Two hours later, Charlie was settled next to the fire, covered with their blankets, still shivering. Luca had set out to actually cook a meal with what he’d brought along and a couple of rabbits that Dean had killed for them. He was going to make a soup. The broth would have protein for Charlie and the guys, and he’d brought a few herbs and seasonings to make it taste good.
“Dude, this is delicious.” Adam slurped his hot broth.
They sat in silence, the danger of the situation sinking in for Luca.
“How will we get him out of here?”
Mack spoke up. “I’ll build a travois for him. We’ll take turns dragging. Me and Adam, you and Dean.”
“Does anyone know how to get out?”
“Yeah. I do.” Dean held up a piece of paper. “Charlie made a map. Dude thought of everything.”
A wry chuckle escaped Luca. “When he said brotherhood, at first I thought he meant some sort of fight club. Like, we beat the shit out of each other. That’s the only brotherhood I’ve known, that wasn’t my actual brother.” And there was plenty of shit beating there too. But when he’d first joined Forrester’s gang, there had been an initiation that had almost put him in the hospital.
Adam spoke up. “His idea of brotherhood is different. He becomes brothers by saving. Not hurting.” He was quiet when he said it and Luca knew they had a history, but had no clue what it was. Apparently it involved saving, because they were damn close.
Luca had his suspicions. This whole thing had been Charlie’s idea from the get-go. He wanted to make them learn to work as a team before they started to take down Forrester. He’d said they needed to trust each other, learn to depend on each other, if they were going to be in this together.
Had the asshole broken his own ankle when he saw they were no more brothers than when they’d started this madness?
“How will we sleep? He’s got all our blankets,” Adam groused.
“Nuts to butts,” Mack muttered.
“What?” Adam looked at him with alarm. Luca chuckled.
“We cuddle.”
They didn’t sleep much that night, wearing all the clothing they’d brought to stay warm in the freezing temperatures. But the next day, they managed to hump Charlie out of the wilderness and get him to safety.
And after all that teamwork, they were probably almost as close as brothers.
**
Read on for an excerpt from the next book in the Dark Knights in the City series, Strange Love.
Strange Love: Dark Knights in the City, book 2
Luca has had his eye on the woman who eats at his restaurant with her friends each week. When his delivery driver is late, he fills in and discovers her drunk, lonely, and in dire need of a spanking.
Too bad Luca doesn’t have time for romance. He’s too busy working to take down the kingpin of the underworld, with his cronies, a group of like-minded guys. When they find out she’s digging around in their business, they want her to disappear.
Heidi Jones wants romance with Luca, but she always picks the wrong guy. Based on the research she’s doing on the city’s changing crime patterns, this time, she picked the worst.
It’s too late though. He’s already got her and he’s not letting go. He says he’s protecting her, but she thinks it’s something else.
Chapter one
Heidi loved the hustle and bustle of the newsroom around her. Listening to Bill do a phone interview with the assistant coach of the local baseball team, she knew she could have gotten an in-person interview. With the head coach. She always tried to do that. This guy was her main competition for the open news writer position, and Heidi had it in the bag. She’d been stuck in the women’s section since she’d gotten the job, eight years ago, but she did all her interviews in person. It wasn’t just reporting the person’s words, but what they did, that told the story.
Even though Bill was the boss’ nephew, Heidi knew she was more qualified for the job. Her interview had gone great. She’d been here longer, and she had better ideas.
“Hey, Heidi, you got that piece on the book boxes? I need eleven inches for page sixteen,” Mr. Scroggins yelled across the room at her. Nobody looked up. He was always yelling at somebody.
“I sent it two weeks ago, but I’ll shoot it to your inbox again. You need the pictures?” He waved absently, which she took as a yes. He never looked up from his laptop.
After sending the email, Heidi walked over to his desk, where he was buried in his computer screen, clicking away, his eyes magnified comically by his glasses. Stifling her smile, she stood in front of Mr. Scroggins.
“I sent the piece on Ms. Sharples’ troop fundraiser.”
He blinked at her, looking like she was speaking a foreign language.
“The boxes?” It took everything in her not to roll her eyes.
“No, sir, the Wounded Warrior fun run.”
“Oh right. Right.” He went back to his laptop, dismissing her.
“Sir? Did you get a chance to read over the story proposal I sent yesterday?”
He coughed. “The women’s section doesn’t do that sort of piece. We’ll discuss it tomorrow after announcing the new news writer.” He smiled at her brightly, and Heidi took a step back. It looked weird. She’d worked here for eight years and never noticed how many teeth the man had.
But he was going to talk about her proposed story idea after announcing the new position. She smiled gratefully at him, hoping to impart that she understood what he was saying.
“Meanwhile, the department heads need new desk chairs. Can you work something up for them to choose from?” Face hidden in his screen, she took that as her dismissal.
She wasn’t even phased by the dismissal and sudden demotion to administrative assistant. It was temporary, unintentional, whatever. She would find them the best damn chairs for their buck, because she was sure she was getting the news writer position.
Chapter two
Bradley Cesnik was a man who didn’t understand poker, much less the fact that the odds of the game will always be against him. That was why the douchebag was in Luca’s office tossing out threats like a kid threatens the babysitter.
“I’ll have you shut down.” His attempt at menace came off as whining, and Luca simply smiled as Charlie came in the door behind him, his silver cane hiding the limp from his ankle he’d broken months ago in their “team building.”
“Sit. We can discuss this.” Magnanimously, Luca gestured to the chair by his desk. He was faking it, of course; he didn’t have a single bone in his body that wished this guy well, but if Luca knew anything, it was that people underestimated the nice guy.
“There’s nothing to discuss. Give me back my beach house, and I’ll forget about it.”
“That’s not the way things work, and you know it. You signed the papers to get into the game you were so sure you’d win. But then, you didn’t win, did you?” Luca settled himself into the other chair at his desk, folding his hands in front of him. Charlie stood in the back of the room, making Bradley visibly nervous. He didn’t know who to look at, his body and head swiveling back and forth between the two men.
“I know people. All it will take is one word to the mayor.”
Charlie laughed. “All it will take is one word to your wife.”
“What do you mean?”
Luca took up the narrative as Charlie walked to the corner of the office where a baseball bat leaned, his cane thumping along the floor with his steps. “Does she know about that hot little piece you had on your arm that night? Does she even know you lost her family home? Doubt it. Just make up a story about the bank taking it or some shit, or she finds out about Chantel and her apartment in the city.”
Chantel would probably be pissed if Luca fucked up her sugar daddy, but since Lady Jade’s crew, a houseful of ladies of the night, were on Charlie’s payroll, her current lodgings were just cream in her coffee anyway.
“What Luca is tryin
g to say is you have a choice.” Charlie leaned the cane against the wall and spun the bat in his hand. Even unbalanced, he wielded the bat like it was an extension of himself, and Luca was willing to bet he had a history with the sport. He knew just enough about Charlie to know he had likely never played organized sports anywhere, but for sure, he had always had a baseball bat with him. “You leave here quietly, nothing happens. You continue on this vein, and you’ll be explaining an emergency room visit.” Slamming the baseball bat into his hand, he gripped the wide end with his palm and reached behind him, under his coat. “Or, keep coming back, and you get a swift, painless end.” Pulling out a 1911, he pointed it at Bradley’s face. “So many options… Which will you choose?”
Bradley swallowed, weighing his options and clearly not liking any of the results.
“Fine. But you haven’t heard the end of this.” With one finger, he pushed the gun away as if it had cooties, and Luca smiled to himself. Bradley stood and exited the offices without a backward glance, his steps unsteady.
After the door slammed behind Bradley, Luca turned to Charlie, who was immaculately dressed as always in a dark suit. Reaching out, he grabbed his cane and leaned on it heavily. Charlie had broken his ankle in a trip they’d taken, one that Luca preferred to think of as a camping trip, not the hell it was. Either way, Charlie had healed marvelously, but was still a bit crippled. Sometimes, Luca thought he was using the cane for an affectation. Other times, like now, Luca wondered how badly he still needed it.
“I don’t want him causing trouble. If he goes to the mayor, that’s attention I don’t want.”
Charlie graced him with a rare smile. “Don’t worry. How do you think the mayor got elected?”
“The incumbent he was running against died in a very public overdose episode.”
Charlie spread his hands across the knob of his cane, leaning on it casually. “Accidents happen.”
The dude creeped Luca out, but he was glad Charlie Delmonico was on his side. He didn’t want enemies like that.
“Relax. This is temporary. A means to an end, and you know it. Just keep it up, and I’ll take care of the troublemakers. Now, about tonight’s shipment. Dean is ready with his team; do you anticipate trouble from your end of things?”
Luca’s end of the deal consisted of keeping his ear to the ground with contacts he’d never wanted to have again. But his past had come back with a vengeance when these guys showed up in his bar, and retribution had dangled within his grasp. After discussing it with Nonna and his brother, he’d been on board, a little reluctantly, but now everything was in motion, with or without him.
“Yeah, Traylon says everything’s going without a hitch, and he wants another payment before the next shipment to keep his trap shut.”
“Understandable. I’ll make it happen.” Charlie straightened from where he’d been leaning on the wall. “I’ve got a meeting with Mack, and then another with Adam, and I’m picking up my girl from work to take her home. Luther will be there tonight, just in case, and I’ll be on call.”
“It’s fine. I got it,” Luca gritted out.
“I know.”
He didn’t want Luther breathing down his neck. He was creepier than Charlie, never talking to anyone but Charlie and Amelia. Luca got the impression he told them everything he saw, and he seemed to see a lot.
Charlie left the room with a soft click-step, his cane marking his stride.
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