Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
RENZO
Sandro glares at me from behind his office desk like I’m one of his submissives he’s about to go alpha on. A pompous ass, in his slick suit and tie. Uptight still, despite the steady girlfriend now in residence. He doesn’t hide his annoyance at my unexpected visit.
“Why are you here?” You’d think he’d be more delighted to see me, considering I took an indirect flight to Rome by way of Sardinia just to visit his charming villa.
“This place brings back fond memories.” During my last visit, the sadistic fuckhead chained me to a bed for days and forced me to detox.
An excruciatingly painful experience, the withdrawal and being in his company for that long.
I refined the art of cliff jumping during my visit, a necessity to escape his men.
Good times.
You’d think he’d be pumped to see me here, willingly.
I dig inside my pocket, retrieve an envelope, and toss it like bait on a hook onto his desk. “Happy birthday.”
“It’s six fucking months away.”
I roll my eyes. “Open the goddamn gift.”
He’s taken aback, hating feeling obliged to anyone, even me.
I snatch the envelope back. “It can wait …”
That makes him smile. “Dick.”
“Asshole.” I hand it back. He looks inside, expression changing from curious to puzzled. “A spa weekend?”
“At a swank resort in Sicily. Once you shed the suit, tie, and workaholic tendencies, you’ll love it. Riley will, too.”
Sandro softens at the mention of his girlfriend. He’s tight-lipped about his relationship, but Riley shared with me how they fell in love in Sicily, so I thought it’d be a good gift.
“She’ll fucking love this.”
Perfect execution on my part, which I hope he remembers after he learns the real reason for the visit.
I adjust my seat, making myself at home, but as I do so, my foot collides with a metal bar beneath his desk. Curious, I repeat the action, kicking it a few times more until the answer dawns on me. “Is that a cage under your desk?”
“Where should I send your gift?”
I’m a kinky motherfucker, yet so is Sandro. Now why would he have a goddamn cage beneath his desk if not to scratch his need for domination?
“Your favorite rehab in Maine?” he continues, unfazed, focused on riding my ass rather than caging his girlfriend’s. Riley deserves a spa stay after putting up with him.
“I thought I’d stick around for a bit.”
“You thought wrong.”
I smirk.
“Why are you here, Renzo? And don’t say you miss me.” He leans back, waiting.
I hesitate, because if I seem too eager, he’ll laugh.
I’ve spent years researching drone tech for covert surveillance, a resource that could elevate the Eleven in ways the old-school mafiosi can’t even imagine.
The possibilities are staggering; silent, untraceable air strikes and the ability to monitor our enemies’ every move without detection.
Don Lucchese knew traditional mafia wars, where one kill sparks retaliation until bodies pile up and peace is finally brokered, would lead to the mafia’s downfall. No civilian wants to see corpses lining the streets.
If Sandro can look past a drone’s toylike appearance and recognize its lethal potential, he’ll realize investing in the latest tech will put the Beneventis ahead of everyone else.
But misperceptions aren’t about knowing too little—they come from believing in the wrong thing too much.
Like I’m the weaker twin.
Like Sandro can wear our father’s shoes without tripping over his own feet.
“I’ve a plan,” I say, short and simple.
His expression’s smug. “You don’t have plans.”
“I need to borrow a million dollars.”
His body goes rigid, like I shot a bullet up his asshole.
“Ten percent interest. I’ll pay you back in a year.”
“You fucking serious? Lend you a million?”
“Two, if you can spare it.”
His lips curl cruelly. “To do what? Open a chain of kink clubs? Lorenzo’s Den of Lust?”
“Sounds more like porn, not kink.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
I brush fake lint off my pants, then offer up a partial lie, something believable his pea-size brain can compute.
“I’ve been fucking around with the market and found some ripe tech investments.
” The ripe part is true, but I don’t “fuck around” with the market, I dominate it.
I’ve been a ghost investor since sixteen, mostly in tech, and have built a sweet nest egg.
But it’s nowhere near what my father has at his disposal and, as the Beneventi heir, Sandro has access to.
The way I see it, this fucker owes me.
“A million-dollar investment?” he repeats.
“Let’s call it an even two.”
“No.”
I offer him a winning grin. “Fine. One and a half will do.”
He stares at me from across his desk, reminding me so much of our father. Sandro was born to be the Beneventi heir. Doesn’t fucking excuse him from stealing my destiny.
“You owe me,” I say, the truth coming out of me whether I wanted it to or not.
“For what?”
“The bullshit you pulled in Rome.”
His expression reads confused. The asshole’s settled into the Life now, hasn’t he?
“You shot Conti’s uncle.”
“What about it?”
I blankly stare at him, waiting for the assumption.
He doesn’t disappoint. “You stood there with this stupid expression, like the night of partying had finally caught up with you. You froze like a pussy.”
“I was manifesting the moment.” Savoring the rush, the elation that took me by surprise.
He fucking blinks.
“You know, projecting an outcome you want and sending it into the universe. But you ruined it.”
“I did what was necessary and covered your ass.”
“You stole my moment to satisfy your raging hard-on to please our father.”
He leans in. “You didn’t have it in you.”
“You have daddy issues.”
That hit the mark. “You don’t have the killer gene.”
I stifle a laugh. I can’t wait to prove this asshole wrong.
“Want into the Life?” he snarls when I don’t give him the reaction he wants. “Focus on earning and not enforcing. The fall will be less messy that way.”
He rolls back in his seat, satisfied he’s out-assholed me.
“Fine,” I say after a few minutes, curious if he understands how I manipulated the fuck out of him. “Float me the million and a half so I establish myself as an earner.”
“Jesus Christ,” he utters. It’s followed by a long pause. “You really want in on the Life?”
I shrug.
“I’ll float you two million with twelve percent interest. If the money ends up in your bloodstream or up your fucking nose, I’ll beat the living daylights out of you.”
I toss my information, which I wrote on a piece of paper, onto his desk. “Transfer the money to this bank account.”
“Now?”
“No. In a fucking year from now.”
He fiddles on his computer. A few moments later, a single satisfying buzz of my phone confirms the transfer.
Mission fucking accomplished—two million dollars is now at my disposal. “This is the smartest investment you’ve ever made,” I murmur, a sliver of excitement coloring my tone.
He leans back, arms crossed. “You think you can give up the lifestyle? The partying, drugs, the excess?”
I tap my temple. “Mind over matter, baby.”
“I hope you can do it, but I won’t bet money on it.”
I straighten, feeling more inspired than ever to prove him wrong. “Say hi to Riley for me.”
He looks perplexed. “You’re not staying for lunch?” His voice dips into something gruff, reluctant. “She’ll want to see you.”
I have a meeting with Dante tomorrow afternoon, something I don’t intend to share. The less he knows about my movements, the easier it’ll be to slip beneath our father’s radar.
I smirk, because, bullshit aside and truth be told, I was hoping for the invitation. “I’d love to.”
He studies me then, a pause heavy with scrutiny. His gaze sharpens, calculating. Is he catching on to my mindfuckery? Or sensing something deeper—the truth to why I’m in Italy and far away from Rhode Island … and Chicago.
“Why ask me?” he finally says, voice edged with suspicion. “Father would be thrilled you’re taking an interest in the famiglie. Why not go to him for support?”
“Can’t.”
His expression tightens. “Why not?”
“I need to lay low for a bit.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. He wants to strangle me, and I don’t blame him.
For a man who surrounds himself with yes-men, puppets who never dare defy him, he’s still so damn desperate to prove his worth to our old man.
Ripping that gun from my hand and stripping me of my place within the famiglie wasn’t enough to do so, it seems. Hate to tell him that it’ll never be enough, not until he stops trying.
Where would he be without me keeping things interesting?
“Relax,” I say with a lazy grin. “I’ll be long gone before the call comes in.” Pushing up from my chair, I stretch, rolling my shoulders. “Goddamn, after all this hard work, I’m starving. What’s for lunch?”
A red light blinks overhead. My exhausted mind struggles with what it might be.
Am I passed out on some seedy Roman side street? In a field, staring at a small drone hovering in the clouds? Did I fuck up again or, for once in my life, commit to a bigger picture?
I awake with a start.
Fucking hell, what time is it?
Sunlight offers me a stiff finger as I crawl out of the hotel bed. I was a good boy last night. Early to bed, early to rise—except mornings and I never agree, and evidently, this holds true despite being completely sober.
I flew into Rome last night like a goddamn gladiator ready to take on the world. So why mourn the death of the sins that used to make me feel alive? Because—not going to lie—it was a struggle not to indulge in one final celebratory evening. My last night to be anyone but Sebastiano Beneventi’s son.
My demons were out in full force, beckoning me, tempting me. But I’m an asshole, not an idiot. Mind over matter, right? I’m in control.
I’m on a new adventure in life.
I’m the Beneventi about to flip the Life on its ass.
Guerrilla warfare, like the kind playing out in the streets within the Cosa Nostra, is so 1980s. Massimo Grassi, for all his education and tech talk, is still a barbarian at heart. It’s clear I can no longer leave modernizing the mafia in his hands.
Still, I managed to fuck up and overslept. If it hadn’t been for the fire alarm light blinking overhead, I might have missed my meeting with Dante.
The clock tells me I’ve fifteen minutes to haul ass across Rome. A quick brush of my teeth and spritz of cologne, and I’m on my way.
I move through the streets of Rome like a ghost retracing steps I barely remember taking.
Everything looks cleaner now. Sharper. The air doesn’t reek of piss and smoke like I remember, and the graffiti that once screamed from the walls has been scrubbed down to faint whispers.
Perhaps it’s the daylight, and how my prior experience with Rome was mostly at night in a part of town not mentioned in travel brochures.
Tourists wander past with gelato and shopping bags, smiling like this city hasn’t chewed people up and spit them out for centuries. Cafés spill sunlight and laughter into the alleyways, and for a second I wonder if I’ve stumbled into the wrong goddamn Rome.
It’s beautiful now, all healed from wounds I’m still bleeding from.
The memory slams into me: the gun in my hand, the sharp, electric, and addictive rush.
The high of all highs. Then Sandro, yanking it away, stealing my thunder like it was his birthright.
His betrayal cut deeper than the recoil.
And my father’s silence, heavier than a bullet to the chest. His disappointment’s been clawing at me ever since.
I drag my hand along a pristine white wall as I pass until my fingertips are raw, streaking it with blood just to leave a mark. Proof that I’m still here. That this city, past and present, hasn’t erased me completely.
Fucking hell. Sandro isn’t the only one with daddy issues, is he?
My phone vibrates against my hip, jarring me back from the crippling realization.
Hand shaking, I retrieve it, preparing for Dante to tell me to fuck off because I’m officially late.
But it’s a text from Sandro:
Carlo Accardo is dead.
I carefully type back, not wanting to get blood on my phone.
How?
Food poisoning.
With a little extra help from the thallium mixed in with his Pepcid pills. You bet I did my homework.
Father is demanding you call him.
I give the text a thumbs-up emoji. Avoiding my father until this passes over tops my priority list.
What did you do?
What did I do? Now that’s a loaded question. Risk my father’s rage? Risk the Beneventi name? Risk the Eleven’s wrath if they ever learn I acted without their bullshit authorizations?
What I didn’t do was murder Accardo to showcase my true nature. The ice in my veins. My lack of empathy toward most people. The devil I’ve dulled through sex and drugs, who’s primed and ready to play as a made man. All that will come in time.
I killed him for her.
Answer me, motherfucker!
I send him a kissy-face emoji, then, glancing at the time, tuck my phone in my pocket. I’m late, but not that fucking late.
With fire in my stride, I push forward, because for the first time in a long damn while, I did something that fucking mattered.
I gave Fina a chance at a real life.
While I set off to become the monster no one sees coming.