Page 120 of Privilege

The bitch wasn’t getting a second hit in.

That was for certain.

TWENTY

“Lucia’s really here?”

Renzo had to laugh at how excited Diego was as he asked the question. So excited, in fact, that the kid missed an entire step on his way up the stairs. He barely managed to grab hold of the back of Diego’s shirt to right him to his feet so that he didn’t smash his damn face off the stairs. The last thing he wanted to do today was make a trip to the closest hospital to get Diego’s face stitched up.

“Yeah, buddy, she’s upstairs right now. Can’t wait to see you.”

“Yes!”

Of course, the kid picked up his pace again. Renzo had to practically jog to keep up with his little brother. It was only when they came to the second-floor landing that he heard the noise upstairs. It wasn’t uncommon for a fight to break out in the apartment building, but especially not around here. It was all too common, really. Usually, Renzo just ignored it, or if he had to pass it to get to his place, he kept his gaze forward, and didn’t try to step in.

It was just easier that way.

An unspoken agreement between the tenants, really.

But that yelling coming from one floor higher was not just any fucking tenant. He recognized the feminine shouts echoing down the stairwell.

Jesus Christ.

No.

By the looks of Diego’s horrified expression, the kid knew who was fighting one floor up, too. Shit. This was not what was supposed to happen today. This should have been a good fucking day.

Renzo swore the world just liked pulling jokes on him. Like it allowed him to think everything was going his way for once, only to come back around and boot him right in the ass with a bitter laugh. Something was always keeping him down.

Darting past his terrified brother in the stairwell, Renzo took the last flight of stairs three at a time to get to his hallway. He threw the door open in just enough time to watch his strung-out mother grab a fistful of Lucia’s hair, and throw her against the wall. To Lucia’s benefit, it looked like she had given it back to Carmen just as much as the woman had given it to her considering his mother’s bloody nose, and busted mouth.

Lucia didn’t really have a mark on her.

Yet.

Renzo wasn’t going to let her get hurt, either.

That was the thing about Carmen, though. When her sobbing antics no longer worked, and she was beyond the point of no return, the woman quickly turned to violence to solve her problems. Like she thought it would work to just smack someone around to get what she wanted. God knew she had done that to him more than enough over the years. Renzo had never fought back when he was younger because shit, it was his mom. And then once, she turned on Rose … he thought he broke his mother’s arm dragging her away from his sister.

She never went after Rose again, though.

Never dared to lift a finger at Diego, either.

Carmen was also a hell of a lot more hesitant to go after Renzo, too. He took all of that as a win, and whenever his mother did go into one of her rages, he didn’t mind putting her in her place when he had to in order to keep her from hurting him, his siblings, or even herself. Not that she deserved his protection from doing harm to herself.

Hadn’t she been doing that for her whole life every single time she smoked something, or shot more poison into her veins?

“Fucking little bitch!” Carmen screeched.

Yeah, that was enough of that.

His mother didn’t even see him coming until he was right behind her. It was too little, too late, then. Renzo bear-hugged his mother, it was the safest way to keep her arms tucked down at her sides, and not able to harm someone should she be able to reach them. Yanking her back away from Lucia, he swung hard, and released Carmen at the same time. She stumbled a good five feet down the hallway, but he was more concerned about Lucia.

Fucking nobody was going to put their hands on her.

No one would ever hurt her.

“You okay?” he asked.