Page 257 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

He might have been proud, had he felt something at all.

He didn’t.

Not an hour later, Gian had two snakes in his mansion instead of just the one.

“Daddy,” Elena said, a false cheeriness coloring up her tone. “I’ve missed you.”

“Reginella,” Gabriel replied, the wet sound of a kiss meeting a cheek echoing down the hall to Gian’s hidden spot. There was more affection in that one word than Gian had ever heard his father-in-law use before, especially toward Elena. It made him wonder—consider—just how much was an act those two put on for the world. How much of their vileness toward one another was simply what they wanted people to believe, not what was actually the truth. “You look tired, Elena.”

“Long day,” she replied. “Come in, sit down.”

“I take it, your husband is not around.”

“When is he ever around, Daddy?”

“Mmm,” Gabriel hummed, “shame, really.”

“He’s just happier elsewhere at the moment.”

“Not for long, dolcezza. I assure you.”

“Oh?” Elena asked.

Gabriel’s laughter rang down the hall, following along with two sets of footsteps. “That’s not for you to worry your pretty little head over. I always take care of my bambina, don’t I? Of course, I do. Now, where is that spiced rum I like so much?”

“In the main room. Are you supposed to be drinking with the medicine for your heart?”

“Never mind, donna. Don’t lecture me on my health.”

“I just—”

“Don’t.”

“Fine,” Elena said with a quiet sigh.

Gian stepped out of the shadows of the closet enclave in the entryway after Elena and her father passed him by. He followed behind them a few steps, listening to their conversation as he screwed in the silencer to his gun.

What a mess this would be.

What a war it would start.

He wished he cared.

Gian stayed in the entryway of the main room while Elena directed her father toward the wet bar. It was only when Gabriel lifted a glass of spiced rum to his lips and turned slightly that he saw Gian waiting there, gun cocked and ready.

His finger was already on the trigger.

Gabriel took his drink, and swallowed it down without so much as a flinch before he said, “I trusted you, Elena.”

The man didn’t even look at his daughter when he spoke to her.

“You should have known better than to trust a snake you raised,” Gian told his father-in-law. “She learned from the very best, didn’t she, Gabriel?”

“Elena.”

Elena didn’t respond, but she did do as Gian had previously told her. She moved toward him, readying to leave the room so that she wouldn’t see what happened, or what came next.

“You could at least apologize to me, Elena!” Gabriel shouted at his daughter’s back. “After everything I did for you!”