TWENTY
Benito
H ands slung between my legs, I sit on the stone steps of our grand entrance and watch the guy I had locked away in the stables wander down the long driveway. He has a limp, probably from poor circulation: he didn’t move from the pole, strung on his feet the entire time. We got what we needed out of him, and as much as I would have loved to place a bullet between his eyes and be done with it, we needed him back on the street to start the whispers.
When your business is built on greed and desire, the people at the bottom sometimes grow a little too bold—too desperate to have a slice of what the one percent possess. Nothing puts the worker ants back in their place like sending one of their own back into the nest with a twisted story to tell.
At least the fucker can talk.
I run a hand over my head and then fix on the guy’s back again as he pauses at the roadside, probably wondering if he should attempt the long walk back into the city or find somewhere nearby to use a phone.
My silence had become comfortable in the last year or so. At first, the frustration would have me lash out in fits of violence. I broke Mama’s favorite antique vase the first time the anger got too much to bear. For months, my priority was healing. Keep my head down, take it easy, and get the fucking thing over and done with. Once that phase passed, I had the ugly truth to contend with—healing hadn’t fixed the fact I couldn’t say a goddamn thing. It seemed a fickle reward after week on week of suffering.
I drank, fucked, and fought my way through my recovery and back to sanity—Nastasya’s goddamn cousin was an early casualty of that tirade.
Fuck . I drop my head low, hands clasped behind my head while I stare at the flawless leather of my goddamn boots. I want to explain it all to Stas; tell her what led me to those foolish fucking minutes with Lana. I didn’t want to hurt Nastasya—I wanted to punish myself.
Nobody can love me like this. Nobody would want me.
I figured I’d test the theory with the Russian troublemaker.
Three weeks, I’d stayed around here—home—cycling through pity and rage while I came to terms with my new reality. Fuck—I was nineteen, and my goddamn best years had been turned on their head. Dion had dragged me out to a bar, arguing that nobody would know I didn’t speak if the music was too loud to talk anyway. I’d reluctantly gone, more to appease my brother than for my own benefit. And there she’d been—Lana—Nastasya’s cousin, dancing up a storm at the far side of the floor. I’d only gone over to see if the girl I really wanted was with her, but when it became clear she wasn’t, I found an outlet for the frustration.
She never questioned why I didn’t talk. I don’t think Lana even realized I hadn’t said a word. The whole thing was over before it started. Her ass was against my crotch as she danced, her hands reaching back to circle my neck. I led the woman from the floor with my palm around her nape and shoved her face-first into a wall in the first dark corner I found.
I never looked her in the eye; I didn’t want that connection.
I didn’t want to see the reflection of my heart breaking when I knew this was all I’d ever have going forward: meaningless sex with women who never ask a thing.
Who never get the chance to.
My breath escapes in a heavy rush from my nose. I lift my head to find Dion standing before me, our eyes level, thanks to his position on the bottom step.
“Anything worth sharing?”
I shake my head and rise to my feet. I need to get my fucking emotions in check. For years, I’ve existed with the bare minimum of mortality; I don’t need to suddenly become human now.
“I checked out that estate you sent me to.” Dion rises the few steps to the stoop. “You’ll like what I found.”
I click my fingers and gesture for him to hand his phone over.
“Patience, pet.” He grins, looking exactly like our goddamn father. “Let’s take this inside.” His gaze narrows when he turns to search out our recently released guest. “I wish you’d dump your trash somewhere else.”
I shrug and then lead him indoors. The street urchins know where we live anyway, so why put myself out by giving them a free ride into the city? Our shoes echo on the parquet floor, the subtle pattern freshly polished, catching the sun’s scattered rays through the high windows. Our mother’s voice carries from the sitting room, the matching replies of her beautician much subtler. Every Tuesday, Mama gets her nails done. As kids, we’d tease her about its extravagance, but as I grew older, I understood why Papa lavishes her with these little luxuries.
It’s his apology. One of the ways he thinks to make up for the malevolent man he is.
The irony is that he has nothing to apologize for. Sure, my father has orchestrated murders and enabled the distribution of illegal goods that contributed to the downfall of our society. But I know the man behind the title. The guy who cares whole-heartedly for his family with an empathy that is a rare gem in such a brutal and cut-throat world.
I can only hope to be like him when I have a family.
“We’ll head into the library, yeah?” Dion steers us right—away from where Mama entertains her friend. “Get some privacy.” He waits for me to enter the cozy room first, gently shutting us in. “I take it Vinny isn’t aware of this if you have me running errands for you.” My younger brother faces me with arms folded while I get situated in a leather wingback.
I shake my head and reach for the thick tome discarded on the side table. I don’t have as much time to read these days, but Mama fostered the habit when I needed a way to fill the void left by my lack of conversation skills.
“Nobody will question your silence if you have your nose between the pages,” she’d said. She was right—as always—saving me from many awkward situations before I became independent enough to busy myself in other ways.
“Only three houses had cameras toward the road,” Dion explains, perching on the front of the matching seat to my right. “And only one had footage that was of any use.” He flicks the switch on the lamp on the side table between us.
The library is a dark room tucked toward the back of the house. A single window exists between the book-lined walls on the side of our home that sees the least daylight. It’s a dark cavern in which I was happy to lose myself that first year as a mute.
Mafia men don’t show emotion. At least not of the kind I had in spades. Despair and grief. It’s just my fucking tongue, and yet I felt as though I’d lost myself. I never cried as a boy, even when I broke my ankle, landing awkwardly out of a tree at age eight. But that first year after I lost my ability to speak? Yeah, I cried a lot. And most of it behind the shield of a hardback within these walls.
“The footage is grainy,” Dion continues, snapping me out of my memories. “But we’ve got a plate number.” He passes his phone over for me to see the five-second loop.
I lift my eyebrows when I hand the device back. Did you run it?
He nods. “I passed the details along to Marjorie with a sweetener for her daughter’s rehab.”
Our insider at the DMV. Her daughter’s crack habit has left Marjorie with two mortgages on her home and an ex-husband who likes to turn up on occasion when he’s out of money to gamble. We didn’t need to try hard to corrupt her for our purpose.
“You want the details?” Dion smirks.
My chest rises and falls rapidly, fists curling on the arms of the seat. I want the details—of course, I want the details. I want names, ages, addresses. I want to know who they love the most and who’d hurt worst to lose first.
I want to be their worst fucking nightmare come to life.
“I’ll give it to you,” Dion assures, “if you promise me one thing.”
My left eye twitches. Every second he fucks me about, my adrenaline spikes higher. If he’s not careful, I’ll tackle his ass to the ground to get the information anyway.
“You’ll tell Nastasya exactly why you do this.”
I cock my head to the left and narrow my gaze. What?
Dion leans back in the seat, crossing one leg over the other. “I know you want us all to think you’re doing this for the family, to clear our name and prove to Arseni we aren’t responsible.”
I concede with a shrug.
“But if that were the case, you’d have given this lead to Vinny to follow through.” Dion pauses to study me, mouth in a hard line. “This is personal.”
I look away. He doesn’t know the entire history between Nastasya and me. Sure, he knows I had a thing for her when we were teens—we all did. She’s fucking beautiful in that way that lifts the worst of days. I’m relatively sure Dion wanted her for himself at one stage; I can’t blame him.
I’ve loved her since I first saw her. Since I didn’t know what the fuck the flippy feeling in my eleven-year-old gut was.
“What does she mean to you, brother?” Dion leans his head on one hand as though settling in for the long haul.
He’s shit out of luck. I have murder on my mind.
Time is of the essence.
I rub my fingers together, indicating I want the info.
He holds my hard stare for a tense minute. “You already love her, don’t you?”
Hands to my face, I fall back in the seat and groan, dragging the heated palms to my throat.
“How long?”
Info! I clap my hands together and sit forward again.
“No.” He grins, clearly amused at my frustration. “Answer me, you stone-hearted jackass. How long have you been in love with the enemy?”
I tilt my head, gaze narrowed. She’s not the enemy.
“We haven’t seen them for years,” Dion deduces. “Fuck. I think the last time the Kuznetsovs attended the same event as we did was six or seven years ago.”
Yeah. And she wasn’t with him. I slouch in the seat, arms straight on the rests, and stare blankly across the room.
“It goes back further than that, doesn’t it?”
I cut my gaze across to my middle brother—the smart one.
A slow smile splits his lips. “You hooked up with her, didn’t you?”
I look away again. At least the book spines don’t judge me.
“After you went mute?” The way he asks the question… he knows the answer. “Before.” His hazel eyes go wide.
My slow blink and sigh give him all the confirmation he needs.
Dion jerks forward in the seat, legs wide and elbows to his knees. “We were fucking teenagers, Benito.”
I shrug. So? What does it matter? Does the heart suddenly know the difference between love and lust because society decides we’ve matured? Fuck that. I knew she was the real deal when I couldn’t get her off my mind, even as I did the unspeakable things that demonstrated I could become a made man.
Nothing proves unconditional love like lusting for your lover’s kiss while you knife a man in the heart.
A vision of Nastasya’s lips on mine while I knife her attackers in the heart sends my pulse racing. Yeah. That’d be fucking nice.
I shift my glare to Dion and curl the fingers of my closest hand. He relents, leaning to one side while he retrieves his phone. Mine pings soon after with the transferred note. I flick the screen awake with a terse swipe of my thumb and read the details.
My gaze finds Dion, my eyes wide with disbelief.
He nods. “I thought it was fucking strange too.”
We’ve never had an issue with the Albanian street gangs before now. Of all our associates, they’re the most reliable. They need us to ensure the product reaches the streets without interference, and we rely on that trust for a third of our income.
Why the fuck would they try to start a war between us and the Russians?
I launch from the chair and stride toward the door, reaching for it when Dion calls out behind me.
“You need to let the old man know, Benito.”
I hesitate, hand to the lever. Fuck.
“You can’t head out there and take this into your hands without his blessing.”
No. I can’t.
But I also can’t sleep another night knowing that Nastasya’s killers are not only still out there but very much still occupied with their end goal.
Once the news of our engagement hits the streets, the price on her head will double.
I’m only one man.
I can’t stop them all.