Page 77 of Beni

Although how, he didn’t know.

“I could clean house,” Jerome muttered, “or start picking them off one by one until I find the right fucker. But what does that do? Makes them scared of me, makes them bitter, and vengeful. Because they’re all friends, or some of them. And when you start fucking with one, you fuck with them all. They might not come back on me right now, but eventually … and I can’t afford that risk. I know how this works. I need to find the one without hurting the others, or else they’ll make me pay for it.”

Huh.

All Beni’s life, his goal with the family business had been the position this man right here held. A Capo. He’d never looked at the boss’s seat like it was good for him, because he didn’t fit the mold of what a boss needed to be, and he wasn’t so arrogant that he couldn’t admit it. But a Capo? That felt right, and he wanted it.

It was only now that Beni realized just how complex and intricate the job of a Capo running a crew on the streets could be. They were as dependent on their men as they were on themselves, and la famiglia. To punish one, meant to screw with the others. And when one chip started to fall, the rest would soon follow.

Beni absorbed that.

He wouldn’t soon forget it.

Once the Capo had disappeared down the street, and out of sight, Beni headed inside the warehouse. Sure enough, it was a mess. Boxes overturned from the recent shipment of fake goods that would need to be sold on the street. Some shit had been broken, a lot of it was just missing entirely.

The one car left to be chopped up, that had yet to be touched, now had dents beaten into the roof, hood, and doors. Glass from the windows sprinkled the cement floor, and slashes had been cut into the leather seats of the Benz.

Damn.

Someone had taken cans of spray paint, and went to work on the floors, walls, metal beams, and everything else they could fucking touch, by the looks of it. Gang signs had been painted on whatever they could find—ruining more shit that would need to be replaced.

Definitely connected to the rest of it, then.

Except … this kind of confirmed it to Beni, he thought, as he lingered in the doorway of a now trashed office that belonged to the Capo. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he had zero doubt now that whoever was stealing and fucking around within the crew was working with the gang to cause the crew and Capo problems, too.

Simply because of the alarm system.

Whoever came inside here last night knew about the alarm, and likely where the panel was to shut it off, not to mention, how to shut the fucking thing down. So, someone had to have given that information to the gang or were here to do it for them.

Unless, of course, the person wanted them to believe it was the gang who did this. Beni seriously doubted that … if only because soon enough, if it had been the gang, they would send out word about that they did. Prideful fuckers that they were wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to brag about how they fucked over a mafia Capo.

It was the whys that tripped Beni up.

Why work with a gang?

If all the fucker in the crew wanted to do was steal, and make some extra cash on the side, if that was the case … why make it this blatant?

Because now, it meant trouble.

Now, they were looking for them.

Now, they were certain to die.

It reeked of desperation.

Again.

So, why?

What was the cause?

Beni turned to leave the doorway of the office and head further back into the warehouse to possibly begin cleaning up. Except he just made it far enough to see a bat swinging in his direction. And then all he saw was blackness.

“And then after this morning, he brought me back to your place.”

Across the table, Camilla raised her brows and wagged them suggestively, all the while, keeping her to-go cup of coffee high to her lips to hide her grin. August didn’t need to see it to know—her best friend would never change, and that was a promise.

“Oh, so you just woke up and he brought you home? That’s all?”