Page 93 of The One-Night Heist

“The reason I want to save St. Anthony’s is because the orphanage carries great personal significance for me. It was… It’s where I was adopted, as a baby, and therefore given this privileged life through sheer luck and circumstances, and I cannot imagine taking that opportunity away from another child.”

My entire world—starting with my cracked leather barstool in this random English pub in Florence, Italy—tilted wildly. Suddenly, I was on my feet, my foolishly dyed black hair clutched in my fists as I gaped at the TV screen above my head.

What the…

What.

The.

Fuuuuuck?!

“Well, shit!” Mick hooted, pounding his fist on the bar. “That’s some… What’s the word our girl Anne Shirley always used?”

“Serendipity…” I whispered, savoring how the syllables rolled off my tongue.

Just like “our girl,” Anne.

“That’s the one,” he chuckled before turning to a visibly unimpressed Dante. “Another Peroni, my good sir, to celebrate this momentous occasion!”

My drink was long forgotten, but my head was surprisingly clear as I watched Giano quickly wrap up his impromptu press conference and lead a noticeably shocked Franz back into the police headquarters.

Franz didn’t know…

He’s carried this secret by himself all this time.

My mind instantly went to the mysterious “something” he’d wanted to tell me the night of the heist—a conversation that never happened thanks to me getting jealous and putting distance between us.

And he just told the world on live television…

Including me.

For as long as I could remember, I’d considered myself a lone wolf, even with my foster siblings—my earliest partners in crime—constantly by my side. With Giano, I’d continuously pushed him away, convinced he couldn’t possibly want me as I was, as “less than” him.

But he never saw me that way.

Because we’ve always been the same.

For the first time in my life, I realized what a fool I’d been to believe I was better off alone, especially with who I already had in my corner.

Wolves thrive in their packs after all.

And they don’t leave one of their own behind.

Mick knew me well enough to give me time to process, so by the time I slid back onto the stool beside him, he turned to me expectantly, with a sly little smirk twitching his lips.

“We need to help him,” I stated decisively, daring him to reject the illegal chaos I was suggesting—as if he ever would. “He needs me.”

And I need him.

“Sure thing, carrots,” he nonchalantly replied, chugging the rest of his beer and slamming it down on the bar for no good reason. “Let’s get Luce on the phone so your family can get to work.”

Thirty

Giancarlo

“I thought we were family, Giano! How could you keep something like this from me?”

My expression may have been neutral, but my heart shattered as I watched Franz pace the empty office la polizia had set us up in while we waited for my lawyers to arrive—in lieu of a holding cell.