Page 107 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

The first thing Gian noticed when he returned to the table was that Cara was absent. Right off the bat, that put him on edge. Constantino ate his food with heavy forkfuls, as though he didn’t have a problem, while Stephan picked at his plate and chatted away on his cell phone.

“Where’s Cara?” Gian asked.

He didn’t even bother to sit down.

Constantino shrugged. “She left.”

“Say that again.”

It didn’t even come out as a question.

His friend let out a heavy sigh, dropping his fork to his plate with a loud clatter. “I said, she left, Gian.”

Gian reached for the cell phone in his suit jacket, but hesitated before pulling it out. “And why the hell would she leave, exactly?”

Constantino made a dismissive noise under his breath, going back to his meal. “She didn’t like what she was told, I suppose.”

What. The. Fuck.

Gian sincerely hoped this was not another incident like he’d had with Constantino at the hospital, but it was looking worse and worse by the second. “I’m going to give you ten seconds to explain what in the fuck that means before I drag your ass out of this restaurant and beat you fucking senseless.”

Made men didn’t fight.

It was a rule.

Gian no longer cared for that particular rule.

Especially not when Cara was involved.

Stephan cleared his throat, dragging Gian’s attention to him for the moment. The man quickly said goodbye to whoever he was speaking to on his cell phone, hung it up, and put it in his pocket. Standing from the table, Stephan dropped his napkin down and pulled money from his wallet, letting it fall by his glass of water.

“And where are you going?” Gian asked.

Stephan jerked his head in Constantino’s direction. “As much as I like this stupid fuck, sometimes he goes too far.”

“Hey—”

“You do,” Stephan interrupted Constantino. “There are things you need to not talk about, or give your opinion, and a guy’s girl is one of them.”

“Is that where you stand on the line for this?” Constantino asked.

Stephan nodded sharply. “You’re damn right it is. Call me when you get yourself straightened out, Constantino. And make sure you apologize. Even if it is Gian.”

Gian let that barely-hidden insult brush off his shoulders, but only because he had one fucking idiot to deal with for the moment, and he wasn’t in the mood to handle two. Besides, Stephan never made an effort to hide his dislike of Gian, in the grand scheme of things. Constantino, on the other hand, had been doing some pretty underhanded shit that left Gian fucking unsettled.

Like whatever this was.

“My apologies,” Stephan said as he passed Gian by to leave.

Gian let him go, never budging an inch, even when Constantino went back to eating his food again. That only irritated the shit out of Gian more.

“Sit, eat,” Constantino demanded. “We’ll talk this out. I fucked up, big deal. It happens.”

Gian didn’t sit. “How did you fuck up, though?”

“She mentioned running into Frankie.” Constantino waved a hand as if to dismiss what he was about to say next. “I might have mentioned that it doesn’t look good on our family to have her running around with you, doing what she’s doing, like she is. Just like it didn’t look good when Lea was involved with Frankie a while back.”

Gian bristled all over. “And you think this is even remotely the same?”