The Bandit (The Stolen Duet 1)

We’re brothers. Simple as that.

“What have you two been up to?”

“Nothing much. Getting shit-faced and fucking,” he answered bluntly. Lucas was usually nonchalant about anything that didn’t directly involve killing and getting paid.

I shook my head, feeling like the cock blocker in a nontraditional sense. I was the leader, but with it came feeling I wasn’t just their friend but their father too. This was all after pops died of course. He had been as much a father to them as he had been to me and his death gave us a common goal.

Each of us wanted the man who killed him dead.

Three years after my father was murdered and my rage was just as strong as the day I received the phone call. My day of birth had taken on a new meaning.

“Angel, you there?”

I sprinted away from the dark reaches of my mind and tucked away the memory of my father’s murder where it belonged. “You two act like horny thirteen-year-olds.”

“But possess the stamina and finesse of a man at least twice that.”

“You’re twenty-seven, genius.”

“Precisely,” he retorted. “Chicks dig me.”

“Whatever. I’m out. I’ll see you tonight.” I ended the call and rubbed my aching shoulder. This job hadn’t been an easy one, but then they never really were. My list of reaps was growing ever long, but what else was I supposed to do when they resisted?

“The job is the only priority. You must be willing to finish it by any means necessary. That includes killing. Are you ready for this life, son?”

Arturo Knight was a known and feared heist lord, and when the occasion called for it, and the money was right, he was a hitman. He gained his wealth by taking what didn’t belong to him. I was only sixteen when my father realized my interest in what he did for a living was more than just innocent curiosity, so he decided to bring me in. Doing the job was the only lesson he had seen necessary to teach me.

“You’re a Knight. Killing and taking shit that doesn’t belong to you will come naturally.”

But I never got to prove to my father that I could be more than his shadow because Theo Ross, the man I called godfather, had betrayed my father.

I considered myself a patient man. There was a spot high on my list of reaps reserved for him, and I was willing to wait twenty-two and a half years to put him in his grave right alongside my father. Justice wasn’t complete until it was dealt by my hand.

With the help of Lucas and Z, I took over the business. One by one, I gained the trust of my father’s clientele after some of their enemies disappeared, and I fattened the lining of their pockets pro-bono. It took more time and resources than I cared to sacrifice, but eventually, I had them on board. I wasn’t a man to take no for an answer and had no qualms manipulating people in my favor. Most might say I was controlling and obsessive, but then most people didn’t grow up with a father like mine. He would have expected nothing less.

As my father predicted, I had a talent for taking what I wanted and killing when I had to was simply exercise. I was even bringing in more cash than my father had ever seen. Even though I kept Lucas and Z on board, I still took some jobs alone and cut them in on the profit from those jobs. They never asked questions because they already knew the answers. I trusted Lucas and Z with my life, but my father trusted Theo with his and ended up trusting the wrong man.

I packed up my duffle and called a car before making my way to the elevator. I stood in place, waiting for the elevator to arrive, and thinking that maybe I needed a fuck to release the tension I felt in my shoulders. When the elevator doors opened, I froze in place. Inside stood a woman small in stature with dark hair and pouty pink lips. Her beauty was painfully familiar along with her wide, emerald eyes that stared back at me. I was gazing upon a ghost.

My ghost.

Mian.

Innocent, sweet, vulnerable Mian.

But then my ghost batted her lashes and licked her lips invitingly and I knew this woman wasn’t Mian. There was nothing innocent about this woman who maintained eye contact as she extended her arm and pressed the button to stop the doors when they began to close. I’d been staring too long, and now she thought I was interested, and I admitted to myself I had been until I realized she wasn’t who I wanted.

She wasn’t the sixteen-year-old girl I used to lust after.

Reluctantly, I stepped inside and moved to the far corner, furthest away from her. When the doors shut and the elevator began to descend, she angled her body sideways, facing me just enough to display her breasts in the low cut top.