The Bishop by M.E. Clayton

Prologue

2019~

You would think I’d feel something. Standing next to my two brothers, you’d think I’d feel something, but I didn’t.

At least, not what I should be feeling.

Giovanni Benetti was lying on the ground, dead as a door nail, and all I could think was that it was about goddamn time.

Now, had I expected him to die at the hands of my oldest brother, Luca? Not really. I mean, I knew there was a strong possibility this might happened but a part of me still never saw it coming.

Luca has always been the level-headed one. While Salvatore was a psychopath and I was the analytical type, Luca has always had full control of his thoughts and emotions. It was the reason why people followed him. Luca was a king of kings.

And now with our father dead at our feet, Luca was the king.

The Benetti Family was under new rule and Luca had no problem obliterating anyone stupid enough to stand in his way.

Unlike Luca, though, Gio hadn’t beaten me and Salvatore. He hadn’t groomed us to head up the family by violence. I’d actually had a pretty good relationship with Gio. Our mother, Carlita, as well. Gio’s sadistic streak had been reserved for Luca only and looking at the dead man on the ground, it looked like it had finally caught up with him.

But then Gio never should have threatened the woman my brother loves.

Yeah, that had been a bad idea.

Now, while the gun shot had been self-inflicted, we all knew Gio had only done it to rob Luca of the satisfaction of killing him, so it might as well have been by Luca’s own hand that Gio was now dead.

“Good riddance,” Sal spat, and I couldn’t have agreed more.

“Ditto,” I remarked.

Luca slapped us each on the back and turned to handle the other traitor in our midst. Sensio had been Luca’s guard for as long as I could remember, so his death was going to be an epic example of what it meant to betray a Benetti.

We all knew this.

Every Capo in this room knew Sensio’s mind was going to crack before his soul left his body. It was one of the things that made Luca who he was. It was also one of the things that made Salvatore who he was. Luca killed out of calculated necessity. Sal killed because it got his dick hard. And I didn’t kill unless I had to.

As Luca went to handle his shit, Sal slapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll clean up Gio’s body,” he said. “Do you want to be the one to tell Mom?”

While Mom had left Luca to Gio’s child rearing nightmare, Carlita had mothered me and Sal rather decently. How Sal ended up the psychopath and not Luca, I had no idea. Still, Sal was the perfect person to clean up our dead father’s body and I was the perfect one for telling our mother that she no longer had a husband.

I nodded. “I’ll go talk to her as soon as we leave here,” I told him. “I’ll join you guys at The Funhouse tomorrow.” While I wasn’t a fan of torturing people, Sensio had betrayed us. I might not get the rush from torture that Sal did, but I didn’t stand for traitors, either.

“It’s a new era, little brother,” Sal stated, telling me something I didn’t already know. Whatever the Benetti Family was under Gio’s rule, it was going to pale in comparison to what Luca could do with it.

We were going to be unstoppable.

“I know,” I replied. I nudged Gio’s dead body with my shoe. “I feel nothing,” I said to no one in particular.

Sal let out a dark laugh. “That’s because for all your desk work and clean hands, you’re still a Benetti, little brother,” he said. “And your demons are as dark as mine and Luca’s.”

I glanced over at Sal. “How dark can Luca be when he was ready to kill his own father for love?”

Sal smirked. “Do you really think it’s money and power that bring out the worst in men, Leo?” He leaned in closer. “Because let me tell you something, the lure of money and power are nothing compared to what a man will do for the woman he loves.”

Little did I know, I’d eventually find that out the hard way.