Page 127 of Say I Do

It was his first time hearing the story as well, it seemed. I gestured for Tex to keep going.

“Enzo said he never fell in love, but Brycen was with him for a long time. He was close. So close that he’d gotten hold of information.” Tex sighed. “My dad was a big-time detective back then, and he’d convinced Brycen to be an informant on the Vitale family. Brycen sold useless information; some old warehouses that had been cleared out before the cops could find them and some locations that came up empty. One day he grew desperate, and he vanished. In the official reports, it says he probably overdosed. There was a missing person case filed on him, but no one was going to work hard to find a drug addict. The last few times he’d met up with the cops, he was so high nothing he said made any sense.”

I could believe it. The diary entries were all over the place as if Brycen couldn’t pinpoint himself in the sea of drugs. I swallowed hard.

“Benito and Enzo found out the one feeding the cops the information was Brycen. Not only was he helping the cops, but he’d been sleeping with both brothers. Enzo said...” Tex looked at me, and I knew it would be something I didn’t want to hear.

“Say it.”

Tex blew out a breath. “He doesn’t know for sure, and this all—”

“Tex.”

He stopped trying to sugarcoat it. “Benito was in love with Brycen. When he found out about Brycen’s betrayal, he beat him up, but there was no way Benito could deliver the finishing blow, so he made Enzo do it.”

Hearing this only cemented what I’d thought. It hurt far worse than I could have ever imagined.

“Poor Benito. Poor Enzo,” Ash whispered.

Poor them, what about me?I was competing with a dead snitch. The back of my eyes stung as tears threatened to break free. Fuck, if he wasn't dead already, I’d kill him a hundred times over. He couldn’t have Benito, not now, not ever. And yet even dead Brycen held a piece of Benito I didn’t.

“Okay,” I said.

Ash looked as if he was about to reach out. The last thing I wanted was anyone touching me.

Tex cleared his throat. “That wasn’t what really set them off. Brycen had apparently gotten some intel to the cops. Decent intel.” Tex looked at Ash. “Giancarlo went to prison because of it.”

“What? ” Ash looked angry and sad at once. “But—”

“Giancarlo took the fall. Benito was the head of the operation, and he knew Enzo needed to stay by Benito’s side during that time,” Tex offered. He looked down at his plate. “At least that’s what Enzo said. He still feels bad about it. Giancarlo wasn’t the same after he came out. So much stuff happened while he was locked away.”

“I hope he’s dead,” Ash whispered, surprising the shit out of Tex and me.

“Ash,” Tex gasped.

“Wow, you’re not so fluffy. Little murder in you?”

Ash’s cheeks turned red. “No! I mean, I wouldn’t do it, but he hurt Giancarlo, so he can burn in hell.”

“He is dead,” Tex said.

He relaxed back. For him to be a former cop, he was a little too relaxed talking about murder. Then again, he was with Enzo Vitale.

I pulled the papers out of my pocket and handed them to Tex. “Here.”

“Where did you find them?” he asked again.

Ash and Tex looked at me expectantly. I could keep it to myself, but I kind of liked them. They were strange but a good kind of strange.

“Benito had them hidden in the floor.”

“Do all the brothers have floor safes?” Ash asked as he started digging into his pancakes with a smile on his face.

“Nope, Enzo’s is somewhere else. I haven’t found it yet, but I’m determined to.”

Tex read over the papers. He stopped on one, and I leaned back to see which. It was the page where Brycen was willing to run to Enzo to love him.

He shook his head and handed them back. “What are you going to do with this?”

---