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Dominic’s fingers dug into the skin of my arm.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Mr. Scava watched Dominic lead me away, the look in his eyes so different to how he’d looked at me before.
“Was James like his father?” Dominic asked as we climbed into the SUV, Salvatore and Lucia taking the backseat.
Why did it feel like a taunt? “James was nothing like him.”
Dominic turned to face me. “He would have been boss of the family had he survived.”
I shook my head, perhaps being naive. I didn’t care. “He wasn’t like his father.”
“I’m like him,” Dominic said. “Ruthless. Cold. Merciless.”
I held his gaze, knowing he used his words as a warning. Knowing I would be smart to heed him.
“Not to me,” I said instead. “Not anymore.”
Dominic’s surprise at my words showed up on his face. It was the slightest change, but I didn’t miss it.
“Are you ready, brother? Roman is not going to be pleased,” Salvatore said.
“He knows how to behave. I think he’s very good at it in fact.” With that, Dominic turned the SUV around and drove out of the cemetery and back to the house. We sat silent. Except for Lucia, who spoke with her sister on the phone, asking about the kids. When we arrived back at the house, I was surprised to see so many vehicles there. Had so many family members been requested to attend the reading of the will? It seemed strange to me. But then again, I’d never been to something like this. Funerals, yes. There was no getting around that in the line of work my father had chosen. But those who died around us didn’t have the money to require a will.
Dominic parked the SUV and drew in a long breath, steeling himself, then nodded to Salvatore.
“Let’s go.”
“What’s going to happen?” I asked, clutching his arm. “You know something.”
“I’m going to be named head of the family,” he said flatly.
My hand slid off his arm, and he and Salvatore walked away from Lucia and I and into the library, where about a dozen men had gathered. Two men stood outside. One of them reached to close the door, his jacket falling open, light bouncing off the pistol hidden in its holster.21DominicThe attorney executing the will, Mr. Abraham Marino, a man who had worked for the Benedetti family for more than two decades, stood behind the desk. He addressed the collected family members requested to be in attendance, going over preliminaries. Roman stood beside him as if he owned the fucking place. Salvatore sat to my right. Two guards stood just outside the doors and two more at the back of the room. I wondered how they would all react once the will had been read, and I was named as head of the family.
I recognized all the people in the room. They ruled their own smaller families within the larger Benedetti umbrella. Some I hadn’t seen since my youth, and some attended every event.
Realistically, Roman could attempt a coup. Hell, depending on how many men chose loyalty to him, he could win. My father was dead. He could force his way in. Although, without money and the accounts held in the Benedetti name, he’d struggle to pay them. In all my years both in and out of life within a crime family, I’d learned one thing: in most cases, loyalty was a flimsy thing. Money ruled. Loyalty generally leaned toward the side of cold, hard cash. And after the reading of the will, it’d be my cash. This house would be my house. The car my uncle drove would be my fucking car.
He’d hired my birth father to kill Sergio and attempt to kill Salvatore.
He’d betrayed my mother, his sister. He’d betrayed his nephew. He’d betrayed Franco. He’d betrayed the entire Benedetti family.
How in hell did Salvatore sit beside me now, revealing no emotion at all, not confusion, not even hate?
I’d been in my twenties when Sergio had died. For a moment, I wondered why Roman hadn’t ordered my assassination too, but then I realized. He’d been playing my father all along. I was a bastard. My father already knew it. Roman banked on the fact that when Franco learned it was the man whose blood ran in my veins who had taken his sons’ lives, he’d disown me, at the very least. Hell, maybe he even counted on Franco killing me.
I thought of Henderson’s words: “Old age makes us see things differently, son.” He’d said it didn’t matter who my blood father was. I was a Benedetti according to my birth certificate. I was raised a Benedetti. There was some small part of me, something deep beneath the wretchedness, that smiled at that. That felt more happiness at that than I probably should.
Did Franco really regret that night? Did he feel sorry about what had happened? About telling me like that? Had he tried to find me? Roman had known where I was some of that time. At least in the beginning. Had he kept that information from Franco, knowing the old man wanted to reconcile? Had he wanted to reconcile?
