I stopped breathing.

The slightly good thing about that was now I had confirmation about what Ben’s talk would be about. I had guessed, now I knew.

That was the slightly good thing.

Slightly.

“I’m your brother’s girlfriend,” I reminded him.

“You were Vinnie’s girlfriend,” he retorted immediately. “Now you’re just Frankie.”

“If you don’t think he’s always gonna be between us—the history of bad blood your family clung to for seven years and the shit they laid on my shoulders for years before that isn’t gonna be between me and them—you’re cracked.”

“I think we give this a go, we’ll both get to the point where we remember we loved Vinnie and that’ll be all there is about Vinnie. Gettin’ to that, there’ll be shit we hit that’ll be awkward and uncomfortable, but we’ll power through it and get there in the end.”

“You’re so sure?” I asked snidely.

“Yeah,” he answered firmly.

“And how are you so sure, Ben? Hunh? Tell me that.”

“’Cause if I didn’t waste seven f**kin’ years, that would be where we were now if I had finally pulled my finger outta my ass and made my move on you then. Instead of sittin’ on this bed arguin’ with you about where we should be goin’, I’d be doin’ somethin’ else to you in this bed while our kids were at Ma’s house, tearin’ it up.”

His words hit me so hard in a way that felt dangerously good, I sucked in a painful breath. But Benny was not done.

“’Cept I did it back then, we’d have to live with Vinnie knowin’ I stole his woman. Until he got whacked, that is.”

The word “What?” came out of me in a gush of breath.

“Francesca, you givin’ me a week and a half to think on all this shit, things got clear. And what got clear was that the minute Vinnie became a made man, you lost him. I lost him. My family lost him. He stopped bein’ ours and he became Sal’s. Say it didn’t end in his bein’ dead. Do you think Ma would let that kind of man sit at her table for Christmas dinner?” He shook his head again. “No f**kin’ way. Ma and Pop are stubborn. They were holdin’ on to hope. But it was slippin’ and he was cruisin’ straight to bein’ disowned, dead to them in a different way, and you know it.”

I did. Vinnie Senior and Theresa were gearing up to let him go. I knew it then. I felt it. It hurt. Vinnie felt it. It killed. There were a lot of things family forgave, looked beyond, got used to, sucked it up for, and they could shift the blame to me for a lot of shit.

But he’d been made in the Mafia. The things he was doing were going to get harder and harder to blame on me. The things he was doing were all on him. He knew it and they were figuring it out.

And once you were made in the mob, you never got out.

There was no turning back.

For him.

For me, now, that was another matter.

And Benny immediately got into that matter.

“And I know you. You would not let him plant babies in you—not go out and do the shit he did for Sal, come to you with blood on his hands after puttin’ drugs on the street or shakin’ people down or whatever the f**k they do, and let him put a baby inside you. I know that, Frankie. He was livin’ on borrowed time in more ways than the one that got him and we both know it.”

“So you were gonna move on his woman?” I asked.

“Why do you think I was so f**kin’ pissed when you made that move on me after we put him in the ground?” he asked back. “You stole my show, babe. And you did it too f**kin’ quick. I was not ready, you were not ready, and I got pissed. Too pissed. Held a grudge. Pissed away time. Now we’re here.”

“I didn’t make a move,” I reminded him sharply. “You kissed me.”

“You made a move, Frankie,” he said with rigidity.

I did.

Fuck.

I did.

“This is insane,” I snapped, because it f**king well was!

He got even closer. “This is real and you f**kin’ know it.”

“I do not,” I bit out.

“You so f**kin’ do,” he returned. “I get where you are. I was there for seven years. Denyin’ where I was at and where I wanted you to be. Holdin’ guilt about all a’ that. How I felt and what I wanted before he died. How I felt and the same thing I wanted after he was gone. You see the woman you want bleedin’ from a gunshot wound on a forest floor, she survives that shit and gives you a week and a half, Frankie, that’s plenty of time to pull your head outta your ass. I did it on my own. Now you’re gonna do it, and if you don’t, I’m right here and I’m gonna do it for you.”

“You are not!” My voice was beginning to rise as my heartbeat was beginning to escalate. “Primarily because there’s nothing to pull my head outta my ass about.”

“You need me to kiss you?”

“No!” I shouted, my voice now loud and my breathing now harsh.

“Shakespeare,” he clipped, and my head jerked.

“What?” I rapped out.

“What’d he say about protesting?”

I felt my eyes go squinty again.

“You got it all figured out, don’t you, Benny?” I asked sarcastically.

“Bet you five hundred dollars I kiss you, in about five seconds you’d have it figured out too.”

No way in hell I was taking that bet.

“Gambling is a sin,” I hissed.

“Yeah, so you go to Vegas every year to catch the shows?”

My eyes got squintier.

“Five hundred bucks, Frankie.”

“I’m recovering from a major bodily trauma, Ben.”

“Read your doctor’s notes, babe. Said nothin’ about you not kissin’. Told you to refrain from intercourse, so we’ll save that for later.”

I clenched my teeth, even as I felt my ni**les tingle.

God, I wanted to slap him.

I also wanted him to kiss me.

And I couldn’t even think of intercourse with Benny, not with him that close. Hell, not ever.

“Not gonna take the bet?” he taunted, moving an inch closer.

“Fuck off, Ben.”

He grinned.

Then he repeated, “Shakespeare.”

“Whatever,” I muttered, pressing back into the pillows and sliding my eyes away.

“My win,” he said softly. “You’re off your game. Figure you’ll get yours in when you get stronger so I gotta get in as many as I can now.”