wretched things most women would resort to in order to become a Benetti, so he stayed away from the masses.
There was no way some woman was going to trap Luca Benetti.
Beverly was a professor at Morgan City Community, and she taught chemistry. She lived a quiet, unassuming life and knew exactly who Luca Benetti was. Knowing one wrong move could end her life, she kept her mouth shut and her leg opened for Luca, and she never pushed for anything more.
“I don’t do much talking when I’m in bed, Ciro,” he joked. The rare side to Luca only Ciro, Frankie, and I got to see.
Ciro rolled his eyes and got back to the topic at hand. “I don’t trust her.”
“Me either,” Luca replied. “I have Estevan on her, and we’ll see what she does.”
“Frankie’s going to insist on helping her,” Ciro pointed out.
“Frankie’s got bigger problems,” I countered.
All talk ceased when we heard a moan vibrate through the room.
“Ah, look who’s waking up,” Ciro declared, cheerfully, “our good buddy Randolph.” Luca let out a soft chuckle as I just shook my head. Ciro was always full of theatrics.
We stood back, Luca leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, Ciro smiling like a loon next to the tools of his trade, and me standing off to the side of Randy’s dangling body. I wasn’t going to deny Ciro or Luca their payback, but Randy’s last breaths belonged to me.
We waited patiently as Randy’s eyes fluttered open. It’d be a few seconds before he was fully coherent. I knocked him out pretty hard to begin with, but Luca had given him another thump to the head before I carried him from the SUV to Ciro’s most favorite place in the world. We had chained him up while we had waited for Ciro to drop off Frankie’s car and stuff to her. Randy’s been out for about half hour or so.
The second the haze cleared, his eyes bulged, and he started screaming behind the rag stuffed in his mouth.
Ciro grinned. “Glad you could join us.”
“Randolph Masterson,” Luca began. “Son to Rachel and Darren Masterson, no siblings.” The panic on Randy’s face was real, but then he was in the presence of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost. He knew he was fucked. “Graduated high school-barely. No real job to speak of, mostly odd jobs here and there. Used to live at 185 Marion Lane in Cedar Creek until you started mooching off your latest girlfriend, letting yourself get evicted and crashing at her place.” Randy was either agreeing or disagreeing, but his words were muffled, so I couldn’t be sure. “You have a few worthless friends…well, two short now with Tony and Eddie gone.” He looked over at me. “Am I missing anything else?” he asked, reciting the information Sal got for us on good, old Randolph.
“You left out the best thing about Randolph,” I added. “His parents are both deceased. Drugs, I do believe.” I turned to face Randy. “Am I right? Drugs, correct?”
“And that means no one will miss you,” Ciro finished.
Randy was screaming again, but that was easy to ignore. We were used to the background noise of begging and pleading. It no longer fazed us.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen, Randy,” I informed him. “We’re going to spend time with you in order of importance. Since Luca is Frankie’s best friend, he’ll get to go first. And, then, Ciro being Frankie’s brother, he gets to go second, and that’ll be a real treat. Luca knows he has to leave enough of you for us to get our chance, but Ciro, here…well, he tends to get overexcited sometimes.” Randy started thrashing around, but the great thing about our suspension chains? They were surrounded by insulation. The rattling was great for instilling fear in our victims, but they got to be annoying as fuck after a while. So, Randy was welcome to thrash about all he wanted.
“I’ll do my best to leave you something to work with, Ghost,” Ciro chimed in and I smiled. Ciro’s enthusiasm really was contagious. It was probably why women loved him so much. If he fucked like he tortured and killed, no doubt his women were satisfied.
I turned back towards Randy. “And, then, I get you, Randolph,” I continued. “I get you last because you dared to put your hands on my wife. Francesca Mancini Fiore is mine. She is mine and you fucked up when you presumed to put hands on