Page 97 of The One-Night Heist

We had bigger fish to fry at the moment, and it was obvious that no actual evidence against Giano had ever been presented. Otherwise, we would never have been allowed to walk out the door with the billionaire with no forwarding address.

The bribe money helped!

Luckily, snatching Giano out of the slammer fell under the trust fund jurisdiction of “keeping up appearances.” Or maybe it didn’t, but digging up some dirt on the lawyer Giano’s mother had hired to manage the trust had done the trick. In fact, all the ridiculous stipulations on that veritable hoard of money were now miraculously lifted, but I was saving that surprise until after we’d cleared Giano’s name.

Another trick our friendly neighborhood hacker was able to accomplish.

After Mick and I had left the pub this afternoon, we’d returned to the privacy of his apartment to call his sister. “Lucifer”—as Lucy was known in certain circles—was one of the best menaces in the business, so all we’d had to do was give her a brief rundown on the situation before she’d offered up twenty ways to digitally ruin everyone’s life.

My kind of people.

My family.

I’d received a lot of flack over the past couple years from both my foster siblings, specifically for not asking for her help with the job where I got caught. For example, Lucy could have easily hacked into the museum’s security system and erased any evidence I’d been there before—or at all. At the time, I’d claimed the idea just hadn’t occurred to me, but the truth was, I hadn’t wanted to need her, or anyone.

I could see now that I’d been too addicted to my usual practice of self-sabotage. This lovely cycle involved blindly trusting in my own abilities, having things go wrong, and then using that as “proof” of how much I not only sucked but didn’t deserve to have anyone help me out anyway.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I should use the black card for some fancy therapy.

It wasn’t for lack of trying on my siblings’ part but, oddly, the past couple of weeks with Giano was what had me seeing myself in a different light. Him getting so adorably angry when I talked bad about myself didn’t hurt, but it was mostly just the fact he never doubted me. He not only trusted in my abilities but trusted me from the start, even when I continuously tried to prove how untrustworthy I was.

I guess he was onto me all along…

While this level of intimacy would have had me curling up like a bug and retreating into the earth with anyone else, I found it gave me the disgusting warm-and-fuzzies when it came to him.

Oh well.

Looks like I’m a fuckboy boyfriend too.

I fully intended on telling Giano that—maybe—but first thing on the agenda was convincing the attorney army that whatever legal defense they’d just spent the last several hours planning while en route to Florence needed to be thrown out the window.

Sorry not sorry.

Mr. Quincy is in charge now.

“To be clear…” Bob Decatur—the man with his name on the scary shark lawyer marquee—placed his well-manicured hand on the stack of “confidential” paperwork I’d graced him with upon arrival. “Your contact has found indisputable evidence linking Stanley Monmouth and Abraham Divani to the theft of Mr. Luxford’s art collection? Am I understanding that correctly?”

Sure.

“Yes, sir,” I politely replied, having decided that a new disguise—Earnest Nice Guy—would help me avoid being dismissed by the legal professionals in the room.

Not that Giano would ever let that happen.

Of course, Mick and I had briefed our men on the “evidence” rounded up by Lucy beforehand, so we could present a united front at tonight’s meeting. My billionaire was easy enough to convince, especially after I dutifully washed the dye out of my hair, but Daddy Pinstripes was more resistant to the idea of lying, even for the greater good.

Too bad, Boy Scout.

You’ve been licked, claimed, and tainted by one of us now.

He grudgingly changed his tune once we pointed out that, while the art heist connection may have been fabricated, both Monmouth and Divani had enough actual skeletons in their closets to get them locked up otherwise. So what we were doing here was just helping the justice system move a little faster than usual.

Release the files, bitches!

What we were also doing was sending a clear message to the rest of the Luxford Holdings shareholders that kicking a bunch of orphans out of the only home they knew to build luxury condos was universally frowned upon in the court of public opinion.

Especially once it’s been blasted all over the nightly news.