Page 33 of Bene

Someone needed an extra pair of hands on a crew for the day to do some manual labor in a stuffy warehouse that was better suited to be torn down and cemented for a parking lot than for working? Bene wasn’t the type to roughen his hands up with shit like that or blacken his lungs, but he didn’t get a say, and so he did what he was told without a word.

It didn’t stop.

At all.

One thing after another.

Yet another person with a new task or job for Bene to do. In two weeks, he maybe slept in his own bed a total of eight hours, if that. Sometimes, he just slept in his car while he waited for his fucking phone to ring again.

Was he eating three times a day?

Fuck no.

Unless one considered fast food eating.

Bene sure as fuck wasn’t drinking.

He didn’t understand what in the hell was going on, but he was quickly growing tired of it. Not that he could say that, or even stop. He couldn’t because he’d done this—he asked for this life, and sometimes, shit just wasn’t easy. Not being made meant Bene had to answer to every single man in the organization that was a made man. And they could use him for whatever they wanted, as long as the boss agreed.

Apparently, his father did.

Up until this point in his life and working toward getting his button for the Guzzi Cosa Nostra, Bene had been spoiled. Privileged, really, because of his last name and the fact he was one of the youngest sons of the Guzzi Don. Unlike others, who worked their way into the family from the ground up, Bene had only answered to his father and older brothers, most of the time, with a couple of Capos thrown into the mix as a mentor to him.

His right, he was told once.

At the same time, he’d been warned this would happen, too. That at some point, he would be all or nothing in this family and business. That his status as a Guzzi son would afford him little to nothing compared to others trying to get their in, and he would have to earn it the same way every other man did, too.

Bene hadn’t been ready.

He blamed himself for that.

A part of him wondered if that was Marcus’s point. To keep him so busy that he didn’t even have time to worry about his problems or trying to find the solution to them at the bottom of a goddamn bottle.

But who knew?

Not Bene.

He didn’t get to ask questions.

Not anymore.

Bene drummed his fingers against the leather-wrapped steering wheel of his Lambo—a car he’d painted bright red so that everybody and anybody would see him coming, and know it was him just by the distinct color and car alone. His father had been quick to point out the car was a little ostentatious, and drew too much attention, but he never said to get rid of it, and Bene considered that a win.

It was also serving him well when Marcus called to demand Bene drive all the way across the city to meet him at the back of a barber shop—one he’d never heard of before—in a time frame that would have been impossible in any other vehicle except his Lambo. He was thanking that goddamn upgrade he had done to the engine shortly after he bought it for that extra fifty horsepower under the hood.

Still don’t know why I’m coming to this place tonight, though.

Yeah, his thoughts were still hell.

That couldn’t be helped.

Bene pulled his vehicle into the rear parking lot of the barber shop that … well, didn’t look like it had been open in years, if the plywood covering the windows was any indication. Even the red and white pole—no longer spinning in its cracked glass case—seemed as though it was on its last legs.

What is this place?

And why was he here?

Bene noticed the cars parked in the lot first, and his brother standing at the doors second. Marcus, that was. He recognized the vehicles, too, as belonging to Capos of the family, an enforcer or two that were lucky enough to get their in to the family, and his brothers’, Marcus and Christopher, as well.