Page 5 of Contempt

“You don’t have to say anything,” John told her, finally breaking the silence between them. “Not thank you, or fuck you, or anything, Lucia.”

She didn’t know what to say.

Well, except one thing …

“Does Dad know you got this for me?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s also not about Dad. It’s about us. Sometimes, I think Dad just worries too much about us. He wants us to be safe, and happy, and fulfilled. In the process, his protective nature sometimes smothers us, too. And that’s just Dad—he is who he is, and we have to love him regardless, Lucia.”

“I do love Daddy, but—”

“You’re angry with him, too.”

Finally, those tears she’d been holding back decided to make themselves known whether she wanted them to or not. A single tear slipped down her cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away. For the first time in a long time, that tear felt good. “So fucking mad, John.”

“It’s cliché, kiddo, but what’s meant to be, will be, and fuck the rest.” John pointed at the paper in her hand, saying, “There’s your lifeline, Lucia. You want to talk to Renzo—you want to know? He’s right there. I’m sorry it’s not more.”

Lucia clenched the paper between her fingertips again, and stared at her brother. She didn’t know what this paper or the address on it was going to lead to—but it was something. A first step. An option for her to take. Maybe it would give her everything she had been searching for this last year. Maybe it would fill the emptiness she constantly felt now.

She wouldn’t know unless she used it, right?

“This is perfect, John.”

Her brother smiled. “That’s all I wanted to—”

John never got to finish his sentence. It was drowned out by the screams of people in The Annex, and the sudden swell of a crowd rushing their way when in the background, she heard, “She’s got a gun!”

Maybe it was the look in John’s eye—the fear staring back from her brother—that told Lucia … this wasn’t random. So was their life, it seemed. Even hiding herself away in California couldn’t keep her safe and untouched by the mafia. Nothing would ever keep her safe from it all.

Lucia had been right, too. It was about them … or rather, her brother and Siena.

Later in the evening, while she sat in a hard plastic chair of an emergency room as Siena Calabrese fought for her life … Lucia managed to convince a nurse to find her a pad of paper and a pen.

She wrote her first letter to Renzo as her family paced in the waiting area. She watched the clock, counting the minutes of a surgery that took longer than normal on Siena for her brother who was barely able to breathe. She heard her father demand someone get Lucia a ticket as soon as fucking possible back to California just in case.

To keep her safe.

Like it would ever make a difference.

Lucia penned that letter, then.

Renzo, it started. And then, right below, she wrote, Do you feel like this, too? Alone all the time? Empty, too? That’s me without you.

ONE

“Fair warning.”

The man walking in stride with Renzo down the dark corridor grinned. It was almost a creepy sight, if Renzo was the type to let that sort of shit bother him. A sly smile that curved a little too much at the edges, and in the darkness, all he could see was the man’s white teeth and his eyeballs glowing under the black lights.

Why did they need black lights in the hallway anyway? Except at the far end of the corridor without doors, he could see a red light flashing over top of what looked like the only door. A stark, black door. What did that lead into?

They’d covered his head for a portion of time—most of the fucking time. He didn’t know what kind of a building they were in, or even where in the country considering they’d driven for what felt like days. They covered his head, then, too.

Hell, he still wasn’t sure if he should even ask where he was. It didn’t seem like the right time. The team of people walking behind him and the man beside him didn’t seem up for conversation.

They walked in rows of three—there were nine of them in total—shoulder to shoulder, and the only thing visible beneath the bandanas wrapped around their faces were their eyes. And not one of them would look at him. They didn’t meet his gaze, and they didn’t speak a word. Maybe they weren’t allowed, or maybe they couldn’t. Renzo wasn’t sure.

What had Lucian Marcello gotten him into now?