by Bethany-Kris
“Hello?”
“Rose,” Renzo said, “it’s me, Ren.”
For a second, his sister said nothing. He kind of expected that, really. This wasn’t easy on her, and he didn’t think it would be, either. He didn’t expect her to like what was happening, or to agree with the things he did. He just loved his sister, and it didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing, he was always going to look out for her in whatever way he could.
“Ren?”
“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Happy birthday. Eighteen today, huh?”
“Oh, my God, Ren,” his sister mumbled. “I can’t believe you called me to tell me that.”
Yeah, fuck.
He’d gotten the extra call this week just to do that for Rose. Or rather, hoping she wasn’t as angry this time, would pick up his call, and let him talk to her. Last time, she just raged while he stayed quiet and let her. It was the least he could do for the hell he bet she was going through.
“Like I’d forget,” Renzo said, shifting from one foot to the other. “Did you do anything today, or—”
“Went to see Diego,” Rose said, her voice thick with an emotion he couldn’t place. “The couple fostering him are really nice—they live in Queens, so it’s a bit of a ways for me to go, but he likes seeing me. Keeps asking about you.”
Damn.
That hurt.
It wasn’t Rose’s fault.
He didn’t blame her.
“And her,” Rose added softer. “He asks about—”
“Don’t,” Renzo said quickly.
Rose sucked in a hard breath, and then said, “I watch the news, you know. Keep up on what’s happening. It’s all about you. Nothing ever gets said about … well, you know. What’s going to happen now, Ren? Do you know that Ma’s been around, too? She visits Diego, and they know she’s messed up, so they haven’t released him to her custody. But she’s trying. Swears she’s gonna get clean; she even tried to say she has a lawyer working on it.”
Renzo’s throat felt far too tight. Almost enough to keep him from speaking, but he knew better than to shut up. His time was running out for this call; he was only allowed ten minutes, and sometimes less depending on the guard’s patience. He couldn’t afford to keep quiet when he needed Rose to really hear him right now.
This was his greatest fear.
It happened.
Diego was taken away.
He couldn’t help him.
Rose was out of reach.
He couldn’t save her, either.
“You’re eighteen,” Renzo told his sister, “so that means it’s time for you to step up, Rose. You know what I mean? I’ve looked after you for your whole life—did whatever you needed, made sure you had whatever to get you where you deserved to go. It’s your turn now. He’s gonna need you, okay? Because he can’t depend on me anymore. You gotta look after him; make sure she can’t touch him. Be his harbor, all right? Be that safe place. He’s really gonna need it now.”
Because yeah, Renzo’s fears came true, but he wasn’t the only one. Diego had fears, too.
That kid was living them.
“He’s gonna need someone again, Rose.”
It just wouldn’t be him.
That killed him.
But did it really matter when he already felt dead?
• • •
The tacky Halloween decorations lining the corridors of the prison felt like a joke to Renzo. Even the jail hadn’t had that shit plastered up all over the place. He seriously considered ripping some of it down as he was directed through a body scanner before he would be taken to the meeting with his lawyer, but he knew better.
The guards here were not like the guards at the jail. He’d learned that his first night in the prison when a guard who was checking the block stood at the door of Renzo’s cell as his new bunkmate tried to beat the shit out of him because he dared to sit on the one stool their cell had attached to the small table.
Here, a guard’s loyalty to a prisoner was determined by what that prisoner could do for said guard. It depended on a prisoner’s behavior, too, and how much trouble they were on any given day. It depended on a lot of shit, and the only thing Renzo had going for him at the moment with the guards was the fact he was quiet and didn’t try to start problems.
Except that caused him a whole other problem.
With the inmates, that was.
They took his quietness and loner nature to mean he was easy prey. They picked up on the fact he was young just by looking at him and figured … there was nothing to him. Every single day in this place was like stepping inside a boxing ring against the best boxer in the world, and hoping he would make it out alive.
He didn’t let anyone get away with a single fucking thing, either. He just couldn’t afford to. If someone came at him whether it was outside during yard time, or in line at the cafeteria, he had to answer them back twice as hard. Prison was a culture in and of itself, Renzo had come to learn.
That culture had rules, and factors that determined a person’s worth or standing in the eyes of the other inmates. If they thought for one second that Renzo was a weak fuck, they could and would eat him up and spit him out because of it.
He couldn’t let them do that.
He wouldn’t.
“All right,” the guard said, stopping in front of the room their block used for private interviews with lawyers. Sometimes, they were held right in the visitation area, but if the lawyer put a request in, they would make a special effort to give them better privacy. Lucky for Renzo that today was his day. “Behave, we’ll be watching from the other side of the glass in case you step out of line. You will be checked before you’re returned to your cell. Do you hear me?”
Renzo nodded. “I hear you.”
The cuffs on his wrists were loosened, and he was given a bit more chain. The shackles on his ankles, though? The guard didn’t even look at those. The man waved at the camera overhead, and the door to the room opened. Renzo didn’t even look inside before heading in—he just wanted to get as far away from his cell and block as he could. If that meant the safety and sanctity of a private chat for an hour or less with his lawyer who couldn’t do fuck all for him at the end of the day, then that’s what it meant.
It was better than getting the shit beat out of him. Better than eating the crap they tried to call food in the cafeteria. Better than having to watch his back in the showers because he swore it was like a game for some of these fucks to try and rape the new kid on the block. Never going to happen. He’d add another kill to his list, first. Hell, he already made a shank out of a toothbrush and a razor he traded for an illegal pack of prison rip—tobacco.
The man sitting at the table facing the doorway made Renzo turn into a block of ice just beyond the doorway. He seriously considered turning around and leaving the room as soon as his gaze met the man’s cold, hazel eyes, but he had nowhere to go. The door closed the second he stepped inside, and he heard the loud locks close him in.
Fuck.
“What are you doing here?” Renzo demanded.
Lucian Marcello smiled from his seat. He wore a three-piece, black suit that looked tailored to his form. A shiny watch glittered under the bare bulb hanging overhead, as did the gold wedding band on his finger, and the signet M ring on his index finger. He just fucking smelled like old money and privilege sitting there smiling at Renzo like he had the upper hand between them.
In a way, the man had exactly that.
Lucian waved a finger at the window on the other side of Renzo. Really, it looked like a mirror, but he knew better. That’s where the guard was watching his meeting, and while there was no speaker to say the guard could listen in, he didn’t trust any of them with an inch. “See, I have influence and weight being who I am, Renzo. I can pull strings just about … anywhere, really. If I want something, all I really have to do is name the right price to get it.”
Renzo didn’t move an inch. “Well, if you want me dead, all you re
ally have to do is pay somebody inside to get the job done. I don’t see why you’d make the effort to get in here to do it yourself.”
The man chuckled.
Actually fucking laughed.
Renzo didn’t know what to make of that.
“I’m not here to kill you,” Lucian said, sobering quickly. He gestured at the only empty metal seat at the table. “Sit, and chat with me.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted to do. Sit.”
“You can leave; I think you’ve done enough to me, Lucian. You don’t have to gloat. You don’t seem like the type of man who would kick somebody when they’re already down.”
That smile of Lucian’s faded fast. He met Renzo’s gaze again, and nodded once. “You’re right, I’m not. You should really hear me out right now, though … I am willing to help you, if you care to let me.”
Yeah, he didn’t believe that for a second.
Lucian didn’t seem like he cared.
“I want to apologize for what I said to you about your mother,” Lucian murmured.
Renzo’s gaze narrowed. “What?”
“At your apartment the first time we met face to face, I called your mother a mess, didn’t I? And while she is … I said it with an arrogance meant to hurt you. To embarrass you, even. I intended for you to hear me say it and know that I knew where you came from.”
“That I came from trash,” Renzo said thickly. “Just like her. Yeah, I heard you.”
Lucian cleared his throat. “I was wrong; I apologize.”
Renzo didn’t know what to say to that.
So, he said nothing.
Lucian didn’t seem to mind, as he simply continued talking like he was really the only one who needed to speak between them. And hell, maybe he was. God knew there was nothing that Renzo could say to this man that would be nice. Not at the moment, anyway.
“Seems you cared for your brother from the time he was born, didn’t you?” Lucian asked, but not like he expected an answer from Renzo. “You see, I did something I perhaps should have done from the start … look into you, I mean. Thank Vito Christiano for that, really.”
Renzo’s head snapped up, and his gaze locked onto Lucian’s. “What?”
“Vito—he’s still around, doing his thing in this life, but not as much as he used to a couple of years ago. But he’s still there with a voice, and occasionally, he opens his mouth for the rest of us so that we have to listen to him. This time, he chose to open his mouth for you. Really, in a way, you owe your life to him, but that’s a conversation for another day.”
Renzo just blinked.
He didn’t know what to say to that.
Lucian continued on, unbothered, “So yes, you looked after the littlest of your siblings from a newborn age. And your sister, too, really. Went out on the streets quite young to hustle, do what you needed to do, and make sure you all survived. While your mother was off shooting up and sleeping with her regular Johns, you were …. running the streets, making sure your siblings didn’t go cold or hungry like you had to do a time or two.”
“A time or two,” Renzo said, scoffing hard. “That’s funny.”
“I was trying to be sensitive.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t need your sensitivity. I lived my life—I know what’s happened to me.”
Lucian leaned back in the chair, and stroked a hand down his jaw. Never once did he take his gaze away from Renzo, though. “You know what kind of amazed me is that while you were a kid who grew up poor, though, and even when you were bringing in five-K a month selling drugs and handling your group of guys in the Bronx, you still lived like you were poor, too. Shitty apartment, no vehicle … secondhand possessions, and hand-to-mouth when you could get it. I wondered why that was, but it didn’t take me very long to figure it out. Your sister, huh?”
Renzo said nothing.
“See, I talked to an owner of a shop where your sister frequents to buy her canvases—I guess she prefers oil paint to the others—and you know, she’s so fucking proud of you, Renzo. Talks about you all the time. Her brother who used to lift paint brushes and whatever else she needed from the art store just so she had something to practice with. And then you got older, she got lucky with the scholarship, but you knew there was no way you were going to be able to afford the things that the scholarship wouldn’t cover, right?”
“She’s going to be something great,” Renzo said, shrugging. “I promised her she would. I made sure of it.”
“She is quite talented, I agree.” Lucian fiddled with the watch on his wrist as he straightened in the chair. “And so my point here, is the more I went around to ask about you and learn who this boy was who turned my daughter into someone I didn’t recognize … the more I realized I didn’t know anything about you at all, despite what I had assumed. I asked the right questions too late. I took too long to give you the chance to prove your worth, and now look where you are.”
Renzo blinked, unsure he had heard the man correctly. “What?”
“Mea culpa,” Lucian said thickly. “My hubris always seems a little more vicious than someone else’s but then again, maybe I am biased to it as well.”
“I have no idea—”
Lucian waved a hand. “Not important. Are you going to sit yet, or …? I mean, if I wanted you dead, I would have had you killed in San Francisco while my daughter watched on. You know, before I took the time to … try to understand why taking you away from my child made her hate me. I had to know, you see, what it was about you that she loved enough that she was willing to leave behind the rest of us for you. Not that it matters—she hates me enough that she had to go to an entirely new state just to get away from me. I love her enough that I had to let her go.”
Renzo let out a hard breath, the understanding he had been missing for this whole conversation suddenly dawning on him like a hundred pound weight slamming into his chest. He sat down in that chair because it felt a little more stable than standing up in those moments.
“Surprise,” Lucian murmured, smiling sadly, “I found those things I couldn’t be bothered to look for before. What is more interesting is the things you taught me without knowing, young man. That I am not perfect—I am fallible. I forgot where I came from for a time, that I was not always Lucian Marcello, powerful with just my name alone. And so, here I am … doing the thing I never wanted to do again. Look at you.”
He stared back at the man on the other side of the table … unashamed and brazen. Renzo was all too aware that in a way, he had no one to blame for his current position except himself. He made the choice to take Diego. He robbed the store. He stole the vehicles. He made bad choice after bad choice, and they caught up to him in the end. Those choices may have caught up to him because of the actions of the man across from him, but at the end of the day, Renzo would still have twice as many fingers pointing back at him when he tried to place the blame on someone else.
“You know, finding you wasn’t so hard after Vegas,” Lucian said offhandedly. “Your friend there … he helped us when you had stopped there, but after that, I knew you were running out of options. You only had so many places you could go, and so narrowing down the list to the people I thought could and would help you was simple.”
“You had my uncle killed. He was a good man.”
Lucian swallowed hard. “John sent in the wrong man … my instructions were not followed. His death was unnecessary, and the man was appropriately punished for it. That’s all I can say.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“Nothing ever will. No amount of apologies or spilled blood will ever make it better. I know this better than anyone. So will you, in time.”
Renzo barked out a bitter laugh. “In time? Take a look around, asshole, this is the time I’m looking at. The walls surrounding this place. So if that’s the time you mean, thanks, I already know all about it.”
Lucian’s face gave away nothing as he replied, “That may not be the
case. Depending on a few things.” He checked the watch on his wrist, frowning. “Our time is running out. I’m not sure if I will be able to pay enough people to look the other way in order for me to get in here a second time … at least, not before the point where it’ll already be too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Vegas. Let’s go back to that, actually. Tucker—what do you know about him, hmm?”
Renzo’s jaw tightened. “We were friends.”
“Do you kill all your friends, or was he just a special case?”
The chair he was sitting on felt a hell of a lot more uncomfortable after that question. Renzo wasn’t one to lie, so he looked away from Lucian’s gaze as he replied, “He deserved what he got, I suppose.”
Lucian quieted.
It took a second, then two …
“Did you kill him?” he asked.
“Who else would?”
Renzo still didn’t look at the man.
“Why are you lying?” Lucian asked, his voice edging lower with every word. “I can tell, you know. There’s no reason for you to lie to me about—”
His words abruptly cut off.
Renzo kept staring at the wall.
Then, in a whisper, Lucian said, “It was her. Lucia killed him.”
Nope.
Renzo wasn’t going there.
Vegas wasn’t even on his list of charges for reasons he didn’t know. He never brought it up to police, and they never even asked if he drove through the fucking state. He planned on keeping it that way, including to Lucia’s father.
“What about Vegas and Tucker?” Renzo asked.
“I watched, you know … waiting,” Lucian said, ignoring his question altogether. “I wanted to see if you were going to give her up. I know it would have been easy. You could have done it, washed your hands, and got a lighter sentence, probably. So, I waited and watched to see if you were going to do it. I had to know. Were you that kind of man when shit got bad, or are you the kind of man I was hoping you would be at the end of the day, Renzo.”