Page 49 of Beni

Beni swallowed the ache in his throat. “What is it about, then?”

“It’s okay to learn how to be two different people, and not just extensions of the same soul, Beni.” His father lowered his hand from Beni’s chest, too, and fixed the button that had come undone on his jacket in his haste to get in between his feuding sons. “Don’t feel badly that you are at a different place than Bene right now, that you have moved into a new space in your life. That’s what happens to people. It’s normal. You are not the same men.”

“Aren’t we?”

Gian looked to Marcus.

Marcus only shrugged, openly frowning.

“Beni, you are not the same people. You only look the same. Let him figure it out, too.”

Right.

Yeah.

But how?

Yeah.

The following two days were about as uncomfortable and awkward as Beni suspected they would be. It was made worse by the fact that once his mother learned the twins were fighting, Cara decided she was going to stay in Chicago with Marcus to help Bene pack his things, and at the same time, try to get the twins to talk.

Wasn’t happening.

“Beni?”

“Yeah, Ma?”

Standing at the end of the hallway, his mother bent down to pick up her Hermès bag from the floor, giving him a soft smile. “I wish you two would just talk … at least before we leave.”

His brother’s bags littered the hallway. A good portion of shit had already been shipped out the day before, through a company that would deliver it to the penthouse in Toronto for Bene. He hadn’t even bothered lifting a finger to move his twin’s shit out.

If that’s what Bene wanted, then he could do it.

Alone.

He got that his twin was going through some shit, but it wasn’t something Beni could fix, even if he had been the cause of it. That much was painfully clear.

Cara sighed, and gave Beni a look. “Well, when are you planning to come home for a visit?”

“Soon,” he promised.

“When?”

He laughed under his breath.

This was his ma in a nutshell. Her boys were the loves of her life, next to their father, and she was their greatest supporter, and defender. She hated being away from them for any length of time, and already, he had been here for six, going on seven, months now. Sure, he went home for a weekend occasionally, but he knew it wasn’t enough for his ma.

“Or … do you like it here?” Cara asked.

Beni had to think about that one. “It’s easier, Ma.”

“What is?”

“Business.”

Cara tipped her chin up, her gaze widening. It wasn’t like the mafia was hidden in their family, but there were a few unspoken rules that they all tried to follow. Like not talking about the business with women, unless it couldn’t be avoided. Their ma included.

“How so?”