The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 91

Chapter 91: 91 | When The Cat’s Away...

Diane Fitzgerald stretched her legs as the private jet touched down at Verano International. Her body still thrummed from the Chicago meetings, mind racing with agency contracts and publicity deals, but beneath it all ran a current of something else entirely. Something that had her chartering this flight to get home hours earlier than planned.

Lukas.

Her Lukas.

That possessive thought no longer felt strange. Two weeks of nightly explorations had transformed him from Reina’s orphaned son into something else. Her lover. Her secret. Her discovery.

She gathered her carryon bag, nodded to the flight attendant, and descended the stairs to the tarmac where her driver waited. The California evening air felt warm against her skin after Chicago’s persistent chill.

"Home, Ms. Fitzgerald?" the driver asked, taking her bag.

"Yes. Directly home." She slid into the back seat of the black town car, smoothing her cream skirt over her thighs. "Any calls from my daughter or Lukas?"

"Not that I’m aware of, ma’am."

Good. Her surprise return would remain just that—a surprise.

As the car pulled away from the private aviation terminal, Diane’s mind drifted backward through the years. Ten years ago. The call that changed everything.

She’d been in the middle of a contract negotiation when her assistant burst into the room, face pale. Reina and Marcus Belmont, deceased in action. Eastside incident. Details classified.

Diane had called in every favor, pulled every string, threatened every contact. Nothing. The IHL sealed the file so completely that not even her considerable influence could crack it open. All she ever learned was that they died heroes, saving others, as they always did.

The funeral came three days later. Cold rain under a steel-gray sky, as if the weather itself mourned them. Reina’s casket closed, Marcus’s empty—his body never recovered from the blast zone.

And standing beside those caskets, a small boy with amber eyes too old for his face.

Lukas had stood so straight, his shoulders rigid in his little black suit. He hadn’t cried when the priest spoke. Hadn’t cried when they lowered the caskets. Hadn’t cried when the other mourners touched his head and whispered hollow comforts.

Diane had knelt beside him in the mud after everyone else had gone, her expensive dress ruined and her heart breaking.

"It’s okay to cry, Lukas," she’d said, taking his small cold hands in hers. "No one would think less of you."

He’d shaken his head, those amber eyes fixed on the fresh dirt. "Daddy said only cry happy tears. And I’m not happy."

The simplicity of it, the brutal honesty—it had broken something in her.

She’d pulled him against her chest, her own tears finally spilling. "Okay. Then I’ll make sure your life is full of happy tears from now on."

She’d taken him home that day. Not to a hotel, not to social services. Straight to her house, to the room that would become his, to the life they would build.

Ten years later, that fragile boy had become the young man who now occupied her thoughts in ways she’d never expected. The young man who now shared her bed while her daughter slept down the hall.

The young man who made her body come alive in ways that defied explanation.

"We’re here, Ms. Fitzgerald."

Diane blinked, surprised to find they’d already reached the estate’s private drive. She must have been lost in memory longer than she realized.

"Thank you, Martin. Just leave the bag by the door."

She walked up the steps, keyed in her code, and slipped inside. The house stood quiet, golden evening light streaming through the windows. Strange. Usually someone would be in the kitchen or the living room at this hour.

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