Page 121 of Contempt

They made sure of that.

Renzo held the wire cutters against the latex, sucked in a breath, and cut as his fingers instantly pulled back the latex to expose the wires, so he could slip the ones he needed back together again before the circuit would realize it had been cut. It took all of a half of a second to do, and someone would have missed it had they been standing right there watching him do it.

At the same time, he yelled out, “Run.”

The timer stayed steady at ten seconds.

His heart, though?

It was dead.

TWENTY

Cars were pulling away.

Next to the sight of Renzo kneeled down in front of a bomb on one of the screens, that was the other thing that Lucia noticed. She had the hardest time trying to tear her eyes away from Renzo as he looked over the bomb on the cement floor of an unknown warehouse. Every single time he touched the bomb, she noticed his hands were fast but steady.

He made deliberate choices.

He thought before he touched.

He didn’t just tinker.

He was careful.

But fast, too.

Not that any of it made a difference to the way Lucia was currently feeling. Like her heart had suddenly jumped inside her throat, and was beating harder than it had ever beat before. Racing. Like a thousand hooves of horses.

If it kept up, she might puke.

But the other screen … the one watching the outside of the warehouse was the one that caught Lucia’s attention for a split second. The cars filled up fast, and backed out of the alleyway where they had all gathered. She recognized the faces of her uncles before they too disappeared into a car, and backed out of the alleyway.

Where were they going?

What was happening?

Lucia’s attention flipped back to the screen with Renzo. Well, he wasn’t entirely alone anymore. John had been watching over his shoulder for the last little while, but her brother didn’t look like he was speaking, and Renzo didn’t seem like he was talking, either.

Just working.

But would it make a difference?

“A good vendetta can last years,” Christian murmured beside her. “And the feeling when you finally watch it come together?”

The man made a rough, deep noise.

“Beautiful, really,” he said, smiling coldly.

Lucia had the greatest desire to strike out at him, but she didn’t think that would work out well for her. He’d already put his hands on her once—she refused to sit where he wanted her to, so he grabbed her by the hair of her head, and dragged her to the bed himself.

She was going to sit where he wanted her to sit whether she wanted to or not. Or, that was his fucking idea.

“Do they think this is going to work?” Christian asked, more to himself than her as he looked at the motions happening on the many screens. “There is no way out of here. Every backup ruins another failsafe for them. It’s impossible.”

“Did you expect them not to try?”

He looked over at her, and then nodded. “I did—I wanted to watch them try to figure it out only to finally breakdown when they realized there was only one way out of this.”