on him, waiting for what was going to come next.
“See, I feel the need to remind you now that compared to your fifty or so members within your club, the Guzzi organization is far larger, and our reach extends across this country and beyond. And don’t get me wrong, Glen, I understand that this effort of yours to put your foot in the door with our mafia is your way of proving yourself to your president, it still comes at the expense of my boss’s bottom line, and we just can’t have that. Find someone else to make your patch there worth keeping because it won’t be us.”
Marcus leaned forward a bit, clasping his hands together on the table as he smiled, met the man’s stare, so Glen knew he wasn’t the least bit fucking scared of him, his club, or whatever threat the man might try to answer this with as he asked, “Do you understand me, or would you like to go back to taking cheap shots about my age? Either way, I’m good.”
Glen’s cheek twitched like he was chewing over a response before finally settling on saying, “You’re essentially running a maple syrup cartel in Canada—you get that, don’t you?”
“And?”
Because Marcus didn’t see the problem.
Not only did the Guzzis have a legal venture in harvesting, manufacturing, and selling maple syrup, but it also served as a perfect front for all their illegal business. It was a great way to hide their dirty money and launder it until it was clean. And if this asshole thought just because his little clubhouse and gang were a few miles away that it meant they were owed a piece of that, well …
No.
Simply put, no.
“Listen,” Glen tried to say, “we only think it’s fair that—”
“What’s fair is I let you leave here alive today, and that is all you will get from us.” Standing from the table, Marcus ignored the stares of the men from across the other side of the table. Bikers in their cuts, clearly agitated and ready to roll. Thing was, he wouldn’t be giving them anything to roll with from here on out. “This meeting is over, and it is the only one you will get unless you force my hand. I assure you that isn’t what you want to do. Voyages sécuritaires, mon ami.”
Glen glowered up at Marcus, his bald head reddening from the clear dismissal of a man about half his age. “We’re not friends. How about you remember that?”
Marcus nodded. “So be it.”
Without another word, Marcus turned away from the table, not at all concerned about turning his back to the man. He brought a small army of made men with him, as well, for this meeting. He wasn’t stupid, and before someone could even try to pull a gun on him, they would be dead by his guards.
He walked out of that restaurant knowing this wasn’t the end. For now, though, it was one thing off his list. A list that never stopped growing.
So was the life of a Guzzi principe.
Especially Marcus Guzzi.
Duty always called.
It never ended.
And he didn’t want life any other way.
***
“Did you see this merda?”
Marcus was already bitching before he’d even entered his younger brother, Christopher’s, restaurant office in downtown Toronto. He wasn’t all that shocked to find Bene, his other brother, sitting with Chris at the man’s desk. Of course, on the other side of the desk. No one but the man who owned the space got to sit behind it.
That was all about the respect.
“See what?” Chris asked, never looking away from his computer screen.
“This.”
Marcus tossed the Toronto-focused magazine to his brother’s desk with a grunt that spoke of his utter disgust. The damn rag liked to write all the shit about things they knew nothing about. Usually regarding people they considered to be high society in Toronto, and all of that nonsense. And of course, because the Guzzi family happened to be very rich with a name that carried an interesting, if not murky, legacy … well, the five brothers, their wives, and even their parents were often topics of discussion in the articles whenever the rag thought they could get away with it.
This month, Marcus got to be included.
“I’m getting Dad’s lawyer on their asses—they need to get my fucking name out of their mouths.”
Bene sighed, reaching for the magazine before Christopher even bothered to look away from his computer screen. Soon enough, their younger brother had flipped to the article in question about Marcus which was really just noting that he had attended a charity gala where he danced with a young woman who happened to be the daughter of a prominent Canadian politician.
Except they couldn’t just stop at that.
No, never.
“Oh my God,” Bene muttered, trying and failing to keep his laughter under his breath. “They suggested she’s your fiancée and everything. Where do they come up with this trash? Marcus Guzzi was clearly enamored with--”
“That’s quite enough, reading it once was fine for me. I don’t need someone else to read it to me, too.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
Bene tossed the magazine to the desk where Chris finally decided to pick it up as well.
“It can’t be that bad,” Chris said.
Right.
Yeah.
“You only say that because now when the society rags write about you, they talk about your wife. Same with Bene, or Beni. It’s only Corrado they give a bit of shit about and that’s because after a few years, they still don’t understand how he can fuck two people at the same time.”
“Easy,” Chris murmured.
“I’m just saying. It’s true. I’m the only single brother left, and they put me in that trash every goddamn weekend. I can’t even go out and show my face at a club without them writing about how I am either lonely because I’m alone or marrying some stranger whose name I don’t even know.”
Chris quieted as he read the article, but his eyes slowly widened as he took in the rest of the piece. “Oh, wow. Sources confirmed … We all know that’s fucking bullshit there.”
Marcus ground his teeth harder than was healthy and gave Chris a look from where the man sat in his chair. “See?”
Wasn’t it bad enough that he was three months shy of his thirtieth birthday, and all the made men around him constantly watched him? As though they were waiting for the moment when Marcus would announce a marriage because that was the obvious, required next step in this life of his. For his whole life, he’d been told he would be the next Guzzi boss. He’d be the one to take over after his father was finally finished, which only meant one thing for Marcus.
He needed to be married.
To an appropriate woman.
Which was fine because Marcus fully understood his duty to his family and this legacy. He accepted it long ago, but that didn’t mean he was at that place yet. And it didn’t help to have fucking magazines writing bullshit about him every single time he left his place to go out and have a good time.
The bigger problem was that since Gian, their father, had taken a step back in the public eye as the boss heading the family after his arrest years ago to deflect attention, even more of it was placed on Marcus. Constantly. His brothers liked to joke that Marcus was boring. He didn’t do anything—stayed in, walked the line of their rules, never bending them even the littlest bit, and always doing everything that was expected of him.
That wasn’t entirely true.
Everything he did was judged.
Dissected.
Interpreted.
And Marcus refused to give people more shit to talk about.
Simple as that.
“Ignore it,” Chris said with a sigh, finally tossing the magazine back to the desk, done with it. Marcus wished he could do the same but shit just wasn’t that easy for him. “We’ll get the lawyers to send them a warning, and they’ll back off for a bit.”
Yeah, but for how long?
That was the real question.
“Vanna gets a kick out of it,” Bene said, pulling his phone out to read something on the screen when it buzzed. “Makes bets with me about how many lies she’ll find each week.”
Marcus’s jaw ached. “I’m so glad my frustration is her amusement, Bene.”
His brother shot him a look, arching a brow. “Hey, it’s not like that.”
Yeah, he knew.
Marcus was just … a little sore about the topic.
“And watch your fucking tone about my wife,” his brother added.
He had all he could do not to roll his eyes, but Marcus held it back. Because that’s not what twenty-nine-year-old men with the status of an underboss did, even if that’s all he fucking wanted to do in that moment.
“You know it’s not about Vanna,” he said quietly.
Bene shrugged. “Yeah, I got it.”
And it wasn’t.
Truly.
It took a while, and the first Guzzi son of their generation being born to Vanna and Bene, given the same name Marcus held because that was their tradition … but Marcus moved past what happened all those years ago.
And he loved his godson.
Like nobody knew.
“How’d the meeting in Quebec go?” Chris asked.
“Could have come along, being a Capo and all.”
Chris smirked. “Yeah, but they don’t even wear suits, so …”
“Alessio doesn’t wear a suit,” Marcus returned, referring to Chris’s twin’s one spouse, “and you sit down to dinner with him all the time.”
“I also don’t want to kill Les, you know?”
“Fair enough. And it went fine. I assume they’re going to keep pushing the line, but as long as they don’t jump all the way over it, then I will ignore them for the time being.”
“You think that’s smart?” Bene asked.
Marcus dropped into the chair beside the man. “They’re not worth anything else.”
“For now.”
Right.
That couldn’t be forgotten.
Bene waved his phone. “Someone sending out reminders about the meeting tonight at the mansion. What’s that about, anyway? Since when does Papa call meetings in the middle of the week anymore?”
“Don’t know.”
Both his brothers’ gazes turned on him.
“What?” Chris asked.
Yeah, he was just as confused as to why he didn’t know what their father’s meeting with the made men of the Guzzi organization was about.
“You heard me,” Marcus said, “I don’t know what the meeting is about.”
Bene frowned. “Huh.”
That’s about how he felt, too.
Just huh.
And it wasn’t a very good feeling to have. Marcus hated not knowing. Especially in this life.
“But don’t be fucking late,” he said, standing from the chair and readying to leave. “Never be late when the boss calls, yeah?”
Another thing off his ever-growing list. Checking in with his brothers. He had to do that. Always did it. Who else would? Marcus took care of his family, no matter what. It’s just what he did. No excuses.
“You’re just like dad,” Chris called at his back.
Marcus waved a hand over his shoulder.
Was that supposed to be a bad thing?
***
His father was ignoring him.
Marcus was sure of it.
Although, he didn’t have time to call his father out on the fact because Gian kept moving from man to man at the dinner party—he thought throwing elaborate dinners was the best way to bring all his men together—always out of reach of Marcus, not even giving him the option to ask him for five minutes alone to talk. Not to mention, Marcus also didn’t have the time, considering with all the made men in the family in the same room, everyone seemed to have something to say to him. Or a request to make. A complaint to be let known.
With Marcus being the underboss for the family, he was usually the one left to delegate the men. Whatever they needed or their nonsense, it was left to him to handle it however he deemed fit best for their organization. Usually, he didn’t mind that so much. That was easy shit for him—he handled it no problem.
Tonight, however, it irked him. Because it kept him away from his father.
Who was clearly ignoring him.
“Did you listen to a word I just said?”
Marcus frowned, cursing himself internally for not paying better attention to his mother. A sin in and of itself in the world of Guzzi men considering Cara might as well have been the religion their father preached to his army of sons all their life. It didn’t matter that they went to church every Sunday and prayed in the pews at mass … their mother was their whole world. When she spoke, the rest of them tended to listen.
“Sorry, Ma,” he said, giving her a smile from the side that he hoped charmed away any of her displeasure. “My mind is …”
“On other things?”
“Everywhere, really.”
“Can it be back here with me for a minute?”
He did just that, no questions asked. Placing his drink to the decorative table along the wall, he turned to face his smiling mother to give her every single bit of his attention for the moment. He could go back to dealing with all these men, their issues, and the reason for his father ignoring him later.
His mother needed something. That came first, always. Love, then duty. It was their way.
“What, Ma?”
Cara’s bright eyes showed her amusement as she smoothed back some of the wayward strands of her bright red hair. In her navy dress, surrounded by the wealth of the mansion they stood in, she looked like every inch a queen.
As she should, like their father would say.
“Chris mentioned something about a magazine—”
He made a noise under his breath. “It’s nothing, we’ll handle it.”
“Well, that tells me all I need to know.”
“Which was what?”
“That it bothered you.”
“Of course, it bothers me.”
“But why … because they speculate, or because they tell lies? Either way, it’s easy to ignore it, Marcus.”
Right.
If only shit was that simple.
“It bothers me because they don’t know my life, but they act as if they do. And that is what I don’t appreciate, Ma. Yes, I can ignore it … I often do, but then I see another one, or like today, someone jokingly shoves it under the wiper on my car, and it just pisses me off all over again.”
Cara reached up and patted his cheek with her warm palm. “I’m sorry.”
“We’ll handle it.”
“Right, well … they’re only trying to get readers and sales, so be easy.”
Mmhmm.
He’d try.
“No promises,” he murmured.
At the sight of his father slipping back into the dining room, Marcus was quick to give his mother a kiss on her cheek before he excused himself. He followed after Gian with the intent of finally getting the chance to speak to him about this meeting, which so far had been for nothing, and why his father seemed to be ignoring him.
But by the time he got back inside the dining room, his father was already at the front of the room, heading it like a proper boss should. Lowball glass in hand, he raised it just enough so that the ting of his knife hitting the side of it echoed throughout the space. The noise quieted all the chatting men. Just like that, every gaze in the room turned on the boss who was ready to speak.
They needed to listen.
Marcus stayed back near the entrance, knowing better than to move around when his father spoke to the rest of the men. He didn’t want to take attention away from the boss just because he felt the need to take a seat at the table with the others. Besides, he could stand just fine, and his legs worked perfectly.
He wasn’t paying attention to whatever his father said, instead scanning the faces of the men at the table because that’s what he usually did. It wasn’t that his father became unimportant to him, but quite the opposite. He would learn what his father said later, although he usually already knew exactly what would be said at these meetings. And so, that allowed him the chance to observe the men around them and look for any possible issues while he did so.
It was habit, nothing more.
And so maybe that was why when the gazes of the men at the table suddenly turned on him, like they all knew he was watching them, Marcus looked to his father for an explanation. Gian, still talking, finally had his words heard by Marcus, and his reason for this meeting came into sharp clarity all around the board.
“I will be taking a step back from being the active boss of this family, if only because it’s time, and I think it’s time for someone else to step up—Marcus, of course. I will still make the final decisions when I decide I need to step in until everything becomes final with a new boss taking over, but from here on out, Marcus heads this family.”
He wasn’t quite sure what happened after that or what the others had to say. He was still trying to catch up to speed, and what it all meant.
No. That was a lie.
Marcus understood perfectly well what it meant. So did his father.
Gian nodded his way, saying, “And this gives him time, oui? Time to figure out the details he needs to satisfy this family, and our expectations. There is not a deadline on this; we’re beginning the process, that’s all.”
Yeah, he heard him loud and clear.
So, why did it feel like a timer had started?
Marcus didn’t have time to think about it. Men started talking, and Gian moved away from the table. Someone came into his line of vision, a hand reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. Soon, his brothers, the ones that remained in their organization, Chris and Bene, were there too, ready to chat and give their congratulations.
It wasn’t until much later that Marcus finally got the chance to speak with his father. Long after the men had left the mansion, and the dinner party was over. He sat on one side of his father’s desk, and Gian rested behind it. The two stared at each other for a long time, neither willing to speak first.
Eventually, Marcus murmured, “You could have given me a heads up.”
“For what, something you knew was coming?”
“Or that you planned to do it tonight.”
Gian chuckled. “Someone has to keep you on your toes, Marcus.”
He loved his father.
He did.
People often said they were twins, and considering Marcus was the only one of his brothers that didn’t have an identical twin, it really said something. Right now, though, he thought in moments like these he was nothing like his father.
“You’ll have time to get everything settled,” Gian said, “I give my word.”
Marcus nodded. “All right.”
“I know you have a lot going on—”
“I’ll handle everything.”
He always did.
Gian smiled a bit. “I have no doubt, fils. On another topic, though, could you do me one more favor?”
“What else is there?”
“Something for your mother.”
“Not for business?”
“No, something just for her … our anniversary, but I can’t be too close to the project, or she’ll find out. She always does.”
Marcus had every reason to say no. All his duties, this big shift in the family, too, that would surely change his entire life even more than it already had. He could have said no, and he doubted his father would complain about it.
Still, he said, “I’ll do whatever you need, Papa. You know that.”
It’s who Marcus was.
He didn’t know how to be anything different.