Page 72 of Privilege

“You’re impossible to talk to, do you know that?” his sister asked.

“I have heard that a few times, yes.”

Renzo wasn’t even bothering to pay attention to what was ahead of him on the street. At dusk, it was very unlikely someone was going to jump out and try something with him. Not when he mostly used alleyways for the majority of his travels. He was almost to the meeting spot with his guys now, though, so it wouldn’t be much longer before he didn’t have the drugs on him at all.

And even if someone did try some shit with him, the gun at his back would keep him safe regardless. As long as he had time to pull it.

“Listen, don’t wait for me to get back. I know what time the movie starts, and I won’t make it back in time. He’ll miss forty minutes of it, at least. Take the money I left on the counter, get him to the movie, and take him somewhere to eat after. I’ll be home by the time you get back, and he’ll have just as much fun with telling me all about the movie.”

“But—”

“Rose.”

“Fine,” his sister grumbled. “He asked about her again today. Wanted to know if Carmen was coming back, or if she called. I didn’t know what to tell him, so I said nothing. Distracted him with something else.”

Renzo’s lips twitched, threatening to turn into a scowl if he didn’t fix his fucking face and get in control of his emotions. He really didn’t want to go into a meet with his guys being pissed off, not when there were already enough rumors about his life on the streets as it happened to be. He didn’t want to give them something else to talk about and make them believe he wasn’t on his best game.

“Distracting him is the best thing you can do when you don’t want to answer.”

“Oh, I wanted to answer … I also knew it wouldn’t be a kind answer. He’s little—he doesn’t understand.”

Renzo rubbed at the spot on the back of his neck as he slipped into the last alleyway that would bring him around to the spot just across the way from the corner store’s parking lot where his guys were waiting for their pick up. He’d realized that Lucia had a point the other morning when she told him not to slander his mother anywhere near Diego. It wouldn’t do anything good for his brother, but it would make him angry and confused.

The last thing Renzo wanted to do was turn Diego into him.

Because that’s all he was, too.

Angry and fucking confused.

“I told her to stay the hell away,” Renzo muttered, “so let’s hope she does that.”

“Yeah, hope.” Rose made a quiet noise. “And until you really do have Diego figured out, and stuff slows down, I can afford a couple more days off school.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Ren—”

“Take him to the movies, all right? We’ll chat when I get home. Later.”

He didn’t give his sister the chance to argue with him further. Instead, he just hung up the phone before she could get started again. There was no point in arguing with Rose over the phone. Like him, she was too stubborn for her own good, and once she set her mind on something … well, that was it. Renzo was going to have to try another direction to make his sister understand he was fine, he did have Diego handled, and she needed to get back to school.

End of.

“Figured you’d be around these parts tonight, Renzo.”

Halfway down the alley, and Renzo hadn’t even thought to look up from the ground once as he chatted with his sister. Maybe he was getting too cocky on these streets—too stupid. Maybe he was overconfident in his belief that nobody was going to purposely try to cause him any kind of shit because they knew him well enough to know better.

Tightening one hand around the messenger bag strap hooked over his shoulder, and slipping his other up under the back of his coat to get a good grip on the butt of the handgun tucked into his jeans, Renzo found the man who called his name. He recognized the voice, of course, but it wasn’t like this man to hang around in alleyways just because. His usual motive was to drop off Renzo’s shit—when it was him doing the drop-offs—and go on his way until it came time to collect payment … if he was the one who wanted to collect the payment, that was.

Johnathan Marcello.

Lucia’s fucking brother.

“John,” Renzo said, coming to a stop a good ten feet away from the man.

There was a rule he’d once heard—seven feet. A person needed at least seven feet of distance between them and someone else in a bad situation to make it better for them. Seven feet to make a better choice, or move fast enough to save their skin.

Just seven feet.