Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
FINA
No matter how hard I rub the circular scar on my wrist, it doesn’t fade. Just like my panic never goes away.
I should be elsewhere rather than at the Beneventi wedding right now, wasting precious time when there’s urgent matters I’ve yet to see to.
Like recruiting decoys to throw any search off my tail.
Like winning the lottery or, at the very least, discovering if my inheritance hasn’t been completely been bled dry.
Money is crucial to staying gone. God’s blessed me with the time, and I pray a solution will present itself.
Yeah, I should be anywhere but seated in a pew inside this church and desperately avoiding him.
First name, heartbreak.
Middle name, excess.
Last name striking a heady combination of fear and respect in everyone around us. The kind that forces grown men into their Sunday best, the kind that turns liars into saints the second they step into church. It’s a wonder the walls don’t collapse under the weight of their hypocrisy.
I give in to temptation and look at the man who I counted on saving me.
Lorenzo Beneventi. Standing between his father and brother at the altar. Sinewy. Gaunt. Looking every inch like a rock god. Charisma seeping from his skin. That devil-may-care smirk still intact.
I want to claw my nails across his smug face.
Women eat up the bad-boy act, don’t they? The dirty, filthy devil who makes boundaries just to break them. The bastard collects hearts like trophies.
And now he’s up at a goddamn altar. A place I imagined seeing him under far different circumstances. The sight alone makes my blood boil until all I can do is keep from screaming.
He leans toward the priest, whispers something, and the poor man’s face flushes crimson before he snaps back to scold him. Renzo grins like the devil himself. What kind of twisted soul pisses a priest off at his own family’s wedding?
He’s thinner than before, his complexion pale. Living life to the fullest has dimmed some of his sparkle. Really, he looks like hell. What has he done to himself?
My gaze collides with the asshole standing next to him—Alessandro Beneventi. He glares at me, like my very existence insults him.
I smooth a loose strand of hair off my forehead with my middle finger.
His lips tighten. He looks ready to drag me outside by the throat. His twin, mercifully, doesn’t even notice me.
How I’d love to slide off a pink heel and crack Renzo’s skull open. While I’m trapped, he flies free as a bird. Accountable to no one, and caring about no one, not even himself.
Death by stiletto.
The thought almost makes me smile.
My father nudges me. “Stop staring at that worthless piece of shit,” he warns, clueless as always. “He’ll screw anything that walks, but when it comes to the famiglie, he’ll just screw you over.”
A truth I know all too well. I’d rather have no hope than the hollow kind—that’s the lesson he taught me. I put faith in him, and he crushed it beneath his heel. That sting runs deeper than any physical pain. I taste it still, bitter and sharp, like a bleeding wound that refuses to scab.
I drag my gaze away from Renzo. “Don Beneventi will be insulted if we don’t congratulate him on his wedding,” I say coldly.
“That’s not the Beneventi I’m referring to.”
My father’s always two steps behind, incapable of seeing the real me. His blindness is a luxury I’ve learned to cultivate.
I release a long, exaggerated sigh, letting the sting leak into my voice. “Lorenzo Beneventi is the last man I want any contact with.”
And that’s true, though he’s not alone in his place atop the list. Add Carlo and Emo, and you’ve got a full roster of men capable of tearing me open and letting me bleed out.
I squeeze my eyes shut and force a prayer. God, I don’t need love or mercy. Just money. Enough to escape. Enough to never look back.
“Don Lucchese’s funeral was the last time all us capos were together,” my father murmurs beside me, oblivious.
The ceremony begins, and I stare at the pink toes of my heels for the duration, only interrupted by my father during a lull after the priest finishes a blessing. “Stroke of luck we were invited, but especially lucky the reception’s at the Beneventi estate.”
My thoughts turn immediately back to Chicago, and Carlo’s request. My father never ceases to disappoint me.
“You can’t be serious? Spy on Don Beneventi? Whatever Carlo is planning with the information you provide, we can’t be a part of. Not unless you want your body parts spread out across the Beneventi golf course?”
My father grinds his teeth.
“When have you become a puppet?”
He swings toward me. I’m never this direct, and maybe that’s why I’m marrying the enemy. Maybe I played this engagement all wrong? “What did you say?” he demands.
When did he become the rat who squealed on others to help himself?
When did he switch from the doting father to this weak, pitiful man?
Money. That’s all that matters.
His fist curls, and I brace myself. Not even a wedding will save me if he loses his temper.
He’s capable of anything … even murdering your mother.
I blink hard, swallowing the tears that threaten. Not now. Not later either. Someday. Someday, far from here, when I have a life of my own, I’ll face her death. I’ll uncover the truth, then I’ll decide what punishment fits the crime.
“Not all capos are present,” I say, my lie thin but pointed. “Benny Manocchio’s missing.”
My father blanches.
Sebastiano Beneventi terrifies me, but more recently, rumors about Alessandro are circulating. How he not only took a chain saw to Benny’s man but mailed his remains, piece by piece, to the remaining capos. Some suggest he’s more vicious than his father.
My gaze slides to his twin.
So quick with a grin, so careless with the world. Hard to picture him holding a chain saw, much less covered in the blood of the Beneventi enemies.
Wait … no. I can picture that vividly.
And, as far as savagery, Lorenzo Beneventi has everyone in this church beat.
My throat hitches, but I shake free from the sadness. My poor lack of judgment got me here. All those years ago, I should have chosen Massimo Grassi to obsess over.
My father ignores me through the rest of the ceremony, which is perfectly fine.
The vows are exchanged. Alessia Amato glows, radiant with her love as she cries, “I do,” and hurls herself at her husband. Their kiss lingers, endless, and envy coils inside me like a living thing. Sebastiano Beneventi protects what belongs to him. Why couldn’t that instinct have passed to his son?
A wicker basket is shoved into my hands, white envelopes overflowing from the inside. So many. My pulse hammers so loud it drowns out everything else.
“Give me that,” my father snaps, ripping the basket away. He tosses in an envelope without hesitation and passes it along. “I hope the bastard appreciates it.”
“How much?” I ask, feigning calm, though my voice cracks.
“Ten grand.”
I freeze. “Ten grand?”
“Can’t be the capo with the smallest offering. Not when they already whisper I’m cheap.”
“Maybe the check will bounce,” I mutter, too bitter to fake sarcasm and too distracted to muster anything more.
Ten thousand dollars. From the cheapest asshole in the church.
My mind spins, from my desperate prayer to how nine of the capos are present, to the fat envelopes, to the opportunity right in front of me.
Desperate times, desperate measures, they say.
I’m drowning, yet suddenly, gloriously, a lifeline is tossed my way.
“Cash,” my father forces out with great displeasure. “Famiglie tradition.”
That’s all I need to hear.
I cross myself with trembling fingers.
Please, God. Forgive me.
And please—please—make sure Sebastiano Beneventi never learns it was me.
I’m on a straight path to Hell either way you look at it.
I pass two confession booths en route to the restroom tucked away behind the vestibule, the contribution basket overflowing with envelopes hugged against my chest.
Once inside, I lock the door behind me.
It’s laughable there’d be a collection in the house of God for a man who steals and murders for his profession. Thousands of dollars stuffed into pure white envelopes, every mafioso overly generous and in competition to outdo each other in kissing their new capo di tutti capi’s ass.
It seems right I take their blood money. I wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for their stupid rules.
I dump out the contents of my purse. My father always criticizes me for carrying a large bag, but I like to be prepared for worst-case situations.
Look who’s smiling now?
But there’s no time to gloat. Freedom is at my fingertips, if I can pull this off.
I stuff handfuls into my purse until it’s bursting at the seams, then shove as many envelopes as I can inside my bra and panties. Then straightening my dress and smoothing my hair, I exit the restroom and head straight for the emergency exit near the confession booths.
My father, anxious to get to the Beneventi estate, had the driver park on the side street. Avoiding the fanfare over the happy couple after they exit the church and time wasted socializing with his fellow capos.
Why make nice when you’re plotting to stab them in the back?
I pray his disgust at the delay I caused and his predictable impatience will have him staring out the car window with eyes off me. Yet I walk fast, heart racing for obvious reasons.
Until everything goes ass up at once.
My pink high heel snags between tiles. I’m launched forward, flailing, as I attempt to stop the inevitable, then hit the floor on all fours, my purse landing with a thud a few feet ahead.
Envelopes erupt like white lava.
Shit, oh shit.
I crawl forward, my knees and mangled wrist throbbing, and hastily gather then shove them back inside.
If anyone sees, I’m dead.
God is punishing me, isn’t he?
Like he hasn’t already done his worst.
Tears form. But crying won’t change my life, only determination will.
Retrieving my purse, I restuff the last few envelopes. But as I stretch toward the last, just out of reach, I hear a noise to my right.
A grunt.
Ever so slowly, I look up.
The confession booth door is cracked open, revealing a man inside.
“Renzo,” I breathe.
The sight mere feet from me shocks me to my core.
Wearing expensive black tuxedo pants and a crisp white silk shirt indecently unbuttoned from neck to waist, he has both feet up on the confessional window while he lounges in the priest’s seat. I smell the sweet, pungent joint before I spy it dangling from his fingertips.
So many words take form. So many questions I’d like to unleash on him. Why didn’t you return my calls? You’re getting high in God’s house? Will you pretend you didn’t witness my crime?
Life’s a game to him.
I was simply a distraction. Something that caught his attention until it faded.
Two words that have weighed heavily on my heart tumble out. “You promised.”
Pain registers across his expression.
I relish it. Yeah, feel that? Yet it’s hard not to notice how his high cheekbones are more pronounced and that he’s obviously lost weight. What has he done to himself?
No. Stop it. Loathing is a much more rational reaction than worry.
I snatch up the last envelope, then scramble to my feet, hauling my purse over my shoulder and disappearing out the emergency door, just like he disappeared on me months ago.
“Fina,” I hear him call out.
But I’m already gone.