by Bethany-Kris
Stares that said not this time, but next.
It was always the same.
“Get some water, you two,” Tank said from down below. “Take a breather. Jesus, ya’ll be given me fucking heart palpitations with the way you go on sometimes.”
Beni laughed as he turned his back to his twin, and in two strides, was jumping over the ropes to land on the mats below. After pulling off his gloves, and spitting out his mouthguard, he reached for the water bottle he’d set on the floor earlier, tipping it up and squeezing it hard to get a steady stream of cold water into his mouth that he could gulp down like it was the air he really needed.
Water was good, too.
Hydration, and all that shit.
Tank, a six-foot-six Latino with shoulders that seemed as wide as he fucking was tall, handed Bene’s bottle of water up to him when he didn’t come out of the ring. At his feet, Bene’s gloves sat, forgotten.
“We need to work on your defense of your head,” Tank told him. “Tuck those fucking elbows in, get your fists high and close to your face, you know.”
Beni arched a brow at his twin. “Got a point.”
Because the head was always Bene’s weakness. Beni’s was the fact he didn’t like fast-footed people in a ring. They both had their spots that could be better. And sure, while they used boxing as a form of working out, they were still pretty serious about the technique of it all.
You know, when Bene wasn’t hungover and in a mood.
“Or I just don’t care as long as I can get the job done.”
“Won’t be able to get the job done,” Tank returned, “if you get knocked the fuck out, amigo.”
“Right,” Bene muttered around the rim of his water bottle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Finish that water, and we’ll go another—”
Tank’s directions came to a halt with the muffled ringing of Beni’s cell. He gave the man an apologetic shrug, bending down to dig the phone from his bag.
“Take your call, no worries,” Tank said behind him. “I’ll get your brother ready for another pounding.”
“Gee, thanks, asshole,” Bene grumbled in reply.
“It’s what I do.”
Beni found his phone with a triumphant grunt, and didn’t bother to check the caller ID before picking up the call with a fast, “Yeah, Beni here.”
He kept his back to the ring.
“Busy?” came a familiar voice.
His uncle, Tommas.
Or rather, his new boss.
Beni found it easier to differentiate between the boss and family aspect with his uncle than he ever had with his father. He wasn’t sure why, but Tommas drew that line clearly in the sand, and expected it not to be crossed. It didn’t matter who it was, any made man in the family, or Tommas’s own son, Beni’s cousin, Tommaso ... the line was always clear.
No exceptions.
“Boss,” Beni replied, “never busy for you. What’s up?”
“I have a job for you to do. When can you come to the mansion and have a chat?”
See, this was where Beni’s privilege came into play where the mafia was concerned. He didn’t have his button—he wasn’t in technically. He wasn’t a made man, by any standard. He was nothing more than an associate of the business with a mafia boss father, and an uncle who ran another organization. If he was any regular fucker, he wouldn’t have a direct line to the boss. His orders would come through other lower fucks on the totem pole.
Instead, he was afforded this respect.
He was starting to understand what his father had meant.
Beni was learning to respect his place.
This status.
“Give us five minutes to shower—we’re at the gym—and we can drive over,” Beni said.
Tommas clicked his tongue, murmuring, “Just you today. Bene will have another job with someone else, I suspect.”
That was ... unusual.
Beni knew better than to question it, though.
“All right, I’ll be over, boss.”
“See you then.”
Tommas hung up the call without a proper goodbye, but Beni didn’t care. Turning on his heels to face the ring, he found his brother was already leaning over the ropes with an inquisitive eye locked on him.
“What’s up?”
“Boss wants me over at his place for a job, or something.”
Bene nodded. “Okay.”
Okay?
No questions about the job, or why he wasn’t included?
Whatever.
Beni had work to do now.
“Meet up later at the club, then?” he asked.
Bene slapped the ropes with a gloved hand. “You got it.”
• • •
“How was traffic?”
Beni scowled, but instantly fixed his face to something more respectful and pleasant when his uncle looked up from the stack of papers on his desk as he darkened the doorway of the boss’s home office. “Shit.”
“That’s Chicago on a Saturday afternoon, for you.”
“Hmm.”
He didn’t mind, really. To be honest, other than the almost constant presence of wind, he thought Chicago was a lot like Toronto. The accents were different, and people weren’t as kind, but Canada was Canada. And this was certainly not Canada.
All in all, Marcus hadn’t been wrong months ago. Chicago wasn’t half bad, he simply didn’t like the reasons for why he had been sent here. That was the difference.
“Lucky for you,” Tommas said, closing the folder he’d been perusing at Beni’s entrance, “I didn’t have anywhere to be today, and I could afford to wait for you.”
“I can’t control traffic.”
Tommas’s gaze lifted to meet Beni’s, a question—or was it a warning?—lingering there. His uncle said nothing, simply stared and let that look do the job for him.
“Sorry,” Beni said, checking his attitude. “I apologize for making you wait.”
“Thank you.” Gesturing at one of two black leather bucket chairs in front of his desk, he added, “Take a seat, and we can discuss this job I have for you.”
All right.
Beni did as he was told, and it was only once he was seated that Tommas leaned back in the office chair to steeple his fingers while regarding his nephew over the tips. Under the scrutiny, he had the strangest urge to fidget. He always felt strange when people stared at him, and he was without his twin. It was easier to defer the energy back to Bene, or even, the identical nature of the twins and their behaviors often distracted people in a way.
Alone, it was just him.
Sometimes, he didn’t know what to do with that.
“What?” he finally asked, edgy enough to risk it.
“How are you liking Chicago?”
“Just fine.”
Tommas lifted a brow. “That all?”
“I think Papa made the right choice sending us here.”
“Oh?”
Beni shrugged. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
Tommas smirked. “We’ll see.”
He suspected—and rightfully so—that his uncle would run that information back to Gian, or his sister, Beni’s mother, as fast as he possibly could. There was nothing their generation liked more than saying their kids admitted they were right.
Tommas sighed and turned his chair slightly so that he could stare out the long, rectangular windows that filled up a good portion of one wall inside his office. “Have you heard about the issues on the east side?”
“A bit.”
“And?”
Beni made a noise in his throat, not wanting to overstep his bounds. The problems circulated around a crew ran by a Capo. That meant, men of Beni’s status had no business bad mouthing—even if it was just business—a made man.
“Beni,” Tommas prodded.
“It sounds like the crew is problematic.”
Yeah, that sounded fine.
He mentally patted himself on the back.
Tommas n
odded. “Yes, all their issues with the gang, not to mention the things that haven’t been put out for public consumption.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The thieving.”
Beni’s brows shot all the way up. “Someone is stealing within the crew?”
“The Capo running it believes so. Problem for him is that it’s being done in such a way he isn’t sure who is doing it. And that’s where you alone come in.”
“How so?”
“I’m going to place you inside the crew as a new member. It was the Capo’s idea. Jerome does occasionally have good ideas, even if he drives me crazy most of the time. Nonetheless, you’ll take a spot in the crew, run with them, work ... all normal things, and while you’re at it, find out why they’re having all the issues with the gang nearby, and who is doing the stealing.”
Tommas waved a hand, adding, “See, that’s part of the reason why I wanted only you on this job. It would be best if you integrated as much as possible into the crew, and you know how they can be about new people.”
“Yeah, distrustful, and—”
“Imagine two of you taking spots.”
Right.
“Bene and I would be ... distracting.”
Tommas chuckled. “To say the least. Put the two of you together, and you can’t help but draw attention with the way you go on.”
“We don’t go on. We just ... are.”
Yeah.
That worked.
“If you say so, nipote,” Tommas returned. “So, what do you think? You up for the task.”
Sure.
Why not?
“What about what I have been doing with Bene? That’s a two-man job.”
Since they arrived in Chicago six months ago, their uncle put them in charge of looking after the streets, and those working for them in the city. Daily, they were running from one end of the city to handle dealers, or inside a bar picking up messages or money from bookies. It was a lot to keep track of, but it also allowed the Capos of the Chicago Outfit a bit of legroom with their people. They didn’t have to be everywhere all at once when they could focus on their crews and let Beni and Bene do the heavy lifting elsewhere.
“We’ll have others take that over,” Tommas said.
“With Bene?”
“No, two new people.”
“What will Bene—”
“As far as I know,” his uncle interjected calmly, “he’ll be heading back to Toronto soon. Something he worked out recently with your father. Homesick, I believe. You would have to ask him. You didn’t know?”
Suddenly, that strange yeah comment from his brother that morning made a hell of a lot more sense. They were supposed to be here—together—for at least a year. Here it was, six months in, and already his brother was leaving.
Arranged it behind his back, apparently.
Why?
Why hadn’t he told Beni?
“So, he’s going home,” Beni said quietly, “and I’m staying here?”
“Looks like it. It wouldn’t hurt for the two of you to spend some time apart, Beni.”
“It’s not about being apart.”
Mostly.
Kind of.
He didn’t want to be separated from his brother, but that wasn’t why he was pissed off, either. That was because Bene hid it from him.
Tommas raised a brow, murmuring, “If you want me to believe you’re not angry about being separated, perhaps you should stop looking at me like you’re going to come over my desk with a tone that suggests the same, yes?”
Fuck.
Beni said nothing.
Tommas seemed to be okay with that. “You’ll begin work with the crew soon. And stop to say hello to your aunt before you leave, understood?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
But now he had a lot of shit on his mind, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. Not the first clue.
4.
“Only you could pull that look off in a club.”
August glanced down at her attire at Camilla’s comment. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong with it. I said you are the only person who could pull that look off in a club, hon.”
“Do you know how much I paid for this jacket?”
Just to make a point, August did a little twirl right there on the spot. Holding the jacket open all the while, so that Camilla could get a good look at it while the two of them got ready in her bedroom for the evening.
Camilla laughed. “I do like it.”
“A custom Frankie Zombie.”
And shit, she loved the damn jacket. It was probably her favorite piece in the whole look, and there was no way she wasn’t wearing the hell out of it as much as she could. She would be burning up after a few minutes in the club because of the leather, but oh well.
Beauty was pain.
The contrast between the two girls couldn’t be more obvious with Camilla in her slinky, black club dress that fell tightly against her curves, and showed off all kinds of leg. Her pixie-like features had been painted seductively with dark kohl and mascara lining a smoked-out eye, and a bright, red lip. Letting her light hair hang loose, it settled in soft waves down her back.
The red-soled six-inch stilettos on her feet, showing off freshly painted toes, would have more than one person giving Cam second looks in the club, and her husband a raging headache from glaring right back. That was the thing, though, Camilla loved attention.
Lived for it.
Men or women, she was game.
Well ... August supposed that Cam used to be game for it. Now that she was married, Camilla stuck to one man, and didn’t chase a good time as much as she used to.
As for August, she went with distressed, black skinny jeans that she had rolled up around the ankles to show off the black, strappy three-inch heels on her feet. Under the custom, leather Frankie Zombie jacket with graffiti covering every single inch, she settled for a spaghetti strap, black silk camisole that hung loosely around her body, and showed just a sliver of her stomach.
She had chosen to go for a similar, dark, smoked-out makeup look, but with slightly less kohl lining her brown eyes than her friend, and a russet lip to compliment the golden undertones of her dark skin. As for her braids, she had gathered them with a snag-less tie at the nape of her neck, and secured it in a thick pony.
She wasn’t dressed in typical club apparel, but that was fine, too. Normal was boring ... well, as long as you weren’t Camilla, because that bitch could make anything fucking work for her, and still turn heads while she did it.
“You wanna pick something from my collection for jewelry?” Cam asked. “I’ve got more than enough to share.”
Understatement.
Camilla’s walk-in closet could make a boutique store jealous. Any woman who appreciated the finer things in life would give their firstborn for the chance to go on a free shopping spree in Cam’s things. She had expensive taste, too.
August shrugged. “Better not. I drink, and things start getting lost.”
Her friend wouldn’t care, she knew, but August did.
“I mean, that’s fair.”
Their laughter in the bedroom must have gained the attention of Camilla’s husband down the hall in his office, because soon enough, he darkened the doorway. August noticed him first from her position sitting on the end of their four-poster, canopy bed. A small, amused smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he watched his wife lean over her dresser to get a better look at the line of her lipstick in the mirror.
“Can’t draw a straight line on this bottom lip to save my fucking life,” Camilla muttered.
“Just like the good old days, yep.”
Tommaso chuckled darkly in the doorway, gaining the attention of his wife when she swung around in those towering heels of hers. “Now, don’t go getting her worked up and remembering that time in her life, August, or she might run off on me to do it all over again.”
“I would not,
Tom.”
“Mmhmm.”
Camilla gave him a simpering smile. “And even if I did, you would chase after me.”
“This is true. Are you nearly ready? Your lipstick looks fine.”
All it took was a compliment from her husband for Camilla’s dark eyes to light up, pleased. “Just about, yeah.”
“Good.” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Tommaso used his shoulder to rest against the doorjamb as he added, “We should go over the ground rules for tonight.”
Camilla gave him a look. “This again?”
“What does that mean?”
Neither of the two glanced August’s way.
“It’s just a club, Tom.”
Tommaso nodded. “And at the same time, I want to be safe. Or rather, you to be safe, and you know, have a good time. We can’t do that if someone causes an issue, right?”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not.”
“A little,” Camilla retorted.
“Cam.”
Her friend rolled her eyes, and waved a hand. “Fine, go over the ground rules again, if it makes you feel better.”
“It will.” Tommaso raised a brow, daring his wife to reply with one of her smartass comments to that statement, but Camilla chose to keep her mouth shut. August was still sitting on the edge of the foot of the bed, trying to understand what she had missed. “All should be quiet on the east end—we put word out, so nothing should happen. The streets have been quiet over there the last week, anyway.”
“And those rules?”
“Cam.”
“Just say them, Tom.”
“No leaving the club without the group. Not for a smoke, or a breather, or anything. Someone goes to the bathroom, then someone else has to go which shouldn’t be a problem for you women, because you piss in packs, anyway.”
“Tommaso.”
He shrugged. “Deny it, Cam.”
Well ... he was right.
“Don’t accept randomly sent drinks,” Tommaso continued on, “and try not to wander off alone. That’ll keep everyone mostly together, and we’re less likely to be a target for the gang that has been causing issues with the crew on the east end while we’re at the club tonight.”
Ah.
Right.
Now it made more sense.