Lucky Boys (Il Fortunato #1)

1. Brooks

CHAPTER 1

brOOKS

“Got it,” I whispered as I placed the flash drive into the hidden pocket in my bag.

“Good. Now get the fuck out of there.”

I rolled my eyes even though Diego wouldn’t see me. Seriously? I’d been doing this since I could barely talk. I knew how it worked. But I guessed one thing you could rely on was Diego being the ridiculously overprotective big brother, even when it was unwarranted.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. I hitched the bag over my shoulder and looked around to make sure nothing was out of place.

This wasn’t my typical B&E, which made Diego being so on edge a little more understandable. I typically snatched objects—jewelry, paintings, shit like that. That was my bread and butter, literally. I had even grabbed some stolen Cherokee pottery from a museum that had been trying to act like they had the rights to it. Fuckers.

I’d gone with my pops to his jobs for as long as I could remember. Most people would say that made my parents shitty, but they’d literally taken me off the street when they’d found me at around 3 years old in nothing but a diaper and had given me a good life. My feral ass hadn’t been like normal kids. Going on those jobs had been the only thing that had kept me from losing it in those early days.

Filling a flash drive with stolen information, however, was new to me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable, and with Diego running things back home, the job was easy peasy. But there was too much wait time. I hated sitting around and waiting for information to load, even if I knew I was safe. I liked to be in and out. Still, Diego had no reason to be worried about me. I had this.

I casually walked out of the upstairs office space and into the hallway. The owner of the house was currently fucking his mistress in his apartment in the city. His two kids were in boarding school, and his wife was on “holiday,” whatever that meant. Didn’t matter. I’d had an open window for Diego to bypass the security so I could get in.

I whistled as I walked, the usual adrenaline I felt during a job thrumming through my veins. It was even stronger today, and I’d probably have to head to the club after this to come down some. I turned the hallway and headed toward the staircase.

“Shit. Someone else is there,” Diego hissed into my earpiece.

“Fuck.” I stopped mid-step, my favorite blade already in my hand. I could hear footsteps on the floor below me. They didn’t seem urgent, so maybe whoever it was didn’t know I was there?

“They’re coming up. Fucking hide, Brooks.”

“Damn it, D,” I whispered harshly. I was already scanning the area for a hiding spot as I heard the footsteps on the staircase.

There was a door across the hall, and without thinking, I went to it, wrenching it open. It was a closet of some sort, dark and narrow and smelling like leather from the fancy coats that hung from hangers.

“Damn, damn, damn.” I hated small spaces. And dark ones. They always triggered some of my earliest memories from before my mom and pops had found me. They were never clear, just visions of pitch-black rooms and spaces so tight I couldn’t even stand, but it was enough to send me into a full-blown panic if I let it. My meds helped most of the time, but they were doing a shitty job now. Shh, don’t tell Diego. He’d fucking lose it if he could tell how close I was to panicking. He also didn’t know about the dreams, flashbacks, whatever you wanna call them, so it was even harder to explain.

“You good, B?” Diego asked me.

“Yeah,” I rasped, trying to catch my breath. I closed the door and squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe if I couldn’t see how fucking tiny this place was, I’d be okay. The footsteps got closer, but I almost hoped whoever it was found me. I’d rather take my chances with this stranger than be in this fucking closet.

“I don’t think he saw you. Just hang on.”

I nodded even if Diego couldn’t see me. He was monitoring the house from the security cameras the owners had installed, but I doubted there was one in the coat closet.

Finally, seemingly years later, the footsteps passed me and made their way down the hallway. I still didn’t move until Diego gave me the all clear, because I managed to have some self-control.

“Okay, Brooks. You’re good. Go.”

I kept all my questions to myself, like who the fuck was it in the house since it was supposed to be empty. All that could wait till I was safely back and the flash drive was handed to our client.

I slid out of the closet, my blade at the ready, but the hallway was empty. I turned back to the staircase and silently went down.

“Okay, back door is clear. Go out the way you came.”

“Got it.”

Like most of these rich fuckers, the house was gated and secluded with a mile long driveway that kept it away from prying eyes. It made it easy for me to casually walk out and into the woods that surrounded the place. For whatever reason, this asshole didn’t have in-person security, just the kind that Diego could hack. Worked for me.

It didn’t take long for uneasiness to wash over me. I slowed, taking in my surroundings, but I couldn’t see or hear anything. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me.

“D, something feels off. You’re sure no one is around?”

“I’m sure. None of their alarms have been tripped. Just stick to the plan.”

I sucked in my lower lip and kept walking, on high alert. My instincts were usually spot on—something was wrong. Even if I wasn’t being followed, I had a feeling this job wasn’t as cut and dry as it should be.

It was supposed to be corporate espionage shit. I’d sneak in, steal whatever incriminating evidence one rich asshole had on himself, and give it to another. Asshole 1 would go down for embezzlement and whatever else and asshole 2 would take his company. It sucked, but Asshole 2 paid well, and Diego and I needed the money.

Typically, I brought whatever I stole to one of the secure drop off points I had through the city. I didn’t have direct contact with anyone. Too risky. This guy, though, had been insistent that I bring it to him directly and immediately after I got it. That should’ve been enough red flags to turn it down, but all those zeroes in the number he’d offered me had been fucking tempting. Plus, Marshall Fieldburg was a billionaire and the face of several multimillion-dollar, Fortune 500 companies. If he wanted me to meet him in his office in the middle of Wall Street district, it seemed safe enough.

But as I finally got to where my bike had been stashed, I wondered if all those zeroes would be worth it.

Holy fuck. Oh god. Yeah, the money wasn’t fucking worth it. Not that I was gonna get paid now. Oh my god.

I swallowed down the bile building in my throat as I stood rooted to the spot. I couldn’t fucking vomit now. The last thing I needed was my DNA anywhere in this place.

“Brooks! Brooks! Fucking talk to me. I’m not in the security cameras yet and I think you blocked your body cam again. What happened? Are you okay?”

I swallowed. “Um . . . I-I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. Talk to me.”

“He’s dead.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry. I must’ve heard you wrong. I thought you just said he’s dead.”

“I-I did. He’s dead, Diego. Fuck, it’s so fucking bad.”

“Hang on. You can’t panic yet, Brooks. You hear me? You gotta keep it together.”

It was getting hard to breathe, and the urge to take off my mask was getting stronger by the second, but I managed to resist it. I regretted switching to The Purge mask, though. Diego thought it was cheesy, and it was too cumbersome for jobs, but when I was forced to meet clients face-to-face, I usually wore it rather than a normal balaclava. It was more intimidating.

Now, though, it felt heavy and enclosing and . . . “D, I can’t fucking breathe.”

“Okay, Jesus. Just—you’re sure it’s Marshall.”

“Uh, his head is half gone, but yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure.”

“Okay…thanks for the visuals. Alright, Brooks, I need you to breathe and listen to me, understand?”

I sucked in a breath, my lungs burning from the effort. “Y-yeah.”

“Good. You’re doing good. Did anyone see you come in?”

I really wished he could see me roll my eyes. “No.” I didn’t have it in me to reply with a snarky comment. I’d save it for later.

“Alright. I’m finally in their fucking system. Brooks, you need to get the fuck out of there. Wear your gloves and try to touch as little as possible. I’m scrubbing the cameras now so there’s no trace of you.”

“D, his face is half gone.” It was smeared in bloody, gross chunks all over the window behind his desk.

“I know, Brooks. I know. I need you to get out of there now, okay? Don’t fall apart yet. Hang on a little bit longer. For me?”

I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears from coming. I could barely see in this mask as it was. I didn’t need to make it worse.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m good.”

“Yeah, you are, Brooks, so fucking good. Now get outta there.”

It was a little odd hearing that kind of praise from my brother, even though we were both adopted and not blood brothers, but the sneaky shit knew how to play dirty and get me calm enough to function. I turned and booked it out of the office and away from Marshall Fieldburg’s mangled corpse for good, though I’d probably be seeing it every time I closed my eyes for a long time.

I honestly had no idea how I made it home without crashing my bike. It was total muscle memory and luck.

When I managed to enter the correct code and got inside, Diego was waiting for me.

The door was barely locked, the security system reactivated, before Diego’s arms were around me, squeezing me in a tight hug.

Then I fucking lost it.

D didn’t hug. Or touch. He just didn’t. I was the only one who sometimes got away with it, mainly because I was tactile as fuck and had been hanging on him since I was seven years old, when our parents had first taken him in. He never initiated it though. I couldn’t think of one time Diego willingly ever touched me first, let alone a full fucking hug.

I had to look worse than I felt for him to do it without hesitation.

“Shhh . . . ” he replied stiffly as he awkwardly patted my back. “Shit. Brooks. Please don’t cry. You know I love you, but I can’t do tears.” He patted again but didn’t push me away, even if I was probably ruining his shirt and making him uncomfortable as hell.

Diego was an inch or two shorter than me, but much stockier and jacked, which made his arms a really sturdy place to fall apart, even if it wasn’t natural for him.

He didn’t look like a guy who hacked computers for a living and rarely left his home, but there was a reason we shared a pull-out couch in the living room rather than use the two bedrooms in our small house. Bedroom 1 was the office and filled to the brim with all kinds of equipment that used most of our monthly budget, and the other room was a home gym. If Diego wasn’t in there on his computers, he was working out.

When the deep, hiccupping sobs became more silent tears, I finally forced myself to push back, and I could practically feel the relief pour off Diego when I was no longer touching him. It almost made me cry again, knowing he made himself so uncomfortable just for me, but I managed to keep it together. I finally looked at him. He hadn’t been crying, but his deep brown eyes were bloodshot, like he was pretty close, and I could see the fear in them. The dark circles that always marred his tan skin somehow seemed darker than a few hours ago, like the stress had made him even more tired. His midnight-black hair was halfway out of the hair tie that kept it in a short stub by the nape of his neck and covered half his face.

“I’m okay,” I finally managed, though the baleful look D gave me told me it wasn’t that convincing.

“It’s fine if you aren’t. I-I saw his body. I can’t imagine what that was like in person.” I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut for a second, willing the image burrowed into my skull away.

“What’re we gonna do, D?”

He sighed heavily and ran his hands through his hair, pulling even more out of the hair tie.

“I scrubbed all the cameras. There’s no sign of you being anywhere near the building today or anytime in the last week. I also hacked into his computer and deleted any evidence that he hired you. Not that the cops would be able to trace it back to us.”

I breathed a little easier. That was good, but only half the problem. Which reminded me. I pulled out the flash drive. “What about this?”

Diego reached for it automatically and then froze like he’d thought better of it. “Chances are whatever is on there has to do with why he was killed.” It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

“Maybe we should just drop it off at the police station, anonymously of course. I don’t know if we should be involved in this.”

Diego shook his head and started pacing again. “No. The timing is too conspicuous for me. Whoever killed him likely knew he was close or already got whatever information is on there. They may not know exactly who stole it, but still.”

I frowned. “Then why was the security in the house such shit?”

Diego shrugged. “I don’t know, unless it was a trap.”

My stomach bottomed out and I wanted nothing more than to just burn the flash drive and run far away. But that wasn’t possible, so I tried to keep my shit together.

“So you think if we give it to the cops, we’re just giving them more motive to find me?”

Diego’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah. Plus, who knows who we can trust. With our luck, the cops will probably find a way to frame it all on you.”

Yeah . . . neither one of us had the best history with cops, so I low-key agreed with him. I just didn’t know what else to do.

“Should we look at it?” I finally asked.

Diego heaved out a deep breath. “You know I want to so fucking badly, but I . . . don’t know. Did you notice anything on the files before you transferred them?”

“Nah, not really. They were encrypted, and I was more worried about getting the hell out of there.”

D’s full lips pursed and he tilted his head to the ceiling like it would give him all the answers. I looked too, but it was just our boring white ceiling and outdated fan staring at me. We were still in deep shit.

“I . . . don’t know what to do.”

The words hit me like a ton of bricks. D always knew what to do. Even when he didn’t, he acted like he did. He’d kept me from making bad decisions more times than I could count, and he’d saved my ass just as much. For him not to know . . .

We needed help.

The cops were out. Marshall fucking Fieldburg had been murdered execution style in his high-rise office. The media would be swarming. We needed to keep a low profile, and I didn’t think involving authorities would allow us to do that. So that left two other options.

My first instinct was my parents, but I shut that down. They’d retired from this world and deserved that. Plus, Pop’s health was still too shaky to involve him in something like this. Not to mention, this was probably way above their skill level. They dealt mostly with theft, not a shitshow like this.

That left one person. One person I would be happy to erase completely from my memory and never think about again.

I turned away from Diego and, without thinking, pulled out my favorite blade. It had been a gift for my twenty-first birthday. Custom made, engraved, and the most special gift anyone had ever gotten me. I never went anywhere without it, even if it brought out bitter-sweet memories every time I looked at it. In one night, the man who’d given it to me had irrevocably turned my life on its head and then walked out of it without a single glance back. It had been three years and I still couldn’t get fucking Luca Castellano out of my head.

Diego’s eyes flicked to the knife. I wished he didn’t get the significance of it, but he was the one who’d found me hours after Luca had left and fucking destroyed my heart. Diego didn’t know the whole story—I was taking that to the grave, thank you very much—but he understood enough to know that I’d rather walk barefoot over one million Legos than ask Luca for help. He also knew he was probably our best option.

“Do you really want to talk to him?”

I scoffed. “Want to? Fuck no. If I never saw or heard Luca’s name ever again, it would still be too soon. But I think we need him. We’re in way over our heads, and I don’t want to burden Mom and Pops with this.”

Diego swallowed, his eyes wet with unshed tears, but nodded in agreement. “Yeah, no. We’re not gonna involve them unless we have to. Dad couldn’t handle the stress.” Neither could Mom, honestly. Taking care of Pops after the stroke was taking a huge toll on her.

“Luca would know what to do.” It was a statement, not a question, but I answered it anyway.

“He would. They deal with high-profile people and cases all the time. This is what they do.” Luca and his crew, Il Fortunato, were the best in the game. They were mercenaries, not that you ever wanted Luca to hear you call them that, and while their jobs and methods weren’t always legal, if you wanted shit done quietly and correctly, you called Luca.

“Will you be okay if he agrees to help us? I don’t know what happened between you two, but every time anyone mentions him or Il Fortunato, you shut down.” I frowned at him.

“I don’t shut down.” He fixed me with a look.

Ugh. Why did this fucker see everything? “Okay, maybe I do, but it doesn’t matter. This is just business. He has resources we don’t and the experience we need. I can suck it up and be in the same room as him. It’s fine.”

Diego didn’t believe me, which was fair. Luca had had a chokehold on me since I’d been old enough to want sex, but I refused to be dickmatized by him again. At least Diego chose not to call me out on my bullshit. “Okay, let’s talk to Luca.”