Page 118 of Bene

All because of her.

Bene fully intended to go back inside and rejoin the rest of his people to finish out this fucking shitshow once he had gathered his thoughts, but he didn’t get the chance before someone else exited the door, and joined him in the alley.

He eyed the man.

Sized him up.

The guy did the same to him.

They were pretty even in height—towering over six feet, but he had an inch on the other man. Not much, though. Mario, to his benefit, looked like he regularly played on a defense line for a football team, and while Bene had a boxer’s form from all his training with his twin, the man across from him still had a bit of size to his benefit.

Not that it mattered.

The bigger they were, the harder they fell when he broke their face.

“Mario Detti, right?” Bene asked.

Mario didn’t confirm.

He didn’t really need to.

“Let me make one thing very fucking clear to you, Bene Guzzi.”

Bene tipped his chin up, considering his choices here. He didn’t like the man’s attitude, or the way he looked at him as though he were scum under his shoe. He hated the fact that Vanna wore a ring on her finger that came from this man. Part of him wanted to make sure Mario knew those things, but also had the greatest urge to rip the man’s pride and dignity from him as he did it.

Broken hearts were the worst.

“And what is that?” Bene asked.

“You stay the fuck away from my woman.”

He took a second.

Absorbed that warning.

“If she’s yours,” Bene said, “then why was she fucking me?”

“I—”

“And why would you need to tell me that at all?”

The man’s face reddened. “She might have fallen in love with you, but she’s in my bed now. Remember that, Guzzi.”

… huh.

That was a strange way to phrase something like that.

Bene wondered … “But is she actually doing anything worth while in your bed?”

Mario blanched.

That answered Bene’s question even if the man did try to come back with, “But she isn’t in yours, is she?”

Oh, so they were being really petty now, huh?

“Is that because she wants to be in your bed, or because you forced her there?”

“You heard what I fucking said. Stay away from her.”