Page 67 of Worth of Waste

Both Walter and Dean were a little too close to Dino’s uncle for his liking. They had always been prone to doing Ben’s bidding whenever he asked them to, including spying on the DeLuca brothers to relay information back, or whatever the need was that Ben had for them.

Neither the father nor the son cared to hide their doings, either.

Dino highly suspected it was because Walter, for one, was gunning for the position Dino currently held in the DeLuca ranks—the head Capo. And at the same time, he fully believed Walter wanted to get his son the in to the family—his long awaited button that he didn’t deserve for even a minute.

“Walter,” Dino greeted drily.

He couldn’t even manage an ounce of respect for this man. He figured it was a damn good thing that he ranked higher than Walter, as it afforded him a bit of leg room to move where he wouldn’t get in too much trouble for his attitude.

“I haven’t seen you since you got out,” Walter said. “How was that, anyway?”

Dino’s gaze slid between the father, and then to the son. He couldn’t help but notice how Dean avoided Dino’s stare, and instead, watched the beige wall like it was the most interesting thing in the room.

Something about that kid made Dino uncomfortable, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what it was that he didn’t like. Maybe it was Dean’s sense of entitlement, something he had picked up from his father. Or perhaps it was the sneaky, down-low way Dean went about doing things when in the presence of others.

It didn’t help that around the time he had started looking after Dean and teaching him a bit of the ropes almost two years earlier, some of Dino’s paperwork had gone missing. And then, once that ball had started rolling, it’d taken him straight to the jailhouse, and then to the prison for a year and a half.

He had no real proof that it was Dean who had taken the papers for his father—probably under Ben’s direction—but he also didn’t have a reason not to believe it wasn’t Dean, either.

That was enough for Dino not to let the idiots in close again.

Fool him once, shame on them.

They wouldn’t get the chance to do it again.

No, Dino didn’t care for these Artino idiots at all.

“It’s prison,” Dino said. “How do you think it went?”

Walter chuckled. “My apologies—you’re right. Although, it won’t be very long before the possibility comes back that you might be looking at a cell for a while longer, huh?”

Dino’s back stiffened at that statement.

A lot of people knew he still had legal troubles brewing, and that forced people to keep a distance from him, and for the most part, Dino didn’t mind. As it were, he had been born the son of an Outfit Capo turned traitor, and that branded him untrustworthy to most in the mafia. Dino didn’t care to play to their politics, he hadn’t chosen this life for himself, anyway. He was more than capable of doing his job and making money without the help or trust of others, as it were.

That wasn’t his problem at the moment, though.

No, his problem was that no one was quite gutsy enough to point out straight to his face that he might be looking at more time behind bars.

Not like Walter just had.

It didn’t sit right with Dino.

“Looking for your comeuppance?” Dino asked the older man.

Walter didn’t even blink at Dino’s accusation, simply shrugged. “Someone’s going to have to look after your shit, right? Theo can’t do it all—he’s too young for this. I’ll happily fill in when the time comes.”

Over Dino’s dead fucking body.

He might not care too much for the life he lived or the position he had, but his younger brother was not the same. Theo worked hard to get where he was, and he deserved every bit of it that he was given for his time and effort.

Unlike Walter and his fuckup of a son.

“Keep thinking that,” Dino told the man. “Have a good holiday.”

He didn’t bother giving Walter the chance to say anything else, instead turning on his heel and grabbing his blazer off the waiting coat hook. He didn’t turn around as he left the house, either, and he was pretty sure the window rattled when he slammed the door shut.

His exit was enough of an answer.