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My hand shakes as I place it over his. “Benny.”
“I love you, Neomi.” Each word is clear and concise, and he inches his face closer to mine as each one drops from his lips. “I love you so fucking much.”
“Do …” I attempt to lower my gaze, but he lifts my chin, not allowing it. “Do you think it’s too early?”
“No.” His lips brush mine. “We can say and do whatever the fuck we want, whenever we want. I love you, and I want to tell you. I don’t care about timing because, sometimes, timing doesn’t mean shit.”
I coil my arms around his neck. “I love you, Benny Marchetti, and I am trusting you with my heart.”
He releases my face, interlaces our fingers, and places them over his heart. “I’d tear mine out before I broke yours.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
BENNY
One Month Later
“Mob boss Vincent Lombardidied in his sleep last night,” the TV reporter says, not looking one bit sympathetic. “He was seventy years old.”
I smirk.
The man who called a hit on me, resulting in my wife being shot, is no longer alive.
I hate that it wasn’t by my hands though.
Vincent didn’t deserve the peaceful death he received.
He deserved a barbaric one.
During the time he withered away to nothing, I’ve been on a mission to figure out what happened the day of the funeral. From what I’ve learned after bribing, beating up, and killing people, Vincent called the hit.
Most of them claimed he hadn’t been in the right frame of mind. No one believed him at first. He’d been eating a Big Mac while watchingThePrice Is Rightwhen he looked at one of his men and told him to kill Benny Marchettithat instant.
He wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. He’d lost most of his motor impairment during his last stroke, so he forced an inexperienced soldier to attempt the hit while keeping others in the dark. Two hours after Neomi was shot, Vincent had suffered another stroke, which put him on the ventilator.
I hunted down the man who had shot Neomi. I killed him and fed his body to a local farmer’s hogs. They devoured him in thirty minutes. Bones and all.
That’s why I don’t eat pork.
* * *
“Antonio Lombardi.”I say his name as an announcement when he appears in the doorway of my office at the club. “Shouldn’t you be out somewhere, mourning your father’s admission into the gates of hell?”
Antonio shuts the door and steps toward me.
He called an hour ago and asked to speak with me privately.
Antonio stops in front of my desk and rolls back his shoulders. The man is typically clean-shaven and put together, but tonight, he has days-old scruff and bags under his eyes. I know a stressed man when I see one, and Antonio is at the top of the list of the most stressed-out motherfuckers I’ve ever seen.
I kick up my feet and lean back in my chair with a glass of bourbon in my hand. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this unwanted visit?”
Antonio is all business when he speaks. “I told you there’d be problems with my uncle upon my father’s death.”
“You did, but I don’t understand what that has to do with me. I’m not in your family—thank God.” I point my glass toward him. “Sucks for you though. Good luck in your fighting.”
No family has ever survived a civil war.
When people are separated and forced to take sides, loyalty becomes meaningless. People flip-flop to whatever side is winning at that time.
