by Bethany-Kris
Let her live.
That’s all she wanted, really. Just to live.
She entertained that thought far too often, maybe. That if she could just call him, her wish would come true. He would understand, and let her do the thing she wanted to do the most. He would step back. They wouldn’t have to run again when he got too close.
That was why, even as Renzo and Diego’s laughter drifted over the park again like an invitation for her to join in on their fun, she was stuck staring at the phone in her hands. She pushed the button on the side again and again. Turning the home screen on, and then off. Over and over until all she could see when she closed her eyes was the home screen and the phone icon taunting her.
How easy it would be …
And yet, she knew it wouldn’t be easy at all.
The wishful part of herself that hoped her father would hear her words and listen was delusional. The smart part of Lucia knew her father was never going to stop—he would never back down. The only thing that rivaled his love for his children was the love he had for his wife, her mother. If, for any reason, he thought Lucia was in danger … no matter what she tried to tell him … then that’s what he was going to think.
No amount of truth and words would change his mind.
Ever.
For the last time, Lucia looked down at the home screen of the phone, and pressed the button on the side to turn it off again. Calling would be pointless, even if she wished for something entirely different.
This all could have been different, really. But right now, it was what it was. And even if she wanted something different between her and Lucian, that was never going to change the fact that Lucia was happy right where she was. That, no matter what, she was where she wanted to be with the people she wanted to be with, and her father didn’t have to agree or understand.
Not now, anyway.
“Hey!”
Lucia glanced up from her hands to find Diego and Renzo leaning over the railing at the highest point on the playground equipment. If she didn’t know any better, she might say Renzo looked a good five years younger in that moment. Like he was closer to his twenty years—yeah, she felt like shit for missing his birthday even if he said he didn’t care—than how he normally seemed decades older.
Right then, life was giving him a moment to relax.
And he looked like he wanted her to join.
So did Diego.
“What are you doing over there?” Renzo called out, grinning. “You’re missing out, babe.”
“Come play, Lucia,” Diego shouted.
She couldn’t exactly say no, could she?
Not when love was waiting …
• • •
“So, here’s how it works,” Renzo explained, rolling over to his stomach to get a better look at the board in front of him. “If you land on a ladder, Diego, then you climb up. But if you land on a snake, you—”
“Slide down,” Lucia said, coming to sit on the floor with them.
She plucked up the small pink game piece, and put it on the starting point for the board. Diego picked his own color, too—a green piece. Renzo’s little blue piece was already sitting on the starting point.
“Do you get it now?” Renzo asked his brother.
Diego nodded. “Yeah, throw the dice—”
“Roll the dice,” Renzo muttered, trying to hide his smile.
“Fine, we roll the dice, then I move the same number of squares that’s on the dice, right?” Diego looked up from the game board, and when they nodded at him, he said, “If I land on a ladder, I get to climb up, but if I land on a snake, I have to go down.”
“That’s it, buddy. Let’s play.”
Lucia leaned back to rest against the couch as the boys took their turns first. Diego got a six, but tried to sneak a seventh square where a ladder was waiting for him to go higher. All it took was a look and a chuckle from Renzo for the boy to sneak his piece back to the correct spot. Renzo went next, landing on the square before Diego’s. Lucia rolled a fucking two.
Playing with only one dice meant it was going to take them forever to get to the top of the board what with all the snakes sending them back down to a bottom level. She didn’t even mind. This little game would keep Diego good and distracted for a while. They all needed that for the time being.
A half hour in to playing the game, and Renzo was the only one on the last line of the top of the board. Diego was back near the middle after landing on yet another snake, and glaring at the dice like it was plotting against him. Lucia had given up even managing to get halfway through the board because each time she did, another snake seemed to be waiting to take her to the bottom level once again. It wasn’t really about winning, anyway, but rather giving them something to do until—
Renzo’s burner phone rang on the counter in the small kitchen where it had been left to charge. He gave Lucia a look—an oh, well sort of thing—before pushing up from the floor to go and grab the call. At that point, Diego was still fine considering it was his turn to roll the dice and see just how close to the top he might be able to get with his turn.
Lucia kept one eye on Diego to make sure he didn’t cheat again, and one on Renzo picking up the call. He turned his back to them, but that didn’t hide his voice from her.
“Yeah, Ren here.” A beat of silence passed, and Renzo nodded. He listened for another few seconds before replying, “Yeah, you got it. I’ll be down in two minutes, Todd. Sounds good … Later.”
Hanging up the call, Renzo shoved the phone in his pocket and turned to face them again. Although, his gaze only drifted to Lucia since Diego was still busy moving his piece on the game to the correct spot, which just happened to be a ladder that took him right up to the square after Renzo’s piece.
“Look, I’m winning!”
Renzo laughed. “That’s great, buddy. Lucia will keep playing with you, though, okay? I have to head out and do some stuff.”
Instantly, Diego’s happy expression melted away. Like there was nothing else his brother might have said that could have hurt him worse than those words he just spoke. In a way, Lucia felt like Diego had been two seconds away from a meltdown for days. Each time Renzo left to work, the first place he went was that window. And she was damn near convinced that if not for her making him get away from the window, that was where he would happily stay all day until his brother got back home, too.
She heard it in his voice when he talked.
Saw it in his face when he looked at her, or looked for Ren.
He was scared they were going to have to go again. Or worse, he was terrified Renzo wasn’t going to come back to him when he left day after day. The fears might be unfounded in a way, considering they had unpacked their bags and didn’t even talk about the possibility of needing to leave again when Diego was within earshot, but that didn’t matter. Diego was a kid, and kids didn’t understand or process things the same way adults did.
It was as simple as that.
Renzo, clearly seeing his brother was ready to throw a fit about him leaving for work, decided to try a different route of pleasing the boy to keep him calm. “How about when I get back, I bring you one of those mini pizzas you like from downstairs, huh?”
Diego’s wide eyes turned from Renzo, to Lucia. She could already see the water starting to line the boy’s eyes. All it took was one blink, and fat tears slid down his cheeks. A sniffle echoed, and then the crying started. All out, ugly crying that echoed in the apartment. Lucia let out a sigh, and slid closer to Diego to wrap an arm around his small shoulders. There wasn’t very much else she could do, really.
She’d been waiting for this.
Renzo hadn’t gotten to see it at all.
“But we’re not done playing,” Diego mumbled through his tears. “You have to stay and finish the game, Ren. You said we could play—you said!”
“Yeah, but I also have to work, buddy.”
Yeah, that didn’t help at all. If anything, it just urged Diego’s crying to turn
up a notch. The wailing started, too. An all-out temper tantrum, really. Lucia didn’t blame the kid. She figured it was hard for kids to learn the right way to express their emotions at this age, but especially a kid like Diego who had spent the last several weeks in a constant state of chaos.
San Francisco was his first moment of stability, really. Here, they had something that felt like a home to him. He had a bed that was his, and a room he was allowed to put his things inside. He was starting to get a schedule set for himself day in and day out, but that didn’t mean anything. She bet to him, all he saw were things that could be taken away from him again.
He was terrified they were going to take all of this away from him.
“It’s all right,” Lucia murmured, kissing the top of Diego’s curly head. “Ren’ll be back, and we’ll finish our game, then.”
“B-but—”
“I gotta go,” Renzo said. “I told him two minutes.”
“Yeah, it’s all right,” Lucia told him.
But it wasn’t.
Diego was far from all right.
It was just yet another thing they were going to have to deal with later. It seemed like that was happening a lot lately. She didn’t blame Renzo, herself, or even little Diego. This was just something else for them to handle when they could.
Renzo slipped out of the apartment with his messenger bag on his shoulder, but not before shooting a look back at them. Lucia tried to give him a smile while she hugged a crying Diego, but she didn’t know if it felt true or not.
“I don’t want Ren to keep leaving,” Diego mumbled when the door shut.
Yeah, she knew.
Lucia hugged him a little tighter with one arm, and wiped his face with the sleeve of her sweater. “He’s always gonna come back, Diego. Ren is always gonna come back to you.”
Diego sniffled again when he stared up at her. “How do you know?”
“Because I just do.”
Maybe that was what the kid needed to know more than anything else. More than he needed stability and things that felt like home. Maybe he just needed to know that his brother was always coming back to him.
But what did Lucia know?
• • •
Lucia was sitting on the edge of the bed in the bedroom she and Renzo used when he finally got back a little after twelve. Diego had been in bed for hours, but that didn’t mean it was easy to get the kid to lay down. Slipping on the too-big T-shirt that Renzo had left hanging off the side of the bed, she eyed him in the doorway.
He leaned against the doorjamb, rocking back on his heels a bit to stare down the hallway. “How long did it take to calm him down after I left?”
“An hour.”
Renzo flinched.
Lucia figured the truth was better than a lie. Besides, it wasn’t them that was having trouble right then. It was Diego. He needed to realize that the shit they had done leading up to this point left Diego in a bad place. Emotionally … maybe mentally, too.
“We can’t run again,” she murmured. “He’s scared of that, I think. And he’s scared you’re going to leave him, maybe. It’s just been too much for him, Ren. He doesn’t know how to process what’s happening. He doesn’t understand why we had to leave, and why the little bit of stuff that he had, he had to leave behind. All that he’s got left is the things that mean the most to him—you, really. He’s probably scared the next time we go, he’s going to leave you behind, too.”
Renzo’s gaze lifted and met hers. She thought maybe he was going to come back with a rebuttal for a second—if we have to, then we have to, sort of thing. Instead, she found an agreement staring back in his eyes.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied just as quietly. “That doesn’t change the fact that we might still have to—”
“It’s not good for him. It’s that simple. Think about him.”
“I am!”
Lucia stiffened at the tone of his voice. High, and sharp. Like she didn’t fucking understand what he was trying to tell her, even if she did understand exactly what he meant.
“I am thinking about him,” Renzo said quieter, and rougher. “All I do is think about how to keep him with me all the time, Lucia.”
“You have to start thinking about what’s best for him, too. Running isn’t, Ren. That’s all.”
He cleared his throat, and rocked back on his heels to stare down the hall again. Diego’s door was closed, and the kid wasn’t making a noise.
“What if someone comes then,” he started to say, “your father, or—”
“We’ll handle it. But we don’t run. Aren’t you fucking tired of running, anyway? I am. He is. Aren’t you?”
“It’s not that simple.”
She could hear the anxiety in his voice, even if he didn’t acknowledge it, really. The fear that he felt over someone taking her away from him, or Diego. They’d done so much already—robbed, killed, and run. How long would they have before something or someone finally caught up with them?
That was the real question.
Not that it mattered.
Her feelings remained the same.
“We can’t keep running, Ren. It’s not good for him.”
Renzo nodded, stepped into the bedroom, and closed the door behind him. “No more running.”
• • •
“Fuck … fuck. Lucia? Lucia!”
She heard Renzo’s voice filtering through her dreams, but it was his hands that woke her up. Reaching for her across the bed, and grabbing tight to her body. One on her arm, and another along the curve of her waist. Her eyes flew open, and found his gaze locked on hers. There was something wild staring back at her from him—something desperate, she thought.
“Ren?”
He said nothing, simply dragged her across the bed like he couldn’t get her close enough to him. Those arms of his wrapped around her like iron bars, and his lips drifted along her forehead at the same time. He cursed low again, his voice a rumbling ache against her skin. Her heart thundered in her chest even as she tipped her head back to stare at him. Reaching up, she traced his roughened features with her fingertips, trying to calm him.
“You okay?”
“Bad dream.”
Lucia blinked. “About what?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
No, she thought it did.
“Ren.”
He sighed, the pulse of his breath whispering along her hairline. “Just … thought you were gone for a second. Woke up, and you weren’t right there, I guess. Just, I—”
“Hey.” Lucia pressed her fingertips against his lips, silencing him. “I’m always going to be here. Don’t you know that by now? I love you, Ren.”
“Yeah, I know. I just panicked.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m fine,” he murmured, his arms tightening around her body.
But he wasn’t.
She could tell.
Skimming her hands down his bare chest, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his. Even in the darkness of the apartment’s bedroom, she could see the anxiety lingering in his eyes. The tension in his jaw hardened his features, and kept his lips from pulling in that familiar, sexy smile she loved so much.
If he couldn’t get the dream out of his mind, then she could help him forget.
If only for a moment …
All it really took was her hands drifting lower between them to slip beneath his boxer-briefs, and then her fingers circling around his soft cock. She hooked her leg around his waist, stroked his cock until it was hard, and kissed him all the while. Renzo said nothing, simply answered back her touches and want with his own.
Soon, she found herself turned over on the bed, so her back was pressed into the mattress and he was between her thighs. God. She loved the weight of him against her body. Pinning her into the bed, his hand locked around her wrists to keep her hands high above her head. The shift of his hips against her sex to make her body answer him back with the same movements. A familiar rhythm that was sure to get her wet a
nd hot in the best ways.
He let her wrists go just long enough to pull at her clothes. To shed her of the shirt she wore, and the panties keeping her sex hidden from his view. He wasn’t slow, by any means. Fast and rough, really.
Desperate, she thought.
Like that look still glimmering in his eyes.
And then his weight was back on her in a blink, his hand pinned her arms above her head, and his hard cock was between her thighs. Sliding home, and promising to take her to heaven. He didn’t have dirty words for her that time. Just the harsh exhale of his breath pulsing in her ear with every thrust of his hips that she met with her own.
A brutal beat between them of skin against skin in the darkness, and the scent of sex clinging to his body. The hard lines of his body tucked against hers, and keeping her pinned to the mattress. She couldn’t drag in a breath deep enough, but she loved that ache in her lungs. She couldn’t make her lips work to whisper his name, but her cries worked their way out of her throat, anyway.
This man was something else.
Something wonderful, and dangerous, and beautiful.
Something made just for her.
Lucia was sure of it.
She didn’t mind this—didn’t mind losing herself in him, or letting him forget everything because he was lost in her. Her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, her only way of keeping him as close as she could possibly get him. And yet, it still didn’t feel like enough. Her soul was screaming, she thought.
Screaming to find its way out of her body, and sink its way into this man. To tangle with his soul, and live there happily for the rest of her days. He could rip the breath right out of her lungs; take every fucking beat of her heart. He could be the sun to her days, and the water to her ocean.
He already did those things.
He already was those things.
And it still wouldn’t be enough.
