Page 125 of Beni

All the while, he watched the door at the front of the warehouse, waiting for what he knew was inevitable. In his search for the person causing issues within the crew, he had realized something that should have been obvious from the start.

It was always the person people thought it would never be. That’s why the fucker doing it had gotten away with his shit for as long as he did because no one was going to look at the guy closest to the Capo, a man that Jerome had helped to raise, in a way, as the person fucking him over at the end of the day.

And why would he?

Why would anyone look at Neil?

He had a good position—he helped to lead an entire crew. Unheard of for men who weren’t made. He had a lot of respect, was given status in his place, and for the most part, seemed happy to do his business as he was told.

Loyal, too, right?

Right.

The click of a lock across the warehouse, the deadbolt in the heavy metal door sliding open, had Beni lifting his head and coming out of his thoughts all at once. This was the last test, in a way, although he already had his answer on Neil, and what the guy had been doing to his Capo when Jerome’s back was turned.

He had keys to everything.

Got inside info on everything.

That’s how much he was trusted.

No one would look to him—it was easier for a man to overlook the people he put faith in to have his back, than it was to look at those same people with suspicion. No one wanted to look at someone they cared about for reasons that were less than kind.

A simple fact of life.

Shame, really.

Beni partly blamed the Capo for this. Had the man not been so caught up in his feelings, and willing to blame an entire crew for what was happening, instead of looking at what should have been the obvious choice, considering everything … then perhaps they could have closed the file on this a month ago.

Shit, maybe they wouldn’t even have needed him to come in and figure out what the fuck was going on within the crew.

But here he was.

And it would end today.

“Beni?”

Staying on the chair, because he had little to no interest in ruining the navy suit he put on that morning—Guzzis had their flaws, and vanity was certainly fucking one of them—Beni lifted his head to give the man entering the warehouse a slight smile.

Cold, but knowing.

“Looking for something?” he asked Neil.

The door clicked behind him.

Neil hesitated like he was going to turn around.

Beni was quick to say, “Oh, don’t worry about the door. I put a little thing on the arm over the top of it, so when it closes, it’s not going to open from the inside again. We need to have a little chat, and it wouldn’t be very helpful if you ran off before I could say what I needed to say, you know what I mean?”

The man’s jaw hardened. “I don’t answer to you, and I don’t have to stand here and speak to you, not if I don’t want—”

“No, actually you do.”

Pride was a bitch.

Everybody knew it.

Neil’s pride made him take a few steps forward, daring to come closer to the man toying with a knife maybe fifteen feet away. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Guzzi?”