Page 90 of Privilege

He couldn’t.

Not when he loved her.

Lucian’s cold expression didn’t change. “So you say. Do understand that if you continue to see my daughter, this is only going to get worse for you. Don’t be confused on whether or not this is something you should take seriously—it’s a promise, young man. Do you hear me?”

Renzo said nothing.

It wasn’t as simple as just staying away because someone told him to. How was he supposed to walk away from the only woman that managed to somehow climb over his walls, and make herself at home in his shitty fucking life and heart? He couldn’t just walk away from Lucia. That was never going to happen.

Lucian smiled again. “Oh, and your mother—I assume that’s who she was—left a while ago. Said she didn’t know when she would be back. Quite a mess, that one.”

Yeah, fuck.

That one stung a little.

“Go to hell,” Renzo muttered.

Lucian chuckled. “Men like us, Renzo, are already living there. It’s death that finally brings us heaven. I’m sure you understand.”

FIFTEEN

Renzo hadn’t been gone from the hotel for more than five minutes before a black car pulled up in front, and a familiar face exited the vehicle. He never came inside the hotel, but rather, stood just beyond the doorways like a looming figure waiting for her. Which was strange considering her uncle, Giovanni, was anything but looming, really. Always laid back, and fun … he was the easiest person to deal with in their family.

She’d gone outside to greet him, and he quickly explained he was there to take her home. Just like that. No room for argument, and he was not taking no for an answer. She had known this was coming. The random texts from her father gave her a good lead up to the fact someone would be coming to get her when it was time. Like they just knew what she was doing—he let her have her moment, but now it was over.

Now—almost home—her uncle finally decided to speak from the driver’s seat. “You’re worrying your father, Lucia. You know that, don’t you?”

“How?”

She didn’t miss the way her uncle’s brow dipped in the rearview mirror. She’d chosen to get in the back seat instead of the front because she figured that would leave her closed off to a conversation. Clearly, that was wrong.

“How?” Giovanni asked.

“That’s what I asked. How am I worrying him?”

“Because—”

“Because I have a life?” she questioned quietly, staring at the passing trees on the highway. It was easier, she felt, to look at anything else but her uncle as she talked. She didn’t want to be angry with Giovanni. It wasn’t his fault for all of this, or the way she was feeling about her father. “Because I’m interested in someone he doesn’t approve of, but let’s be fair to Renzo … Daddy’s not even tried to know who he is, anyway. Or is he worried because—”

“All of that and more,” her uncle muttered heavily. “But mostly because your behavior is not like you, Lucia. Defiance, going off without a word, and forgetting where you came from.”

Lucia’s brow furrowed. She watched the confusion light up her features in the reflection of the glass. And then as quickly as that confusion came, it was replaced by something else entirely. The scoff bubbled up hard in her chest—it was painful as it came out of her mouth, and echoed in the quiet car. She turned, but already found that her uncle was staring at her in the rearview mirror, waiting. That was the thing about Giovanni … he expected people to do things that were out of character, but especially when backed into a corner or under strange circumstances. He didn’t expect people to be unfeeling robots, but rather, emotional beings.

He could handle emotional people.

Not so much frozen statues of nothingness.

“Forget where I came from?” Lucia asked, the sarcasm thick in her tone.

“That’s what I said.”

“I have spent the last while working in a place that I doubt you have ever even stepped foot inside, Uncle Gio. I have fed people who told me thank you because that would be their only meal for the day. I was given the honor of watching children who were born poor and already oppressed because that’s the situation society has made for them. Yet they still smiled at me every day because at least while they’re young, they don’t know that everyone around them is going to make good and damn sure they are always poor and oppressed.”

Lucia made another disgusted noise—although, not for those people, but rather her family—and sat back in the seat with her arms folded over her chest. “And do you know what I did, then?”

“I don’t, sorry.”

She nodded.