Page 6 of Harbor

He was still in that mindset, she realized. The same mindset he’d been thrust into the moment his mother let the threat to take Diego away from him slip out of her dirty mouth. Self-preservation kicked in for Renzo; his need to take care and protect his brother came first before anything else. It was like nothing else mattered to him for the moment.

Just that.

His brother.

He was determined to put as many miles between himself and Diego and the threat as he could. Maybe once he felt like they had gone far enough, that part of his brain would shut off. He would come back—be Ren again. Relax, and realize things were as fine as they were going to get. Until he got to that point, though, he was going to be like this. Distracted, and distant. Quiet, and stuck inside his head.

He was still hers like this.

Just a little different.

Lucia blinked at the sign that they passed by in the darkness, lit up only by their headlights. Had she missed an entire state? Because the last time she realized where they were, it had not been Iowa. “I fell asleep?”

Renzo chuckled, and his smile deepened into something sexier. “Might have.”

She passed him a look. “What does that mean?”

“Means sometimes you talk in your sleep. Mumble, and go on, you know.”

Lucia might have felt embarrassed about that, but it was Renzo, and the last thing he ever did was make her feel ashamed. Oh, he made her feel a hell of a lot of things. Most, she didn’t even know what to do with.

The most prominent was love.

God, she loved him.

She loved him enough to do this—to get in a vehicle, and just drive. To go without looking back, as long as she was with him while she did it. To say fuck the rest because she was following him.

To forget where she came from because where she was going would always be better.

It would have to be better.

She was going with him, after all.

“I was thinking Vegas, actually,” Renzo said, his thumb stroking her inner thigh. “I know somebody there—an old friend, you could say.”

“Vegas.”

“What do you think?”

The city of sin.

Yet another city that never slept.

Too many people to count. They’d blend in well, the same way everyone else did. Lucia had been to a lot of places in her life, but Las Vegas was not one of them. Her aunt, Kim, came from Vegas and her family tried to keep a healthy distance for the sake of peace. Or, that’s what she had always been told.

Some mafia families simply didn’t play well together.

“Well?” Renzo asked, giving her another look.

It was still his eyes, she knew. Whatever it was he was feeling or thinking, but especially when it came to her, she could always find the truth shining in his eyes. There, nothing was hidden. At least, not from her.

Like now.

Anticipation.

Fear.

Love.