THIRTY
Benito
T he scene before me would be ridiculous if it didn’t represent the sad detachment of my unconventional family. My father reviews what will be my prenup spread to the left of his breakfast plate, my mother sparing glances at Dion and me as we pick our way through the cereal, bread, cooked meats, and eggs laid out before us all. I can’t remember the last time we sat down together to eat the first meal of the day. Not since Alessio started college.
Looking at us now, you’d think the scenario was familiar. Something that occurs regularly with how comfortable we appear in our assigned roles.
Yet, I easily recognize the small tells each of us holds.
My father’s finger flicks back and forth over the dog-eared corner of his page—agitation. My mother slices her fruit with such a steady hand and fluid grace that she’d make an excellent surgeon—concealed rage. My brother’s eyes crinkle at the corner with each bite he takes—resentment.
I circle my pointer finger around the rim of my espresso cup—impatience.
Negative energy crackles through the halls of our house, and yet, the fucker primarily responsible is nowhere to be seen. I was content to wait Ignazio out, to give the asshole time enough to eventually fuck up—provide me with the evidence I need. When it was only my pain I avenged, I could rationalize the cost. But seeing Nastasya last night. Shit . Love has a way of taking logic and reason and throwing them out the window. She hurts because of my family, and so I hurt for her.
I want to take that ache away, put a smile back on her face, and give the girl a reason to forget that loving me started all this.
I pick off a small piece of my breakfast roll and toss it at Dion, smacking him on the nose.
His gaze lifts, a hand frozen mid-air around the handle of his delicate fork. The narrowing of his eyes and stiffness to his jaw spell all he needs to say: not now.
Then when? I shrug. I want to know what the fuck rattles through that oblivious mind of his. Well, perhaps oblivious isn’t the right word. Naive? No . Hopeful. I curl my upper lip as the word echoes in my mind. Disgusting fucking thing that it represents. Hope has done nothing for me but bring broken promises and disappointment daily. Week after week.
Year after fucking year.
Hope was the fucking reason I ended up in this predicament.
I stifle the urge to hurl the plate of bacon before me across the fucking patio. The smell is alluring, enough to wet the senses and have my goddamn mouth watering for a taste. But what taste? I haven’t enjoyed a meal the same way for a fucking decade.
Food is nothing more than a means to an end. A way to survive.
Like everything in my life is.
Glancing down and to the side, I slide my phone free of my pocket and check the screen. Nothing. She hasn’t sent me a single message since I snuck out this morning with a promise to set things right. My heart cried in my arms last night until exhaustion pulled her into sleep, and all I could do was lie and stare at her peeling ceiling while the facts of the situation rolled around my mind.
Naz paid those fuckers to hunt her down.
Arseni was there that night, meeting with my uncle before I lost my tongue.
The bastards were up to something back then, and they’re up to something now. I can’t fucking figure out what. And it’s that realization that makes my fucking gut tight with repressed rage.
Fuck. My jaw aches under pressure as I slide the redundant phone away.
Even now, years after the initial fallout, Ignazio fucks things up between Stas and I. And I bet the fucking asshole goes to sleep with a smile on his weathered face knowing so, too.
I don’t know what I expected by visiting Nastasya last night. To make her feel better? Not particularly—I won’t be able to do that until I lay this mess to rest. Maybe acknowledgment would be more accurate. An understanding from her. A sign that she gets this fucking need burning in my chest every day. This insipid desire to shackle her to me to ensure I never have to spend another moment feeling isolated while surrounded by so much fucking insipid devotion.
Because that’s all my family’s love is—devotion, just not for one another.
Their love is not without reason, selfless, or given freely. It comes at a price. That of loyalty to the institution on which we build this crooked empire. It’s the single-minded focus of people too fucking afraid to discover what life outside the protection of the Family entails.
It’s a collective of people afraid they won’t have a life if they dare bend the rules too far.
A collective of people that doesn’t include my uncle.
I toss my napkin on the table with a swift hand and push from my chair. Mother hesitates in her mutilation of a peach and raises her brow. I bow, giving thanks for the meal, and force a smile on my face as I move away from the farce.
The scrape of a second chair precedes footsteps echoing my own into the house.
“You can’t fucking wait long enough to let me eat, can you?” Dion snaps. “Do you want Mama and Papa questioning why we’re so agitated?”
I press my lips together, grimacing as I rip my phone out.
I’ve hidden my anger for ten fucking years. You can’t get through one goddamn meal, and I’M to blame?
“Fuck you. You’ve had ten years to get your head around this. Excuse me if a part of me still battles with the truth of why you can’t talk.” He glances behind him as though expecting either or both of our parents to appear. “What are your plans after this?”
I chuckle, lifting an eyebrow. Sure you want to know? It’s barely been hours since I saw my fiancé last, and still, I have a burning need to satiate.
After I spill some blood.
Dion sighs, patting his pockets. “I’ve got to head into town. Walk out with me.” He pulls the key fob for his car out, glances at it, and then shoves it back into the pocket of his tailored slacks. “I’m concerned, Benny.” Dion heads toward the main foyer.
I wait until he glances back at where I still stand and gesture to where Mama and Papa sit outside, then shrug. Aren’t you going to say goodbye?
“They’ll be fine.”
I roll my eyes, jaw hard, and dart toward the patio. My parents lift their heads as I hastily approach, curious. I put a hand on my father’s shoulder and gently squeeze, his expression relaxing when he nods.
Mother tilts her head to receive the kiss I press on her cheek. “Have a wonderful day, Benito.”
“We’ll meet again later, yeah?” Papa gestures to the unresolved prenup.
I nod and then jog back through to where Dion waits with mild irritation etching his brow.
Yesterday was a wake-up call. I’ve been content to leave with the assumption I’ll return until now. But after the visit to that house going fucking ass up—after the fear Nastasya would get hurt—I’m reminded that the luxury of a return isn’t always guaranteed. The same as I can’t be assured that those I care about will be there to return to. If any of us are to call this day our last, I’d rather it happen without anyone doubting they’re loved and respected.
Even if that love is the same tainted obligation that I bitched about earlier.
“Good now?” Dion asks.
I nod, gesturing for him to lead the way.
He presses his fingers to his temple before dropping his hands in front of his stomach, fisting one inside the other. “I didn’t sleep much last night,” he states low and level as we pass through the grand doors leading out to the driveway. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About everything.” He glances at me as though to check I understand. “Knowing this reframes so fucking much of my life. Our lives.”
I hitch an eyebrow when he glances my way. You wanna tell me something I don’t know?
“Ignazio’s been quiet since the marriage was announced,” he declares. “Other than dinner, I don’t think he’s been back here to see Papa.”
Not unusual. I narrow my gaze and tilt my head a little. What are you saying?
Dion shrugs. “Who knows what else the fucker’s up to? Who he’s talking to? You pulled up last night, dropped yet another fucking bombshell on me by saying he’s the one who organized the hit, and now…” He sighs, halting his progress toward our cars. “You see the similarities, right?”
Between what?
I hold his gaze and raise an eyebrow as I show him my phone.
“It was a car accident, correct?” Dion matches my expression. “How Irina died.”
I frown and nod. Why is he bringing up Nastasya’s mother?
“Run off the road…” He lifts his other eyebrow to match the first. “Ringing any bells yet?”
No way. He doesn’t think?—
“Sounds like the same person was behind them both, hey?” He resumes walking. “Nine years between is long enough to cool the heat but not long enough to hide the coincidences.”
Fuck. I hustle after my brother, smacking him on the arm to get him to look at my hastily typed question.
Why would Naz want them both deaf?
I re-read my auto-corrected note when Dion screws his face up in confusion and re-type the last word. Fuck’s sake.
Dead.
Dion shrugs. “I don’t know, but you said you saw Arseni talking with Naz that night. It has to have something to do with what they discussed.” He stops beside his car, reaching for the handle to unlock it.
I set a palm against the top of the door, leaning against the Aston Martin while I thumb my phone screen with my free hand.
If it’s the same reason, why stand idle all these years? Naz doesn’t operate like that. He’s not patient enough.
He sighs. “I know.” My brother draws a deep breath, pain shadowing his eyes as he regards me. “What do you remember about that night? Did he give you any clues as to what their meeting could have been about?”
I frown. What do I remember? I start with the fucking words that echoed through my head in the dark days that followed while I pushed through the worst of my recovery.
I always thought he felt I was too reckless by being with Nastasya. He told me lover’s tongues are loose tongues.
“Is that what he said, is it?” Dion sneers, lifting his gaze from the phone. “When he stole your lover’s tongue?”
I stare at a brave weed pushing through the stones on the driveway and nod .
“What else did he say when he butchered you, Benny?”
I swallow, suddenly aware of what an awkward fucking motion it is without the whole muscle there to assist. What did Ignazio say that night? My hands fall to my sides, my phone clutched in my fist as I force my memories back there.
Back when I learned monsters are real and hell is a place here on earth.
My recollections have faded over time. Fluid scenes that now come in foggy fits and starts. I remember my breath, loud and hot, as it sawed in and out of my lungs beneath the crude hood they threw over my head. I remember hands bruising my arms as I was dragged over uneven ground and into a building. I remember wishing for the calm comfort of my mother and the steady reasoning of my father. For daylight to wake me from the nightmare.
For the fucking pain to stop.
“Hey…” Dion sets a hand on my shoulder, snapping me from the spiral.
My chest heaves, rough breath audible between us. Fuck. I’ve never processed the trauma properly. Never given it the time it deserves until now.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I set my hand over his and hold his gaze, dipping my chin in a firm nod. It does. Clinging to my brother as my anchor to the present, I close my eyes and slide back into the unlocked memory box that contains my greatest nightmare.
Ignazio talked a lot at the start, but not to me. I couldn’t make out what my uncle said at first, but when he laughed… Fuck—I knew that sound. I knew who held me captive without a shadow of a doubt.
He spoke of mistakes and stupid youth. Ranted how soft hands couldn’t raise strong boys. About how our traditions were being lost over time.
I draw a deep breath and snap my eyes open. My phone creaks beneath the thrusts of my thumbs.
He said we needed to return to the old ways. That our family strays too far from the path of tradition. He said my soft heart needed hardening, and what better way than through a fitting punishment?
“Punishment for what?” Dion folds his arms over his chest, regarding me with a slight tilt of his head. “Is that why you never said anything? You thought you fucking deserved it?”
Didn’t I?
Dion’s expression softens, shoulders dropping as he sighs. “Fuck, brother.” He sets a hand on my upper arm and asks, “Why the fuck would you think that?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and drop my chin. Rage pulses through my veins as I type, screaming for an outlet.
For daring to love someone more than the family.
My brother stays quiet, hand sliding from my arm as he turns to stare down the length of our grandiose driveway. I see it: the war as it crosses his face. Love is what anchors us in this violent life, and yet, coveting somebody outside of the Family so highly is wrong.
Nothing comes before blood. No-one.
“You’ve given him exactly what he wanted all these years. You realize that?” Don’t say it. “You stayed quiet, Benito. You stayed loyal to the Family.”
He fucking said it.
And I died in the process.
I leave my phone in his hand and kick stones across the driveway, pacing half a dozen steps to expel tension before I turn to face my brother again.
“You’re not dead, Benny.” He says the words softly, handing me my line of communication. “You’re just… different to what you could have been. But you know what?” A sad smile graces his lips. “We all are. We all changed the day they wrote De Santis on our birth certificate.”
I lift my eyebrows in acknowledgment. He means well, but it still hurts. It hurts to know that he still doesn’t get it. That what happened to me—that trauma—fucked me up worse than anything I’ve done since. Than any life I’ve taken. Any blood I’ve spilled.
The blood that changed me the most was my own.
“Well?” He folds his arms, a shit-stirring grin twisting his mouth. “What do we do next, lover boy?”
I throw my arms toward the sky, letting them hit my side with a slap. Why does he think I’m here and not with my goddamn hands wrapped around my uncle’s neck? I’ve fantasized about this goddamn revenge for close to a decade, not because I was too afraid to exact it or lacked the confidence to do so. But because it has to be perfect. Everything I do has to operate within the rules and restrictions of our fucking family code. Not our morals. Fuck no. Those things sailed ship a long time ago. The only thing we have left to hold our organization together is a bunch of mandated rules dictated decades ago by some guy that’s more legend than truth at this point.
And it’s those fucking rules that will be the thing that prove my uncle’s guilt. Not the stump in my mouth or how eloquently I recall that night.
No. It’ll be whether I can prove he broke the fucking code by taking my tongue.
Whether I can prove he did it without my grandfather’s knowledge—Don Giovi.
Fuck tradition—it’s bullshit. Tradition is the predefined idea of success that inhibits the growth of future generations. It’s living life by somebody else’s rules. Taking the playbook of some guy who made it big back before mobile phones, computers, and fucking cars that could drive faster than twenty miles per hour were invented, and thinking it still applies in our modern world.
Tradition is what destroys dynasties such as ours. Tradition is the tinder that sets fire to the kingdoms of fearful men. Men too afraid to break from the mold in case they should fail. Be exiled. Outcast. Laughed at.
Ridiculed and emasculated.
Fuck that. When the day comes for my body to return to the earth, all I’ll have left is my name. And it’s not the combination of letters spelled out on my fucking birth certificate that matters. It’s the emotions that my name provokes in people when they hear it spoken aloud. It’s how people feel when they think of me. Of what I do.
Of what I did .
I lift my phone for the last fucking time before I get behind the wheel of my car and smack out my answer for Dion. He wants to know what I’ll do next; then I’ll fucking spell it out for him in black and white.
You want to know what I’ll do?
I shove the device toward his face.
I’ll get to the bottom of this before I kill that traitorous motherfucker, and then I’ll make sure this kind of shit never happens again.
“And how will you do that?” The fire in Dion’s eyes fuels my own.
I lift my lip in a sneer and smile.
By using Ignazio’s precious fucking traditions against him.
They want tradition? Then they’ll fucking get it.
And all the blood that comes along with it.