another woman. Phoenix was in love with Francesca in the way you only read about in books about legendary love. She loved him back just as fiercely, but Phoenix’s love was something deeper than Francesca would never understand.
Ciro and Francesca’s parents died in a car accident when they were teenagers, and Ciro had taken the responsibility of raising Francesca very seriously. He did everything he could to keep a roof over her head, food in her stomach, and even sent her to college. But while Francesca was Ciro’s only blood relative and Phoenix’s only reason for living, to me, she was so much more than that.
Francesca Mancini Fiore was the only thing on the planet that still made me human. She was the only light that shown in my dark, vicious, and unforgiving world. She was the only person I’ve ever connected with on an emotionally vulnerable level. I would go to war for the Benetti name. I would die for my brothers. I would burn the world to the ground for Phoenix, Ciro, and Ciro’s wife, Robbie. But Francesca?
I’d destroy the fucking Universe for her.
She was my best friend.
Francesca was the first person I ever loved. She was the first person who ever loved me. She was the first person who ever showed me what love really was. She was the first person I ever needed, and she’s been the only person I’ve ever needed since. I loved Ciro and Phoenix, and I trusted them with my life, but I didn’t need them. I knew that in the way that I knew any one of us could meet our maker with the lifestyle we led.
But I needed Francesca.
And because I had men on her around the clock when she lived in Cedar Creek, it was the only way I had allowed her to stay gone for so long. As long as we knew she was safe, we were able to get by. At least, until it had been time for her to finally come home
Gio used to beat me on the regular. The beatings began almost around the same age as I learned to walk. He was turning me into a Benetti, he’d say. He was turning me into a leader of men. He was making sure I could do what was needed when the time came.
And my mother let him.
I suppose to be fair, Carlita wasn’t a match for Giovanni Benetti, and she knew what she was getting herself into when she married him, but that didn’t exonerate her as far as I was concerned. She was still a woman who stood by while her husband beat her two-year-old son.
When we started playing together in the neighborhood, Phoenix and I had gotten a good look at what decent parents were supposed to be. Ciro and Francesca’s parents had worked a lot, but they had taken care of their children. It had been like living in two different worlds when I went back and forth from my home to theirs. And when Francesca started chasing after us, it had felt like what a family should.
One night, my father had beat me so badly, in my young mind, I had believed I was going to die. I had believed it with all I had, and so, I had made my way to Ciro’s to say goodbye, but he had been spending the night at Phoenix’s, so when I knocked on the window of Ciro’s bedroom, Francesca’s little six-year-old face had peeked from behind the curtain. At six-years-old, she had taken one look at me and threw the window open. I was eight, and bigger than her, but I’ll never forget how she tried to help me up and through the opening. Her skinny arms had fought to pull me through and her pretty little face had turned bright red with exertion. Once I was able to get through the window, she had put me to bed and told me she was going to go get her mom to help me.
I remember the immediate shame I had felt that I was going to be seen like that. I had been enduring beatings for six years, and I knew-I just knew I couldn’t let anyone else see a Benetti like that.
Weak, broken, and crying.
I had begged her not to and, instead, she had gone to the bathroom and came back with the First-Aid kit and had done her best to patch me up. Afterwards, she had helped me into Ciro’s bed and