Page 3 of Harbor

There was nowhere to go inside that car.

And he knew things about Vito … he knew what people said about this man. Mafioso, they whispered. Organized crime, people said.

Bad fuckin’ news.

“I don’t have all night,” Vito snapped.

Renzo was quick to push off the wall of the alley, and head for the car. It wasn’t like he had a choice. The smell of new leather and pine needles filled his lungs the second he sat in the vehicle. Warmth blew from the heaters, and a quiet melody strummed from the speakers—old music Renzo had little to no interest in.

But he wasn’t here for the leather, the warmth, or the music.

“Lucky I was in the area,” Vito grumbled around the toothpick he’d pulled from behind his ear to stick in the corner of his mouth. “I don’t have time to chase boys all around the city, Renzo. What do you need? I thought you had other things to handle. New baby, right?”

Renzo kept one eye on the man in the driver’s seat, and one on the road ahead of him. “Need a job. Something to get done and be paid before the day is out.”

Vito grunted. “I don’t have anything for you at the moment.”

Shit.

“At all?”

Vito shook his head, and scrubbed a hand down his throat. “Nothing you would wanna take, anyhow.”

“I have a four-hundred-dollar rent bill to pay, and food to buy for my sister and brother. So, I’m not really picky now, Vito.”

There, he said it.

Now, he could pretend like he hadn’t.

Vito was quiet for a long while, but Renzo still felt the man’s eyes burning holes into him from the side. It was easier to act like the guy wasn’t sizing him up when he didn’t have to look at him. He hated pity—useless emotion, really. It did nothing for him. Pity didn’t make money appear, or keep them from going hungry.

Pity just was.

“Your Ma’s fucked off again, then?” Vito asked.

Renzo stiffened in the seat. He’d never told Vito about Carmen, or the constant shit she put her kids through. There wasn’t a need to tell the man, really. “How—”

“And I bet your fuck-up of a father ain’t been around, either,” Vito mumbled.

His head snapped to the side, and he eyed Vito openly, wary, and concerned. They didn’t talk personal shit whenever Renzo did a job for the guy, and he wasn’t even sure how Vito knew anything about his drug addict mother and deadbeat father.

Vito was about to explain, apparently. “Used to run these streets with your dad, yeah? Me and him, wanted that button like nothing else. Gonna be made, we used to say.” The man chuckled, and gave Renzo a look from the side as he shrugged with a raised brow, adding, “Made men, you know?”

Yeah, Renzo knew what that meant.

Sort of.

“Sure,” he said.

Vito nodded, and laughed in that dry, dark way again. “I think you know the words, but not what it is, kid. And that’s fine—you don’t need to know. Couldn’t leave that mother of yours alone, though. Like he couldn’t leave the fuckin’ bottle alone, too. Or how you couldn’t trust him with anything more than a few dollars because he ran it to the casino, or a damn bookie the first chance he could.”

Renzo swallowed hard.

None of that was a lie.

“Gotta follow the rules of made men if you’re gonna be a made man,” Vito mumbled more to himself than Renzo as he patted the pocket of his silk shirt. Soon, he found the cigarette and lighter he was looking for, lighting it up and sticking it in his mouth. Renzo ignored the heavy smoke, and tried to focus on the quiet street ahead of him. “I followed the rules, you know? Got my button, but had to step away from him. Can’t be connected to people who make you look bad. Knew about you, though, and your sister. Your ma never got any better; neither did your father.”

“Listen—”