Chapter 10
Paul Bennett had driven for me twelve years.
He knew my Army habits.
My routes.
My silence.
He had held Emily when she was a child.
That made his disappearance worse.
Linda saw my face.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“When blood chooses someone else.”
I understood.
She enjoyed this.
Not only power.
Punishment.
“What did I do to you?”
Linda laughed.
“You?”
She looked around.
“You never noticed us.”
“Us?”
“The Coles.”
Ryan frowned.
“Mom.”
She ignored him.
“Your organization swallowed every smaller family around it.”
“We made alliances.”
“You made servants.”
Marcus almost smiled.
I looked at Linda.
“You married into no Bennett line.”
“No.”
“Then why this obsession?”
Her expression hardened.
“Your father humiliated mine.”
There.
Old grievance.
I had been waiting.
Thirty years earlier, my father refused Linda’s father a place in Bennett operations after he stole from a shared shipment.
I remembered the story.
Barely.
“He betrayed us.”
Linda snapped:
“He was starving.”
“He sold weapons twice.”
“To feed his family.”
She still believed the justification.
Decades later.
“He died with nothing.”
“And?”
Her eyes flashed.
“And the Bennetts celebrated Christmas in a house with thirty rooms.”
So this began before Emily.
Before Ryan.
Maybe before Ryan was born.
Linda had raised him inside resentment.
Taught him Bennett wealth was stolen from the Coles.
Then sent him toward my daughter.
Ryan stared at her.
“You said this was about my future.”
“It was.”
“No.”
He laughed bitterly.
“This was about Grandpa.”
Linda’s face hardened.
“You benefited.”
“I became a weapon.”
She shrugged.
“You became useful.”
There it was.
Ryan finally heard the same word she used for Emily and the baby.
Useful.
He looked broken.
Still dangerous.
But broken.
Then Marcus laughed softly.
Linda turned.
“What?”
“You really think Vale cares about your father?”
Her expression changed.
Marcus continued.
“Vale used your grudge because it made you predictable.”
“Shut up.”
“He promised you revenge.”
“Shut up.”
“And promised Paul Bennett control.”
I looked at him.
“Control of what?”
Marcus smiled.
“Your eastern crews.”
May you like
My cousin had not betrayed me for Linda.
He had betrayed me for my chair.
