Page 127 of Bene

Bene and Beni lingered midway on the steps of the police station where their father was still being housed in the jail as the rest of their brothers conversed a few steps down. Corrado was apparently hitting a flight to New York to spend a day or so with Ginevra while Alessio needed to head to Vegas for something. He’d be back soon enough, he promised. Chris was heading across the city—a politician to bribe, if he could make it work.

Marcus had to handle business.

The world didn’t stop turning.

It only felt like it.

“Handle your shit, yeah?” Marcus called over his shoulder to the younger twins. Bene and Beni, still mirrors of one another even after everything, nodded in sync without prompting. “Good, and keep me updated on Ma, Beni.”

With that said, the rest of their brothers dispersed. Bene and Beni, however, still remained on the steps of the jail until every single one of their siblings had disappeared, and it was safer for them to chat about the phone burning a hole in Bene’s pocket.

Because of course …

He trusted his twin more than anyone. There was no chance in hell he would do something like go behind his family’s back without telling Beni. No judgement, his brother would do whatever he needed to help him, and that was that.

“Anything new?” Beni asked.

Bene nodded. “Where’s your phone?”

Saying nothing more, Beni pulled his own smartphone from his pocket. Bene’s came out, too, and he placed the phones back to back. Turning his home screen on, all he needed to do was touch the transfer data button on the settings app, and everything Vanna had sent him from random phone numbers in the last two weeks went straight to his brother’s phone. After it was all done, Beni spent a minute or two going through some of it.

“You’re not answering her back, huh?”

Bene swallowed hard. “What, you think I should? After what she did, you think—”

“I think you’re in love with her, and sometimes, people we love do things that hurt us for reasons we can never understand. It teaches us about forgiveness and just how capable we are of forgiving someone else in a way nothing else can, Bene.”

He sighed.

His twin waited him out.

“She’s getting married in two weeks,” he muttered.

Beni shrugged one shoulder, as though that little detail didn’t matter to him a bit in the world. And who fucking knew, maybe it didn’t. It mattered to Bene. A lot. “Yeah, still not sure that’s because she wants to, or someone demanded it.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s still happening.”

“And you still love her,” his brother pointed out.

“What is your point?”

“Well …maybe I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

He couldn’t tell a bigger lie.

He was far from fine.

Bene’s thoughts warred with his heart. His loyalty to his family battled with the love he felt for a woman whose only intention had been to take away the things that meant the very most to him. And then he remembered her tears—the way she tried to apologize, even though he refused to let her even speak the words. He couldn’t get the image of her pain and grief out of his head when he said horrible things to her, even if they were deserved.

Those images were burned into his mind, now. Impossible to remove, and because he couldn’t get rid of them, he was forced to think about them all the time, and what they might mean. Like the fact that yes, he absolutely believed she loved him, too.

Yes, after her attempt to help him with whatever info she could gather and send, he believed she spoke the truth when she said she regretted the things that she had done, except it was too late. She couldn’t fix it now.

They were doomed.

An impossible thing.