by Bethany-Kris
He just kept staring.
She refused to move.
“We have to go,” he told her.
Lucia shook her head. “No.”
“Lucia.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“We don’t have a fucking choice here, Lucia.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about. She didn’t know what had him so spooked that he looked crazed, but none of it mattered. They’d already had this goddamn conversation, and there was no way she was backing down on it.
She couldn’t.
“We’re not going anywhere, okay?” Lucia stepped forward, once single step into the room. “If we run again, that’s going to make Diego even worse than he already is, Ren. You know this. What in the hell is wrong with you?”
Renzo said nothing as he yanked a crumpled piece of white paper from the pocket of his jacket, and threw it at her. Lucia didn’t catch it in time before it fell to the floor, but she was quick to bend down and pick it up. It took entirely too long for her to get the paper flattened out so that she could read the words written on it. By that time, Renzo had already yanked out the clothes in the top two drawers of the dresser, and dropped them inside the bags.
Lucia was still frozen.
Stunned.
Silenced.
She read the words on the paper—three times, actually. She understood what they said perfectly well, and what they meant. She didn’t need to take them in over and over to comprehend what the words were telling her. No, she read them over and over because that handwriting … so familiar and careful in its strokes. She’d seen it time and time again in her life.
Her father’s handwriting.
Lucia’s hands trembled as she stared at the words for longer than she needed to. They left her colder than ever, and yet, she was still firm in what she had told Renzo.
“We’re not leaving, Ren. We’re not running again.”
Just like that, all of his movements stopped. It seemed like everything slowed as he turned to face her with an expression that said he thought she had lost her damn mind.
And maybe she had.
“Do you understand—”
“I understand perfectly fine what this means,” she whispered, flipping the note over in her hand. “And I also know what I said, Ren. We can’t keep running. They’re just going to keep chasing us, anyway. That much is obvious, but they don’t even matter. It’s not about them. It’s about Diego. Right now, he panics every time he thinks we’re going to have to leave again, or God forbid he somehow convinces himself you’re going to leave and not come back. We can’t keep doing that to him. You know it.”
Renzo’s shoulders dropped. “Lucia, if we stay here—”
“They find us. I get that.”
“And they take you away. Is that what you want?”
“They can’t take me,” she said, although she wasn’t even sure if she believed her own words, to be honest. They absolutely could take her, if they wanted to. Her family could do whatever they fucking wanted to do. God knew the Marcellos had enough power, influence, and money to make the world stop turning if they wanted to. But that didn’t change what she felt about it, either. “I’m eighteen. I can make my own choices—they don’t have to like them. So what if they come here.”
“They already are here!”
She stiffened at his tone. “I—”
Renzo crossed the room in a blink, and snatched the note out of her hand. It tore in the process, but neither of them gave a damn, really. He waved the ruined note like she needed to take another look at it, or something. “They’re here! You know where I found this, huh? On my uncle’s body. Because he’s dead. They got to him—your family did that, Lucia. They wanted me to find him first; that’s why they left him where I could find him and this fucking … this fucking note,” he snapped, throwing it to the floor at their feet between them. “And you think they won’t take you just because you say you’re eighteen? Look at all they’ve done! Look at how they keep chasing us, but they’re gonna stop, right? Just because you say so, right?”
Her heart stopped for a second. She was sure it did. Like the shock and the pain of him throwing those words at her like they shouldn’t have some kind of impact—though they absolutely did—made her do a double-take of him in that moment. No wonder he hadn’t been making sense earlier. No wonder he was so fucking crazed and wild.
“Ren—”
“Lucia, think about it.”
She did.
And she understood what he was saying.
She heard him perfectly fine.
“That doesn’t change what I said. That doesn’t make it any less true, Ren. Diego can’t be moved again. It’s bad for him.”
She was going to keep saying that until he heard her. That was all there was to it.
Lucia wasn’t sure what did it—the fact she delivered the truth to him with a cold flatness, or maybe the way she just stood there, entirely unmoved by his panic. Whatever it was, Renzo’s tense stance loosened, and his arms dropped to his sides. Like all his fight was gone, and all he could do was stare at her like this was it.
The fight was done.
It was over.
“They’re coming for you,” he murmured.
“I know,” she whispered.
“So you go, then. You go … and we’ll meet back up. Right, we can do that, can’t we? We could do—”
“No.”
“Lucia.”
His words had turned desperate almost. Like there was an edge to his voice that he couldn’t hide no matter how hard he tried. There was a panic in his gaze when it landed on her.
You go, I go.
That was their thing.
She promised.
“I’m not going, Ren,” she said. “I’m not.”
Not without him.
She knew it was stupid—she knew he was right. If her family was here for her, then there was really only one way this whole thing was going to end. The rational part of Lucia’s brain recognized that for what it was, but her heart was an entirely different story. It was her heart that was keeping her right where she was, calm and steady.
Unmovable.
She wasn’t leaving.
Not without him.
And they weren’t running because they couldn’t keep doing that.
Not anymore.
“Lucia, please,” Renzo muttered.
It was her turn, now. Her turn to tune out all the things she didn’t want to listen to or knew were the truth. Her turn to pretend like she didn’t hear what he was trying to tell her, and the fact that she knew he was right, even if that’s the very last thing she wanted. It was her turn to be desperate and wild.
She shook her head. “Maybe … maybe if they give me a chance to explain, then they’ll—”
“Lucia, fuck.” Renzo closed the small bit of distance between them, not even allowing her to finish what she was trying to say. His hand came up to grab her right under her jaw in a firm grip. He tipped her head back to force her to stare up at him, and there, she found his honest to God fear staring back at her. “Listen to me.”
“I am,” she breathed. “I know, Ren.”
She could feel the tremor working its way through his fingers. Then again, that could have been her own shaking reverberating through to him, too.
“It’s not going to matter what I tell you, is it?” he murmured, his sadness thick and clear.
“You go, I go. So, no, I’m not going anywhere.”
He swore under his breath. The sound reminded her of heartache and heartbreak. She hated the way it twisted out of his mouth like he didn’t want to say it, but he didn’t have a choice, either.
All those thoughts drifted away when Renzo closed the last bit of distance between them with a kiss that set her blood on fire. His lips against hers were rough and harsh and lovely. Demanding enough to drive her crazy, even if she already was entirely insane because of this man. Savage enough to make her numb and t
ake her breath away. For the moment, their problems didn’t exist. The fear was gone. All it took was the graze of his lips against hers, and the way his tongue struck out against the seam of her mouth for a taste.
He pulled her closer.
She went happily.
“Lucia?”
It was Diego’s quiet, soft voice filtering down the hallway that finally made the two of them break out of their daze. She felt the shuddering exhale of Renzo’s breath graze the top of her head as he rested his chin on her forehead, and held her tight with one arm around her shoulders, and his other still holding under her jaw. All she could do was hold him back—fist her hands into his rumpled jacket, and keep him right there.
Keep him close.
Closer was always going to be better for them.
“Lucia, who is that?” Diego called down the hallway.
Lucia blinked, not sure she was hearing Diego right.
Renzo cleared his throat, and unlike her, seemed well enough to talk to Diego. “What are you talking about, buddy?”
“There’s cars down in the alley, Ren. I saw them, they’re coming up the stairs and—”
The comforting, tight hold of Renzo’s arms on Lucia let go at the same time the first kick against the apartment door reverberated down the hallway. She heard the sound the door made when it was kicked in, and crashed against the wall. The shout of a man—a familiar voice Lucia hadn’t heard in a long time—came right after.
Her brother’s—John—demand for her drowned out Diego’s cry of fear.
Time was up.
They were there.
SIXTEEN
Diego’s cry was all Renzo heard, and he had to move. It was like an invisible rope had been tied around his middle, and with just that sound alone, it was pulled taut and dragged him in his brother’s direction. He let go of Lucia, and slipped past her in the bedroom to head for the hallway even as she turned to go with him.
It felt like he was floating, in a way. Like everything had suddenly slowed down in time around him. He was running for the hallway, but it seemed like slow motion. He couldn’t get out of the bedroom fast enough despite the fact he moved so fast, he slipped on the way out of the doorway and crashed into the hallway wall.
Voices filtered into the apartment.
“Lucy, make this easy on me,” John Marcello said clearly.
His voice bounced from wall to wall, it was that loud. Another time, and Renzo might have answered the man back with an equally nasty fuck you. Not right then, though. His mind was focused on other things.
Lucia’s quiet, broken noise behind him bled through it all.
Didn’t matter.
All Renzo could see was Diego at the end of the hall. His brother had turned around—his back faced Renzo now. He had a good view of whoever was coming into the apartment while Renzo couldn’t see anything but Diego. His little brother’s head was tipped back, so he could look up at whoever was approaching him.
“Diego!”
It still felt like his body was slowed down—like he wasn’t moving fast enough. Diego turned, and his big, dark eyes met Renzo’s. Wide with fear, and wet with unshed tears. Confusion wrinkled the kid’s brow.
“Come to me, Diego,” Renzo told his brother.
Did he say it loud enough?
He couldn’t tell.
His lungs ached.
He outstretched his arms to grab his brother, ready to get him safely away from whoever was coming for him. Was it just John, or had they brought others? Diego had said cars, meaning more than one. Fuck. Maybe he could handle one person, but not a small goddamn army. And right then, the only thing he needed to get out of harm’s way was Diego.
Would John hurt him?
Renzo didn’t know.
He didn’t know anything at all.
“Diego,” Renzo shouted, “come to me!”
Finally, that seemed to snap Diego out of his daze. Renzo was only a couple of feet away from him, then, too. Diego turned on his heels, and took a single step forward like he was coming for Renzo.
It was already too late.
The man who darkened the end of the hallway was quick to snatch Diego around his little waist, and rip him out of Renzo’s reach just a half of a second before he would have grabbed his brother. Diego’s cry of shock as his little arms reached out for Renzo came like a kick to his goddamn chest.
“Ren!” Diego howled. “Help me!”
The air might as well have been sucked right from his lungs. His heart? Yanked right out of his chest in the most brutal way. The pain of having his brother pulled away from him before he could even get to him was painful enough that it might have put him on his knees right then and there.
Except he couldn’t focus on that agony for too long. Not when the rage that burst inside his gut was a hot, poisonous beast. All that movement and time that felt like he had slowed down was suddenly back up to speed again. If anything, it moved faster than ever. Everything was painfully clear.
Every step.
Each breath.
All the beats of his heart.
Vivid and vicious.
It was like all the rational thought he had in that moment was gone. He didn’t care what he had to do, but he was going to get Diego away from that man. He didn’t stop to consider he was just one single man—a man with no weapon except his fists because his gun was hidden in the kitchen. One man who couldn’t do very much.
He didn’t even think about what might be waiting for him just outside the shadows of the hallway when he came out of it, heading right for the asshole that was currently holding Diego. A man he didn’t recognize at all, but that was just fine, too. He didn’t need to know who the man was to bash his fucking skull in with his bare hands.
Maybe that was the point—maybe that was their plan. To get Renzo so pissed off and blind with his anger that he didn’t think clearly. He wasn’t like these men, and he could admit that. His life had not been one lesson after another in the rules of mafioso—he only needed to learn how to survive.
He came out of the hallway not thinking about anything except getting Diego back, and that was his mistake. He didn’t consider who was waiting around the corner, or how many of them there might be. The first strike hit him in the side of the head—heavy and hard, it cracked against his temple, and sent him sprawling to the floor with a cloudy vision and pain radiating through his brain.
His ears rang, but he still heard the aftermath of that first hit.
“Ren!”
Diego.
“Renzo!”
Lucia.
Her scream was shriller—scared, really. And angry.
God, she sounded so pissed.
Not that it stopped the second hit from coming because it didn’t. A boot landed hard to Renzo’s ribs, taking his breath away. A third hit him in the back. They came one after the other, surprising and fast. One caught him at the bottom of his jaw, and slipped to crack him in the mouth, too. He tasted the blood spray across his tongue, filling his mouth damn near instantly. The cries around him continued. Diego’s, terrified and begging. Lucia’s, loud, scared, and oh, so angry.
By the time he realized he should protect his fucking head and major organs, the man beating the hell out of him stepped back at a low whistle and a single word.
“Stop.”
Renzo rolled to his back, a bitter laugh falling from his lips. He felt the blood slip out of his mouth, and drip down his chin even as he coughed and gagged on it. “Like a fucking dog, huh? You’ve got commands and everything, asshole.”
The guy who’d been beating on him stepped forward like he was going to try and take another shot. At this point, Renzo didn’t even know if he cared.
“That’s enough, Dev,” he heard murmured. “He’s down, leave him be.”
That voice.
Familiar.
Dark and rough.
It sounded like an empty alley while the sun was still hidden. It sounded like a threat to stay away from
a girl he loved. It sounded like old money and privilege Renzo would never see in his lifetime.
It sounded like John Marcello.
“Let me go!”
Renzo blinked in just enough time to see the man holding Diego let the kid down to the floor with a loud cuss.
“Fucking little bastard bit me!”
“Ren … Renzo …”
“Stop fighting, Lucy.”
“Fuck you, John.”
Lucia’s voice was a secondary focus to Renzo in those seconds. He couldn’t concentrate on too many things at once because it made him want to vomit.
“Ren.”
Diego again.
The very last thing Renzo wanted to do was move. The pain stabbing through his body at every little twitch of his muscles was bad enough to tell him he wasn’t in good shape. Not to mention, the bleeding in his mouth hadn’t stopped and he was pretty sure he had bitten his tongue. His vision swam and was hazy when he tried to look around too fast. Besides all of that, his head was still ringing from that first hit.
Jesus Christ.
Had they used a baseball bat?
None of it mattered. At the sound of Diego’s call for him and the quiet footsteps coming his way, he rolled over in the direction of his brother. He already had his arms opened, ready to get Diego back where he was safe. He forced himself to blink, begging his vision to become a little sharper as Diego’s form came closer.
Too slow, he thought.
The kid was scared.
“It’s all right,” Renzo mumbled, “come here, Diego.”
Why was the fucking apartment so quiet?
Or maybe that was just the ringing in his ears taking over all the noise.
That all stopped, though. Or it faded the second Diego slammed into Renzo. Everything around him came into sharp focus all at once when he had his arms wrapped around his little brother.
Like he could breathe again.
See again.
Hear again.
“No, stop it!” Lucia cried. “I don’t want to go, John, fucking stop!”
“That’s enough, Lucy!”
“Stop calling me that!”
“I said make it fucking easy on me, and you didn’t. This is what happens, kiddo.”
“Fuck you. Fuck you, John. I fucking hate you!”