Page 127 of Corrado

“What is this?”

Ginevra walked further into the hall of paintings, and spread her arms wide as she did a little circle. Corrado stuffed his hands in his slacks pockets as he watched her joyful moment. That, and he liked the way that dress draped over her body, and glimmered when she moved.

“This,” he said, “is the hall of Guzzis.”

Stopping under one particular piece of art in the hallway, she leaned a bit over the red rope to get a closer look at the name under the piece. The man in the painting, surrounded by his wife, and children when they were just toddlers, stared straight ahead like he owned the world.

At the time, it probably felt like he had.

“Frederic Guzzi and family.”

“My grandfather.”

Not that Corrado had ever seen much of the man growing up. He didn’t approve of some of the things that brought Gian and Cara together, and so, the rest of them suffered for it. A part of him always thought that was quite selfish, but he didn’t think Ginevra needed to know that family dirt just yet.

“Do you have one?”

Corrado let out a laugh. “Not quite—we have a portrait, or two, as a whole.” He pointed at the end of the hallway where a painting featuring his mother, surrounded by all her boys in a forest as she sat on what looked like a throne, was on prominent display. “There’s one.”

“Oh, wow.”

“But no, I don’t have one of just me.”

“Why not?”

“Our family’s tradition has always been family portraits, or those featuring the head of the house, usually the male. My father made my mother an exception to that rule, though.”

Like everything else between his mother and father.

“Ah,” Ginevra said, grinning back at him, “so you aren’t the head of your household yet since you don’t have one, right?”

“Exactly, and I’m unmarried, without children … so no portrait, either.”

“Corrado, there you are.”

He spun to the side fast, finding his father watching him from a separate entry into the large hall of portraits. Next to Gian, stood Chris, Marcus, and two other men who rarely left his father’s side. His consigliere, and underboss for the Guzzi Cosa Nostra.

“I wanted a word, if you had a minute,” Gian said, gesturing at the hallway.

Corrado opened his mouth to refuse—Ginevra, after all—and he didn’t feel like getting the twenty-one questions from his father that were sure to come once Gian had him alone. Not that it mattered, apparently, because his father wasn’t going to give him a choice.

Perfect.

“Chris will entertain Ginevra, I understand they’ve met before,” Gian said quickly.

Corrado kept his face passive. “Met is stretching it. They’ve seen each other from afar.”

“What, you don’t trust your twin with the woman?”

He gave his father a scowl. “That’s unfair.”

“The low shots usually get me what I want, you know.”

Of course.

“Corrado?”

Behind him, he found Ginevra smiling. “I’ll be okay for a while. Go with your dad.”