Bennett Mafia(84)

“It has to be your decision,” he growled. “Everything has to be your decision.”

His eyes were hard, his mouth pressed in a flat line.

He. Was. Pissed.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

Oh boy.

His eyes were locked on me, unmoving.

I swallowed. “A day.”

He shook his head. “A day. You’ve been here a full fucking day?”

Well, it was closer to a day and a half with the traveling included, but I didn’t think he cared about that.

“How did you get here?”

I gave him a look. “Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not! I’m not fucking kidding. How did you get here?”

“My job is to help people disappear. That is what I do, what I’m good at. You do mafia shit. That’s what you’re good at.”

“I’m good at keeping my family safe. That’s what I’m good at.”

“Come on. I mean, did you really think I wouldn’t get here? You really thought I would let you confront my father without me? He’s my dad. Mine.”

“And he deserves to die.”

He was growling, nearly shouting, but he rubbed a hand over his jaw. He was trying to calm down. He looked down. “You flew, didn’t you?”

Aw shit. “Yes.”

“Goddammit, Riley!” Back to shouting.

I had to take a step back.

He wasn’t moving, but it didn’t matter. The air writhed around him, his words like punches. Everything was tense and riddled with fury.

Stark shadows fell over his face, making his cheekbones prominent and unyielding.

“Why are you mad?” I asked.

“I’m mad because I give a shit about you.” His hand went to his hair, running briskly through it. “Maybe it’s irrational, but my loved ones don’t fly. It’s my rule. It’s the one thing I held on to when I took my father’s position. Everything else I gave up. Everything. People I cared about, friends, girlfriends. School. A normal life. All of it was gone the second I took the head council position. It fucking matters, and it’s one small way I’m reassured my family members are alive. You have a shot at living if your car is tampered with. There’s no shot with a plane once it’s in the air. No shot.”

He cared about me.

His loved ones.

And his girlfriends.

It was petty of me, but…girlfriends? More than one?

His hands went to his hips, clearly frustrated. Bent, broken, but still here. Still standing. Still in the room with me.

“Brooke thinks our mother died from an illness. She didn’t.” His now-tired eyes flicked up to mine. Pain flared there. “Our father killed her, and he didn’t act alone. I’ve never told anyone in the family this.”

“How’d she die?”

“With her lover.” His nostrils flared. “With Cord’s father.”

Oh—OH! My mouth fell open.

Kai sat on the edge of my bed, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared at the floor. “I was told by a source that her lover’s family killed them both. They’re a member of the council as well. And I’ve never been able to prove it, but my father helped. I know he did.”

“No one knows?” I sat next to him, wanting to touch him, comfort him.

He gave me a look. “Not about Cord, but come on. Jonah doesn’t look like us. It’s obvious she was a cheater. And who could blame her? Her husband was a monster.”

I winced, hearing my own thoughts flung back at me, words I had spoken before too.

He stood, pacing the room. “Fuck. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” He stopped suddenly and shot me a heated look, one filled with anger and loathing and worry.

The worry got to me, melting me. His tone, not so much.

“I don’t care where you decide to go. I honestly don’t, as long as you’re safe. You’re not a captive, even though you snuck out like one. If you and Brooke had demanded to come to Milwaukee, what’d you think I would’ve done?”

“Taken away our phones and kept us locked away in a log mansion?”

His mouth closed with a snap. “Yeah. I see your point, but you’re not Brooke. You don’t have a boyfriend that could fuck everything up for this family like she does. You have a logical head on your shoulders. Brooke would get pickpocketed by teenagers at the mall if she didn’t have guards. That’s actually happened. She has no life skills. You saw what house we found her in.”

Yes. The house he had exploded.

He did care. He did love.

He was angry with me about flying. He was telling me about his mom. He connected them together, somehow. A way to lose me, another person he lost. I was going with caution, but I had a gut feeling here.

He needed to talk, if even for this one time.

“You said your mom died with her lover, but how exactly did she die?”

He closed his eyes, his head falling back. He let out a soft “shit.”

I waited. Instinct told me to wait, to be quiet, to let him fill the space.

“They made it look like a mugging. A random fucking act of crime, but it wasn’t. She was stabbed three times, once in the throat, and the knife lodged in the side of her skull.”