Page 110 of Privilege

Whatever made money.

Just as soon as the phone started buzzing in his pocket again, Renzo let out a heavy sigh, and silenced the phone. Not that it mattered. No doubt, he was going to have a good fifty missed calls and texts by the time he got around to checking them. Not that a single one of them would be from the person he wanted to hear from the most.

Lucia.

Something painful slithered around his heart, and tightened to a painful point at the thought. Like a fist grabbing the organ tight, and refusing to let go.

A week.

One entire week.

No calls.

No texts.

Nothing.

It was like she dropped off the fucking radar. Every call he tried to make went to her voice mail. And then, her damn voice mail was full, too, so he couldn’t leave anything there. All of his texts were going unanswered.

He didn’t think that was purposeful on her part. He figured it was because someone wasn’t giving her the option to get ahold of him at all. Someone like her father.

Renzo tried to play it cool. He tried to wait it out, and see what would happen. Maybe his girl would figure something out, and get a call through to him, or make her way over to his side of the city.

Something.

All he got was nothing.

And now he was just pissed.

But worried, too.

When one day turned into two, and then two turned into three … without even a word from Lucia. That fucking terrified him for more reasons than he cared to think about. His whole life had been spent taking care of his siblings, and looking out for himself. Then, there walked in Lucia like she had always belonged in his life as she made herself at home there. He couldn’t get her out if he fucking tried—not that he wanted to. Now, he had Lucia added onto that pile of things he needed to think about and consider, too.

Her father might have made a promise to do whatever he had to in order to keep Lucia away from Renzo, but that was the thing. Renzo made a promise, too. Not to Lucian, but to the only person who really needed to hear it from Renzo. He promised Lucia that nobody was going to take her away from him, and he fucking meant it.

Not her father.

Not anyone else.

Nobody.

She was his, and that’s all there was to it.

End of.

It probably didn’t help his mood that Diego kept asking about Lucia, but Renzo didn’t have any answers. But he was about to fucking get some, one way or another.

That was his goal today.

Answers.

The thing about Renzo that people didn’t understand was that just because he was quiet didn’t mean he was fucking stupid. He was quiet because silence served him a hell of a lot better in the grand scheme of things. He was quiet because he knew that way, he would hear a lot more if he wasn’t also talking.

Since he started working on the streets, and running errands for people connected to the Marcellos, he’d been listening. He knew names, places, and exactly where he could get information when he needed to. Or rather, he knew exactly who to go to in order to get what he needed or wanted.

It was a dangerous game to play, sure. Asking anything about the Marcellos, especially when it came to something personal like their family members or their daily business, only brought trouble for the person wanting information. A quick, usually violent, message would be sent to make sure the person knew to mind their own fucking business.

Renzo was willing to take that risk.