Fucking coward.
“Don’t what?” I probed, taunting. Hating him.
“Don’t kill me,” he begged.
“Get on your knees, and beg me not to kill you.”
He looked around the room. He had to know no one would help him. Slowly, and with trembling legs, he dropped to his knees before me. Fucking fool. Fucking bastard, coward, fool. Did he really think I’d let him live?
I noticed the ring he still wore. “Take the Benedetti ring off your finger.”
He looked down at his hand and then met my gaze. I think he decided this one he could concede because he wriggled the tight ring off and handed it to me. I set it on the desk.
“Please, Dominic, I’ll tell you what you want to know, just let me live. Let my family—”
I pointed the gun at his shoulder and pulled the trigger. Roman fell backward, and Gia screamed.
“She stays,” I said to the men at the door, my eyes on Roman.
“I’m not leaving,” she said.
I glanced back at her but spoke to the soldier. “Make sure of it.”
“Uncle,” I said, looking at him again. “Get the fuck up. Back on your knees.”
Salvatore remained silent but deadly beside me. He may have left the family, but this was what he came from. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen something like this. Not one of us was clean, not a single fucking one. Not even sainted, dead Sergio.
But still. Loyalty ruled, and treason called for death. In this case, a slow and painful one.
“Victor Scava,” I said.
Roman held his injured shoulder and glanced beyond me at Gia.
“I want a deal,” he said.
“No fucking deal.” I cocked the gun, ready to shoot again.
“Wait!” Roman cried out. “I have information for her.”
I glanced at Gia, where Roman was also looking.
“About her brother.”
“Don’t fucking play games—”
“Wait, Dominic,” Gia cried out, running to my side and griping my arm, the one that held the pistol.
I thrust it backward, holding her just behind me. My bullet would find its right mark this time.
Roman started to talk. “Angus won’t give Victor the rule of the family soon enough. He wants to take it from him.”
“Angus Scava is what…is he even sixty? Victor thought he’d just hand over the rule of his family?”
“Victor was gathering supporters.”
“You being his number one?”
“No. My loyalty has always been to our family.”
I aimed at his other shoulder.
“No!” He held up both hands. “Please!”
“You’ve always been loyal to you, Uncle.”
“What do you know?”
Gia’s voice stopped me from pulling the trigger.
“A federal agent turned up dead yesterday,” Roman said. “He too was branded with the same brand as your brother. He was Mateo’s contact.”
“I don’t understand,” Gia said, her desperate gaze on mine.
“Talk faster,” I told Roman.
“A deal,” Roman said.
“Dominic, let’s hear him out,” Salvatore said.
“Deal depends on what you tell us, then,” I said. “Start talking. If I even think I smell a lie, I pull the fucking trigger, understand?”
Roman nodded. “I stopped dealing with Victor about a month ago when Angus Scava got wind of what his nephew was up to. Victor wasn’t very smart in how he did things. He underestimated Angus. He thought an alliance with me would give him the leverage he needed to take over the Scava family. I…made a mistake.”
“Just facts,” I said. I had no interest in his lies.
“I promised to help him in exchange for new territory. Then, once,” he hesitated, choosing his words. “Once I took over, we would assassinate Angus Scava, who has no shortage of enemies, and Victor would take over as head of the family. I thought it would be easier to manage Victor than Angus. That’s why I went along with it.”
“How do the stolen girls fit in?”
He hesitated. “I took a percentage.”
“You had no qualms about kidnapping and selling human beings?” I asked, disgusted.
He simply lowered his eyes to the floor, perhaps realizing it himself.
“My brother,” Gia said.
Roman met her gaze. “Mateo was…uneasy with the girls. Beating up some asshole who doesn’t pay what he owes is different than taking young girls—”
“Because he had a conscience,” Gia cut in.
“He went to the feds, but he got unlucky. That agent happened to be on Angus Scava’s payroll. That’s how Angus found out. Needless to say, he was not pleased with his nephew’s agenda, but he’s family. He couldn’t bring himself to kill him outright, I guess. And he smelled money. Angus Scava took over the operation. He left Victor in charge, at least for the sake of appearances, but he made all the decisions.”
His eyes bored into Gia as if he would make sure she understood that part.
“Angus Scava wouldn’t have ordered my brother’s execution,” Gia said quietly.
“He not only did that, but he ordered yours.”
She shook her head beside me.
“No. I don’t believe you.”
“Victor was supposed to kill you.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Rebellion against Angus. Lust. Who knows? He’s completely unreliable.”
“What about the agent? Why kill him?” Salvatore asked.
“All human life is expendable to Angus Scava. And there’s more than one corrupt agent employed by the federal government. And now that Angus took over the operation, he wanted me out. He had no use for me, and that presented an opportunity to put the Benedetti family out of commission for good. Franco and/or I would be picked up, and that would be the end of us. Feds don’t take the killing of their agents lightly.”
“Angus Scava wouldn’t have ordered my brother’s execution. He wouldn’t have ordered for me to be killed.”
I glanced at Gia, who had her eyes squeezed shut, her hands on her face, fingers pressing against her temples.
“He did.”
He said it so coldly. I raised my gun and pulled the trigger, putting a bullet into his other shoulder.
Roman cried out in agony.
“Get him up,” I ordered the guard behind him, who lifted him back to his knees.
“A deal!”
“So before Angus stepped in, you’d agreed to help Victor overthrow his uncle for support for yourself, for money, for power, so when the time came that Franco Benedetti died, you’d be ready to take over more than the Benedetti share, the mourning Consigliere, a man like a brother to the fallen Benedetti whose sons deserted him.”
“Mercy, Dominic,” Roman begged. “I made mistakes—”
“You ordered Sergio’s murder. You betrayed my father. Those things cannot be forgiven, Uncle,” I spat.
“Please, Salvatore—” He turned to him, his final plea.
Salvatore remained silent.
“I can drag this out for hours, but because you gave me this, I’m going to show you that mercy,” I said.
“Please, Dominic. Please, I—”
“I’m sending a message today, Uncle. I’m letting everyone know that if you betray me, you die. You die a very slow, a very painful death.”
Roman sat on the floor in a bloody heap, crying like a fucking baby, begging for his worthless life.
I turned to Gia and held out the gun. “Do you want to finish him?”
She stared at him, never once looking at me. Tears ran down her now alabaster face, all color having drained from it as she watched the horror before her. She shook her head and turned to me with a look of such utter desperation that I faltered.
“Take her away. I’ll finish this,” Salvatore said.
“I need to—”
Salvatore turned to me. “No, you don’t. Take
care of her.”
I looked once more at my uncle, who now began to beg Salvatore. Tucking the pistol into the back of my pants, I took Gia and walked her quickly out of the room and up the stairs, lifting her into my arms and carrying her when she shook too badly to walk. I closed the door to my bedroom behind us and set her down in the bathroom, wanting to clean the blood that had splattered onto her bare legs, her shoes, her dress.
She trembled as I stripped her, talking to her, not sure she heard a word I said as tears poured from her eyes.
“He is partially responsible for your brother’s death. You shouldn’t feel sorry for him.”
“I know.”
She said it on a sob as I turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm.
“It’s not that. I don’t—”
“He killed my brother,” I said. “He would have killed Salvatore.”
“I know,” she said again, clinging to me when I tried to move her into the shower.
I took off my jacket and set the pistol on the counter. Her gaze closed in on it. Her tears came faster. Holding onto her, I stepped into the shower with her. I stood fully clothed and forced her beneath the stream as she held me, as if she would fuse us together, as if she were unable to stand on her own.
“You needed to see, Gia.”
She nodded, burying her face in my chest.
“You needed to know what I’m capable of.”
“You think I didn’t know?”
Her voice was full of anguish as she turned her emerald eyes to mine.
“Then…I don’t understand. I thought you’d want to see—”
“I do. I owe it to Mateo. I swore it to myself. I just…I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can pull the trigger on Victor. I don’t think I can keep my promise to kill him.”
Something inside me broke open, and I held her tight to me, cradling her head, rocking her as she wept. Her pain, it had this strange impact on me. It made me feel. For the first time in my life, I felt another person’s pain.
“You don’t have to,” I said in a whisper.
“I do. I swore vengeance.”
“You’ll have it, but you don’t have to be the one to do it. You don’t have to have blood on your hands.”
She shook her head and pushed us out of the stream of water. “No matter what, the blood will belong to me.”
“Shh. No.”
“I’m weak,” she said quietly, looking up at me, her hands on my cheeks now.
“Killing doesn’t make you strong, Gia.” I wiped the tears from her eyes and held her sweet face.
“I won’t be weak.”
“Maybe it’s time you let someone take the weight. Maybe it’s time to let go, and let me carry it. Let me carry you.”
She pushed wet hair from my face and looked like she was about to say something, but then stood on tiptoe and covered my mouth with hers, her kiss soft and testing. I liked kissing her like this. Kissing her like we weren’t battling as her hands fumbled with the wet buttons of my shirt until she pushed it off my shoulders, halfway down my arms. We kissed like we couldn’t stand to separate, as if we needed to be touching while I lifted her and carried her into the bedroom, laying her dripping wet on my bed as I tore off the rest of my clothes and climbed between her thighs, her legs and arms wrapping around me, drawing me down to her, her mouth locking on mine again as I thrust into her, never letting her go, not once, not until we lay spent on the bed.
She knew who I was now. What I was capable of. And she didn’t cringe away from me. She didn’t fear me. It was the opposite. She clung to me. We clung to each other as if for life. As if for breath. As if without the other, it would no longer be possible to breathe, to live, to be.
22
Gia
The following morning, I woke alone in Dominic’s bed. The sight of his uncle kneeling before him, cowering, begging, pleading for his life as Dominic coolly cocked and fired the gun, haunted me. I thought about Mateo. About how he’d died. Dominic wanted me in that room yesterday. He wanted me to see one of the men responsible for Mateo’s murder on his knees, being brought to a different kind of justice—mafia justice—paying back what he owed: a life for a life.
I didn’t feel sorry for his uncle. He deserved what he got, and not only for Mateo, but for all the rest. Dominic had told me the story, the whole story, after we’d made love last night. He told me what the old man, Henderson, had told him. Told me about the reading of the will, of the provision his father had made to have each of the families renew their pledge of allegiance to Dominic as head of the family. He told me of his uncle’s betrayal. Told how his father—and Dominic now called Franco Benedetti father—sealed Roman’s fate and had left it for his sons to mete out justice. And he told me why he wanted me in that room. Not only for Mateo, not only for me to see that Mateo’s death would be avenged, but to see him. To see Dominic step so naturally, so easily, into this new role as head of a bloody family.
Dominic Benedetti now owned the Benedettis.
I touched the scar on my hip.
I guess it fit. He owned me too. Would he let me go once this was over? What we’d discussed that day in the dining room, that day I’d learned the truth of the brand, the truth of who he was, the day he’d fucked me in that bloodsoaked room when I’d been out of my mind. When he’d been out of his. The day he’d promised me he’d make sure my brother was avenged, and I’d promised him I’d kill him once it was over.
But it all had changed now. His father had left him everything in his final act of contrition. Dominic got what he had always wanted.
I wouldn’t have been able to keep my promise and kill him anyway, but now I even wondered if he wanted me to.
Everything was different now.
Throwing the covers back, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to have a shower.
Ironic, that. Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. James would say that to me way back when I thought the mafia life glamorous. When I hadn’t yet witnessed its dark, gruesome side. When I hadn’t yet seen death.
Dominic’s words came back to me. “Killing doesn’t make you strong.” He was right, I knew that. But to hold the gun that brings your enemies to their knees, it was heady stuff. The thought made my heart pump harder, made my blood run hotter. It made me feel powerful.
But then the image of the bleeding man impressed itself upon my brain, as if branding itself onto the insides of my eyelids, and I bowed my head. He’d looked much like Mateo had when Victor had brought him to his knees. Weakened and powerless and afraid. Mateo was no saint. I knew that. No one in this world could be. Not a single one. I did not have illusions on that note. I wondered if before it was through, once all was said and done, would I have blood on my hands too? Didn’t I already, even if it wasn’t me who’d pulled the trigger yesterday?
I switched off the water, shuddering at the memory of Dominic standing there so cool, so unaffected as the condemned man knelt before him.
He’d wanted me to see him like that.
I went back into the bedroom to get dressed and heard a car door closing outside. Dominic’s room overlooked the front of the property, and I could see Salvatore loading a suitcase into the back of an SUV. Lucia stood beside him, one hand on her belly, the other on the door. She wanted out. She wanted to be gone. I understood it. But she and I were different. She was the mafia princess who’d been locked away in a tower and had never wanted any of this. Me, I was the daughter of a foot soldier, someone no one gave a shit about, and I was the one who ended up in the bed of the new king.
Question was, where did I want to be?
Who did I want to be?
Salvatore and Dominic spoke, hands clasped together like two powerful men making an alliance. They then hugged briefly, almost awkwardly. Dominic turned his attention to Lucia, who must have said good-bye before Salvatore opened her door, and she climbed in. No hug from her. To say she did not like Dominic would be an understatement.
<
br /> Dominic stood on the front steps and watched the car drive off. He remained there until it disappeared down the thickly wooded road. He then glanced up at the window as if he knew I stood there. Our gazes locked, and my heart momentarily lost a beat. He turned to one of the men flanking him—of which there stood two, bodyguards I realized—and I stepped away from the window to dress and then went downstairs.
The door to the study stood open, and I heard Dominic speaking inside. I forced myself to walk into it, wondering if it would smell like it had yesterday—the metallic scent of blood mixed with fear and hate. But the desk had been moved, and the carpet was gone. Only bare floorboards remained.
Dominic looked up at me and told whoever he spoke with he had to go. After hanging up, he stood.
“Gia.”
I looked for evidence along the walls, splatterings of blood, of tissue, but none remained.
“It’s been cleaned,” Dominic said, coming to my side. “You’re probably hungry. Let’s go have breakfast.”
He spoke so casually. “Does what happened yesterday upset you?” I asked as he led me out of the room.
He paused. “I wouldn’t say it upsets me, but it’s not like I’m dancing with joy here, Gia. He was my uncle. He played ball with me when I was little. I don’t remember him not being in my life.”
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond. We walked into the dining room, where a buffet of warm and cold foods sat waiting on the table. Dominic poured two cups of coffee, and I took one, not feeling hungry enough to eat.
“I thought I’d feel better,” I said.
He set his cup down, took a plate, and began to fill it with scrambled eggs and bacon.
“You never do.”
He spoke without looking at me.
“You just figure out how to go on.” He chose a seat and began to eat. “Eat, Gia.”
I picked up a plate and stood there, wondering if I’d ever have an appetite again.
“Tell me something,” he asked.
I still hadn’t moved to fill my plate.
“What do you want?” He leaned back in his chair and chewed on a strip of bacon.
Dominic: a Dark Mafia Romance (Benedetti Brothers Book 2) Page 19