by Bethany-Kris
Disbelief flashed over Lucia’s pretty features, but as quickly as it came, it was replaced by the heat of her anger. It didn’t matter what this girl felt, she looked beautiful all the while. Renzo figured this wasn’t the right time to tell her that, though. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Ren—”
“I will follow shortly, and we’ll meet up somewhere,” he said firmly.
They really didn’t have time to argue about this. Besides, his decision was already set in stone. Lucia didn’t have to like it or want him to do it, but whether she liked it or not, he was fucking going back for Tucker. The two of them, at the very least, were going to have some words about what the asshole did.
Probably more.
Renzo wasn’t thinking about that bit right now.
“Get in the car, okay?” he murmured, stepping closer to her.
Lucia took a step back, her anger melting into something hurt and broken. “Not without you. That’s the deal, Ren. You go, I go. Remember? That’s our deal.”
“I will follow.”
“With what? This is the only car we have!”
Yes, and even it was probably tainted. He bet Tucker gave the fucking Marcellos the license plate number to try and track it as stolen, if they wanted to go that far. Not that it mattered right then. Those were all things Renzo would deal with at a later time—more changed license plates, or another stolen car. Who fucking cared?
Right now, he had to deal with Lucia.
Get her on the road.
She couldn’t be here.
Stepping forward before she could put more distance between them, Renzo grabbed Lucia’s face in both his palms, pulled her in close, and kissed her hard. She sucked in a sharp breath as his lips came down on hers. This thing they had now felt bigger than him, but he wasn’t entirely sure why. He could blame it on love; he could blame it on his stupid heart; he could blame it on her. The truth was simpler, really.
They just were.
Better together.
Meant to be.
Whatever the fuck someone wanted to call it.
They weren’t meant to be apart, so yeah, he got why she wanted to fight him on this. He understood why she wanted him to get in that car with her because he wanted to do that, too. But he couldn’t. Not right now. Someone had tried to fuck them over, which as a byproduct, hurt the people he loved the most.
Renzo couldn’t have that.
Not without answering it.
His lips worked against hers in a brutal kiss—every time he touched, loved, or tasted this woman, he swore he left a piece of himself behind with her when he was finished.
It didn’t even matter.
She could take it all.
All of him was hers.
Pulling away, but still letting his lips graze along hers as he spoke, Renzo stroked Lucia’s cheeks with his thumbs. He pretended like he didn’t see the trail of tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes.
It was easier this way.
“In your bag,” he murmured, “you’re gonna find an address. I stuffed it in there when you were putting Diego’s shoes on him earlier. A place in San Francisco—that’s where you’re to go, no matter what. I will follow. We will either meet up before, or after, but I will follow. That’s where you are to go, no turning around or looking back. Do you get me?”
Lucia refused to speak.
Renzo pulled her back, and held her a little tighter. “Lucia, do you get me?”
Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, Ren, I got you.”
Of course, she did.
Even when she didn’t want to.
• • •
“Ren,” the muscle who opened Tucker’s door greeted, “I thought you were told to get the fuck out of this—”
Renzo didn’t even let the man finish his sentence before he reared back, and pistol-whipped the fucker right in the face. Blood painted the wall with a bright red as it spewed from the fool’s mouth. His body hit the wall, the surprise from the attack clearly taking him off guard. Renzo might have taken a second to enjoy the satisfaction he felt about finally getting some of this violent need out of his system, but he couldn’t even be bothered to do that.
He had shit to do.
Things to handle.
Pulling back, he hit the guy once more just to make sure he was out, and staying that way. Stepping over the guy’s body in the doorway, Renzo knew he didn’t have time to fuck around now. Tuck wasn’t a goddamn idiot. He would have heard what just happened, and was likely preparing for it.
That was fine, too.
Closing the door behind him, Renzo readied his gun and headed down the hall. “Tuck!”
“Man, get the fuck out of here,” he heard called back. “I gave you a chance, didn’t I?”
Renzo laughed, dark and bitter. The taste of hate coated his tongue, and it had a tangy bite he didn’t like at all. That was the thing about betrayal, even if one should simply expect it to happen in this life, it always tasted sour in the end. Something you didn’t want in your mouth at all, but it was going to be there nonetheless.
At the end of the hall, Renzo stayed tucked close to the wall. He listened through the darkness of Tuck’s apartment, and heard what he was waiting for. The shuffle of clothes, and the beat of a foot hitting hardwood. The only place in the apartment that had hardwood—from what Renzo noticed—was the goddamn kitchen.
“How much, huh?” Renzo called out.
“What are you going off about—”
“How much money did you take to sell us out to the Marcellos, Tuck? At least give me the respect of letting me know how much you think I’m worth, yeah?”
“Not fucking enough for this.”
Yeah, Renzo figured.
Not that it mattered now, right? It was said and done. Tuck did what he did, and now Renzo was here to deal with it. He bet his old friend had hoped Renzo wouldn’t figure it out, and if he did at some point, then he would be long gone. There would be no chance of him coming back here for retribution.
Fuck that.
Renzo was here.
He was getting his.
The sound of shoes on hardwood had quieted, making Renzo tense against the wall. He couldn’t let Tuck come in on him around the corner—that would give the fucker the upper hand in a way. Tuck probably thought Renzo was going to be easy to take care of, but he had news for him.
Renzo always came swinging.
If he went down, he’d go down swinging, too.
Maybe that was the problem, though. Renzo, stuck in the haze of his rage at being betrayed by someone he considered a friend of sorts, wasn’t really thinking clearly. All he wanted to do in those moments was hurt Tuck—end his useless fucking life—for putting Renzo in a situation where the things he loved the most might be taken away from him. Instead of considering every move carefully, like he usually would, he reacted in anger.
That was his mistake.
He didn’t fully realize that until he came around the corner with his gun aimed only to see Tuck already there waiting, and swinging a bat his way.
Renzo barely ducked the first swing, and in order to get out of the way, he rammed himself into the goddamn wall. The second swing of the bat hit his wrist, sending the gun flying down the hall out of his hand and reach.
“Fuck,” Renzo snarled.
The pain reverberated in his bones.
“Gave you a chance, didn’t I?” Tuck said, a laugh edging along with his words. “You should have just gone, Ren. Left like I told you to.”
Yeah, fuck the pain.
Renzo’s adrenaline kicked in, but maybe that was self-preservation, too. Either one would work, he figured. As long as it did the damn job. Tuck was swinging that bat back to hit Renzo again, this time aiming for his head, but he was quicker. His left elbow came up fast, cracked Tuck right under his jaw, sending his head snapping back hard, before Renzo pulled back, and punched him square in the mouth. Tuck’s teeth cut his knuckles.
; More blood spewed.
This time, Renzo wasn’t sure if the blood came from his split, aching knuckles, or Tuck’s mouth. He didn’t really give a fuck, either. He just wanted to get the man down. For good, too.
“Didn’t have to fucking sell us out,” Renzo snarled, going in for a second round.
His fists snapped one after the other against Tuck’s face, knocking the man to the floor. That didn’t mean Tuck went down easy because he didn’t. Not at all. Pain bloomed in Renzo’s mouth when Tuck landed a good punch, and then his ears rang when another hit his temple. Oh, he felt it, sure, but it was still just a whisper in the back of his mind where the rage was still screaming. He’d never wanted to beat someone to death like he did for Tuck.
Renzo forgot about that goddamn bat, though. At some point in their struggle, it had slipped from Tuck’s hand and fell to the floor. Not far enough away, apparently. Tuck managed to grab the tapered end of the handle, and swing it hard enough to make it feel like it cracked Renzo’s skull when it landed against the side of his head.
The force knocked him sideways into the wall. It was just those brief, two seconds where Renzo’s gaze tunneled, and he couldn’t see straight that Tuck got the upper hand. Just a moment of him fucking up and Renzo found himself on his back with Tuck on top of him. Tuck shoved that bat hard against Renzo’s throat, holding firm and taking away his air as he put all of his weight down into it.
He couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t see right.
Couldn’t fucking think.
Renzo’s mind screamed for him to move, to figure a way out of this one, to get back to having the upper hand again … anything. He had to figure out something, for fuck’s sake.
POP.
The crack of a gun firing accompanied Renzo’s sudden ability to breathe again. He sucked in a painful breath as Tuck fell away from him. Renzo’s vision cleared in just enough time for him to see the bullet wound in the middle of Tuck’s forehead, blood dribbling a single, small trail down his nose before the guy’s body face-planted right into the carpeted hallway.
It took Renzo a second to think.
Another to breathe again.
A third to realize what happened.
There, at the end of the hallway when he tipped his head back to see who had just saved his life, stood Lucia with his gun in her hands. He thought she kind of looked like an angel—hell, she always looked saintly to him, anyway—standing there in her black jeans and his leather jacket. She was still holding that gun out straight like she might have to shoot again—hazel eyes wide, and frozen. Her breaths came out stuttered and short, but her hands didn’t shake.
Why, he wanted to ask.
She never should have killed for him.
Was he even worth that?
“Lucia,” he mumbled.
Croaked, was more like it.
Damn, his throat hurt.
Her gaze darted from the body on the floor, to him. “I told you—you go, I go.”
Yeah, fuck, she had told him that.
“But I told you to go,” he said, aching throat and all.
Lucia shook her head. “Not without you, Ren.”
Had she followed him? He watched her drive away at the hotel, but he looked in the other direction before she had turned the corner at the stoplight. Had she turned back around, and came after him?
She must have.
His heart was going to explode, but that was better than it being dead. His mind was racing, but that was better than being blank. Every breath he took hurt, but that was better than not being able to breathe at all.
All because of her.
Because she came back.
Because she didn’t listen.
Lucia choked out a sound.
Renzo was still trying to process.
“You crazy fucking woman,” he breathed. “You were supposed to go.”
“You stubborn fucking man. I’m not going without you.”
Fine.
Fine.
He got it.
He understood.
How much time did they have?
A few minutes, maybe. Not even. Someone would have heard that gunshot. It was way too fucking loud. But if they had a second, he was going to use it.
“Go to the car, and leave the gun,” Renzo muttered, forcing himself to roll over before he pushed up on his knees. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
This time, she didn’t argue. She knew he was coming, too. She made sure of that.
Crazy woman.
“And stay out of the fucking lobby—use the stairwells,” he shouted at her back.
Fucking cameras everywhere.
This was going to be a mess.
• • •
“Let me look at your face—”
“I’m fine,” Renzo grunted.
Lucia’s wild gaze still drifted to him even though she really should be focusing on the road ahead of her. He would have told her that, but the last thing he wanted was to get her in a state. She was doing fine right then—calm, and pretty quiet, except for how she kept going on about his bruised face. He was waiting for her to break, to realize what she had done back in Tuck’s apartment.
It would come.
It always did.
The first time he killed someone wasn’t even an accident—something he was forced to do, but also knew he needed to do. And yet, he still found himself keeled over hours later, unable to get another person’s death face out of his head as scalding hot water beat down on his back.
Because that was human.
It’s what they did.
“What did you find in his place?” Lucia asked.
Renzo’s gaze drifted to the backseat where Diego was happily sleeping. Lucia had left him sleeping in the backseat as she came up to the apartment earlier, and the kid didn’t know anything. He had no clue what happened. Lost to his dreams, he probably wouldn’t even wake up until they stopped again.
Who knew when that was going to be?
“Some money,” Renzo said. “A gun in his office. Nothing, really.”
Lucia nodded. “Your face looks—”
“Lucia, I am fine.”
Her grip tightened around the steering wheel. So tight, in fact, that her knuckles turned white from the pressure. Maybe he should have just let her keep focusing on him and the bruises he was sporting. Let her bitch about his busted mouth, and black eyes. Let her fret over his fucking bruised temple, and likely concussion.
At least then, she was worrying about him.
Not lost in her head.
In her thoughts …
“What did I do?” she asked softly.
Her voice ached.
He didn’t miss the clenching of her hands again. The way they trembled from her fingertips up her arms. How her gaze got a little wet, and her breaths came faster and faster until it was one right after the other without a pause.
The panic was coming.
The breakdown was there.
“Pull over,” Renzo murmured.
Lucia swallowed hard. “I’m fine—I am.”
“Pull over.”
She did, yanking the car onto the shoulder of the highway way too fast. Even the skidding tires and the car being thrown in park didn’t wake up Diego. Renzo was grateful because for the moment, he had someone else to handle. Lucia threw off her seatbelt, and slid across the middle of the car to climb into his lap.
Renzo barely felt the pain. Every blink hurt, and each breath made his ribs sting like a motherfucker. None of it mattered as Lucia broke down in his lap with his arms wrapped around her. He buried his face in her hair, and let her cry. There was nothing else he could do, really. Nothing he could say that was going to make this better for her.
A person had to handle that alone.
Deal with it their way.
The only thing he could do was hold her together while she did it.
Yeah, he could do that.
So he did.
ELEVEN
In the background of her dreams, a voice was threatening to pull her from the bliss of slumber. She didn’t want to wake up, though. Reality was not nearly as nice as what she found in her dreams. Didn’t they know that?
“Lucia?”
Something small grabbed her shoulder, and shook. It was just enough to drag her away from the dream that was currently filling her vision. She shifted, trying to get away from whatever it was wanting to wake her up only to immediately realize how uncomfortable she felt. Something dug into her sides, and something else felt too firm against her back.
“Wake up, Lucia,” the tiny voice whispered.
Whisper-yelled was more like it.
Her eyes flew wide, and the first thing Lucia saw was little Diego leaning over her with his big, toothy smile. He’d pushed himself between the front seats of the car to get next to her. He shook her shoulder again despite the fact she was awake and looking right at his face.
Damn kid.
She loved him, though.
“Do you know where we are?” Diego asked her.
Lucia blinked, still stuck in a state of half-sleep. It took her entirely too long to realize the car had stopped, Renzo was not inside the vehicle driving, and warm light was shining in through the windshield on her face. She squinted at the sun’s rays, enjoying the way it made her skin hot, and at the same time, trying to figure out just how long she had been asleep.
It had been dark when she closed her eyes.
Right?
Was it morning now, or the afternoon?
“Where’s Renzo?” Lucia asked.
“There.”
Diego nodded his head toward the windshield before slipping between the seats to sit in the driver’s seat. He played with the steering wheel of the car and chattered on like Lucia was listening and talking right back to him, despite the fact she wasn’t doing either of those things. She was still trying to figure out what was going on, after all.
Where were they?
San Francisco, her mind mumbled, still tired with sleep, too. You killed a guy, remember? That’s where you were supposed to go, not back after Renzo. Had you kept going, that never would have happened. But if you didn’t follow Renzo, he wouldn’t be here either.