Page 65 of Bene

Still …

Vanna just felt cold.

“Oh, we will,” Mario’s father replied, “and more will join us.”

“Ma is working in the kitchen. You can help her after,” Mario added.

Vanna’s brow lifted. “Oh?”

She was just expected to help?

Not even a question.

“Yes,” the boss said, heaving his large body from his chair. An intimidating man in size, Mario Senior Detti was not a person that one might want to meet in a dark alley, and Vanna had never been more aware of his presence then when he left the table and crossed the room to come and stand in front of her. He still wore that smile, sure, but something changed in the aura around him, electrifying the air, though it made it felt chillier than ever to Vanna all the same. “I thought you and I should have a chat before the rest get here, though, because I figure … well, I am the man heading your household in this clan, aren’t I?”

Her jaw clenched.

Vanna did her best to hide it.

“Are you?” she returned.

Senior nodded. “After you father died, I took you in, by default—”

“Your father ordered the murder of mine.”

“Vanna,” Mario warned quietly from the table.

“Your father was planning against my father’s life. This is how Camorra works, child. You know that, so do not pretend otherwise.”

Child.

Twenty-one, but against this man, she was still just a girl.

Nothing less, nothing more.

His reminder, as gentle as it was, changed nothing for her. And this was exactly why Vanna didn’t like to get into these discussions with anyone. She would always have her opinions about those things, and how this all came to be. Her father was the traitor, sure, and she was the blood straight from his veins. The more she reminded them all of that fact, it became far more likely that they wouldn’t allow her to continue walking and living among the rest of them.

“You’re at an age now,” Senior continued as though Vanna weren’t glaring daggers at him, “as my son reminded me this week, where other women of your status and position have been handed different expectations, and acted accordingly.”

Vanna straightened on the spot.

Her spine as stiff as a board.

“And what does that mean?” And then she had another thought, one that made her glance around the side of Senior’s large form to stare right at Mario still sitting at the table. “You reminded him of something about me?”

“Well,” Mario started.

Senior held up a hand, quieting them both. Anyone with an ounce of brain matter, that had seen this man get angry on at least one occasion, knew better than to test his very short patience. It took nothing at all for him to go from zero to one hundred, and he had no problem with making very violent and rash decisions when his anger took over.

Vanna wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.

Not at all.

“Vanna,” Senior murmured, drawing her gaze back to him as he readied to put the final nail in her coffin. She just knew it. Felt it in her fucking bones for what was coming next. Those words didn’t need to leave his lips for her to already be aware, and yet … they still felt like knives slicing across her skin when he said it. “It’s time for you to serve your purpose as a woman in the clan—for the greater good, as they say.”

“The greater good.”

It wasn’t even a question.