Page 18 of Contempt

She was sure of it.

It ached.

“What?” she asked.

John’s gaze drifted back to her. “The doctors say he’s gonna be okay, we do know that now, but he’s been sick for a while. And I’m fucking sorry that you’re not over your pity party yet, but it’s time to swallow it for a while, Lucia. Time to go home for a bit, and see him. If you want to be selfish on your own time, then you go ahead and do that. I’ll be the first person to tell you to go on and do it, but it’s not your time right now. It’s Dad’s.”

Lucia had a million and one things she wanted to ask, but mostly, the pain squeezing around her heart like a fist kept her quiet. Up until that moment, every single time someone mentioned her father, the first thing she felt was anger. Ever-present, and stronger than ever. Shockingly so. Violently, even.

Except right then … she just felt pain.

She didn’t think about the man who took away the person she loved and wanted the most. No, she saw the man who had tucked her into bed, read her dozens of stories whenever she asked, and let her hold his pinky finger when they crossed the road.

She thought about her dad.

Lucia wasn’t sure how long she stayed quiet, stuck in memories that flooded her mind and heart with a nostalgia she had been ignoring for five fucking years. Too long, anyway. Long enough for her brother to just about finish his tea entirely.

John cleared his throat, and stood from the stool before downing the rest of the tea left in his mug. “Ma needs you, too. They both do, but they’re not going to say it because they know you need your fucking time. But fuck your time, Lucia … I’m here to tell you that. Fuck your time. You’ve had enough of it.”

Apparently so.

THREE

It took two years of constant supervision from The League before Renzo was finally allowed the privilege of having his own place outside of their compound—a large building in the middle of the desolate Nevada land that his companions at The League had not-so-affectionally dubbed the complex.

The nickname seemed appropriate considering it was as huge as what someone would consider a complex. They all had some sort of feeling about the complex—good or bad. It was the place where each one of them had been brought in, irrevocably changed, and then in most cases, sold to the highest bidder for their skills and talents. There wasn’t much affection in that, was there?

At first, having his own place was strange to Renzo for a number of reasons. The top one being the fact that he had never … lived on his own before. Ever. He needed privacy, and space. He needed the idea that The League wasn’t controlling literally every moment of his waking days, even if he knew they still would own his ass whether he lived on his own, and off their property, or not.

At the time, he’d been twenty-two when The League let him find a place they approved and could monitor. They tried to say it was so they could make sure he was safe, but Renzo wasn’t a goddamn idiot. It was so that they could watch him, and make sure he didn’t break one of their many rules, or run. Not that it would make much of a difference. They would still come for him, if he did think to run.

That was two and a half years ago, and here he was … twenty-fucking-five, and it still felt strange to come home to a quiet apartment where no one was waiting to ask him a million and one questions, or take away what little space he managed to make for himself. He’d thought he would like having the time alone to himself, but more often than not, he didn’t like it at all.

It left him alone with his thoughts, and that was never a good thing when it came to Renzo. As if his life hadn’t already taught him that, he got to be reminded of it night in and night out. A joy.

It was like his damn mind wouldn’t let go of the years he’d spent cramped in tiny apartments with his brother and sister. Even his mother, despite the fact he didn’t miss that bitch at all. Nonetheless, it felt strange to be alone.

Once, Renzo made the mistake of mentioning it to Cree—offhandedly, mostly, when the man asked how he was liking his space and time outside of The League. Cree told him to, “Learn to like being alone, Renzo.”

Cree always did have a fucking way with words.

The asshole.

Tonight was one of those nights, unfortunately. Renzo had been left to play alone in his big apartment with nothing but his goddamn thoughts to keep him company. Nothing good ever came from him being restless, and he wasn’t the only person to notice that fact, either. The League often tried to keep him busy by moving him from one job to the next so that he was never by himself for very long, and his hands always had something to do.

It’d been almost a month since they had given him a job—either solo, or with one of the teams. He checked in daily, as he was supposed to do. He went to the complex daily for briefs, though none of them were for him. And lately, he came home alone because everyone else at The League were on assignments or had other things to handle; wives … families.

People who needed them.

Renzo, on the other hand, was alone.

He tried walking the halls of his place—it did nothing but let his footsteps echo. That just reminded him, despite how he tried to fill the spaces with things he enjoyed looking at, the apartment was empty except for his sorry ass.

It left him with far too much time to think.

Again, that was a problem.

Renzo opted for the familiar comfort of an empty bathtub, and him resting inside it. He lined the edges of the clawfoot bathtub with all the items he could pull out of his pockets in a neat row. He blamed that on The League, too. It wasn’t just a certain sort of skills that had been beaten into him over the course of a year during their training, but a certain way of living, too.