by Bethany-Kris
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
Lucian smiled grimly. “What is five years of your life worth, Renzo?”
“In here?”
“Being free … well, as free as they’ll let you be.”
“Who is they?”
“The League.”
Renzo shifted in the chair. “And what do they do, exactly?”
“Everything and anything.” Lucian glanced at his watch again, and scowled. “Time’s up—they’ll be knocking soon. Do you want to hear the deal, and the plan, or not?”
To do what?
“What’s it going to hurt?” Renzo asked.
A lot, he suspected.
It was going to hurt a lot.
“Five years of your life will be contracted to The League,” Lucian said, “as a repayment for their debt. They have rules about things … who you can contact, and how you will live in those five years, of course. But that is up to them and how they decide it should happen. They’ll train you. Teach you. To be something you never even considered before—to be something greater than who you are. Don’t we all want to be better, Renzo?”
Do better.
Be better.
He’d been repeating those words all his life.
He also heard freedom.
That meant Diego, Rose … Lucia.
“Five years?” Renzo asked again.
He didn’t care about the training. He didn’t know what the fuck Lucian was talking about. None of it mattered because the man had just given him a hand out to help him up when all he had ever done was kick Renzo down to the ground. He saw the truth looking back at him—Lucian was trying to do better.
He was trying to be better.
“Five years,” Lucian echoed. “They make the rules until that time is up.”
“How do you get me out of here, then?”
“When you’re extradited to Iowa, an event will happen. Let me worry about the details. You just keep yourself alive until then. This place is rough, I know. As for your brother and sister, because I know they’re probably on your mind, too … she now has a lawyer working pro bono on her case to get full custody of Diego. Well, pro bono to her, I guess. I’m the one who pays the bill for it.”
Jesus Christ.
Renzo swallowed the thickness forming in his throat. “Should I thank you?”
Lucian shook his head subtly. “Don’t thank me for what I am about to do to you.; for what they will do to you.”
Maybe that should have been Renzo’s warning.
He was still hearing the echoes of freedom.
What was five years?
Famous last words.
NINETEEN
Two months later …
Lucia scrolled down the screen of her phone, the Google results not giving her anything that she wanted. It didn’t seem to matter how many keywords she put into the search bar, nothing came up except blasts of the same kinds of articles over and over again. Articles that didn’t tell her a goddamn thing, really.
Bronx Man Charged with Kidnapping.
Zulla To Face The Judge On Kidnapping Charges.
Man Found Guilty of Kidnapping.
Process to Begin Extradition to Iowa For Robbery Charges On Bronx Man.
The real problem was when Lucia tried to find out where in Iowa Renzo had been taken—she was trying to plan a trip to visit him—she couldn’t find anything. She was convinced the damn prison registry was broken, or they had spelled his name wrong when he was brought in for the Iowa charges because even on that site, she couldn’t find anything. That didn’t mean she stopped looking because she never stopped looking for him. It felt kind of like she checked the internet less and less with each day that passed for a new update, but that didn’t mean she stopped looking.
God.
She had to know where he was now.
California had done its job for her, though. That was the only good thing that she counted in her favor these last couple of months. Oh, she still felt entirely lost and confused. Like she was drifting into the air with no rope to keep her safe and tied down to something on the ground. Like her heart was empty and her soul was missing entirely.
She still felt those things, yes.
They greeted her every morning like the tightness in her chest, and the coldness of the spot in the bed next to her. A constant friend that she didn’t particularly like, or want around, but here they were. Day in and day out. It put her to bed with tear stains on her pillow, and an ache in her gut.
California helped, if only a little bit. It kept her busy and getting ready to start school made sure she didn’t really have much else to think about except what she needed to do for it. She still felt robotic, in a way. Like she was just going through the motions, but not living.
What was the point?
Her life was somewhere else entirely.
She wasn’t as angry, now, but she believed that was only because she wasn’t faced with her father every single day. She knew the anger was still there, if only distant in her mind, because when she was faced with the possibility of talking to her father … it came rushing back like a wave determined to take her under and drown her with its poison.
Lucia never realized just how much anger and contempt she could harbor for someone she loved until now. And what a fucking complex that was, really. To love and hate someone at the same time. Still, she wasn’t the kind of person to blatantly hurt someone just because she couldn’t get in control of her feelings, except she had done that to her father before leaving for California, so she knew putting distance between them was the best option.
That distance was closing now.
By the second.
Lucia still wasn’t sure she was ready for it. In fact, that anger was already starting to burn hot and destructive inside her gut all over again. She was going to have to face her brother, who took Renzo away. And her father, who didn’t seem to understand all he had done to hurt her. She was going to have to make nice, or try, and it was the very last thing she wanted to do, really.
Maybe coming home for Christmas break was a mistake. Not that she had really been given a choice. Her father left a message on her phone—because she still refused to pick up a call from him directly—stating he had bought her ticket, and she would find it in her email. She was to make sure she was on the plane to come home for Christmas … nothing more, and nothing less would be acceptable.
She shouldn’t be here at all.
It was too late to back out now.
“What are you trying to find over there?”
Lucia was quick to turn the screen of her phone off and shove it back in her bag at her mother’s question. In the driver’s seat, Jordyn offered her a small smile and Lucia did her best to return it. She didn’t think her smile reached her eyes like it usually would because Jordyn was quick to press her lips together in a thin line before going back to watching the road as she drove.
“You’re still angry, then,” her mother said softly.
Was it that obvious?
Did that agony in her heart just burn through her eyes?
“I feel like I wasn’t given a choice about coming home for Christmas, and I don’t feel like this is the best time of the year to make nice with Daddy and John … or anyone, really.”
“Lucia, they love you.”
“I’m not sure that makes it better. Worse, actually.”
Jordyn sighed, and shook her head but never took her eyes off the road in front of her. “Okay, well then let’s talk about something different. Not them … how about you?”
Lucia eyed her mother from the side, not at all sure where Jordyn was trying to go with this conversation. “What about me, Ma?”
“How’s prep for starting school?”
“It keeps me from wishing I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.”
Lucia didn’t miss the way her mother’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel so much that her knuckles turned white from the pressu
re. She figured her mother didn’t want to think about her daughter depressed and alone in California, dealing with the kind of emotional baggage that no eighteen-year-old should have to deal with … but she asked.
Hadn’t she?
Lucia was trying to tell the truth more often, now.
It was freeing.
Too bad it wouldn’t get rid of the contempt that she constantly harbored, now.
“You know,” her mother said, her voice barely above a whisper, “even if you don’t want to be here with us for Christmas, just know that we want you here, Lucia. I know you’re angry. I know you feel alone, but we’re still here, too. Okay?”
Lucia heard her mother, but she didn’t feel very much about her words. She watched the buildings pass them by in the city as they headed for the suburbs going ten over the limit.
“Lucia,” her mom said again. “Okay?”
She turned to glance at her ma, then. “No, it’s not okay.”
That was the problem.
She wasn’t okay.
This wasn’t okay.
It was never going to be okay.
Ever.
• • •
Lucia found it was easier to focus on the television, and the drama unfolding on the reality show than it was the person who darkened the entryway to the living room of her parents’ home. She’d heard him come in, talk to their mom, and even … slyly ask about her like it was going to make a difference to whether or not she wanted to talk to him.
It didn’t make a difference.
She still didn’t want to talk to him.
Her brother also didn’t seem like he was going to give her a choice. What great fun this Christmas break was turning out to be, honestly. If her family would just get the hint and leave her to be on her own, then Lucia might find the moments she had to spend with them to be easier to swallow.
Instead, they kept trying to force their presence on her.
Like now.
“So hey, do you want to talk to me today, or what?” John asked, leaning in the entryway a little more.
Lucia didn’t even look away from the show on the television. She wasn’t at all interested in this garbage—it did nothing to fulfill her mind, but it was better than talking to her brother. She was still angry at John. Part of her didn’t want to be, but if she let go of the anger burning in her chest and the contempt that felt like it was constantly holding her hand, then what else would she have left?
Nothing but herself.
And emptiness.
God knew she would rather be fire-red and ready to fight than sad, quiet, and alone. Lucia didn’t expect them to understand, really.
“No,” she said flatly.
She didn’t miss the way John flinched at her dry tone.
“I tried to call you while you were in California.” John cleared his throat. “Every couple of weeks.”
Yeah, and she ignored every one of those calls, too.
That should have told him something.
Clearly, it didn’t. Or he was just stubborn enough like her father that he was willing to keep trying even if that only made her anger with him ten times worse.
“Maybe my phone doesn’t work there,” she said, keeping that flat tone all the while.
“I think it does, Lucia.”
“Then maybe that’s a sign, John.”
John sucked in air through his teeth, and quieted for a moment. She stupidly hoped that meant he was going to drop this whole attempt at shitty conversation with her, and go on his way. Maybe when she was feeling up to engaging him on another day, they could try again.
Today was not that fucking day.
Tomorrow didn’t look great, either.
“You’ve been back from California for a couple of weeks, kiddo,” John said. “I thought—”
She turned on him, then, her gaze burning with the intensity of the sudden rush of anger that flooded her veins like nothing else. She had never been one to have an anger problem, but it sure seemed like she did now. A single word could send her spiraling, really. Like right now.
“Don’t ever fucking call me that again, John,” Lucia hissed.
He stiffened. “What—kiddo? I’ve always called you that.”
“Not anymore.”
God, let it go, John. That’s what she wanted to tell him more than anything. If he kept this up, she was going to hurt him the same way she did everyone else who got in her path lately, but especially if their last name was Marcello. It was like she couldn’t help herself. They were a constant reminder of the person who had been taken away from her.
John wasn’t giving up that easily, it seemed.
Kind-hearted like their mother.
Stubborn like their father.
“How’s California? You’ve been there for a couple of months now.” He didn’t seem to mind that she just continued staring at him with a cold gaze, all the while, saying nothing at all. Finally, her brother murmured, “You could at least talk to me, Lucy.”
Lucia wasn’t stupid. She knew he was only using Lucy because John was aware she hated that nickname even more than the kiddo one. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t falling for that damn bait. She wasn’t a fish about to gulp the whole hook down all at once.
“California is hot,” she said, unaffected.
There, if he wanted conversation, here it was. She couldn’t offer much more, though.
“Yeah, I bet,” he murmured.
“I start classes during the second semester. Next month after I go back.”
She hadn’t been ready to start right when she went to California. She’d visited the school a couple of times, got all the things she was going to need to be comfortable, settled into her new place, and tried to … feel better. None of it worked. Color her surprised.
“You’re all settled in, though?” John asked.
“Guess so.”
Lucia had to wonder, in those moments, if her brother felt as awkward about this conversation as she did. Could he tell how disinterested she was in even being in the same room as him? Because this was killing her, and not in a way that was going to be good for him. It drove her crazy how just looking at her brother could send her anger spinning—how staring at him in the face, one that was so familiar and used to be comforting to her, could now make her remember every single second of him coming into that apartment to rip her away from Renzo and Diego with a painful clarity.
Did he know what he had done, yet?
Did he appreciate her pain?
She doubted it.
“You were supposed to be my best friend, John,” Lucia whispered.
She looked his way again, but this time, she wanted him to see more than her anger. The telltale prickle behind her eyes said far more than she could. A single tear escaped, and it made a track line down her cheek. Quickly, she wiped the wetness away, and let out a hard breath.
How long had it been since she cried?
Oh, yeah.
Last night.
Like every damn night.
“You shouldn’t have run off like that,” John said simply.
Lucia didn’t even know what to say to that because clearly, no, her brother did not understand why she was angry with him still. Some part of him still felt like he was in the right, and she was just going to move on. That was never going to happen. All she could do in reply to that was keep silent, and clench her jaw to keep back the words that threatened to spew out of her mouth.
“I was hoping you might let me apologize, and we could spend some time together while you’re visiting,” John said, shifting from one foot to the other in the entryway. “But even at Christmas, you ignored me.”
That was a joke, right?
What was he going to apologize for?
Something he didn’t think was wrong?
God.
They were all hypocrites.
And hell no, she wasn’t going to talk to him at Christmas dinner when she had barely even managed to swallow her dinner without
feeling like she was choking on every bite because of who else was in the room.
“Perhaps you should take a fucking hint, then,” Lucia snapped.
“Lucia.” His sharp tone did nothing for her. She refused to speak. Not that it mattered to her brother. He just opted to try a different direction again, asking, “What made you get mixed up with a guy like Renzo, anyway? Didn’t I tell you not to mess with boys like that?”
Lucia couldn’t help it.
She laughed at that.
A bitter, dark laugh that should have warned her brother. Those words were coming quicker than he was going to be able to handle them. Words that would cut him deep, and ones she wouldn’t be able to take back. Not that she was even sure she wanted to take back all the things she had said to him, or anyone else who pushed her just a little too far.
“Like him?” she asked, cocking a brow. “John, you and every other man in our family are no better than him. Except what? We’ve got money, and you guys wear nice suits and drive expensive cars. So, you’ve got a last name that gives you respect, and a family legacy that affords you privilege.”
Lucia shook her head, refusing to back off even a little bit as she added, “And guys like him? They come from the streets, and hustle every day of their lives just to survive. Did you know he was paying for his sister’s private schooling? Nobody else paid for it. He was trying to let her be something when they came from nothing. Where do you think that left her? Or his little brother—his parents fucked off years ago. Where does that leave the boy? Don’t worry, I’m sure his sister—who can’t go to school anymore—took him, or better yet, maybe a nice foster family picked him up.”
John blinked.
Fuck, yeah.
Even Lucia could hear the contempt burning in her voice. Her bitterness was bred so deep now, she was never going to be able to get it out.
Her brother didn’t seem to know what to say, and Lucia liked that just fine.
“Fuck you with your guys like him shit,” she said, fists balling into her lap so tight that her fingernails cut into her palms. Pain was something, though. It meant she was feeling something, and something was better than nothing at the moment. “So, you’ve got money and a suit, but that’s all you’ve fucking got, too.”
