by Bethany-Kris
“Is that your guy?” he asked.
Lucia’s brow dipped as she looked the way he pointed. At the car waiting just beyond the front doors of the hotel, and the man standing next to the back passenger door. “How did you know that was my driver? Are you following me?”
Renzo glanced down at her, and arched a brow. “He’s driving a black car, is wearing a suit, and looked like he might come at me as soon as I dragged you out of the front doors. That all spells Marcello enforcer to me. No, I’m not fucking following you.”
But he wanted to.
She could hear it in his voice.
Lucia didn’t know what to think of that.
She glanced back at the man waiting by the car, and nodded. “Yeah, that’s my car.”
“Good, get in.” He didn’t exactly give her the chance to argue. Before she knew what happened, he was pushing her into the backseat, and leaning in the door. “Just smile, okay?”
“I don’t understand why you just came up like that and—”
“I don’t know what his angle is,” Renzo uttered.
“Who, Christian?”
Renzo nodded. “Yeah, him.”
“He’s a businessman from Italy. I met him at the gallery where I work.”
The laugh that came out of Renzo’s mouth could only be described as bitter. Nothing else would fit the bill. It kind of shocked Lucia how harsh it sounded, and yet, the contrast of how good he looked doing it was bad for her insides.
So fucking bad.
His gaze leveled on her again, quieting her instantly. “Christian Savino is a hell of a lot more than just a businessman from Italy, and that’s only a portion of my problem right now.”
He didn’t let her say anything else before he closed the car door. She watched, confused, as he said a couple of quick words to the enforcer outside of the car before rounding the back, and sliding in the other side.
The driver got in, too.
Soon, they were on the road.
All the while, Lucia glanced back and forth between the window, and Renzo beside her. Oh, sure, he kept a distance between them. A good two feet on the seat, but still … she could feel his warmth, and smell him. He was too close, and yet, not nearly close enough. All of those emotions she had been suppressing suddenly felt like rushing right back to the surface all over again.
Holy hell.
She really was a complete mess.
“Where have you been?” she asked him.
Renzo glanced over at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Why haven’t you answered me back? Why haven’t you called me? Did you ever even fucking look for me, Ren? How long have you been out? Are you just … off living your life without even giving a second thought about me? Is that what you’re doing now?”
Something darkened his gaze.
Pain, maybe?
Lucia didn’t know.
“What—”
“I have thought about you every single day. Have you ever thought about me?”
Renzo blinked.
In a second—a breath—he was across the seat, and right in front of her. Those hands of his grabbed tight to her jaw, and he pulled her in. The kiss burned, but oh, it felt so fucking good, too. The way his lips melded against hers was hard enough to bruise. The dance was familiar, though. As was the taste of him, and the way every single part of him seemed to surround her, and the way the rest of the world disappeared. His tongue struck out against the seam of her lips, and she couldn’t help but open up just to get a taste of him.
Yeah, all these years …
It still felt like yesterday.
It was crazy.
So good.
And bad, too.
All too soon, Renzo pulled away, and let out a shuddering exhale though he stayed close to her. Close enough that his lips grazed hers as he murmured, “I have waited five fucking years to do that again.”
A tear escaped, then.
Lucia didn’t wipe it away.
“I can’t explain …” Renzo shook his head. “Ask your father, Lucia. Ask him about the deal.”
She blinked. “Okay.”
What else could she say?
“To the hospital, Miss?” the enforcer asked from the front of the car.
Lucia cleared her throat as Renzo gave her a bit of room, and she finally felt like she could breathe again. “Yeah, thanks.”
She suspected the enforcer might have known about the fact her father was sick, as he was usually the one taking her to the hospital. So, she didn’t feel like she had to watch her tongue around him.
Renzo gave her a look. “You’re not sick, are you?”
It was second nature … just a slip of the tongue. “My dad—cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
She frowned. “Yeah, me too.”
But probably for entirely different reasons.
• • •
“Daddy?”
Lucian looked up from where the nurse was readying his port to take the line, and smiled at Lucia standing in the doorway of the hospital room. “Lucia, come sit with me, sweetheart.”
She stayed where she was for now.
Her father didn’t miss it.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
She gave the nurse a look, and her father seemed to understand. It was only when the nurse had finished her work, and the treatment had started that they were left alone to their peace and privacy. Once the door was closed, Lucia came to sit beside her father. She could feel him watching her, but she could only stare at her hands in her lap.
She felt too much.
She thought too much.
It was all way too much.
Renzo had walked her into the hospital, but then he said he had to go. He didn’t explain anything else, or say when he might be back. He just left, and she was left more confused and hurt than ever.
She didn’t want to feel like this.
“Did you know Renzo’s back?” she asked, giving her father a look from the side. He said nothing, but maybe that was how she knew that yes, her father was aware. Lucian was quick to deny when he didn’t know something—he wouldn’t bother if he had to lie about it. “You know, I always wondered what happened to him because … he just disappeared after he was transferred out of Rikers, and removed from the state’s custody for his other set of charges. It was like he didn’t exist—it was all gone.”
Lucian still stayed quiet.
Lucia didn’t mind.
“But he’s back, and it seems like he’s probably been somewhere for a while. He said … I should ask you, Daddy. Something about a deal, I guess.”
Her father cleared his throat. “Did he now?”
“Yes. You don’t sound surprised.”
“That he found his way back to you? No. That he couldn’t stay away? No.” Lucian smiled when Lucia’s head snapped up, and her gaze slammed into his. “Things always find a way—life has taught me that.”
She had so many questions.
None of them came out, though.
“Renzo is not the same as he used to be,” her father said, “and that’s partly my fault. That deal he mentioned … it has to do with people in Vegas and something that happened while you two were there five years ago. Someone died, Lucia, and he had to answer for it.”
She blinked, realizing …
“Do you mean Tucker?”
Her dad tipped his head to the side, saying nothing.
“Daddy, that wasn’t Ren—”
“I know,” Lucian murmured. “But that changed nothing between him and I … not to mention, them. The young man who died was involved in something bigger than what it probably looked like, and someone had to pay for that death. A deal was made between me, Renzo, and the organization. A … company called The League.”
“What is The League?”
Lucian laughed weakly. “That’s not as easy to answer, but I guess you could say they train people to do a great many things.”
Tha
t told her nothing.
“Like what?”
“Bad things; good things,” Lucian replied. “I’m not sure you would understand if I did attempt to—”
“Just say it.”
Lucian sighed. “An easy description would be that they train assassins, but it’s not as simple as that. Many of their members have a very specialized set of skills—they’re contracted out to people in four- or five-year increments, if that’s what they want to do.”
Lucia stilled. “A what?”
“You heard what I said,” her father returned quietly. “In his case—Renzo’s—he couldn’t choose to be contracted out for a term. He had to pay back a debt, so his contract was going to happen regardless. That was the deal. Five years of his life given to The League, and he had to follow their rules and demands during that time. I believe, from what I know, that one of those things was for him to stay away from here, and … well, you, too.”
Jesus Christ.
Was this real life?
“I have more questions,” Lucia admitted.
Lucian nodded. “Later, maybe? I’m feeling nauseous.”
Yeah, chemo was a bitch like that.
They didn’t get a later to talk about it. Just as her father was finishing his chemo treatment, and the nurse had come in to remove the port, two men darkened the doorway of the hospital room. She saw them first, and felt the pain that radiated from both of her uncles.
Giovanni.
Dante.
“Lucian,” Gio said quietly.
Yet, firmly.
Lucia saw her father’s back stiffen as he was reaching for his phone on the table next to the chair he used to sit in when he was getting his treatments. He straightened a hell of a lot slower than she had ever seen him do before, and turned around even slower to face his brothers where they stood in the doorway.
For a long time, nobody spoke.
They just … stared.
“Why?” Dante asked finally, breaking the silence. “Why, Lucian?”
Her father’s secret was out.
“How did you learn?” Lucian asked his brother.
Dante’s gaze darted to Lucia, and then went back to her father. “The driver for your daughter—he heard her say you were sick, and … word came around.”
“You mean, he ran right to you.”
“Yeah, well,” Dante countered, shrugging.
Gio laughed bleakly. “It should have been you. You should have been the one to tell us.”
“I have cancer,” her father snapped. “I don’t owe anyone anything.”
“Daddy,” Lucia whispered, “be nice.”
Chemo made him pissed, sometimes. Like that bad mood only got worse, but she understood. Her uncles might not, though.
Lucian looked her way, and then back to his brothers. “I was trying … to handle it.”
“Alone, though?” Gio asked. “We could have—”
“What?” Lucian asked, though Lucia heard it in his tone. The pain—the ache. He was tired, and he didn’t want to do this today. “What, Gio, watch me get sick? Watch them pump poison into me so that it can kill another kind of poison? Watch me struggle to eat because it makes me want to puke? Watch me take twenty minutes to crawl into bed because I’m fucking exhausted? What do you want to help me with?”
“All of it,” Dante said, softer than she had ever heard her uncle speak. “We would help for all of it, Lucian, whether you want us to see it or not.”
Lucia saw the fight leave her father, then. Sure, she had more things to ask him, especially about Renzo, but it could and would wait for another day. They had other things—more important things—to handle right now.
She slipped out of the hospital room to let her father and uncles have some privacy, but not before glancing over her shoulder as she closed the door.
The three men inside were hugging.
And crying.
She closed the door.
The world didn’t get to see that. Not her father’s breakdown, his brothers’ fear, or their pain.
Ever.
NINE
Renzo kept his head down as he walked down the block leading toward his hotel room. The phone in his ear kept ringing with no goddamn answer, which only pissed him off more. He’d been trying to get ahold of Dare for the last two hours—since he left Lucia at the hospital with her driver.
No answer.
Or rather, Dare just wasn’t picking up the phone because he was being a complete asshole. Maybe he was in a mood about someone else, or maybe he was in a mood about Renzo, specifically, but he bet that was the problem. Not that Dare couldn’t answer his phone—the guy always had at least three on him—but that he simply didn’t want to.
Renzo went another route.
Cree.
No matter what was going on, Cree would pick up his phone if it was someone from The League calling him. He might not be nice when he answered, but he would do it.
Renzo entered the lobby of the hotel just as Cree picked up the phone with a low, dark, “What?”
“Sleeping?” Renzo asked.
“Resting my eyes.”
Right.
That’s what Cree always said when someone caught him napping. It was like the guy didn’t want to admit that he was just as human as everyone else around him. No, he wanted to be superhuman—or at the very least, make everyone else believe that was the case.
“What do you want?” Cree asked, his words mumbled a bit. “Don’t you still have a job to do, New York? Lucky you that it’s in New York now, huh?”
Renzo scowled. “Yeah, lucky.”
That was one way to put it.
More like entirely fucked up.
Now was not the time.
Renzo went back to his problem. “Why isn’t Dare picking up my calls?”
Cree grunted. “That’s your problem? Because that sounds like Dare is sick of your shit for the moment.”
“No, that is part of my problem. First this, then we’ll talk about the second part of it.”
“Ren, I don’t know why he isn’t picking up your calls, all right? And I’m not interested in hearing you whine about it, either.”
Nice.
Really.
“I’ve been compromised,” Renzo said, figuring it was better to just get that shit out there and over with quickly. Then, maybe Cree would see this wasn’t just another regular call from Renzo where he rankled their chains. Sure, he pulled shit on them sometimes, but when there was a real problem, he wasn’t the fucking idiot crying wolf. They knew that. “The Savino prick—he saw me, we shared words.”
For a long while, Cree was silent. Sometimes, that could mean bad things, but other times, it just meant Cree was thinking. Problem was, it was often hard to tell the difference between the two things. Especially when one wasn’t looking him right in the face.
“What words did you share with the Italian?” Cree finally asked.
Renzo sighed. “Nothing bad—I stepped in on a situation to divert what was happening.”
He mentally patted himself on the back for not outing the fact that he stepped in on a conversation Christian had been having with Lucia because he was, in fact, an idiot. A jealous idiot who didn’t like the fact that Christian was touching her, grinning at her, and getting closer by the second. Not to mention, giving her his phone number it seemed like. Why else would the prick be holding her phone and typing into it?
Sure, he didn’t like the fact that the guy seemed interested in Lucia given his business, but it wasn’t like Christian was any different than the other men in Lucia’s life, or even Renzo, for that matter. They were all bad men. He couldn’t say that was why he stepped in—he could blame it entirely on jealousy, though.
Because yeah, he was an idiot.
Cree made a noise under his breath before finally saying, “I know what Dare would tell you, so that’s what I’m going to say.”
“Shoot,” Renzo muttered.
He’d not even left the lobby of
the hotel because, depending on how this conversation went would determine what Renzo did after this. Whether he went upstairs, packed, and got the hell out of this city … or if he stayed. And if he did stay, well, there was a woman in this city who he figured that he owed an explanation to.
Lucia, that was.
After that car ride earlier … yeah, he owed her something.
A lot.
It scared him to death, and he wasn’t one to feel fear. He shouldn’t be scared of Lucia, but in a way, next to the love in his heart for her … the fear was ever-present, too. Because how might this end between the two of them—with her walking away?
God.
Renzo wouldn’t be able to take that.
Nope.
He was not the same as he had once been. He was not the same person.
And she didn’t ask for this.
Neither had he.
“Are you listening to me?” Cree demanded.
Renzo blinked out of his thoughts. Not really, he thought, but instead, said, “Yeah, keep going.”
He’d catch up to whatever Cree said, surely. There was no need to make the man think he wasn’t listening, That would only piss Cree off, and the last thing Renzo needed was the man making a trip to New York to kick his ass because he felt like it. Knowing Cree, he absolutely would do it, too.
“Mmm, sure,” Cree muttered. “I said, the job remains the same. Keep an eye on the Italian, and report back like you were told to do. Compromised or not, that doesn’t change the fact that you know how to follow someone without being seen. As long as you’re not constantly stepping in on Christian or his people, then I highly doubt he’s going to notice you’re even around, Renzo.”
“But—”
“I’m not done.” Cree sighed, and shifted on the other end of the phone. “Listen, there must be a reason why M wanted this man followed, and for you to do it. He’s never sent you out on a job like this before—it’s always something bigger, or he let The League contract you out for a job. So, this is … something. Maybe you don’t need all the details, and that’s why you didn’t get them. I don’t know. Point is, the job remains the same. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
