Maria (Made Men 7)

Some things never change.

“Fuck off, Rick!” Leo roared, shoving his sister in the Escalade. “Next time Dad’s busy, I don’t care even if he is in the middle of killing someone, send Lucca.”

Four

Psychopaths were Winners

Walking into the miraculous home that she grew up in always felt different to her than it did to people who walked in here for the first time. Everyone new would be in awe, wondering what the hell a house like this would cost and curious about all the illegal activity committed to afford it.

To her, however, it hadn’t been the same since her mother had been brutally gunned down in a parking lot supermarket. This big house had once been a home that held … life. Now it just held precious things with armed guards, and it wasn’t much different than a museum.

Going through the grand foyer and past the wrought iron staircase, they headed into the open living room that had been connected to the gourmet, white kitchen, due to the wall their mother had made their father knock down after Leo was born. She’d seen it in some ridiculous home magazine, and by the next weekend, the wall had been knocked down, joining the living room, dining room, and kitchen together.

Maria was like her mother Melissa in that sense—they always got what they wanted.

“Oh good, Lucca’s here. You can leave, Todd.” She threw a leave now look over her shoulder.

Todd halted, as if wondering what he should do.

However, the blue-green eyes glaring at him narrowed, waiting to see his next move.

When Todd was still contemplating moments later, Lucca spoke coldly, “Leave.”

It didn’t take Todd long to obey Lucca and got the fuck out of there.

Shrugging off her jacket, she threw it and her purse onto the huge, white sectional—like they weren’t freaking designer. Feeling her older brother’s eyes now on her, she headed toward the kitchen and sat on the stool in front of him.

Just like her, this city had donned him with his own nickname that, truthfully, she was jealous of. Maria was considered a silly, little princess in a world full of monsters. The “boogieman” was the name whispered on the lips of every citizen in this city. It used to be a harmless tale that you would use to threaten your children to make them behave—telling them that, if they misbehaved, the boogieman would get them in the middle of the night. Now, though, the boogieman breathed the same Kansas City air that everyone else did, and he wasn’t just a nightwalker that came to you in the middle of the night; he walked the exact same streets their children did when the sun was at its highest point in the sky, burning the black pavement. The biggest myth, however, was that he punished children. The boogieman punished any living thing, and that was how you knew something was a true monster—if the fear in an adult was greater than a child’s.

Maria stared at the cold, stainless steel knife he held in his hand, and her green eyes dueled with the ones belonging to the being who had this city in fear. The thing was, fairytales of weak princesses and wicked monsters were just fucking that.

“What?”

Lucca stared at her for another moment before he took the stainless-steel knife in his hand and went back to slicing vegetables. “Nothing.”

Just as much as she was sure he didn’t like her “what,” she didn’t like his “nothing.” He had figured something out and hadn’t liked what he’d pieced together.

“What was it that you had to go to the school for?” he asked.

Trying her best not to glance over at Leo, who was now sitting next to her, she lied, “The usual bullshit from the school—wanting us to either donate time or money, as if there aren’t enough stuck-up moms who aren’t eagerly lined up at the door to help spend the rich daddy’s money.”

“That’s a fucking joke,” a voice grumbled from behind her.

Seeing her other brother Nero come in, she understood exactly what he meant. Legacy Prep was a greed-filled high school with a hierarchy that consisted of superintendents, the wealthy parents and students, the faculty, and then finally, the less fortunate who were only able to slip through the cracks due to laws that wanted prep schools to appear more “well-rounded.” Legacy Prep was about as corrupt as the Caruso family.

Lucca looked at Leo. “They wanted one of us just for that?”

“Yep,” Leo lied easily, leaning over the counter to grab an apple. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chili.”

“Again, so soon?” Maria asked with a curve of her lip, knowing exactly why he was cooking it. “You’re straying away from your Italian roots, brother.”

“Chloe likes our mother’s recipes, too, you know.” Leo huffed, clearly knowing why Lucca was making it, as well.

His fierce eyes glowed at them. “Then you fucking cook.”