Page 137 of Unraveled

While the flight from Chicago to Toronto wasn’t a long one, her emotional turbulence meant that Cara wasn’t in a particularly good place. She was exhausted—mentally, and physically. The only thing she wanted to do was get home to her apartment, give her brother the call she promised him, and then lie in her bed for several hours.

She needed sleep.

Cara pushed through customs, and headed toward arrivals where her luggage would be waiting, and a line of taxis outside the exit doors. She had stepped off the escalator when she spotted the guy standing at the very front of a large group of waiting people.

Several held signs with last names scrawled on them, waiting to pick up someone from their arriving flights.

Not this man.

Chris didn’t need to.

Wearing all black, his hair smoothed back, and a flat smile plastered on his face, Cara let out a sigh at the sight of Chris.

She had wanted to go home. She’d hoped for a little bit of time before she would need to have an actual face-to-face meeting with Gian. Some breathing room to get her thoughts and feelings in order, so that when she did see him, her raging emotional vomit didn’t spill all the way out, making a mess of everything it could reach. Surely, she wasn’t asking for a lot.

Apparently, Gian was not going to give Cara that option. Well, he would have nobody to blame but himself when he faced her anger. He could have given her a day or two—anything—to let his lies sink in.

“Miss Rossi?” Chris asked as he came to stand in front of Cara.

She looked him over. “Gian sent you, Chris?”

“Sì, miss.”

“I suppose if I said that I didn’t want to go see Gian, it won’t make much of a difference, huh?”

He smirked a bit. “I’m to deliver you to his penthouse, nowhere else. I only follow orders. It would be best if you didn’t make a scene. Either way, the penthouse is it.”

“Wonderful.” Cara crossed her arms.

“I will take you home once you’re done with the boss.”

The boss.

Cara didn’t miss the man’s choice of words, in regards to Gian. Was that what had happened while she was gone? Was that what he had sent her away for, so that he could take over the new boss’s seat, and get his revenge for his grandfather at the same time?

She wasn’t stupid, of course, and she knew how volatile and dangerous things had started to become before Gian sent her away. Incidents that had come far too close to Cara and Gian. Still, he never talked details. He was always careful, in that sense, and only gave her the barest bones of information. Just enough to tide her over.

For good reason, her mind taunted, you’re not his wife.

Nothing Gian ever told Cara would be safe.

Not in court.

Goomahs didn’t get that sort of closeness with their men.

Whores got nothing.

It only pissed her off even more. Cara had thought she knew everything about Gian that was important, things a man who loved her should tell her. Even a man like him, involved in things that put a constant target on his back.

She thought he cared enough.

He clearly hadn’t cared at all.

“Your brother called ahead of time and let the boss know what time your flight would be arriving this afternoon.”

Cara wanted to be angry at Tommas over that fact, but she couldn’t summon up the emotion. All of her anger was being saved for the one person who deserved it the most, and she knew Tommas had only been doing what was expected of him, as he’d allowed Cara to return to Toronto before Gian gave the okay.

“Am I at least allowed to grab some food on the way?”