by Bethany-Kris
Seemed simple enough to him.
“I know—you’ll talk to him,” Rose said in a huff, the noise crackling the speaker of the Bluetooth in his ear. “Sometimes, I just worry about him. That’s all. It’s like he doesn’t hear anything we say most of the time, Ren.”
That had him chuckling. The sound drifted down the empty corridor of The League’s complex, reminding him that all too soon, he needed to end the conversation with Rose to handle business here. Whatever business that was, as the phone call from Cree demanding he—and apparently other team members—come into the complex last minute hadn’t given him a single hint about what was going on.
Except that it was a situation.
Perfect, huh?
“That’s probably the most normal thing about Diego. The fact you worry about him because he’s a teenage boy who doesn’t care to listen to what you have to say.” Coming up to the corner that would take him to Dare’s office, he could already hear the voices starting to filter down the hallway. Renzo decided now was the time to get off the phone. He could deal with Rose another time, and Diego would be there in Nevada with him tomorrow. “Leave him alone—don’t push him about anything. Let me have the next week with him, and I’ll see what I can do about what you want, but also what he wants after graduation, okay?”
“Skateboarding—that’s what he wants. It’s all he ever does. That and carry that damn camera around with him all the time.”
Renzo sighed and resisted the urge to scrub a hand down his face. “And?”
Because people made careers out of that all the damn time if they were ambitious enough to make it work. Why couldn’t Diego do the same, if he really wanted it?
“What if he breaks a leg, Ren? Blows out a damn knee? What will he do then if he can’t get on a skateboard anymore or—”
“What Diego does is more than just skateboarding.”
And it was.
Even Ren knew that.
Someone needed five minutes scrolling down Diego’s social feeds to know the kid was multitalented. Photography. Videography. Editing. He had an eye for art, too, and especially colorful, modern abstracts. Something Ren thanked Rose and his wife, Lucia, for because both women encouraged Diego to be artistic.
“Rose, I gotta go,” Ren said, ten steps from Dare’s office in the complex, “but you’ve got to give Diego a bit of room to breathe here. Had I told you to put your paints away, said they were stupid and wouldn’t ever make you any money … would you have done it?”
“Ren.”
“Would you have done it?”
Rose let out a hard breath. “No, but he’s got a chance to be anything. And—”
“And so we’re going to let him be what he wants to be.”
For Ren, it really was that simple. He wanted to be able to tell Diego that, too.
It was a good thing Renzo hung up with his sister before he walked into Dare’s office. Cree took the device from him and tossed it into a box under his arm without a word the second he passed the door’s threshold.
“Hey!”
From behind his massive desk, Dare peered at Renzo over the gathered team that had huddled over piles of familiar black clothing and gear to ready for departure. Already, Renzo didn’t like what he was seeing or what it probably meant.
Dare didn’t make him wait to learn.
“Sorry,” his boss told him, “but all phones are confiscated until you’re back in the country with a report. The job is moved up—we knew it was a possibility given the nature of the situation. The entire team needs to be on a plane within the hour.”
Luv, the young woman he was supposed to be mentoring, pushed away from the wall with a backpack in her outstretched hand for him to take. “Grabbed your gear bag from downstairs—Cree has your clothes.”
“Thanks,” he told her, though his attention was still on Dare. “My brother is flying in tomorrow. He was supposed to be here with me all week.”
“He’s what, seventeen?” Dare grinned, entirely unconcerned when he said, “He’ll be fine. Hell, let Luv look after him for the week. It’ll give her something to do. She’s not going on this job—not since shit changed and all.”
Cree jumped between team members, their voices and questions skipping over Ren’s head because he knew that he didn’t have a choice. Like a robot, he had already started stripping his clothes to get dressed in whatever black ensemble Cree had waiting for him. There was no point in arguing when it came to The League because that wasn’t how it worked.
You did what you were told, or you died.
Renzo signed up for this.
He did his fucking job.
“I’ll look after him,” Luv said, her smile bubbly when Cree came back their way with a pile of clothes in hand for Renzo. “I got your back, Ren.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“Not sure I have to.” The blonde shrugged, and those blue eyes of hers twinkled with mischief. “I just have to keep him out of trouble, right? Easy.”
But was it?
“I’m kinda worried about the kid,” Renzo muttered. “He’s … in a strange place.”
Yeah, that seemed like the right way to say it.
Cree’s dark eyes met Renzo’s. “Sounds like he might be searching for something—why not let him find what he needs to?”
Renzo couldn’t reply when his words were only drowned out by someone else. Dare’s voice boomed over the room with more orders. They had to be out of the building in the next four minutes.
Cree was the last thing he saw before he was shoved out of the office with the rest of the team. “Let her look after him—she’s been bored lately. It won’t hurt.”
Right.
Wouldn’t hurt a bit.
He couldn’t say he knew Luv well enough to trust what Cree said was fact. It bothered him more than he was willing to admit.
FIVE
Diego
McCarran International Airport’s arrivals was like navigating a maze. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but with the amount of people Diego had to duck and swerve on his way through to the luggage carousel, it certainly felt like a damn maze. It wasn’t his first time at the airport. Not even his tenth. Ever since Ren came back years ago, Diego regularly flew back and forth between New York and Las Vegas whenever his older brother worked in Nevada for a stretch of time.
Not that Ren really explained what he did here. Sort of. Diego knew, yes. He understood that Ren worked for a company that called themselves The League. His brother explained—partly—what his business for them boiled down to, and what it meant, but he didn’t go into great detail and made it clear he preferred Diego not to ask questions.
Not that he needed to ask.
Diego got the gist.
Ren worked as an assassin—yeah. A real, actual fucking assassin that was hired to do not so great things to other people or organizations depending on who had enough money to hire him through The League.
It was something Diego tried not to think about. Not because it made him think less of his brother—he understood very well how Renzo found himself in his current situation with The League; he never lied about it—but rather … he worried.
A lot.
What if Ren didn’t come back from a job?
What would Lucia do—or their son?
What would Rose do?
Diego?
It was just better he didn’t obsess over it. He barely thought about it at all now, and it was easier that way, honestly.
Shifting the backpack on his shoulder to ease a bit of the weight, Diego pulled the cell phone from his hoodie pocket. Turning on the screen and avoiding eye contact with anyone who thought to try as he navigated arrivals, he was quick to turn his phone off flight mode.
Just as fast, the device dinged.
And dinged again.
And again.
Again.
Diego sighed as the phone dinged over and over again in his hand with text after text and text. There were a couple of
missed calls, too. A voice message or two, by the looks of it. Most came from his sister, some were from her husband, and there was a couple from Lucia. He didn’t have anything to say to Rose’s husband—they didn’t have the kind of relationship where Diego cared to text the man back. He would give Lucia a call later.
And probably his sister, too.
Probably.
Really, he just didn’t want to talk. Not when he felt like he had listened to Rose talk herself out for days leading up to his trip to Nevada. She had barely let him talk back at all. It had been less of a conversation and more of a lecture.
No, thanks.
He wasn’t up for doing that again. At least, not anytime soon. The only thing he intended to do during his stay in Vegas was figure out what exactly he wanted when he went back home. Whether it was chasing a dream he wasn’t sure was possible … or something else entirely. If anyone could help him make sense of the mess in his head, it was Renzo.
Diego considered putting his phone back on flight mode just to keep the damn thing from dinging again with another missed text or call, but he didn’t. Instead of focusing on the many notifications lighting up the banner on the screen, he shut the device off and shoved it back in the pocket of his hoodie.
Later, he thought.
He’d deal with all that later. Rose would be pissed that he didn’t reply to her many calls and messages as soon as his flight landed just to say that he was okay, but he figured she should probably expect that by now. He loved his sister—just like he loved his brother—but sometimes, he only wanted to be left alone.
Now was one of those times.
With his attention off the phone, Diego scanned the large crowd gathered at the luggage carousels. He hadn’t brought anything but a couple of outfits and whatever else he needed for the week that he could fit into his backpack, and he was allowed to carry his skateboard on the plane to put in an overhead bin. He didn’t see his brother waiting in the crowd, and for a brief second, considered pulling his phone back out to shoot Ren a text and ask where in the hell he was.
They were supposed to meet up—
Diego’s thoughts stopped all at once as his gaze landed on a blonde who was looking right at him from where she had perched herself on a partition wall separating the baggage claim from a small eatery. With her legs folded up on the ledge under herself as though she’d been just sitting there meditating, the blonde with blue eyes so wide that she looked like a doll, gave him a smile when their gazes connected.
As though she knew who he was.
She pushed off the ledge all at once, her black Vans sneakers hitting the tiled floor gracefully before she headed his way with a wave of her hand. Her dark-wash skinny jeans were blown out and frayed at the knees, and the leather bomber jacket matched the black of her shoes. Other than the faded red stain on her smiling, full lips, she didn’t wear any makeup.
She couldn’t be much older than him.
“Diego Zulla, right?” the chick asked.
Diego blinked. “Uh … yeah.”
She stuck out a hand for him to shake once she was close enough. He hesitated for only a second before he took her hand with his and then dropped it just as fast.
“And you are?” he asked.
She beamed. “Luv. Luv Moore. I … kind of work with your brother.”
Kind of?
What did that mean?
Diego wasn’t sure he should ask—considering his usual policy where his brother’s work was concerned—but Luv didn’t look like the assassin type. More … Well, he gave her another one over, but she didn’t seem to mind. Pretty and delicate came to mind when he thought about words to describe Luv. Certainly not killer.
“Luv.”
She winked. “That’s me.”
He tried the name out again, but this time, silently. He wasn’t sure if that was her real name, or just something she went by. He hadn’t met the chick before in his life, but she didn’t seem like she really minded that at all. In fact, she kind of bounced a little on the spot. Like she was excited or some shit that he was finally there.
Diego gave her a second look, asking, “Where’s my brother?”
She smiled, showing off perfect wide teeth. With skin the color of smooth cream, and long lashes that framed those round eyes of hers, she really did look strikingly like a doll almost.
“Ren got called out last minute—I offered to keep an eye on you this week. Dare let me know your arrival time and who to look for. He’s hoping it’ll only be a week.”
Diego’s shoulders dropped.
Really?
That meant his brother would be MIA for his entire stay. Why didn’t Renzo call to let him know? His change in disposition wasn’t missed by Luv if her fading smile was any indication.
“Sorry,” Luv said quickly, “stuff changes fast around here, you know?”
“Not really,” Diego muttered.
But he was fine with that.
“Do you have any plans while you’re here?” Her stare dropped to the skateboard in his grip.
Diego shrugged. “I was supposed to. Not that I wanted to.”
Like that college tour. That he wasn’t at all fucking interested in if he were being honest.
Luv laughed, and for a second, Diego didn’t think about his brother being gone, or anything else that had been weighing down his mind and heart lately. It was hard to worry about shit like that when a pretty girl laughed in front of him. He stood tall at exactly six feet, but next to him, the girl was basically a fairy. The top of her head only reached his chin, she stared up at him, and even her features were small and dainty.
Yeah, he didn’t mind a pretty girl laughing at all. Especially not when she looked like Luv.
“Have you ever really seen Vegas at night?”
“In passing. I just come here to visit Ren sometimes, but I don’t do much while I’m here.”
He didn’t come to enjoy the place.
Luv grinned as though she could read his mind and already had a plan forming. Even the blues of her eyes gleamed with something he couldn’t quite place but still felt playful. “Could I show you sometime?”
Well … what would it hurt?
If his brother wasn’t here to help him deal with the mess he left back in New York, he might as well make the best of his trip. At least, for some of it.
“Why not?” Diego asked, dragging a hand through his dark, shaggy hair that had fallen over his brown eyes. “I don’t have anything better to do.”
Story of his life lately.
SIX
Diego
Diego wasn’t sure what he expected Luv to drive but the fire-engine red Ferrari certainly wasn’t it. Not because he thought she couldn’t drive a car like that. It just wasn’t the first thing to come to his mind when they headed to the parking of the airport because she said she was driving. She didn’t look old enough to have a license let alone that type of vehicle.
He still didn’t even have his license because it was just easier to jump on the bus, take the subway or call an Uber when he navigated New York City. And that was a city he knew well and felt comfortable in. He’d never spent a lot of time touring and learning Las Vegas let alone anywhere else in Nevada.
In the corner of his eye, the young blonde handling the Ferrari’s wheel with a sure grip looked entirely comfortable in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he just let the first thing that came to mind run right out of his mouth without stopping it.
“I feel like I should ask if I can drive this car,” he admitted.
A grin stretched Luv’s full lips wider as she glanced to the side. “Do you have a license?”
“No, but I can drive.” And just because he could and felt like it, Diego added, “And what do you mean—do I have a license?”
Her big blue eyes rolled upward. “Come on, you’re a bit of a babyface. Don’t blame me for thinking you’re too young to even turn the key over. I bet you’re going to get ID’d until you�
�re forty.”
That had his eyebrows lifting high as he laughed. “I’m almost eighteen. You can’t be much older, if that.”
Luv shrugged, only replying, “But I can, actually. In my world, I can be anything.”
What did that mean?
She didn’t give him the chance to ask before she beamed his way and said, “This car isn’t even mine—borrowed for the day. Mine is black … or it will be when they drop it off with a new paint job. The new look wasn’t by choice and all. Gotta do what I gotta do when the boss says to do it. Makes life easier that way. You know what I mean?”
Diego blinked.
“Not really,” he said.
For the first time since the mysterious chick had approached him in the airport with her sly smile, he saw her first show of nerves. Or maybe that wasn’t the right word. Her fingers tapped a quick beat to the leather-wrapped steering wheel of the Ferrari. Her gaze quickly jumped between him and the cars ahead of them on the road. And she even chewed the side of her cheek like she didn’t know what to say.
“Sorry,” she muttered, “sometimes I forget.”
“Forget what?”
“That not everybody’s like me.”
He still didn’t get it.
“Like you?”
Luv sighed. “Or like your brother. Like us. You don’t know things we know. I don’t spend much time with people … outside the business.”
Oh.
Just like that, all at once, it made sense.
“Don’t be offended,” Diego said as he stared out at the passing, very dry-looking scenery, “but I’ve learned with my brother that it’s better if I don’t ask questions about that kind of stuff. About what you do and your life. I never really feel comfortable with the answers.”
In the driver’s seat, she made a little noise.
Soft, he thought.
Curious.
Maybe like him.
“But does a part of you still want to know it—about … all of it?” she asked quietly. Then, she was quick to add, “I only ask because sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be … well, you. Normal.”