The Bandit

by B. B. Reid

  “Daddy, I don’t want to stay here with him. He’s mean.”

  Her father’s gaze flitted to mine. I expected anger but instead, got sympathy. Perhaps her father wasn’t as oblivious to her spoiled behavior as I thought. “Are you sure it’s not because he doesn’t let you have your way?”

  “I’m not staying here with him. I’ll run away.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She either missed the hard edge his tone took or didn’t care. “You heard me.”

  I looked at my father who didn’t seem to find her brattiness cute anymore. Instead, he watched Theo to see what he would do. Meekness wasn’t something my father aspired to have or even understood. If Theo didn’t correct her behavior, I knew my father would. I stood back to watch it all unfold and even fought a smile.

  “I will not explain myself to you but you, little girl, will do as I say.” She opened her mouth to argue, but Theo’s hands flew to his belt. He unbuckled it with sure fingers and whipped it through the loops until it was free. Folding it, he stared down at his defiant daughter who looked as if she’d found her senses. “Are we clear?”

  Rather than answer, she turned and walked away. I could see she was crushed and just a little bit fearful. I tried to put myself in her shoes and knew I wouldn’t have reacted any less defiant. She’d only lost her mother four months ago, and now she was being uprooted from the only home she had known.

  Just before she passed me, she stopped and stared at me directly. There was nothing in her eyes. They were blank from defeat.

  “I hate you.”

  Soundlessly, she left the kitchen, and I couldn’t help but think I would have hated me, too.

  I glanced at Theo. He stared after her—his stance was relaxed now. I think we were all relieved that she hadn’t fought him. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than she wanted to be hurt.

  My father cleared his throat in a subtle command for my attention. I gave it to him. He stood and closed the distance between us. His strong grip seized my shoulder. “Don’t fuck this up, son. This is the only chance you’re getting.”

  Chapter Seven

  A missing legacy.

  ANGEL

  Present

  I made Lucas set Mian free because while I had a secret fetish for self-torment, I knew I wasn’t ready to see her again. Hours later, her presence lingered in my father’s home. I swore I could smell her scent. The possibility raised the hairs on my skin.

  Lucas said he found her in my old bedroom hiding under the bed of all places. The knowledge that she hadn’t changed pleased me when it shouldn’t have. She was impulsive and challenging. Perversely, I liked that she still had fight left in her.

  I looked forward to breaking her spirit.

  Instead of my old bedroom where Lucas had found her, instinct led me to my father’s study in the west wing.

  The door was left cracked, something I would never do, so I pushed it open and took in the havoc she wreaked. The desk and bookshelf had been left untouched. My inspection of the room shifted to my right where six generations of bandits were displayed proudly.

  The last two in the lineup were missing from their rightful place. The safe hidden behind my own portrait had been discovered and left exposed.

  Son of a bitch…

  My glare shifted to the floor where a toppled chair lay among the discarded portraits. I was impressed that she even managed to lift them considering I could bench press her body weight easily.

  Curiosity morphed into desperation. With quick, angry steps, I stalked to the safe and punched in the numbers. The sole content of the safe was detrimental to the prosperity of the Knights. There was no way she could have gotten inside without the code. It was only ever known by a Knight, but I needed to see for myself that I hadn’t just ruined my family by letting her go. The keypad beeped and flashed green after I entered in the combination. The lock disengaged. I yanked on the handle and shoved my entire forearm inside the metal box.

  Empty.

  She got me.

  She fucking got me.

  Fortunately, for me, she had no idea who she was fucking with. My lips spread wide, and my cock hardened from the promise of the great pleasure I’d get by teaching her.

  Mian.

  Sweet Mian.

  I’m going to destroy that little girl.

  * * *

  “ You look like shit.” Lucas walked into my father’s study where he found me the next morning. I’d been too eager to plot my little bandit’s demise to sleep. “What the hell was last night about?”

  I watched him get comfortable on my father’s couch while I sat on the other side of his desk. I took over the study after he died, but it still felt like his. The study, the house, the business. The only part I felt was truly mine was my reputation. I earned that shit.

  Too fucking bad my father would never know how ruthless his only heir had become. Maybe even more than he had ever been.

  Lucas stared while I clicked at the mouse and brought up a game of solitaire. I usually plotted best when I indulged in the game. “What would that be?”

  “I’ll see you soon,” he mimicked. “Are we terrorizing kids now?”

  “She’s not a kid anymore.” No one recognized that irritatingly, dick-hardening fact more than I did.

  “Then why else would you let her go?”

  “I want to play with her a little.”

  His teeth clicked. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?”

  I cut my eyes at him and saw his smirk. “I’m going to savor this then.”

  He chewed the corner of his lip in silence. I could tell he was thinking, and Lucas thinking was never a good thing since he was intuitive as fuck. “I think it was obvious last night that you two know each other. Did something more happen between you two?”

  I paused the card game and turned to bring him into focus. “No.”

  What I left unsaid was the fact that she’d been too young for something to happen. We lived together for five years but in that time, she turned my world upside down.

  Nothing and no one tortured me more than Mian.

  Not all the shit I stole or the lives I took.

  Not the money or power.

  None of it compared to little Mian Ross.

  She would grow older. Her body would change. The sound of her voice would change. Hell, even the look in her eyes…

  She became bolder with her crush, making my grip on morality slip.

  I’ve wanted to fuck her spoiled ass six ways to Sunday since she was fourteen. I was young too and still much too old for her. Not to mention self-destructive and out of control.

  But not so out of control I’d cross a line that I couldn’t uncross. Especially, behind bars, which was where I would have belonged if I did all the things that crossed my mind when she tempted. Oh, how she had tempted…

  “How do you know her?”

  “She’s Theo’s kid.”

  His eyes flashed hatred when I mentioned my father’s killer. “Bullshit.” I shook my head and waited. He sat up and beat his fist against his chest. “Why the fuck would you let her go?”

  “I told you.”

  “You didn’t think she would be useful to us now? I don’t feel like playing. I feel like making Theo suffer.”

  “And he will. They both will.”

  “How, man? She’s gone.”

  “You escorted her home last night?” He nodded slowly. I could see the wheels in his head already turning. “We make a move when it’s the right time, not before. She can’t hide and she sure as fuck can’t run.”

  He shook his head, but I could see his muscles relax one by one. “I didn’t know Theo had a kid.”

  “I first met her when I was sixteen and she was ten. Her mom had just died that same year, an
d Theo didn’t want the burden of facing his daughter.”

  Lucas swore.

  “So where did that fit you?”

  “I’d been asking for an in and my father finally gave me one. My first job was a fucking babysitting gig. He moved me into the brownstone against my mother’s wishes and left her alone out there in the country.”

  “Is that why Z and I couldn’t come around anymore?”

  I nodded. “My orders were to keep her protected but mostly isolated. Her mother never wanted her involved in his other life. I guess it was his way of keeping his promise to her.”

  “Damn. Why didn’t you at least say something?”

  “We both know my father. One fuck up and that was it. I wasn’t taking chances.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  I swallowed back pain. “Three years ago. It was a couple of months before her father murdered mine.”

  On my fucking birthday.

  “Shit,” he mumbled.

  I decided not to share that our brief separation was mostly due to what an asshole I had been to her. We had a falling out after I stomped all over her feelings for good. I could still remember the look on her face when I walked away…

  “So, you haven’t seen or spoken to her since then?”

  I shook my head. “I called so she could wish me a happy birthday.” His eyebrows bunched, and I could tell he was about to dig deeper in shit I didn’t care to share so I quickly changed the subject.

  “The book is gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean gone?” Alarm and disbelief wiped away any confusion he’d had about my past.

  I shrugged as if she hadn’t run away with the past, present, and future of the Knights. “She got in the safe.”

  “Fuck!” He rubbed at his forehead and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I have a man on her. He can grab her and have her here in less than two hours.”

  “No.”

  “No? What do you mean no ?”

  “I mean we do this my way.” As we always do.

  He stared at me for a beat before exploding. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

  “Deadly.”

  “She could—”

  “I want her to make her next move, and we’re going to be there when she does. Even if her father didn’t send her, which I highly doubt, I don’t think she’s working alone.”

  “She could be.”

  I shook my head sharply. “She had information that only a Knight should know. She’s not a fucking Knight.”

  “Your father is dead. Who else could it have been?”

  “Theo.”

  “You said only a Knight—”

  “My father trusted Theo with more than just his life. It was a mistake that cost him his life.”

  A mistake I had no intention of repeating.

  I saw Lucas flinch and knew he knew exactly what I left unsaid.

  I didn’t have the patience to assuage his feelings or sense of security regarding our friendship right now. He was my brother. I’d die for him but not by his hand. Not like my father.

  He trusted the wrong man.

  History would not repeat itself.

  He sighed and locked his gaze with mine. “So, this is your plan?”

  “We make her think she’s safe and then we take it all away.”

  “What about her father?”

  “He’s in prison. He can’t protect her.” He’d already done a shit job at it anyway if he was behind last night.

  “Do you think she knows why Theo killed pops?”

  “Her presence here last night gave me a pretty good clue.”

  Lucas’s nostrils flared. “Art’s death by Theo’s hand never added up. When we take her, I have no intention of letting her keep secrets,” he warned. I stroked the light scruff on my chin and considered his threat.

  He wanted Theo dead.

  I wanted him to suffer.

  My father taught me that gratification was appreciated more when taken slowly.

  “Trust me, brother. Theo’s kid won’t be taking anything to her grave but her corpse.”

  He still didn’t look convinced, and I was quickly losing my patience. Mian had no power over me anymore. “You two have history. You practically raised her. You think you can put her down when it’s time?”

  “There’s nothing left protecting her except for mercy, and I have none when it comes to her.”

  Lucas’s lips twisted. “Are you’re sure nothing happened between you two?”

  “She was a fucking kid.”

  “She still is.” His grin was slow. “Then again with that body, I’m not so sure.”

  The appreciation in his gaze twisted my gut, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  “You saying you want to fuck her?” A switch flipped in my brain giving me the okay to kill this motherfucker if he tried.

  “I know at least one of us in this room does, and it’s not just me,” he shot back. “You want her so bad, brother—you’re practically shaking with it. It’s been three years since you’ve seen her. That’s some serious backed up tension. When the two of you are finally in the same room again, you just might spontaneously combust.”

  “Are you done yet?”

  “You may kill her, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with her first.”

  “She couldn’t handle me.”

  “That’s because you remember a kid. I , ” he pointed to his chest, “ saw a woman.”

  “I don’t want her.”

  Lie.

  “Maaaan,” he drawled. “Who are you trying to fool? Yourself or me? Because you’d have better luck fooling me than yourself.”

  “Is there a point to this conversation?”

  “No point. I just need to know when and where you need me.”

  “I have a flight to Florida in a couple of hours. While I’m gone, I want you to get this place ready so we can extend an invitation this time.”

  * * *

  “ Your stepson, Mr. Castro.” I glared at their butler nearly cracking my molars to keep from correcting him. Marrying my mother after my father’s death didn’t make Victor my stepfather, it made him an opportunist.

  And a dead one as soon as my mother came to her senses.

  “Angeles?” My father’s childhood friend and bookkeeper pulled me into a hug as soon as I was within arm’s reach. I allowed the embrace, but I refused to return it. Victor was Cuban with average height, receding hair line, and a bushy grey mustache. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Is it going to be a problem?”

  I was pissed when he married my mother, but that was nothing compared to the storm I brought down on him when I learned he was moving her all the way out to Florida.

  Away from the life she had with my father.

  Away from me .

  He chuckled and patted me on the back even when his eyes didn’t share his amusement. “You, my son, are very much like your father.”

  Unfortunately, for him, it was true.

  Unfortunately, for me, my high was blown as soon as my flight touched down, so I wasn’t equipped to be pleasant. My habit of using weed to mellow me started after meeting Lucas and Z. They introduced me, and I never looked back.

  I haven’t talked to her since she snuck away and married this prick.

  I missed her.

  However, loyalty to my father’s memory wouldn’t allow me to forgive her. If he were alive, Victor would never have had a chance with my mother, and my father would have killed him for even thinking so. Victor exploited her vulnerability, and now she believed she loved him.

  Despite what would have been, I respected my mother’s wishes, as my father would have wanted, and left him breathing.

  “Your mother was beginning to think you’d
forgotten about her. She never stops worrying, you know?” I followed him onto the terrace where he had come from. On the table where he sat was a crime novel beside a bowl of grapes.

  “I see you are enjoying retirement.”

  “Forced retirement,” he reminded with a smile.

  “You married my mother.”

  “Son—”

  “No.” I shook my head and stared at the waves crashing in the distant. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Very well.” We sat in silence. Victor plucked a few grapes from the bowl while I tried to get my temper under control.

  “Where is she?” I asked when the urge to kill him wasn’t as strong.

  “Having tea with a friend. She’ll be sad she missed you.” I didn’t miss the fact that he didn’t offer to notify her of my presence.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m here to see you.”

  His bushy eyebrows reached for his receding hairline. “What do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” He plucked another grape from the bowl.

  “The book is gone.”

  The book was many things.

  It was a black book of clients who paid us to give them what they didn’t earn or make their problems disappear. It was a contact list of people paid off to keep their mouth shut and look the other way. It was also a history book of every job taken, tracing back six generations. It was a legacy inherited by every generation of Bandit, and it incriminated not only the Knights but also everyone we serviced, fucked over or used. It was insurance for our clients but also blackmail to keep them in line.

  His hand froze from tossing a grape in his mouth. “How could it be gone?”

  “We underestimated Theo’s reach. He sent his kid.”

  “Mian?”

  “Does he have a bastard I don’t know about?”

  He ignored my snarky question and leaned back. “When?”

  “Last night. Lucas and Z caught her hiding in my father’s estate. She said she was after something that belongs to her father.”

  “Where is she now?”