“It works in our favor if they don’t know which brother is standing in front of them.”
“Does it matter, though?” Foster asks. “Wouldn’t Stefano make the tough calls in your place if something were to happen?”
Maverick smiles softly.
“Stefano had an equal claim to the throne,” he says evenly. “He could have taken it since he’s a few minutes older than I am. He did not.”
“Why?” Bones asks, genuinely curious.
“Because my brother’s heart is… softer than mine,” Maverick replies. “He does what must be done. But he does not enjoy it. He hesitates. And hesitation, in our world, is blood.”
The limo glides through another checkpoint.
“He would struggle to order torture,” Maverick continues calmly. “To threaten what must be threatened. No matter how much they beg. No matter who they are. No matter if they have a family.”
His eyes don’t waver.
“You do not cross the Italian Mafia and walk away unscathed.”
Silence.
“Stefano,” he adds, “would release a man or woman begging for their life if children were involved.”
“And you wouldn’t?” I ask before I can stop myself. “If it were a woman begging for mercy for the sake of her family?”
His gaze shifts to me.
Steady.
Dead serious.
“If that woman harmed someone under my protection,” he says quietly, “there would be no mercy to show.”
No anger.
Just fact.
“She would be given the opportunity to explain,” he continues. “If her reasoning were just…if she acted in defense, desperation, survival…I would weigh that.”
“And if she just stole from you?” I ask, curious to get into the Outlaw’s head.
“Then she would work,” Maverick replies. “Debt can be repaid. I’m not a monster.”
A faint pause.
“All the time.”
Bones smirks.
Fucker loves the darkness he sees in our friend.
“And if it were a man who stole from you?” Skip presses, grin stretching too wide for this conversation.
Maverick’s lips curve slightly.
“I have a particular fondness for women and children,” he says. “Not so much for men.”
His eyes flick to Skip.
