Page 2 of Sinful Attraction

I don’t have time for that kind of bullshit, not from him, my parents, or anyone. This heist is going to be a coup for me—the coup that kick-starts my career.

The prep work is almost done, and the closer I get to dropping the hammer, the more excited I am and the less sleep I’ve gotten. I stifle a yawn as I double-check the programming on one of my subroutines. Yes, I’m absolutely killing it. Not a thing out of place.

I’m exhausted and stoked at the same time.

By the time I crawl off to bed, it’s three in the morning. My head is throbbing, my upper back aches, and I absolutely know I’ve overdone it. But that’s fine. It will all pay off soon enough.

I lie there in my big bed, trying not to think too hard about the risks of what I’m about to do. I can mitigate them: International law enforcement is way behind on investigative techniques for the Internet, and as for the old man himself, he’ll barely miss the money. He might not even notice that it was stolen at all.

It takes a while for me to drift off. My frustrations and worries won’t stop me from doing what needs to be done, but they do love to mess with my sleep.

My last thought, oddly enough, isn’t of impressing my parents. It’s of Michael Rossi, and how much I want to make his jaw drop in chagrin when I blow his own accomplishments out of the water.

Chapter 2

Michael

“Billy! Beer me,” I call out to my younger brother as I walk into our vast stainless-steel kitchen. He nods and digs out a longneck for me out of the drink fridge, handing it off as I walk up.

“Hey, man. How’d it go today?” He stifles a yawn; that new-dad sleep deprivation is really getting to him.

“Uncle Ezio destroyed another laptop’s hard drive,” I sigh as I open the beer and take a swallow. It’s hot as hell for San Francisco in June, and Ezio never uses his damn air-conditioning. I’ve been sweating in his living room for most of the afternoon.

“For fuck’s sake. Porn again?”

I nodded, and he rolled his bright blue eyes. Billy is pretty much a mini-me: my same height but leaner, with similar features and the same wavy coffee-colored hair. He’s in responsible-dad-with-a-business drag: nice slacks, wingtips, and a light button-down. Me? The first thing I did after my shower was pull on my jeans and a black T-shirt.

“Yeah, well, embarrassing-ass Uncle Ezio threw a fit about being caught again when he was the one who filled up his whole laptop with viruses. I’m fixing things, and his wife and teenage daughters are yelling at him. I finally put my damn noise-canceling headphones on so I could work in peace.” I take a swallow of my beer, leaning on the wall next to the fridge.

He just laughs. “Well, that’s going to be fun when the holidays roll around, and we have to look at his dumb ass with a straight face.”

“I just had to do that for four goddamn hours. It wouldn’t piss me off, except somehow, the guy never learns. I explain it to him, he says he understands, then he turns around and does the same dumb shit all over again. I’d expect that from a fourteen-year-old kid, not a damn church deacon.”

“Everybody’s got at least a few really ridiculous people in their family,” Billy observes. “I mean, hell, we put up with you, right?”

“Ha ha.” My family “puts up with” me because I’m the most brilliant computer guy this side of Silicon Valley and the besthacker in the whole West Coast mob, hands down. My family’s relied on me for years for everything from electronic money laundering to helping my grandma figure out her new phone. “Anyway, I’m giving it another three months before I’m over there doing the same damn thing all over again.”

“Hell, I’d be surprised if he makes it that long. The guy just plain doesn’t learn.” He takes a swallow from his own beer and looks at me. “So, what happened with Leanne, anyway?”

I wince. Leanne is an ex—a recent ex—only three months ago. We were pretty damn serious, though. Two years together. I even started looking through engagement ring catalogs before things soured over the last few months.

“The whole mobster-princess thing didn’t do it for me, in the end.” That is a huge understatement, but Billy doesn’t need to know the whole play-by-play of the shitstorm that had happened between Leanne and I.

Leanne Castellucci is the spoiled daughter of a Capo who is set over a part of the East Bay, and she had latched onto me as the best way to rebel against Daddy. But as it turned out, her rebellion against Daddy is mostly for show and her own entertainment.

Her parents never approved of me. It was the only reason she was with me, in the end, besides the sex and the nice dates. But she wasn’t much of a grown-up. Being told no was a berserk button for her, and I just got tired of it. I loved her, but what sheoffered in return was more like a babysitting job after a while than a relationship.

It hurt. I’m the kind of guy who wants to get serious with a lady, not waste years of my life on dating and hookup apps and meeting a new woman every weekend. But two weeks after she stormed out of our hotel room for the last time, I started feeling... relief mixed with pain.

That was when I knew she had done me a goddamn favor by dumping me before I could put a ring on her.

It’s still a sore topic. I force a smile. “Anyway, you know her parents hated me.”

“Yeah, I thought that didn’t bother you.”

I shrug. “It didn’t when I thought we were really in love. But when I realized I was kind of a prop in the games she played with her dad, I suddenly didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.”

“Oh, yay. Wish I’d known that sooner. My wife’s still Net friends with her.”

---