by Bethany-Kris
It would have to be better.
She was going with him, after all.
“I was thinking Vegas, actually,” Renzo said, his thumb stroking her inner thigh. “I know somebody there—an old friend, you could say.”
“Vegas.”
“What do you think?”
The city of sin.
Yet another city that never slept.
Too many people to count. They’d blend in well, the same way everyone else did. Lucia had been to a lot of places in her life, but Las Vegas was not one of them. Her aunt, Kim, came from Vegas and her family tried to keep a healthy distance for the sake of peace. Or, that’s what she had always been told.
Some mafia families simply didn’t play well together.
“Well?” Renzo asked, giving her another look.
It was still his eyes, she knew. Whatever it was he was feeling or thinking, but especially when it came to her, she could always find the truth shining in his eyes. There, nothing was hidden. At least, not from her.
Like now.
Anticipation.
Fear.
Love.
All that stared back at her, waiting.
“I’m going wherever you go,” she said.
Did he need her to keep saying that?
How many times would she say it before he finally believed it?
It was true—no matter what he thought, or how it made him feel, it was still going to be true. She didn’t doubt this would cause trouble. Mostly her taking off with him … everything else was just everything else. But couldn’t they climb that hill when it came? It wasn’t here yet, and so, Lucia didn’t want to deal with it yet.
Silly, yes.
Ignorant, sure.
What else could she do?
Lucia was where she wanted to be. Nothing was going to make that any less true.
“All right,” Renzo murmured. “We’ll stop on the other side of Iowa, grab some food, and switch some shit out.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
She didn’t care, either.
“You should still let me drive for a while,” Lucia said. “You could use some sleep, Ren.”
Renzo chuckled. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead, baby.”
Yeah, that’s what she was scared of the most.
• • •
Diego sat in the opened hatch of the back of the SUV eating a kid’s meal and chattering on in the afternoon light. Lucia opened the toy that came with his meal, and handed it over to the smiling four-year-old. It wasn’t like the toy was very much—a small writing pad and a pack of mini pencil crayons to draw with. She supposed that was better than a cheap piece of plastic that would either break before he could play with it, or would get thrown in the garbage when he had no interest in it anymore.
He took the pad and pencil crayons, happy with whatever.
“Thanks, Lucia,” Diego said around a half-full mouth of the cheeseburger.
She grinned. “You’re welcome. Draw me something pretty, okay?”
“Okay!”
Diego went back to his food—distracted and pleased. Like usual. Lucia took that chance to lean backward on her heels, and peer around the side of the SUV. She found Renzo kneeling against the back of a white car, and just removing the final screw for the license plate. He’d already taken the one off the SUV, too.
He hadn’t explained why he was switching license plates yet again. However, they were sitting in a fucking fast food restaurant’s parking lot, and while they were parked in the back where no one could see them, it still made her nervous.
“Are you almost done?” she asked.
“Almost. Diego just about finished?”
Lucia gave the boy a look, and found he was still working on his cheeseburger and had half of his fries left. “Almost, but not really.”
Renzo chuckled as he stood up, and came around the back of their SUV. He moved to the side of Lucia where he could bend down to the ground, put the license plate on, and still keep out of view with her mostly blocking what he was doing. Diego moved to the edge of the hatch, and watched his older brother with a curious eye.
“What are you doing, Ren?” Diego asked.
“Making us harder to find again, that’s all.”
“Oh, okay. Like Hide and Seek?”
Renzo glanced up, and smiled at his brother. “Sure, just like that.”
Seemingly satisfied with his brother’s answer, Diego scooted back inside the hatch and bit into his burger again while scribbling on the notepad with a red pencil crayon. He wasn’t paying Lucia and Renzo any attention, now. Renzo quickly finished up his work of switching the license plates on the vehicles—well, he didn’t put their original stolen plates on the white car. Instead, he tossed it inside the SUV to keep it before coming to stand next to Lucia. That left the white car with no plate but it was unlikely the owner would even notice that until they got off their shift later in the day.
“You sure you don’t want some food?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“We’re not going to stop for a while.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“If you’re—”
“Why did you switch the license plates again?” she asked. “No, sorry … took the license plate from that car and also kept ours.”
“I told Diego why.”
Turning her back to the hatch, Renzo did the same. Lucia lowered her voice as she replied, “Yeah, but maybe I don’t believe that’s why.”
Renzo snuck an arm around her waist, pulled her in close, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Murmuring, he admitted, “You’re right. I was thinking it’d be better to switch the plates back to the old one after we cross over into Nebraska.”
“But why—”
“We need more money.”
Lucia stilled. “We have money, Ren.”
“Not enough. Not enough for Vegas.” His hand tightened on her waist, squeezing just hard enough to take her breath away but ground her all over again. Without a word, he tugged her around the SUV where Diego couldn’t see them. Renzo backed Lucia against the SUV, and came close enough that his nose brushed against hers. All she could see was him clouding her vision, and for a moment, the rest of the world just disappeared. She sucked in a quick breath a second before his lips grazed hers. “Vegas is the most expensive place to live—and we have to stay underground, so that’s going to make it worse. We’re gonna need shit, Lucia.”
“I know.”
“Fake IDs. A place to stay. That’s going to eat up a lot of cash all at once right there.”
Would it?
Lucia didn’t know.
“We need to eat, to sleep, to get dressed every day … more. Okay? So let me take care of it. Let me handle getting cash to do something with. You just keep Diego in the car, and keep him down out of sight until I get out of here. Then, we’re on the road again. No looking back, baby, right?”
“No looking back.”
He let her go then only to pull the gun he’d kept tucked in his waistband out of his jeans. Pulling out the mag, he checked the gun, and then quickly tucked it away once more. Passing the fast food restaurant a look, his attention came back to her in a blink. “I’ll hit somewhere as we head out of Nebraska.”
She knew, then.
He was going to rob a place.
Not this place, she didn’t think. He’d said elsewhere. Plus, it wouldn’t be smart for them to be seen going inside a place, and then one of them coming back in to rob it. That felt crazy.
Like all the rest of this wasn’t crazy, too.
Lucia could tell him no. She could have stopped him, but she didn’t. She only nodded.
Whatever he needed, she was going to do.
That’s why she came.
That’s why she was here.
For him.
TWO
Renzo kept the SUV running at the corner of a building that allowed it to stay hidden from the gas station across the
way. There, it wouldn’t get caught on camera like it would if he pulled the vehicle right into the parking lot. The side and back windows were tinted anyway, but not the front. He was trying to be safe.
Because nothing about this was sane.
He knew it.
What could he do, though?
In the passenger seat, Lucia stayed quiet as she waited for him to do or say something. Right then, Renzo was still trying to figure another way out of doing this. As it was, he’d already left a mess with each step he took to get further away from New York. Did he really want to leave one more mess behind that could be tied to him?
And on the other side of that, what would one more thing really mean in the grand scheme? Look at all he’d done—what was one more thing going to hurt at the end of the day?
The little devil on Renzo’s shoulder was loud.
“Ren?” Lucia asked softly.
His gaze drifted to her.
Sweet smile.
Knowing hazel eyes.
Reaching across the seats, his hand found her cheek. The second his hand touched her skin, her gaze lowered, and her lashes fluttered closed. Like she needed his touch, and he needed to touch her. There was something about this girl that brought him down from the clouds, and at the same time, kept him sky high.
“I’ll be five minutes, at most,” he murmured. “If I’m not out of there in five minutes, you’re to go.”
Lucia’s eyes flew wide at that statement, and thick panic stared back at him. “But—”
“Get in the driver’s seat and go.”
Her throat bobbed when she swallowed hard. “I can’t just go, Ren. I can’t go—”
“That’s what you’ll do because that’s what I need you to do. Got it?”
She still looked like she wanted to argue with him. Renzo didn’t know if arguing would do either of them any favors except keep them both right where they were. And fuck, maybe that would be the smarter idea. The two of them and Diego in that vehicle alone was a hell of a better place to be than jail or prison.
But he could do this. He knew he could. Hit the small convenience store, pop out the cameras as soon as he headed inside, and go straight for the counter. When he’d scoped it out by driving past, it didn’t look like the place was very busy, and the older gentleman behind the counter wasn’t going to be a problem as long as he did what he was told, and handed over the money. Renzo highly doubted anyone wanted to be a hero in the face of a robbery.
It should be simple.
Easy, really.
“Five minutes,” he repeated to Lucia.
Her jaw tightened, and her gaze dropped but she nodded. The relief that swept through him at that was good, but fleeting. He couldn’t sit here for much longer. It simply meant less time they were on the road and gone after this. He had to prioritize the shit he needed to do and the nonsense going on inside his head.
Like everything else lately.
Deal with one thing now, and something else later.
He passed a look into the backseat where Diego was currently halfway between falling asleep, and trying to finish scratching out what he thought was a cat on his small pad of paper. All it took was food, a few minutes driving, and the kid was ready to sleep again. He’d barely said a word the entire time they were driving. He was simply happy to follow his brother wherever Renzo was going to go, no questions asked.
No matter what, Renzo had to do right by that kid. That was the thing about this whole fucking mess—it wasn’t about Renzo, and it was not about Lucia. It had very little to do with them, or this thing of theirs that kept growing out of control like a weed. Oh, it was great, yes. He was going to do his very best to keep this girl at his side where she needed to be.
But the truth was simple—it really wasn’t about them.
This was about Diego, and Renzo had to remember that when other shit came in to play that took his focus away from where it needed to be. He needed to remember that regardless of what he was feeling, or the things that distracted him from the end goal, it was still going to be about Diego at the end of the day, and what he needed.
This was Renzo’s whole life.
He didn’t know how to do anything different.
His attention on Diego wasn’t missed, if Lucia’s next words were any indication.
“You know I’d look after him no matter what, right?” Lucia muttered, bringing his attention back to her. “I would, Ren.”
Renzo’s thumb stroked her cheek, and the action brought her gaze back up to meet his again. Russet met hazel, and for a moment, the rest of the world ceased to exist just like that. It was just him and her again. Nothing else could ever possibly matter to him when it was just them looking at one another.
“I know you would, Lucia,” he murmured.
Of course, she would.
She loved Diego.
He loved Diego.
He’d be taken care of, and at the end of the day, that’s the only thing that really made a difference to Renzo. This was all for his brother, anyway. To keep him safe, happy, and right where he needed to be. With Renzo.
“Good,” Lucia whispered, “I just wanted to make sure.”
“You don’t have to. I know.”
He’d known it from the moment she left everything behind to jump in a car with him and do something absolutely insane. She could have stayed when he left—New York would have been the easy, smart choice for her. She had money, status, and people. Enough money to certainly make her forget about him, if she wanted to use it to do just that. She had status in a world he could only really dream about—status that afforded her privilege and respect he had to earn while she had simply been given it for her last name. A whole family that would probably kill for her, but undoubtedly would give her the entire world simply because she was theirs. They could give her things he would never be able to.
New York would have been easier.
Smarter.
Even Renzo knew that.
And yet, she chose him.
She wanted him.
So yeah, he knew.
Leaning across the seat to get as close to Lucia as he could before he would have to force himself out of that SUV, his hand slid around to the back of her head, and drew her forward. Their lips met in a soft kiss. Her lips worked against his, and as sweet as the kiss had been at first, it quickly turned into something else entirely. Something desperate, and burning. Something harsh, and yet still lovely. Her fist clenched into the neckline of his T-shirt like she wasn’t going to let him go, and Renzo dragged the pad of his thumb down her collarbone as he pulled away just enough to let them breathe.
“Five minutes,” he repeated to her.
Lucia nodded again. “Okay.”
“Love you, Lucia.”
She smiled for that.
Of course.
“Love you, Ren.”
He knew that, too.
Ride or die.
• • •
Renzo’s boots hit the sidewalk lining the small convenience store just before the Nebraska border. A few miles away from here, and they’d be out of Iowa. His fucking heart suddenly felt like it was going to explode inside his chest. He hadn’t been cocky enough to think that he wouldn’t be nervous at all, but he hadn’t expected it to hit at once without any kind of warning, either.
Aching lungs.
Clenched fists.
Sweaty palms.
Fuck.
It wasn’t like him to be so overt with his emotions, either. He was typically better at hiding it. Hell, he’d beat a guy to death once for stealing from him, and while he felt like he was going to vomit the whole time, he’d been told his expression hadn’t changed from a cold, blank slate even once.
Apparently, this wasn’t going to be the same. Renzo didn’t know how to feel about that, honestly.
Get in, and get it done, his mind said.
Yeah, that sounded about right.
He’d shrugged on a hoodie before he left the SUV—a ba
ggy, black sweater with a hood just large enough to cover the top of the baseball cap he’d pulled on his head, too. As long as he kept his face tilted down, the brim of the hat would give his face some sort of cover as he looked for any cameras, and the hood would add extra shadows.
Would it be enough?
That was yet to be determined.
Renzo couldn’t really think about it for too long. He didn’t need to go down that rabbit hole when he was already two steps away from going inside the store, and far too many steps away from heading back to the SUV. Still, he knew the faster he got this done, then the quicker he could get back to where he wanted and needed to be.
It was that simple.
As he rounded the corner of the store, and reached for the entrance doors to pull it open, Renzo tossed one last look over his shoulder. He couldn’t see the SUV across the street and parked around the side of the building. But he knew it was there, and for some reason, just looking that way was enough to relax him a bit.
Not a whole lot.
But it helped.
It grounded and solidified his decision. Get in, and get it done. Then, he’d be right back there with them, and on the road again. That’s all he needed to do.
Renzo tightened his hold on the black duffle bag he’d taken from the back of the SUV after dumping out all of his clothes. As he swung the door open to the store, he stepped inside and reached in the bag to palm the butt of the gun resting at the bottom. Glancing upward, but not turning his head up so that his face could possibly be caught on camera, he eyed the most common spots for them and soon enough, found two.
He was aware of the woman at the back of the store digging through the fridges for a soda she wanted. He stepped aside for the man to leave the store with a pack of cigarettes tight in his grasp. He took note of the man behind the counter who was busy watching the game on the small television in the high, right corner.
He was hyperaware of all those things, really. It was like time slowed in his mind as he grabbed tighter to the gun, and readied to pull it out. Like everyone slowed down—everything caught his eye, and he took note of it in his mind—and his mind shifted again, just like that. All those nerves were gone, and that fast beat of his heart that felt like it was going to explode just moments before was now nothing more than a gentle thump-thump-thump in his chest.
