Lucky Boys (Il Fortunato #1)

40. Skye

CHAPTER 40

SKYE

I grinned at Brooks’s expression as I finished my banana.

“What?” I asked innocently.

“How the hell do you make eating so suggestive?”

“It’s a banana,” I scoffed. “It’s always suggestive.”

Brooks rolled his eyes. He was cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the wall. I was sitting on the metal table next to him. We were in the small “holding room” that Kai and Martinez had built into the basement of this place. Actually, it was the only thing in the basement, since most houses around here didn’t have them and it had to be specially built.

“Yeah, but you take it to the next level. And you’re doing it beside a body.” He gestured to the figure tied to the chair, blindfolded and gagged.

“He’s alive, not a body. Just unconscious.”

Brooks wrinkled his nose, peering at Damian Larsen’s limp form. “Are you sure about that? He looks really fucking dead.”

“‘Cept he’s breathing. Trust, sunshine. This ain’t our first rodeo.”

He grunted but didn’t say anything else, just shifted, straightening his legs.

“You know, you don’t have to be in here right now. Luc and Mav won’t be back for another hour or so. And this fucker isn’t going anywhere.”

Luca and Maverick had taken Sawyer to the airport, where he was meeting his mom and grandpa that had flown in to pick him up. We, unfortunately, couldn’t leave yet, but we wanted to make sure Sawyer was safely out of the country and with his family before we got the answers we needed out of Larsen, so we’d been keeping him unconscious with the sedative Mav and I shot him up with when we grabbed him. We didn’t know who Larsen had working for him, so Luca had some of our own men from the security company accompanying Sawyer’s mom, and they’d be watching the house until this was all settled. That kid deserved to have some stability.

“Nah, I get too antsy out there by myself. I end up climbing the walls. I’d rather stay here and watch you give head to a banana.”

I winced. “If you give head like this, stay the fuck away from my dick.”

Brooks glared and threw a damn orange at me, which I dodged. “I’ll have you know, I give fucking awesome blowjobs.”

I palmed my dick and wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. “I’m open to a demonstration.”

Brooks laughed, but he was eyeing it, and I thought maybe I’d get that demonstration after all when, of fucking course, our guest moaned.

“Shit!” Brooks scrambled to his feet like he expected Larsen to somehow wake up, free himself from his bonds, and attack us. It wasn’t happening. I’d secured him myself. Even if he did manage to shake off the effects of the drug quickly, he wasn’t breaking out.

“Easy there, tiger. He’s not going anywhere. Text Luca, see if we can get started early.”

Brooks licked his lips. “Yeah, okay.”

Brooks typed away as I circled our captive. He still wasn’t all the way awake, but he was getting more alert. I could see it in the tension in his shoulders and how his breathing got more labored.

“Luc said go ahead. They’ll be here soon.”

“Awesome! Do you wanna play?”

Larsen grunted, but I wasn’t sure if it was a response to our conversation or if he was just starting to feel the pain in his limbs after being tied for over 24 hours.

Brooks climbed to his feet and walked cautiously toward me. “Yeah, kinda? What are you starting with?”

I squeezed his shoulder. “Well, first we have to wake him up. How do you want to do that?”

Brooks shrugged. “I’ll be honest. Anything I know about this shit comes from mafia books or movies. This wasn’t in the training Pops gave me.”

Made sense. They didn’t really deal with people in their line of work.

“Honestly, what you saw there probably works. We don’t wanna kill him or have him too fried he can’t talk. Also, it’s best to escalate the pain. Who knows, the guy might just talk without much prompting.” I shrugged. “But that’s no fun, so hopefully he’ll keep things interesting. He did put up a decent fight the other night.” Not as much as I’d expected though. But we’d clearly taken him by surprise.

“What about ice water? Like, a bucket of that? Can we do that?”

“‘Course we can. I like the way you think, sunshine.”

Larsen was still in and out of consciousness by the time Brooks and I came back with a nice, big bucket of ice water. I probably would’ve gone a different route, smelling salts, the electric wand we had over with our supplies, but this was fun, and I enjoyed watching Brooks explore.

“You can do the honors,” I told him, but he huffed at me.

“You just don’t want to get wet.”

Well, maybe that was part of it. “Your idea, you implement it. Them’s the rules.”

Brooks probably knew I was full of shit, but he hefted the bucket of icy water up over his head and then dumped it right over Larsen, who fucking screamed, wrenching in his bonds.

I walked over to him and squatted so I was face-to-face with his wide, pissed-off eyes. “Morning, sleepyhead. Nice of you to join us.”

“Fuck you.”

I patted his cheek and looked up at Brooks. “That’s not a very nice way to greet your hosts, now is it?”

“Pretty fucking rude,” Brooks agreed.

Larsen jerked his head between the two of us, his pupils dilated slightly, and I wasn’t sure if he recognized us from when we’d planted the bugs. All he said was, “Great, I was taken by the fucking infant comedy show.” All traces of the accent he had were gone, and he spoke to us in perfect, generic American English.

“Infant? Oh, come on now, there’s no need to be rude. Besides, I turn thirty next month.” I wrinkled my nose in disgust, even if I didn’t really care.

Brooks snorted. “Ancient.”

Larsen ignored us and glared at me. “Who are you? Who do you work for? Where is my son?”

I stood up and walked over to the weapons table. I didn’t think he’d be intimidated by them, but the psychological aspect was part of the fun. “Those are a lot of questions for a man tied to a chair. Kinda ballsy.”

“Go fuck yourself. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

I laughed. “I think it’s you who has no idea who you’re dealing with. Now? It’s time to play.”

Four hours later, Larsen was unconscious, and I was full of adrenaline but had no answers. I rested my head on Maverick’s shoulder. “Fuck, I’m starving. I’d kill for a bacon cheeseburger.”

Maverick laughed and squeezed me tightly. He wasn’t much better off than I was, both of us sweaty and bloody and disgusting, but it didn’t matter. This was when I felt most alive, and I barely got a chance to show off these skills anymore. I was having fun, even if it was frustrating that Larsen was being so fucking tight-lipped.

Brooks had left a while ago now. As wild as he was, he was a sweetheart, and things were getting a little too violent for him. He’d called it quits right around the time I’d started pulling teeth. Luca had been there through all of it and had done his fair share of damage, but about twenty minutes ago, he’d gotten a call and we hadn’t seen him since.

Brooks appeared on the bottom of the stairs. He must’ve showered because he was wearing something clean. “Hey, Luca said you guys might be hungry. can I make you something while you shower?” He wrinkled his nose. “Please?”

“Yes, thank fuck. I’m fucking starving.”

Brooks nodded and ran back up the stairs, and Mav and I followed him.

We showered together but kept it PG. Just a little groping and suggestive talk, but unfortunately it didn’t go further than that. I understood even if I was a little bummed. We did have a prisoner in the basement and a missing kid.

By the time we were done, Brooks had heated us up some food that Mav had cooked, thankfully, and was sitting at the table, drinking one of those energy drinks. I bent down and kissed his cheek. “Hey, sunshine, miss us?”

He laughed. “Yeah, kinda. I ended up cleaning up around here just to do something. I didn’t want to bother Luca,” he added quietly.

I met Maverick’s eyes, who looked as bothered by the situation as I did. Those two needed to fucking talk. “You’re not bothering him, Brooks,” Mav told him quietly. Brooks just shrugged.

Ugh. This was the downside of a relationship like ours. It was stressful when there was some kind of issue between two of the partners. It didn’t happen often to the three of us, but it did happen. We always worked it out, but there would be some awkward nights until it was all resolved.

Luca burst into the room. He froze when he saw us all eating. “Sorry to interrupt, but we gotta get back to it. Diego thinks he found something.”

“Larsen is knocked out, Luc,” Mav said. “Can it wait, or do we have to wake him up?”

“Diego found correspondence between Larsen and Bradley Fieldburg. It started seven months ago.”

I cursed under my breath. “Right before he took Sawyer?”

“Yup, and it stopped just around the time Sawyer stopped seeing Matthew and he managed that call to Sawyer’s mom.”

“Do you think Bradley has him?” Brooks asked.

“There’s been no sign of that, but it’s possible.”

I sighed heavily before taking a huge bite of the food. Chances are it would be a while before I got to eat again.

We all went back down to the basement, including Brooks. “You know none of us will think less of you if you stay upstairs,” Maverick reminded him.

“I know. I don’t want to be up there by myself. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you wanna wake him if he’s still out?” I asked. “You can use the shocker thing.”

That got a titled half smile from Brooks. “Yeah, that looked fun.”

Unfortunately, Larsen was awake when we came down. He looked rough, but he still managed to shoot us a bloody grin. “Are you back for more? Good I was getting bored.”

Luca didn’t hesitate, just went right in and punched the guy in the face. Brooks jumped at the crunch of broken bone. I just hoped it was Larsen’s face and not Luca’s hand.

“You’re working for Bradley Fieldburg. Does he have Matthew?”

Larsen laughed, but it sounded gurgly. “Working for him? No. It was more a mutual agreement.”

“An agreement about what?” Maverick asked.

Larsen tilted his head to the side. “He found out I was watching the kid. He had some information I needed, so he approached me with a deal.”

“What deal was that?”

Larsen shrugged.

I stepped up, ready to inflict more damage, but Mav stopped me. “Fine,” Luca continued. “So you were really hired to protect Matthew?”

Larsen scoffed. “I wouldn’t call it protection. That sleezeball Covington could give two shits about his kid. But Marshall Fieldburg was lurking around, even showed up at the kid’s boarding school. He was starting to have doubts about their cover-up plan. Guilt, I guess. Or maybe he was just hoping the kid would take over one day, I don’t know. Either way, Covington was afraid he’d topple their house of cards so he asked me to take Matty far away so he couldn’t cause any future problems. Money was good and the kid wasn’t too annoying, so I didn’t mind.”

I didn’t know why Larsen was suddenly so talkative since four hours of torture hadn’t gotten us anywhere, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“What changed then? What did Bradley give you that was worth giving up that cushy gig.”

For a second, I thought Larsen was going to refuse, but then he said, “He knew where my kid was and was willing to help me get him.”

I frowned. That all made sense. Somehow, Bradley had found out about Matthew and wanted him so he’d struck a deal.

Luca took a step closer to Larsen, his arms crossed. “If that’s all true, then why did you have both Matthew and Sawyer at the same time? It seems like you traded one kid for the other, yet Bradley didn’t take his kid right away. Why?”

“Honestly, I don’t fucking know. He asked me to keep him for a little longer. Said he had to handle a few things. Like I said, I didn’t mind the kid. I only made the deal so I could get my son. He was a big help with Sawyer anyway, so it wasn’t really a hardship to keep both of them. Especially because Covington didn’t know shit and was still paying me.”

“Then it all changed when Matthew tried to contact your ex, Sawyer’s mom?”

Larsen’s face twisted with rage. “That little shit tried to ruin everything. I had to lock him up and contacted Bradley, demanding he get his brat before I took care of the problem on my own.”

“So he took him?”

Larsen shook his head. “No, someone else did. I don’t think Bradley ever wanted him. He was just pissed he was kept from him. He sold the kid to this guy. I got a holding fee, and about a week later, Bradley deposited another bonus in my account. That was the last I heard from him. Before you ask, I don’t know the fucker who bought him and I didn’t ask his real name. He went by Vlad and had a Russian accent, but I don’t think they were going to Russia.”

“Why would you say that?” Luca asked. “Also, why are you being so talkative all of a sudden? It has me doubting your information.”

Larsen sighed. “Honestly, I’m fucking tired. I’m not in the fucking CIA anymore. I’m sure my son is long gone. I don’t have any loyalty to these people. When I woke up last time, I realized suffering through this is pointless. I’ll give you what you want and you can just kill me.”

“How do you know we plan on killing you?” I asked.

He gave me a baleful look that said, Are you serious? Fair enough.

“So, if they weren’t going to Russia, where were they going?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere warm. I heard the guy he was with talking about it being 95 degrees. Also, I got a glimpse of the paperwork they had for Matthew. It was American.”

“They were taking him back?”

He shrugged. “That’s my guess. Or a territory at least. But I truly don’t know.”

I believed him. “One last thing. Who killed Marshall Fieldburg?” Luca asked.

“Don’t know. I’d guess Bradley, but really, it’s just a feeling. I had nothing to do with that fucking nightmare situation.”

I believed him. It wouldn’t make sense for him to get involved with any of that. Luca turned and looked at the three of us. “Anything else?”

We all shook our heads. That answered everything. We could torture him more, but I believed Larsen had told us everything he knew.

Luca took Brooks’s hand. “Come on, trouble. Let’s go while Skye finishes up in here.”

Brooks glanced at me, and I smiled reassuringly at him, letting him know I got this. He gave me a half hug with his free arm and started upstairs, and Luca squeezed my and Mav’s shoulders affectionately before following him.

“Knife or gun?” I asked Larsen. He’d been cooperative. I’d give him the option.

“Gun.”

“Works for me. Bye, Larsen, thanks for the information. I hope you find forgiveness for your actions wherever you end up.”

I pulled the trigger.