Page 197 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

“See, I managed just fine on my own,” Claud muttered.

“Huffing, puffing, and red-faced the whole way,” Cara agreed.

Her uncle shot her a dirty look, but didn’t respond.

“I think just setting it in the bedroom will be good enough for today,” she added with a smile. “No need to put you through the torture of setting the crib up today, too.”

“Who will do it for you, Cara?” Claud asked, pulling the box down the hallway toward her apartment. “Gian? His brother, perhaps?”

Cara froze, her back turned to her uncle. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing. I was thinking out loud. It was nothing.”

She slowly turned around. “It was not nothing—you specifically said a name, not that I have given you a reason to use that name, so why did you, Zio?”

Claud wiped a hand over his face, effectively removing the sweat from his brow at the same time. “Word travels in this business, between us made men, I mean. I happen to know you get occasional visits from the boss’s men, and I also know you were seen out and about with him last year before your trip to Chicago.”

“So?”

“I also know you had a visit with him in the jail a couple of months ago, Cara.”

She grinded her teeth in an effort to stay quiet.

It didn’t work.

“Zio, this is not your business,” she said firmly.

“You’re right, it isn’t. And your brother told me that, too, when I called him to chat about your current predicament.”

“You called Tommas?”

“Lower your voice,” her uncle snapped.

Cara’s back straightened at the sound of a man scolding her.

Fuck. That. Shit.

“I am not in a predicament. I am pregnant, and by whom, is my fucking business to handle how I please.”

“I know Gian Guzzi is the father, Cara. Or I have a strong enough suspicion to use his name, for good reason. And considering your reaction, I am not wrong. Tell me I am wrong.”

“And so what if he is?”

“He’s a married man!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” she cried, throwing her hands wide. “I do know that, Claud!”

“Have you considered how difficult this road will be for you and the child?” her uncle asked quietly. “To be the mistress of a made man and the bastard boy, born to a goomah mother? Have you considered that at all?”

Cara felt the familiar prickling behind her eyes that signaled her tears were trying to fall. She held them back, and settled for hiding the trembling of her hands at her sides.

“I know I made choices that might not be what everyone else would make,” Cara replied, level-toned and stone-faced, “and I know this won’t be easy, but don’t toss those words at me just because they’re the ones everyone else wants to use. You only see the surface, and how that looks, but you don’t care about the rest. You don’t care to know the details, about me and him, about us, or why. So that also means you don’t get to tell me fuck all. Not what to do, how to handle this situation, or anything else about me, my baby, his father, or what I should do with my feelings. Take your opinion, and shove it up your—”

“Cara,” her aunt called softly from behind her.

She turned to find her aunt standing a few feet down in the hallway. No doubt, Daniele had heard every single word.

Walking past her aunt, Cara said, “Well, there you go. Now you know who. Does it make it better, Zia?”