by Bethany-Kris
Renzo frowned.
He shouldn’t tell Cree what was on the tip of his tongue, but the words felt like they were about to come out without his permission, anyway. But if there was anyone he trusted from The League, it was Cree.
Besides, without explaining the full extent of the compromise he’d made of himself with the job, then Cree might not be giving him the right advice. If that came back on Renzo, then so fucking be it. He would handle it. But it wouldn’t be just him who would answer for it—Cree would have to, as well.
That wasn’t fair.
“The compromise had to do with Lucia Marcello,” Renzo said quieter. “She was involved, and still is.”
There.
He said it.
Renzo waited Cree’s silence out again. The man knew the rules of Renzo’s contract with The League, and M. He knew the rules that were expected of him, and that under no circumstances, was he to break them.
Would that change things?
Possibly.
When Cree didn’t say anything after a minute, Renzo spoke again. “There is more at play here in this job than just the Italian. It’s Lucia, too. I’m not good for this job, Cree, not when things like her also are in play.”
Finally, Cree sighed. “He expected that, actually, and the job remains the same. Lucia or no Lucia, you stay and do your job.”
“Who expected what?” Renzo demanded.
“All of them, Ren.”
What?
Cree hung up the phone before Renzo could ask that question. Shit.
Frustrated, Renzo spun on his heel to head back out of the hotel’s lobby. Hell, if he was going to have to stay in this city, then he had things to take care of while he was here. He damn near tripped over his own two feet at the sight waiting for him just beyond the exit doors.
Lucian Marcello, in a three-piece suit and looking ready for the day to be over, leaned against the back door of a black Mercedes. He’d folded his arms over his chest, and his gaze nailed into Renzo. There was no way for him to act like he hadn’t seen the man when he was looking right at him.
Fuck.
He hated black cars now. They always reminded him of Capos on the streets, and the Marcellos coming for him in San Francisco. He’d bought three vehicles for himself since starting at The League, and not a single one of them were black for those reasons.
Lucian tipped his head to the side, and crooked a finger at Renzo as if to silently demand he come closer. Great, now he was regaled to the likes of a puppy. A simple gesture or a single word was going to send him running.
Renzo pushed his thoughts out of his mind, and headed out of the hotel. “Did you come here to tell me to stay the hell away from Lucia, then?”
Lucian arched a brow. “Is that what you want me to say?”
No.
Not at all.
Instead, Renzo muttered, “What do you want?”
Stepping away from the car, Lucian opened the back door, and then nodded at the inside of the car. “Get in?”
“So, I can never get back out?” Renzo asked.
Lucian gave him a look. “I see your smart mouth has become sharper over these last few years.”
Renzo shrugged. “Yeah, well, gotta keep something for myself.”
“Get in the fucking car, young man.”
Hell, that was better than the kid he used to call Renzo.
Unfortunately, Lucian didn’t seem like he was joking, or that he was giving Renzo a choice about getting in the car. Renzo stepped in, and the door shut behind him. Lucian slipped into the car on the other side, and the driver up front barely looked at the two of them in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the hotel’s lot. They drove for a good forty-five minutes, long enough to be all the way on the other side of the city, or damn near, before Lucian started speaking again.
“I want to make sure you know what you’re doing here—with Lucia, I mean. She’s … strong, or that’s how she seems,” Lucian murmured, never looking away from the window. “So strong and stubborn, in fact, that I can count on two hands the amount of times she’s had a real conversation with me before these last few weeks that she’s been back home. She hated me for what happened, and perhaps, rightfully so. She’s more like me than I gave her credit for, too. I always thought my boy was more like me than any of my daughters, but clearly, I was wrong.”
“Why is that?”
“Only Lucia can hold a grudge like me.”
Renzo chuckled.
Even Lucian grinned a bit.
“Nonetheless,” Lucian added, still watching the buildings pass them by, “she seems strong, but there is still a very broken part of her that is barely holding it together. I suspect it falls back to what happened, and you, but she keeps it guarded. I want to make sure you understand that—you’re back in her life, then you need to recognize her—”
“Wait, you came to talk to me about how I should treat Lucia?”
Because wow, that was a one-eighty from the Lucian he used to know. The Lucian he used to know would have threatened to cut off his arms for stepping anywhere near his daughter.
Lucian finally glanced away from the window, and gave Renzo a tired smile. “Things have changed, haven’t they? I thought you knew that when I came to visit you in the prison with the offer about The League?”
Maybe so.
Renzo had still wondered if it really did change, though.
“I heard you’re sick,” Renzo said quietly.
Lucian’s jaw hardened for a second, but just as quickly, he nodded. Using one hand, he grabbed the edge of his suit jacket and the silk shirt underneath. Moving the fabrics to the side, he flashed the port in his chest.
Renzo swallowed hard. “Sorry about that.”
And he was.
Regardless of the shit between them, the bridges burned, and all the things that still needed to be said about what happened, Renzo wouldn’t wish sickness on anyone. He just wouldn’t—he wasn’t the type.
“Don’t pity me—I hate that.”
“I feel a lot of things for you, Lucian, and pity isn’t one of them. That doesn’t mean I can’t apologize for something horrible that’s happening to you. It isn’t the same thing. That’s called sympathy and empathy. Despite whatever you might think The League did to me, they didn’t take away the fact I am human. They just made me a stronger one.”
“A better one, maybe,” Lucian murmured.
Maybe.
Renzo wasn’t going to think about it.
“The five-year deal isn’t up yet with The League, correct?” Lucian asked him.
Goddamn.
“I know the five-year deal isn’t up yet,” Renzo returned, aching in his chest with every word that he spoke. “Trust me, I know exactly how much longer I have before it is. I know every single day.”
That was an understatement. He probably knew it down to the minute if he wanted to be honest, but he didn’t think Lucian needed to know those details. Some things were just better left unsaid in the grand scheme.
“I know in those five years,” Lucian continued, “that she was something you were supposed to stay clear of, yes?”
Renzo blinked.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“But you’ll keep an eye on her while you’re here in the city, won’t you? Keep her out of danger, I assume.”
“You don’t even have to ask that.”
Lucian nodded. “Good. Karver?”
The driver at the front of the car finally glanced in the rearview. “Yes, boss?”
“The Cordial, if you wouldn’t mind, please. We’ll drop our companion off there for the evening.”
“A hotel across the bridge?” Renzo asked. “Because I would prefer to go back to my hotel in Brooklyn.”
Lucian shrugged, but said nothing.
All too soon, the car came to a stop in front of the hotel in question. Lucian leaned over in the seat, and opened the door for Renzo to get out. He stared at the front of the hotel, and wondered wha
t in the fuck was going on.
“Lucia changed hotels after leaving the hospital earlier,” Lucian said. “I thought you might like to know where she was staying now.”
Renzo’s gaze widened as an understanding dawned on him. This was her hotel, and Lucian, the man he thought would never willingly take Renzo to her had just done exactly that. And he didn’t look the slightest bit bothered by it.
Huh.
What was happening?
“Step out,” Lucian said, “I’m tired and I know my wife is worried as I haven’t gotten home yet, and today has been the worst of days.”
Renzo didn’t ask why, or question the man. He stepped out of the car, and then closed the door behind him. The very next second after he did that, the car pulled away from the side of the drop off, and disappeared out onto the street with the rest of the traffic.
He was stuck staring after it.
He thought two things, then.
One, he still owed Lucia that explanation.
Two, Lucian didn’t ask about his job or why he was in this city. Renzo wondered if that was because the man didn’t have to—did he already know?
TEN
Lucia knew it was Renzo behind the hotel door before she even opened it. How? Well, that she wasn’t sure, but she knew nonetheless.
“Hey,” Renzo murmured, never stepping beyond the threshold of her room. “You busy?”
There was a lot of things Lucia wished she could make sense of in those seconds—like the way her heart was screaming for this man, and yet, still hurt like hell, too. Or the fact that she finally felt a little less empty and alone because he was near, but she still seemed entirely too cold at the same time.
It had been so long since they were this close.
She still loved him.
Lucia shook her head. “No, I’m not busy.”
Renzo smiled a little. A ghost of a smile. It teased the corners of his lips, but didn’t lift up entirely. “Are you going to let me come in, then?”
“Not sure.”
“Why is that?”
“I hurt all the time. I don’t want to hurt more because I let you come in tonight.”
There.
She said it.
Renzo could make of that what he wanted.
He leaned against the doorjamb, and hooked one combat boot over the other as he looked her over. He was bad for her senses, she decided. Bad for her heart, and the rest of her, too. He made her stomach do flipflops, and her blood rushed through her veins. There was nothing else like Renzo Zulla that could get her heartrate picking up as fast as he did.
It was crazy.
“How about I talk, then, and you can decide what you want to do,” he said.
Lucia wet her lips, and glanced past him to the empty hallway. “Here like this?”
“You make the calls. It’s all about you.”
Yeah, she wished.
Unfortunately, very little was ever about her. He was also in the equation here. She didn’t for one second think he had come just for her. He came because he wanted to, and so yeah, here he was.
“How did you know where I was staying?” Lucia asked.
“Your father, actually.”
Lucia stiffened. “What?”
“Your dad let me know. Dropped me off, if I’m being honest.”
What?
She was starting to feel like a fucking parrot that repeated everything because she couldn’t make sense of it, and saying it out loud was the only thing she knew how to do instead. But that didn’t make sense.
Her dad?
Since when did Lucian care about letting Renzo within breathing distance of Lucia? Never, that’s when.
Renzo laughed like he could read her mind. “Yeah, that’s probably how I looked when I figured it out, too.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” he said, waving a hand. “Anyway, can I talk and then you can decide where we go from there?”
Well, what choice did she have? Sure, she could say no, but that didn’t mean she wanted to. In fact, that was the exact opposite from what she wanted. She had questions—Renzo was the only person with the right answers. If he wasn’t the one to tell her, then how was she ever going to know? How was she ever going to get rid of this constant, heavy feeling in her heart that never seemed to leave her alone?
She wouldn’t.
Not without him to help.
“Talk,” Lucia said.
Renzo cleared his throat, and that gaze of his darted back up to meet hers. In a second, she was silenced. All it took was his eyes on her—pinning her in place and making her feel like the only thing in his world—for her to be thrust back five years to a better time when all of this shit hadn’t happened, and she hadn’t been alone without him for far too long.
Back when they had been different people.
A boy with a leather jacket.
A girl with a trust fund.
Two people who were young, dumb, and loved each other enough to do anything as long as they were doing it together. She didn’t know if they were still those people, or if the time and distance between them had changed them into someone else.
He looked the same, sure.
And he didn’t look the same, too.
“You know,” Renzo said, breaking the silence between them, “the first thing I did when I started making money was put Diego in a private school for Rose.”
“I bet she appreciated that.”
Renzo nodded. “Do you want to know the second thing?”
“Sure.”
“I tried to hire a private investigator to find you.”
Lucia’s heart clenched. “Oh.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t work because, at the time, I didn’t realize how much control The League had over my life. Instead of getting any information from the investigator, I got a warning from The League. Five years—that was the deal. I owed them five years of my life, my time, and my skills, and during that time … well, they decided how I got to spend it. And you were not one of the things they allowed me to have, you know? I mean, they told me some things here and there. Mostly to fuck with me, I think, and keep me in line.”
Her brow dipped. “Things like what?”
“Do you remember a guy named Derek?”
It took her a second, and then another before she connected the name to a memory. “A friend in college was going to a concert with a new guy she was dating, but he had friend that wanted to come along, too.”
“Derek,” Renzo said.
Lucia shook her head, and gave him a look. “I went because my friend begged me—it was a blind date.”
“They thought I might want to know.”
Why was her throat so tight?
“That seems cruel,” she whispered.
“Did you have fun with Derek?” he asked.
“I barely spoke to him. It was the first and last date I have been on in almost five years.”
Not that men didn’t try. They did—far too often. No one seemed to understand when Lucia said she wasn’t interested that it meant exactly that. She didn’t want to date, and she didn’t want to try. It wasn’t a matter of getting back on the horse and trying again—love couldn’t be like that. Not when her love with Renzo had been … so fucking amazing.
And entirely insane.
“But that bothered you, huh?” Lucia asked. “The thought of me with someone else.”
Renzo’s gaze flashed with something dark. “More than you will ever know.”
“Yet, you never called. Never answered my letters back.”
“What are you talking about?”
She ignored him, saying, “You never cared, clearly.”
“Lucia.”
She refused to look at him. “That’s all you had to do, you know? Make a fucking effort, Ren. Let me know anything.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“I couldn’t,” he said, harsher the second time.
; Her gaze jumped back up to his. “You couldn’t pick up the fucking phone and try?”
“You think that wasn’t constantly on my mind? That you weren’t still the first thing I thought about in the morning, and the last thing at night, Lucia? Because you were—still are. Every fucking day, and every single night.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, but he didn’t even give her the chance to respond before he continued on with, “But I made a deal—one they held me to regardless. One they beat into me constantly. It was bigger than me and you, and yeah, I know it fucking hurts, but some things are bigger than us, babe. They made me something when I was always gonna be nothing. I hate them for a lot of things, but fuck me, I respect them for what they gave me, too. I made a deal—my life for five years, and they didn’t give me a choice but to follow it through.”
Renzo shook his head, muttering, “My calls are monitored. I’m tracked—all the time. Anything that comes in and out from my place is already known before it even gets to me. I’m pretty sure they know the name of the guy that makes my coffee and bagel on Wednesdays. So yeah, the one time I tried to find you … they stepped in. You think Derek was the only thing they did to be cruel? Try seventy-two hours locked in a dark room with no windows, no food, and no contact with anyone. And that?” He barked out a laugh, harsh and fast. “That was an easy punishment, Lucia. That one was fucking cake compared to the others. At least that time, they didn’t send someone in to beat me in the dark every hour on the hour.”
God.
Her heart ached.
She wanted to believe he was just exaggerating, but she could hear it in his voice that he was speaking the truth. She didn’t have to like it, but it was there. She had wanted to know. So there, she now knew.
What could she do with it, though?
She didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t understand, really, because it hadn’t been her in that position. She didn’t know anything about this thing he and her father called The League, or what it meant for Renzo.
“Still hurts,” Lucia whispered. “I can’t make it not hurt, Ren.”
“I know. I’m sorry for that.”
She believed him.
That didn’t help her heart, though.
