Page 101 of Bene

“Right now?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Bene, there’s a meeting at the mansion today. For everyone.”

Right, everyone that was made.

Bene hadn’t known about that until thirty minutes ago, however, and he had already been on his way to Vanna’s penthouse, and he wasn’t turning around just because his father decided to make all his men run in circles for him.

Okay, now he was crossing lines.

He fixed his thoughts, and put his attention back on his brother on the other end of the call. “Listen, I am on my way, Marcus.”

“You’re already late.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Yeah, well, fucking nothing,” Marcus snapped. “Get on the goddamn highway, pull thirty over the limit if you have to, and don’t make the boss wait another second longer, Bene. Do you hear me?”

Of course, he did.

Didn’t mean he would listen.

Bene straightened up, sure.

He could still bend the rules.

Just a little.

“You were doing good, you know?” Marcus sighed loudly. “What happened?”

That woman.

All of her.

Instead of saying that, Bene replied, “I’m on my way.”

He hung up the phone before his brother had a chance to respond which was just fine with him. Marcus would keep repeating the same shit, and Bene had nothing new to say. What was done was done—he’d work on fixing it later.

Simple as that.

Knowing he didn’t have much time to fuck around, Bene left the Lambo running on the side of the street—risking a ticket, no doubt—as he headed into Vanna’s building. The same as the last time he visited, he headed to the front desk first, ready to charm the woman waiting there with a smile on her face to get upstairs through the private elevator.

A new woman, actually.

She wasn’t the same as the one from before.

What happened to her?

“Vanna home?” he asked, grinning. “In the penthouse, I mean.”

Instantly, the woman’s smile drifted away. “Sorry, no.”

“So, she’s not home or she doesn’t want anyone up there?”

“No, she no longer lives here, sir.”

Bene blinked.