Page 144 of Dirty Mafia King

“Yes, Mr. Beneventi. A nurse will be in right away.” He leaves, and I approach the bed for a closer assessment.

His face took a beating. Nose broken, eyes swollen, like the doctor said. “Whoever is behind this is going to die a slow death,” I snarl.

“Dad?” His voice cracks.

Dad. The little shits stopped calling me that years ago. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

“You’re alive. That’s what matters.” I pull up a chair and drop into it, crashing from twenty-four hours of adrenaline. Exhausted, so fucking exhausted. “How did this happen?”

“Conti.”

“Emilio Conti.” Ma che cazzo. I underestimated that fucking worm.

“He must have had men watching me.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Your place was secure.”

Sandro quiets, and I immediately understand why. “You weren’t at your apartment.”

“I was at a friend’s place.”

“A friend’s place,” I repeat. “And it wasn’t your first time there.”

“No. And Conti acted on it. The motherfucker blew up an entire building trying to kill me. But I left the apartment beforehand, forcing the men waiting outside to attack my car.”

“And Tommaso allowed this to happen?”

Sandro turns his head away. “He was busy making a phone call.”

“A phone call? While you were being attacked?”

Sandro swallows, then winces. “He was following orders.”

“If you weren’t in a hospital bed,” I grind out, “I’d knock some sense into you.” I’m never violent with the twins, never whipped their asses—though fuck knows I’ve had reason to. “What phone call was so goddamn important you got yourself kidnapped because of it?”

He swiftly changes the subject. “I killed Conti’s men using the leg of the wooden chair they tied me to.”

My eyebrows lift. “That right?”

“They should have beaten me to death. Instead they left me alone to go and contact Conti. Big fucking mistake. Sang like canaries before I bludgeoned them both.”

My chest swells, not with pride, but relief. My sons learned how to fight not long after they could walk. And they’re resourceful little shits.

Grazie a Dio.

Still, I warned him.

“If you and your dick remained tucked inside the Fort Knox of Soho, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“In your eyes, I’m always a disappointment, aren’t I?”

How can you father one twin who is so goddamn needy, every conversation is an argument, and another son who’d rather poison his veins than deal with you?

But I almost lost him.

“I love you. And that makes me vulnerable. Capisci?”