“I can,” I insisted. “And I will. Get your act together, Jennifer, or I will take Darian.”
“Fuck you, you snotty bitch! I’ll never let you take my baby!”
“Darian’s future is entirely up to you, Jennifer,” I replied, ignoring her insults. Plus, I’ve been doing this a long time; I’ve been called worse. “If you want to keep him, straighten up.”
“You don’t understand!” she accused. “You don’t know what it’s like!”
Of course, she was right. I didn’t know what it was like. I didn’t even have children that would give me maternal insight. But I still knew what basic human decency felt like and any decent human being should want all the children of the world well cared for.
“I’ll be back soon,” I warned, and walked out of the trailer as she hurled insults at my back.
I got in my car, started it up, and waited until I was a few blocks down the street before I pulled over to give myself some breathing room.
I kept picturing Darian’s sweet little face and I knew I was going to do everything in my power to see him with the Schiffers. Whether Jennifer ever got her shit together or not was no longer my concern. My concern was for Darian and Darian only.
I pulled out my recorded and taped a recap of my visit and recommendation for Darian Engelman. I always recorded my notes within minutes of each visit, so I wouldn’t forget anything later when I returned to the office. The social services offices were riddled with cubicles on an open-floor plan and it was hard to collect your thoughts sometimes with all the noise around you, so recording my session notes in the peace and quiet of my car helped a lot.
I tossed Darian’s file into my backseat of my used KIA Forte and reached for the next file from the stack in my front passenger seat.
Three down, only ten more go to.
Chapter 3
Luca~
Dinner had been perfect, as always. And I had to agree on with Ciro on this; one of the best things about Francesca finally coming home was the woman knew how to cook, and she liked to. And, even though, she was super busy going back to school to get her degree and learning the ropes from Phoenix, she still made time to cook for us. Especially if we were all going to be available for a family dinner. Not a Benetti Family dinner, but just our family.
We had grown up in the same neighborhood, but Ciro and I being the same age, we connected first. A few months later, Phoenix came into the picture and the three of us had become a unit. We’d been incredibly young, but even at the tender age of eight, I’d already known what I was meant to become, and Ciro and Phoenix have been with me the entire way.
Then there was Francesca.
Francesca was Ciro’s little sister, the same age as Phoenix, and Phoenix had fallen in love with her when they were just seven-years-old, and he has never looked at another female since. And even the six years they were apart, Phoenix never so much as touched 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
