Harbor (Renzo + Lucia Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Ren!”

  “What?”

  His question came out more like a grunt than his actual voice. A husky, exhausted grunt that he wasn’t even sure if it made sense or not. He figured it didn’t matter; getting back to sleep was what was important to him.

  “Ren, get up!”

  It was only the hint of panic in Lucia’s voice that finally broke Renzo out of his sleepy daze. He cracked his eyes open to find her leaning over him in the bed. She was reaching for him again like she was going to grab hold of him, and shake him until he woke up. Fuck. Well, that explained why the bed had been shaking, anyway.

  He had a good mind to ask her what in the fuck was wrong with her, but it was the fear coloring her eyes that had him sitting up straight in the bed like someone had shoved a rod in his spine. He didn’t even speak until he had jumped out of the bed, and was yanking on the pants he’d discarded the night before.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Lucia glanced over her shoulder at the window, but not before Renzo saw the darkness under her eyes. Had she even slept at all the night before? He couldn’t be sure because of how quickly he closed his eyes, and the fact he slept like he wasn’t going to wake up again. At least, Diego was still out like a light.

  “Did you sleep at all?” he asked.

  Lucia looked back to him. “That doesn’t matter right now.”

  “Yes, it does. Did you sleep?”

  “No.” Lucia nodded at the window. “The guy—the one who was in the office last night when I got the room—was walking around this morning. He was trying to look in the truck, and then our window. He had something in his hand—a paper, but it looked like it had a picture on it? And he was talking to someone on the phone, too.”

  Renzo blinked. “Slow down.”

  He didn’t think she realized it, but he barely understood what she just said. Either his brain was too tired and was struggling to catch up, or nothing she just said made sense.

  “Something’s wrong,” Lucia muttered. “We need to get out of here. Why would he be looking in the truck?”

  It was very possible that Lucia was just … nervous. Or rather, paranoid. Who wouldn’t be after what happened the day before? But it wasn’t like Lucia to panic. That was the thing about her. This whole time, she’d been ridiculously calm. She’d never freaked out even once. A part of him knew that, no, she wasn’t being paranoid at all right now.

  If something felt wrong, then it probably was.

  Renzo nodded. “When was he looking around, then?”

  “He headed back to the office a couple of minutes ago. I didn’t think anything of him walking around at first, but then the second time he was looking at the truck and talking on the phone, so that kind of made me nervous.”

  Looking at the truck.

  “Like what, reading the license plate?”

  Lucia shrugged. “Maybe? I’m not sure. What about the money I gave him for the deposit, so I didn’t have to put my ID on record, Ren? That was a thousand dollars. Are we just going to leave without that?”

  He didn’t have the time to weigh the pros and cons of trying to get their cash back at the moment. If something bad was happening, like maybe somehow the cops had gotten a bead on them, then they needed to get out of there as fast as they possibly could. Who knew when the police might show up?

  “Fuck the money.”

  “But—”

  “Not important. Grab the bags,” Renzo told her. “I’ll get Diego.”

  Lucia didn’t even question him. “All right.”

  Diego was not happy to be scooped up from the bed by his big brother before he was even ready to wake up, but Renzo didn’t give him a choice. He ignored the boy’s grumblings, and slung him over his shoulder still half-asleep. Diego would wake up properly in the truck, or elsewhere for all he gave a damn. As long as he wasn’t waking up in some foster home, that’s all that mattered to Renzo at the end of the day.

  “I wanna sleep,” Diego whined as they exited the hotel room. Lucia was fast on his heels, still quiet but doing as he’d said for her to do. “Ren!”

  “Sleep in the truck, buddy.”

  “I don’t wanna!”

  Renzo juggled his wiggling brother and the screwdriver he’d used to boost the truck the day before. They were lucky really that they’d managed to find two vehicles that were old enough to be boosted simply by shoving a screwdriver in the ignition, twisting it hard and popping two wires together at the same time.

  Speaking of which …

  “Did the guy look in the driver’s window when he was looking around?” Renzo asked Lucia.

  She nodded before slipping around the back of the truck to throw the bags onto the bed. All except one—the black duffle that held his gun, and the cash he’d moved into it the night before. She put that in the driver’s seat for him. Renzo cursed under his breath, but tried to give Diego a smile at the same time so that his brother didn’t think anything was wrong. That wouldn’t help them at all. The kid didn’t need to be in any sort of panic right now.

  But if the guy had looked in the driver’s window, there was no doubt in Renzo’s mind that he saw the hanging wires under the steering wheel, which was a good fucking indication that the truck was stolen.

  Shit.

  This was not good.

  “Get in the truck,” Renzo told Lucia as she came back around the side. “We need to hit the road.”

  He also didn’t want to panic for her. Sure, she knew something bad was up, but that didn’t mean he was going to fuel her concerns by acting like it, too.

  Calm and steady was best.

  Right?

  “Y’all aren’t heading out of here already, are you?”

  Lucia was just slipping into the passenger side as the voice drifted over the gravel parking lot. Renzo’s shoulders tightened with tension as he turned just enough to look at the guy from the side, but over his shoulder. That way, he wasn’t giving the man a good look at his face, not entirely. But he was still able to see him just fine.

  “Yeah, thanks for the room,” Renzo called out, “have a good day.”

  He didn’t for a second think that would be enough to satisfy the guy, but that also didn’t matter. Renzo just needed enough time to circle the truck, get inside, and boost the fucker so they could get on the road. Nothing more, and nothing less. He wasn’t about to have a conversation with the man.

  “Now, you’ve got a deposit waiting for you in the office,” the man said. “You’re not going to leave that, are you? It’ll take me a few minutes to go and grab it out of the safe.”

  Renzo’s gaze narrowed.

  A few minutes?

  A safe?

  Why in the hell did a shitty little motel in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska need a fucking safe? That screamed strange to him in more ways than one. Renzo was not the type to ignore his gut instinct when something felt off to him. Sure, that thousand dollars could do a lot for them once they finally hit Vegas, and they needed as much money as they could get their hands on, but it still wasn’t enough to make him feel safe enough to wait.

  The guy had come a hell of a lot closer, too.

  “No, we’re good,” Renzo said. “Keep it—a thank you.”

  He turned to round the front of the truck and jump in the driver’s side, but he barely even made it two steps before the guy came up behind him. Had they been back in New York and on Renzo’s streets, someone coming up behind him would have meant only one thing—the fucker wanted to get hurt.

  But when the man grabbed Renzo’s arm, all he could think about was fuck, don’t cause a goddamn scene. Just get out of here, Ren. You need to get the hell out of here now.

  The man’s hand tightened on Renzo’s forearm. “Now, you wait just a second, young man.”

  He glanced down at the unwelcomed hand on his body. “Remove your fucking hand before I do, please.”

  There, he was kind.

  He gave the man a warning.

  The guy’s
gaze narrowed on Renzo’s face. “I thought something was strange with you two last night, even if you didn’t come out of the truck. You think someone wasn’t going to see those wires hanging down like that? All I had to do was watch the damn news to hear about the robbery just across the border. Looking for a dark vehicle, they said. Likely stolen. You’re not going anywhere. The cops will be here soon, so you might as well just give it up.”

  Oh, was that what he thought?

  Renzo had news for him.

  “You’re going to let me go, or I’m going to make you wish you’d never even seen my face,” Renzo murmured. “Last chance, sir.”

  “I just told you … you’re not going—”

  “Let him go,” came a soft, yet still firm, order from the side of the truck.

  Renzo really wished Lucia had stayed in the truck, and let him handle this, but she was out now. Out, and with his gun in her hand, it seemed. She’d already racked the weapon back by the looks of it, and she had it pointed right at the side of the man’s head as she edged closer to them. There was no shake in her hands, and no hesitance in her gaze with each step she took. Just a cold determination leveled on the man still touching Renzo like he had any business doing that at all.

  “Babe,” Renzo started to say.

  “Now, little girl—”

  The man had a hand up, as if that was going to stop Lucia or the bullet if she pulled the trigger. Renzo almost wanted to scoff, but somehow, he managed to keep it in. How, though, he didn’t have the first fucking clue. If she pulled that trigger, the bullet coming for his head was the last thing the man was ever going to see.

  Simple as that.

  “You threatening me, girl?” the man asked.

  “Looks like it,” Lucia returned.

  It wasn’t much—a couple of seconds where the guy’s hand loosened on Renzo while his attention went to the thing he figured was the biggest threat to him at the moment.

  Lucia.

  And her gun.

  No, it wasn’t much, but it was enough for Renzo to act. He only needed the chance, and he was the fucking type to take it every time. After all, he’d never know if he didn’t try. That’s what life had taught him, frankly.

  Swinging back his free arm at the same time he jerked away from the man, Renzo swung forward fast and hard. His fist connected with the side of the man’s face with a sickening crunch. He saw the blood spew from the guy’s lips before his body dropped to the ground like a sack of dead weight.

  It took Renzo a second, and then two before he realized no, the guy wasn’t fucking dead. Just knocked the hell out. Which honestly, worked for him.

  The next thing he did was yank that fucking gun out of Lucia’s hand before she hurt herself, or somebody else. She just looked startled as he flicked the safety back on, and tucked the gun in the waistband of his pants.

  “Stay in the truck,” he barked at her.

  Okay, maybe that was rude.

  Still …

  Lucia blinked. “He grabbed you!”

  “I had it handled, Lucia.”

  “No, you really didn’t.”

  “I did!” Renzo scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and shot her a look he hoped got his point across with his next words. “Don’t step in on something like that again. You don’t need to do that.”

  “I will do whatever I want to do for you, Ren. Got it?”

  Lucia crossed her arms over her chest, and glowered right back at him. That was probably one of the things he loved best about this woman—she was absolutely willing to go toe to toe with him over whatever she wanted to, even if it was the worst fucking possible time for her to be doing exactly that.

  Renzo passed another look at the guy on the ground. The last thing he needed or wanted to do right now was sit here and argue with her. They had more important things to handle.

  “We need to get out of here—you heard him,” he said.

  Lucia frowned. “What about the money—”

  “Forget about it. Get in the truck, you can drive. I need to make a call.”

  • • •

  “Yeah, Tuck, hey …”

  Renzo didn’t miss the way Lucia’s gaze slid in his direction as the guy he’d been calling for a half an hour finally picked up the phone. Fuck, it had been years since he talked to Tucker Earl. Far too long, really. The last time the two of them spoke, Tucker had been dealing for a rival on the streets, and they had just about gone to blows over it. But their mutual respect at having known each other since they were kids took over, and they figured something else out.

  Shortly after that, Tuck headed to Vegas. He always said if Renzo ever needed anything, to just give him a call and let him know. Well, Renzo was finally making that fucking call. Whether or not Tuck was serious, or if the guy was even in any kind of state to be able to help was another story.

  “Renzo?”

  “Yeah,” Renzo said, laughing. “How the fuck are you, man?”

  “Busy. Making coin. Keeping the hustle alive. Shit, it’s been … a year or more since I last talked to you. How the hell are things?”

  “Crazy.”

  Understatement.

  “I know that life,” Tuck replied.

  Highly doubt it, man.

  “No, I mean … crazy as in bad,” Renzo muttered, staring out the window. “I need some help. Can you do that—help me, I mean? Just a few things. You know I’m good for it, Tuck.”

  “Wait, are you in New York, or—”

  “No, I’m heading for Vegas right now, actually.”

  On the other end of the line, Tuck quieted for a second. Renzo waited the man out as he watched the trees passing them on the back roads. Lucia was smart, still staying off the highway. They really needed to get rid of this truck, though. If the guy back at the motel had been talking to the police and trying to keep them there until the cops could show up, he had no doubt he also described the truck, plus likely gave the stolen license plate number.

  They had to get rid of it.

  Now.

  “When you get to Vegas, give me a call and I will see what strings I can pull,” Tuck finally said.

  Renzo nodded even though his friend couldn’t see it. “Great, thanks. Anything you can do for me right now, though? I’m in Nebraska—I need to get rid of this ride I’m in, and take something else. How good are your contacts, huh? You always used to have a whole phone full of people that could get anything done for a price, right? Don’t tell me that’s changed, Tuck.”

  His friend chuckled quietly. “Getting right to the point, huh?”

  “I’m in a fucking spot, man. Don’t fault me.”

  Putting it mildly, really.

  “It might take me a bit,” Tuck said, “but I am sure I could pull something together. Are you good to wait, or nah?”

  Renzo passed Lucia a look, but she was focused on the road ahead of them. He was grateful for her distraction. In the backseat, Diego was still sitting with his sour face firmly in place. At least, he’d stopped whining. That felt like one battle won, for now. Renzo could deal with his bad mood later.

  “I will see what I can do,” Tuck muttered. “But so I know, how opposed are you to taking a bus?”

  “Like a Greyhound?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Renzo wasn’t about to be fucking picky, but that wasn’t the problem he had with a bus. “I’ll need a fucking ID to get a ticket, man.” Not to mention, Lucia, too. Diego wouldn’t need one if he was traveling with them, though. “Which is something I don’t have right now.”

  Tuck sucked in air through his teeth. “I might be able to pull some strings there, too. Like I said, just need some time. If I get you a ticket, can you get on the bus, Ren?”

  “Yeah, man.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you back when I get one—”

  “Three,” Renzo said quickly. “I need three tickets.”

  Tuck whistled low under his breath. “Jesus, what are you doing, man?”

  Renzo could only lau
gh. “Right now, trying to get to Vegas.”

  “What did you leave behind, then?”

  “Maybe it’s better you don’t know, Tuck.”

  His friend made a noise, but finally muttered, “Yeah, probably not. Listen, we’ll talk more when you get here, and get some shit settled. Hang tight, stay out of trouble for a bit, and I will get you tickets for that bus.”

  Great.

  “Thanks.”

  A quick goodbye later, and Renzo was staring at the blank phone in his hands. Lucia was still quiet in the driver’s seat, so he decided to be the first to break the silence.

  “We’ll get it figured out,” he said.

  She passed him a look. “Will we?”

  Well, they didn’t really have a choice, did they?

  It was this, or go back.

  And he wasn’t fucking going back.

  Not now.

  “Tuck will get us what we need,” Renzo said.

  Lucia looked his way. “Interesting name.”

  “His name is Tucker—everybody always called him Tuck, though.”

  “Huh.”

  Yeah, that was one way to describe Tuck.

  A simple huh.

  FIVE

  Renzo managed to keep a hold on their bags as he hailed a cab at the same time. The noise of the Greyhound station made Diego press tighter against the back of Lucia’s legs. His small arms wrapped around her knees, and he was determined not to let go. Lucia might have laughed if she wasn’t so damn tired. She understood the boy’s desire to hide away from the noise. She wanted to do the exact same thing.

  She had never traveled on a Greyhound bus before, and if she could help it, she wouldn’t use another one again. Cramped, hot, and uncomfortable, it just wasn’t for her. She swore people didn’t understand the concept of personal space, either.

  “It’s all right,” Lucia said, reaching back to pat Diego on the top of his head when he squeezed her legs tighter. “We’ll be somewhere quiet soon.”

  Hopefully somewhere with a shower, bed, and food. All things they needed to feel like real, live humans. And despite how tired she was, Lucia couldn’t help but feel relieved as she watched the sign across the street light up in bright colors—making a rainbow-like streak of prisms shoot up into the inky sky. She only had to glance down the street to see the same thing over and over again. Bright signs. Huge buildings crawling up toward the sky.