Page 79 of Unraveled

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.