“He knows how to behave. I think he’s very good at it in fact.” With that, Dominic turned the SUV around and drove out of the cemetery and back to the house. We sat silent. Except for Lucia, who spoke with her sister on the phone, asking about the kids. When we arrived back at the house, I was surprised to see so many vehicles there. Had so many family members been requested to attend the reading of the will? It seemed strange to me. But then again, I’d never been to something like this. Funerals, yes. There was no getting around that in the line of work my father had chosen. But those who died around us didn’t have the money to require a will.
Dominic parked the SUV and drew in a long breath, steeling himself, then nodded to Salvatore.
“Let’s go.”
“What’s going to happen?” I asked, clutching his arm. “You know something.”
“I’m going to be named head of the family,” he said flatly.
My hand slid off his arm, and he and Salvatore walked away from Lucia and I and into the library, where about a dozen men had gathered. Two men stood outside. One of them reached to close the door, his jacket falling open, light bouncing off the pistol hidden in its holster.
21
DOMINIC
The attorney executing the will, Mr. Abraham Marino, a man who had worked for the Benedetti family for more than two decades, stood behind the desk. He addressed the collected family members requested to be in attendance, going over preliminaries. Roman stood beside him as if he owned the fucking place. Salvatore sat to my right. Two guards stood just outside the doors and two more at the back of the room. I wondered how they would all react once the will had been read, and I was named as head of the family.
I recognized all the people in the room. They ruled their own smaller families within the larger Benedetti umbrella. Some I hadn’t seen since my youth, and some attended every event.
Realistically, Roman could attempt a coup. Hell, depending on how many men chose loyalty to him, he could win. My father was dead. He could force his way in. Although, without money and the accounts held in the Benedetti name, he’d struggle to pay them. In all my years both in and out of life within a crime family, I’d learned one thing: in most cases, loyalty was a flimsy thing. Money ruled. Loyalty generally leaned toward the side of cold, hard cash. And after the reading of the will, it’d be my cash.This house would be my house. The car my uncle drove would be my fucking car.
He’d hired my birth father to kill Sergio and attempt to kill Salvatore.
He’d betrayed my mother, his sister. He’d betrayed his nephew. He’d betrayed Franco. He’d betrayed the entire Benedetti family.
How in hell did Salvatore sit beside me now, revealing no emotion at all, not confusion, not even hate?
I’d been in my twenties when Sergio had died. For a moment, I wondered why Roman hadn’t ordered my assassination too, but then I realized. He’d been playing my father all along. I was a bastard. My father already knew it. Roman banked on the fact that when Franco learned it was the man whose blood ran in my veins who had taken his sons’ lives, he’d disown me, at the very least. Hell, maybe he even counted on Franco killing me.
I thought of Henderson’s words:“Old age makes us see things differently, son.”He’d said it didn’t matter who my blood father was. I was a Benedetti according to my birth certificate. I was raised a Benedetti. There was some small part of me, something deep beneath the wretchedness, that smiled at that. That felt more happiness at that than I probably should.
Did Franco really regret that night? Did he feel sorry about what had happened? About telling me like that? Had he tried to find me? Roman had known where I was some of that time. At least in the beginning. Had he kept that information from Franco, knowing the old man wanted to reconcile? Had he wanted to reconcile?
I covered my face with my hands and rubbed my eyes.
I’d never know. That was all there was to it. I had to take it at face value. Franco Benedetti named me as his successor. He accepted me as his own in his final act. He was about to give me what I had wanted for so long—the rule of the Benedetti family.
And I felt heady with power.
Salvatore cleared his throat beside me, his gaze falling on me.
I straightened.
“Mr. Benedetti made a few changes to his will in the last days of his life.”
Mr. Marino glanced at me.
I kept my face expressionless, but noticed Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“This is his final will and testament, and it was his wish that no one should contest those changes but that they would be honored.”
A murmur fell among the crowd. The attorney cleared his throat. Roman took a seat as the reading began. Mr. Marino went through mundane things first, small inheritances, moneys changing hands, debts being forgiven or passed on, mentions of family members, of children remembered. Then came the rewards of past and future loyalty.
“It was Mr. Benedetti’s wish that I read this next piece as he wrote it, as if he were speaking to you now.”
Salvatore and I exchanged a look.
“I realize in a family such as ours, there will be differences. There have been differences. But family is family, and for the Benedetti, family is first. It is our motto. It is our path. In life, I did my best for my family, for all of you. I know it didn’t always seem that way, but I did. In death, I hope to amend mistakes I could not be forgiven in life.”
