Page 136 of Entangled

Time could be made.

He figured that was a lesson worth learning early in their family; time could always be made.

Seventeen Years Later

Gian stared up at one of the many paintings that hung in his home. He had far more expensive pieces than this particular one; art was a good way to hide vast wealth in material things that could be easily liquidated, after all.

But this painting?

This one he could never sell.

To him, it was priceless.

Sitting on a gold chair that looked almost like a throne, in the middle of a forest that was just beginning to change to autumn, the woman stared straight ahead, as though she owned the whole world. She seemed unaware of the fact time had stopped around her—the artist catching colorful leaves as they fell, and a bird looking down from one of the trees behind her. Blue eyes, red hair. Dressed in a royal purple, knee-length gown with the heels to match.

And damn, didn’t she look good acting a Queen.

Then again, Cara always looked amazing.

Surrounding their mother in the portrait were her boys—five of them. Gian had commissioned the piece when their last boys were only nine. Those same boys were fourteen now, and he still looked at the painting every single day.

Nearly nineteen-year-old Marcus shuffled past his father in the hallway with a cigarette tucked up behind his ear, a sly smile as he glanced down at whatever was on his phone, and swinging a set of Mercedes keys in his hand all the while. Gian let his oldest son pass him by, but only because this was nothing abnormal for Marcus.

Or any of their boys, really.

Gian was not the most important person in the room, not when his children were just coming home after being gone for days, or even a few hours to school. Marcus no longer lived with them—he hadn’t since he turned eighteen—but he knew better than to stay away from the Guzzi home for too long. Three days, four at the max, was enough.

Then, Cara started to miss her son.

Marcus didn’t like those phone calls from his father when Cara started complaining. To be fair, Gian didn’t like her complaining.

Gian headed after his son, ready to eat.

No, Marcus didn’t greet his father first. He moved across the dining room floor quickly, dropped his phone into his pocket, and then bent down to kiss his mother’s waiting cheek. She sat at the head of the table—a spot that should have been reserved for Gian only.

It wasn’t his spot to have.

It had never been.

It was Cara’s spot in their home.

Head of the house.

She always had the floor.

The only Queen of his family.

Gian made sure not a single fucking soul ever forgot it, either. Including their five sons.

To be a Guzzi principe, those boys were never allowed to see their mother as anything but the queen that had birthed them. They worshipped Cara, the ground she walked on, and the very air that came out of her body. In their eyes, their mother did no wrong. Each one of their sons would defend their mother to the fucking death, and they wouldn’t think twice about it. They didn’t let anybody say a bad word about her, not without some kind of apology that usually included blood.

When they walked into the house, Cara was who they looked for. Cara was who they greeted first in every situation—their father second. Cara was served before them, him, and guests alike. She never had to ask a second time for anything, not when she had five sets of ears listening the first damn time. She wanted for nothing in their home.

His sons’ greatest fears?

Failing their mom.

They didn’t know it, but they could never fail Cara. She loved them too much to see their faults. Gian saw their flaws, occasionally, because he was their father and he had a different role to play, at times, with his boys. But no matter what, he was damn proud of his sons.