Page 69 of Unraveled

She grabbed the white tweed coat she had pulled from Lea’s closet when she couldn’t find something suitable in her own to wear over the white and silver dress. Her sister had owned far too many clothes, and while Cara had slowly started to go through Lea’s things to get rid of what she didn’t want to keep, she had barely touched the clothes.

Cara pulled the door open to find Chris waiting on the other side.

His gaze fell down over the dress to the shoes and then back up just as fast. He hadn’t lingered, and his expression remained neutral. “Gian will be pleased. You look wonderful, miss.”

Cara smiled. “Thank you.”

“Let’s head out.”

She followed behind the man, letting him lead her through the apartment hall, down one flight of stairs, and outside to where a black town car sat running in front of the building. It was only a short stroll away. Chris held the back door open for Cara to walk the remainder of the way and get inside, but something caught her eye as she made it to the vehicle.

Another car—bright yellow, which was what caught her attention first—came speeding far too fast down the city road. Black tinted windows made it impossible to see inside.

By the time the car reached them, the driver’s window rolled down a few inches.

Cara didn’t understand the item that was shoved out the window, not until the color burst from the barrel, and the sound sliced through the air.

Rapid gunfire.

Bullets.

Pain bloomed in Cara’s shoulder as she was dragged to the ground. She was frozen, stuck in a strange nightmarish state of reality and memories. She hadn’t heard gunfire like that since the day Lea was murdered. It was as though she had been shoved right back into that day all over again in a split second.

She couldn’t bring herself out of it, no matter how hard she tried.

Automatic doors opened in front of Gian, but they weren’t spreading fast enough for his brisk pace or patience. His hands slammed against the doors, pushing against the pressure of the mechanical arm to force them open faster.

His heart was in his fucking throat.

His stomach had fallen to his feet.

Time had become unimportant for the moment.

Gian couldn’t remember the last time he felt this way—so fucked up in the head, an anxious mess, but still damn cold and calm on the outside.

Corrado used to tell him that this was when Gian was most dangerous. That Gian’s emotions often ruled him in his choices and behaviors, but it was only when he didn’t allow others the gift of seeing his emotions to gauge their transgressions, that it became dangerous. Because he became unstable, and unpredictable.

His grandfather had never said it was bad thing, though.

Another set of doors didn’t open fast enough for Gian’s satisfaction, and he shoved that set apart, too. A nurse on the other side barely moved out of the way, and she dropped her bags with a squeak. On any other day, Gian would have stopped and helped the woman, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.

A half of a dozen men stood gathered in a semi-circle outside of the hospital room across from the busy nurse station. Gian recognized their faces—friends of his man, younger Capos that had likely heard something happened and come down for support. He appreciated the effort and their concern, but he was neither in the mood to talk, nor interested in playing to the mafia politics.

His car being bombed was one thing.

He always had a fucking target on him.

Cara, though?

Cara was a whole other matter.

“Gian.”

“Shit, nice suit, man. Where were you heading, tonight?”

Gian ignored the greetings and questions that were thrown at him as he passed through the group of men. He strolled into the opened hospital room to find Chris cussing a blue streak under his breath as a nurse stitched a three-inch, clean slice on the enforcer’s neck.

“Well, if you hadn’t moved so much,” the nurse muttered under her breath.