by Bethany-Kris
Someone needed an extra pair of hands on a crew for the day to do some manual labor in a stuffy warehouse that was better suited to be torn down and cemented for a parking lot than for working? Bene wasn’t the type to roughen his hands up with shit like that or blacken his lungs, but he didn’t get a say, and so he did what he was told without a word.
It didn’t stop.
At all.
One thing after another.
Yet another person with a new task or job for Bene to do. In two weeks, he maybe slept in his own bed a total of eight hours, if that. Sometimes, he just slept in his car while he waited for his fucking phone to ring again.
Was he eating three times a day?
Fuck no.
Unless one considered fast food eating.
Bene sure as fuck wasn’t drinking.
He didn’t understand what in the hell was going on, but he was quickly growing tired of it. Not that he could say that, or even stop. He couldn’t because he’d done this—he asked for this life, and sometimes, shit just wasn’t easy. Not being made meant Bene had to answer to every single man in the organization that was a made man. And they could use him for whatever they wanted, as long as the boss agreed.
Apparently, his father did.
Up until this point in his life and working toward getting his button for the Guzzi Cosa Nostra, Bene had been spoiled. Privileged, really, because of his last name and the fact he was one of the youngest sons of the Guzzi Don. Unlike others, who worked their way into the family from the ground up, Bene had only answered to his father and older brothers, most of the time, with a couple of Capos thrown into the mix as a mentor to him.
His right, he was told once.
At the same time, he’d been warned this would happen, too. That at some point, he would be all or nothing in this family and business. That his status as a Guzzi son would afford him little to nothing compared to others trying to get their in, and he would have to earn it the same way every other man did, too.
Bene hadn’t been ready.
He blamed himself for that.
A part of him wondered if that was Marcus’s point. To keep him so busy that he didn’t even have time to worry about his problems or trying to find the solution to them at the bottom of a goddamn bottle.
But who knew?
Not Bene.
He didn’t get to ask questions.
Not anymore.
Bene drummed his fingers against the leather-wrapped steering wheel of his Lambo—a car he’d painted bright red so that everybody and anybody would see him coming, and know it was him just by the distinct color and car alone. His father had been quick to point out the car was a little ostentatious, and drew too much attention, but he never said to get rid of it, and Bene considered that a win.
It was also serving him well when Marcus called to demand Bene drive all the way across the city to meet him at the back of a barber shop—one he’d never heard of before—in a time frame that would have been impossible in any other vehicle except his Lambo. He was thanking that goddamn upgrade he had done to the engine shortly after he bought it for that extra fifty horsepower under the hood.
Still don’t know why I’m coming to this place tonight, though.
Yeah, his thoughts were still hell.
That couldn’t be helped.
Bene pulled his vehicle into the rear parking lot of the barber shop that ... well, didn’t look like it had been open in years, if the plywood covering the windows was any indication. Even the red and white pole—no longer spinning in its cracked glass case—seemed as though it was on its last legs.
What is this place?
And why was he here?
Bene noticed the cars parked in the lot first, and his brother standing at the doors second. Marcus, that was. He recognized the vehicles, too, as belonging to Capos of the family, an enforcer or two that were lucky enough to get their in to the family, and his brothers’, Marcus and Christopher, as well.
Not to mention, his father’s coveted, custom Rolls-Royce.
The second Bene stepped out of the car, Marcus arched a brow, and smiled faintly from his position on the sidewalk. He’d be a liar if he said a part of him didn’t want to wipe that fucking smirk from his older brother’s face.
If only because ...
“Do you enjoy making me run all over the city like a cafone?” he asked.
Marcus shrugged one suit-covered shoulder. “My right, no?”
“Well—”
“And their right. The boss thought you needed a reminder about what this life was really like, and just how lucky you had it, Bene.”
He understood a lot of things then.
First, his brother called Gian the boss. Not dad, or papa, like he usually would when they had a conversation about their father, and words mattered. Right now, words mattered more, and calling him the boss meant only one thing.
This wasn’t family time.
This was business.
“What’s going on?” Bene asked.
“We needed to make sure you could clean up your act, and get back to business before someone vouched for you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He thought he did.
Was this ... “Am I getting my button tonight?”
Marcus lifted his hand to show three cards he held. Saints. Even from Bene’s position ten feet away, he could see the different religious figures on the cards, and he knew he had been right about his assumption.
“Pick your saint before we enter, and you speak the omertà.”
“That’s why you had me running like crazy?”
“Part of it.”
Bene had another thought, then. “Am I getting my button because Dad’s worried someone might kill me otherwise, or is it that he thinks I earned it?”
Marcus didn’t answer right away.
He didn’t like that.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Is being a made man what you want, or not?” Marcus asked.
“Of course, it’s what I want.”
“Then, pick your saint, Bene, and let’s get this night started. The boss has places to be this weekend—we’re handling famiglia business, it’s the boss—so let’s not make him wait, so that he can finish this, and take his wife out of town for the weekend like he promised her.”
Well, then ...
“Saint John the Apostle,” Bene said.
Marcus smiled. “The saint of loyalty. Smart choice. Keep making those, and you’re going to be just fine tonight, little brother.”
• • •
His palm stung.
Like a motherfucker.
In Cosa Nostra, it was tradition for a man’s hand to be sliced with a knife chosen by the boss as he spoke his oath, and after the patron saint he’d chosen burned to nothing but ash in his palm. Symbolic, in a way, speaking to the oath they all had to take for this life.
The mafia came first.
La famiglia was held most important above all else.
Family.
Friends.
Love.
Even God.
Hence, the saint.
It was Bene’s only thoughts when he finally got home—the watch on his wrist said it was only five, but hell, it felt like one. In the morning. Maybe that was because the past two weeks finally caught up to him, and he now realized what it was really about and what it meant for the rest of his life.
The cut on his palm? Dried with blood? Dirtied with burned ashes from the picture of a saint he’d picked for his initiation into Cosa Nostra?
It only meant one thing, now.
He was made.
Bene walked through his penthouse in a haze, of sorts, seeing different things he had left scattered and forgotten while his life was upended for two weeks. A bag of chips on the counter. Unwashed dishes in the sink. His bathroom had turned into a hurricane, and his bedroom didn’t look much better, either.
Clothes strewed across the floor from just changing when he needed
to, but not having the time to properly put things away. He hadn’t made his bed in two weeks, and the sheets needed to be washed. He had a pile of shit that needed to go to the drycleaners, and he just had zero desire to clean anything. Not after the day he had.
Couldn’t he just ... enjoy this moment?
This milestone?
Bene didn’t know.
So, while he tried to figure it out, and settle everything that had happened over the course of an evening, he did attempt to clean up his penthouse. At least now, he had the time to do so, and no one would be calling him away as soon as he started something.
Maybe it was time to hire a maid.
Besides, after today, there would be no more running to do odd jobs or answering to whichever made man had his phone number. He was now set to work as his brothers’ right-hand man, for whatever Chris or Marcus needed. Considering Marcus was the underboss of the family, Bene knew he’d be making his brother’s life easier as the go-between for Capos controlling the men on the streets.
Work he liked.
By the time Bene made it back to his bedroom to pick up the clothes strewn all over the floor, and strip the bed of the dirty sheets, he was ready to call it a night. And yet, when he picked up a pair of pants he hadn’t worn in two weeks, and a piece of crumpled up paper fell to the floor—writing side up—he hesitated.
Her number.
That signature V.
Christ.
Why could he still taste that woman on his mouth? How did she make him hard when he hadn’t even seen her in weeks? Not to mention, why did his exhaustion suddenly disappear at the idea of calling that number, and seeing if he might be able to celebrate this night with her?
Bene had no intention of questioning it. He simply grabbed that paper and pulled his phone from his pocket. He was already dialing the number before he even left the bedroom.
Surely, he earned this.
Right?
6.
“This is delicious,” Senior praised.
“Isn’t it? Wasn’t sure what she was doing at that college, but this is a good sign,” Mario replied to his father. “Might even dare to say it was worth it.”
Senior turned his gaze on Vanna, and nodded. “Not sure how much longer you’ll be attending there, but while you do, I need you to cook for me more.”
Across the table, the man’s wife—and Mario’s mother, Gemma—did her best to keep a straight face, and not roll her eyes. Barely. Vanna might have been offended about that on another day, but she kind of got it.
Men were praising another woman’s cooking at her table, and no Italian woman took very kindly to that. To her benefit, Gemma was attempting civility, and politeness. Vanna couldn’t say she would do the same if she were in Gemma’s position. Not that anyone gave her a choice. Mario called the week before, said his father wanted to spend more time with her, and he agreed with the promise she would cook them all something to eat the next week.
Well, that turned into this. A table full of people from their Camorra clan. Vanna killing herself in the kitchen. And now a woman across from her who looked like she had finally found her limit with all the compliments going around that were not directed toward her, or her cooking. Just perfect, really. This night couldn’t get any worse than it already was, surely.
She would usually enjoy someone praising her cooking considering the effort that went into her attending George Brown College for their amazing culinary program. A program that would, essentially, guarantee her success in her chosen field once she finished, and went on to apprentice under a chef in the city.
Unless, someone else stopped her dreams.
Considering some of the offhanded remarks Mario made over the course of the dinner, to his father and the other Camorra men attending, Vanna was beginning to think he intended to do exactly that. Cage her into this life, somehow, and keep her with him.
Across the table, Mario watched her with a smile playing at the edges of his lips. She could tell without him even needing to say it that he was enjoying this night. It was almost as if he had been able to show her off, like some trophy he’d been keeping hidden from the rest of his family and his father’s people. As if they hadn’t known Vanna her entire life, and now they were getting a fresh look at her on Mario’s arm.
Up until now, Vanna had felt forgotten by a lot of the clan. The little orphan teenager who had been taken in by the boss and his wife but had never really been favored or put on display for the rest of the clan like Mario had been as their son. In that moment, during the dinner, it felt like everything changed, and Vanna hadn’t seen it coming.
She hated it.
All of it.
And yet, the only way she could continue to have the freedom she did, like going to college, living on her own, and more ... was to feed into Mario’s nonsense. It was his word in his father’s ear, after all, that allowed her all she had and could do.
Vanna didn’t want to play with fire.
“Thank you,” Vanna said to Senior when he stared at her expectantly, waiting for a reply to his earlier praises. “I love cooking.”
And she did.
Before her father died, cooking had been a way she spent one on one, quality time with her dad. Because she didn’t have a mother to teach her any useable skills, like cooking, the job fell to her dad, and it was just her luck that he enjoyed it, too.
Then, after his passing, cooking became the way Vanna coped a lot of the time. Baking cookies at two in the morning when she couldn’t sleep because she kept dreaming of getting the news about her dad ... well, it got her through it.
The people at the table didn’t care to hear that, though. Nothing about her father, or her life then mattered because then they might look at her as though she was nothing more than Adam’s child. His blood, determined to ruin their clan and life the same way he and his father had once done, even if that had never been her plans.
“Back to business,” Senior said, waving a hand as Vanna stood to clear the plates with Gemma’s help. Just like that, the men at the table went back to discussing their plans to take over several road construction rackets the following year after a few deals they’d pulled in this summer. “And bring me in a drink, love.”
Gemma nodded to her husband.
Mario looked Vanna’s way expectantly, clearly wanting the same. He didn’t outright ask, but the raise of his brow when all eyes turned on the exchange between the two of them, and his quiet, “If you wouldn’t mind, of course.”
Yes, she minded.
She wasn’t his.
Nor was she a maid.
Vanna still smiled. “Sure.”
The men had no issue with discussing business while the women milled about, even a few of the wives of other men attending the dinner. So was the Camorra way—not entirely unheard of for a woman to control, or even head, the family should the time call for it. That didn’t mean women weren’t highly controlled in the Camorra, because they were.
Far too much.
Women were held to a far higher standard than any man. And things a woman would be punished—or even killed for—a man would be praised for doing the same. Funny how that worked, except it wasn’t really funny at all.
Vanna listened to their conversation as she helped to clean the table, and then proceeded to load dishes into the dishwasher. Gemma barely spoke to her at all, but that wasn’t anything unusual. The woman never held much affection or care for Vanna, even when she agreed to bring her into the home after her father’s death.
She didn’t take offense.
It wasn’t personal.
It just was.
After they brought the drinks to the table, Vanna excused herself to the kitchen to finish cleaning, even though there wasn’t much left to do, if anything at all. She busied herself with wiping down the counters while watching through the entryway.
Occasionally, Mario would look her way, but mostly, he watched his father, and engaged in the conversation at the table. A littl
e king in waiting, or so he thought. She used to think his strange infatuation with her would die once he figured out she didn’t feel the same, but if anything, the man seemed determine to prove she would someday be sitting at his side at the table with the rest of them.
Vanna didn’t think so.
But one thing at a time.
She had other shit to focus on right now.
Finishing her work in the kitchen, Vanna washed her hands as a familiar ding echoed. She darted for her purse to find the phone hidden inside and checked the screen to see the contact that lit up the ribbon with a text.
It was an unknown number, but the text explained it clearly enough. Bene.
Vanna smiled.
Well, well, well ...
Hey, it’s Bene. You free tonight?
That’s all his text read.
She shouldn’t leave the Detti home yet.
She had other things to do.
And yet, the vendetta ...
That man.
Those thoughts warred. She needed more on the Guzzi family to have anything useable to ruin them, and nothing she had now would work. That much had been confirmed by the man who received her initial findings from Bene’s place. Not to mention, she would be a damn liar if she said she hadn’t thought about Bene a lot in the last couple of weeks. It was memories of him that helped her find relief in too-hot showers with only her hand between her thighs.
Vanna didn’t hesitate to reply, I can be—give me a time and place, we’ll meet up.
That was that.
• • •
Vanna stepped out of the cab to find Bene leaning against the brown brick of a small bar that wasn’t very far away from his place. “Was that intentional?”
He arched a brow. “Pardon?”
“Did you get me over here so that we were closer to your place when the night is over?”
A laugh answered her back.
And damn.
The man looked sexy doing it.
She took a moment to admire the leather jacket and dark-wash jeans he’d thrown on that fit perfectly to his strong thighs, and the tall, dark, and handsome appeal of the rest of him. Everything about this man seemed to be dangerous for her body, considering the only thing she seemed to feel around him was the strongest lust of her life.