Page 115 of Privilege

He couldn’t keep her here.

“Lucia!” her father shouted.

She heard his footsteps coming behind her, but she didn’t care. Spinning around on her heel to see he was only a few feet away from her, Lucia pointed at her father, and then back at herself. Right over the spot where her heart was beating out of control and in so much pain with each squeeze because maybe … Jesus, maybe if she told him how she felt inside because Renzo was too far away, and had been for this whole week, then her father might understand this wasn’t something she wanted to do.

It was more than that.

She needed to do it.

She needed Renzo.

“Right here,” she murmured, pushing the tip of her finger against her chest, “it’s killing me right here, Daddy. It hurts all the time because this is not where I want to be, don’t you get that? I’m sorry if you don’t like that, or this scares you, but I can’t keep hurting in here because I’m not with him. I want to be with him.”

Lucian hesitated in his next step.

Lucia didn’t move an inch.

Behind her father, Jordyn stood from the table. Her mother’s gaze drifted from her daughter near the doorway, and Renzo still standing outside where he looked as though he was chatting with the enforcer whose car he was currently leaning against like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Lucian,” Jordyn said softly.

“What?”

“Let her go.”

Lucian’s head swung around, and his gaze widened. “What did you just say?”

“I said let her go.”

“How can I—”

“Because she has to make her own choices, and if those mean mistakes, then that’s what it means. They are hers to make, not yours or ours. I thought we learned that, didn’t we? We decided that years ago that they wouldn’t be influenced or controlled by this life, and us. We decided that, Lucian.”

“Bella—”

“Lucia, you may go with the young man, if that’s what you want to do,” her mother whispered. “We won’t stop you, and we won’t step in, either. I promise.”

Lucia hesitated.

She went between her father, and her mother. Both were people she loved—entirely, though sometimes, like now, her father made her wonder why. Both were pillars of strength and support, or they had been for her entire life. She didn’t want to disappoint them, but this wasn’t about them, either.

Jordyn tipped her head toward the door. “Go, Lucia.”

“Jordyn—”

Lucia had already turned to leave when her father spoke again. She didn’t stop this time around. She had nothing left to say to him. Not now. She only had one thing she really wanted to do, and that was to get as close as she possibly could to the man waiting for her outside. Each step she took that brought her nearer to him, the better her heart felt.

Lighter.

Happier.

Free.

“You will let her go because I said so,” she heard her mother say. “Now, let her go.”

Her parents’ voices faded at her back as she headed out into the main section of the restaurant. She burst out of the entrance doors without a look back over her shoulder because for the moment, there was nothing back there that she wanted. Everything she needed was right in front of her leaning against a black Mercedes, wearing a familiar leather jacket, and grinning her way like he just knew.

Renzo always did look his very best when he was staring at her.