Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Gian was taking the time to ... be selfish, in ways. Something he had never really been before because he had been far too caught up in being what everyone else wanted him to be, and doing what they needed for him to do.
It had never—or rarely—been about him.
Except for now.
And today.
Well ... that was debatable. Today wasn’t necessarily about him, but rather, for his mother. And maybe even a little for his wife, too. His mother, he could deny if the situation called for it. When Cara asked for something, Gian found it downright impossible to reject her anything she asked for. Some might call him pussy whipped for that, but frankly, those people hadn’t gotten a taste of his wife’s pussy.
So what the fuck did they know?
“Père.”
Gian glanced down at his oldest son, Marcus. “Oui, mon fils?”
“Do you think great-grandpapa Corrado sees you when you come here?”
Gian smiled a bit. “I hope he does.”
“What was he like, Père? Like you?”
He laughed at that. “Some might say we were more alike than we ever knew until it was too late, Marcus.”
“Huh. Why?”
This kid.
This damn kid of his who Gian loved more than the sun and the moon and the air and the sea combined. This kid ...
He asked all the right questions, and usually at the right times. But just because they were the right questions didn’t mean they were easy ones to answer, either. Because they usually weren’t. But so was a child who had not yet learned things like privacy, and shame.
Maybe Gian was grateful for that.
Marcus could be a boy for just a little while longer. Soon, he was going to wake up one day, and leave all of his child-like emotions and attributes behind. Gian remembered when it happened to him—when he suddenly found that playing child games and acting young was not what the men around him seemed to do.
And oh, how he had wanted to emulate them.
Like nothing else.
Hopefully, Marcus had a couple of more years yet to go before that would happen to him as well. At only nine, his boy was already up to his mother’s chin when standing tall. He was growing like a bad weed, and it showed. Already needed a new wardrobe this year when he had a growth spurt, and went up two shoe sizes.
And yet, every time Gian looked at his son, he felt two things most prominently.
Love, of course.
His love for his sons was fierce and strong and undeniable. Like the waves of the ocean coming in to crash against the shore, and take pieces of him away with it every time it left. His love for them was bright and burning and dangerous, too. Like the sun when someone dared to stare straight at the burning ball of fire with a reckless sort of regard.
Oh, he would kill for his boys.
He would die for his boys.
And he also felt nostalgia when he looked at Marcus. As though for a moment, the world had stopped turning, and he was getting a glimpse into the past. As though he were seeing himself as a younger man—a young boy again.
In ways, it made him miss things.
Miss his life before ... everything else came along.
Made him wish for simpler times, if only for a few moments so that he could remember how innocent he had once been. Before family betrayed him, when he and Dominic had still been young enough to run down their private street and jump in the mud puddles together.
Those times were not his to have again.
They were already gone.
He lived them once.
They were tainted now, too.
Tainted with the heavy, clinging taste of betrayal—the smell of resolution in him knowing that all the things that had been done could never, ever be undone again.
And there were days when Gian was fine with that. To this day, he had never once felt regret for the choices he had made all those years ago—the choice that took away his only brother, and thus, shoved a wedge so deep between he and his father that it now felt rather permanent.
Even though—
“Gian,” came the gruff voice to his left.
Gian didn’t even glance up to greet his father. “Frederic.”
“Early as usual, I see.”
All he offered his father was a nod.
Yes, he came early for these weekly meetings. Meetings that his wife had convinced him to do when his mother pestered Cara enough to bother Gian with it. The women wanted the two men to mend their bridges, but for Gian, he knew his father.
Frederic burned bridges.
He did not mend them.
And every meeting always ended the same way between the two. This week would not be any different. Gian was sure of it.
“How are you, Marcus?”
Gian’s son peered up at his grandfather. Gian could count on both hands the amount of times Marcus had been in the presence of his grandfather for more than fifteen to twenty minutes. It was sad, really. Sickening, even.