Page 77 of Privilege

“Perry’s doing work at the shop tonight, stripping a car,” Renzo said. “You know where—I can meet you there.”

“Sounds good.”

Noah hung up without a goodbye, but Renzo wasn’t even offended about it, really. Lucia smiled at him from her perch on the counter. She looked entirely too sweet and good sitting there in her silk wrap dress with her hair down in free waves, and her face clean of makeup. Entirely too innocent for him, except the gleam in her eye told him she wasn’t innocent at all.

He knew that first hand.

“Work?” she asked.

Renzo shrugged, “What else?”

“Can I come, then? I’ve got all night.”

He should have told her no. It wasn’t like her family needed another reason to hate his stupid ass, or to try and keep her away from him. Even if he was ready to fight whoever the fuck thought they could try to come in on him for keeping this girl at his side, he was quite aware that it wasn’t smart of him to poke the goddamn bear.

Because that’s what the Marcellos were.

A nasty, mean bear sleeping happily in its cave. And he was the fucking fool with a stick poking them right in the ass.

“Well?” Lucia asked.

He should have told her no.

She looked way too good to refuse, though.

“Yeah, baby,” he said, grabbing his bag, and then helping her down from the counter. “You can come—grab the food, though.”

Lucia laughed. “Whatever you want, Ren.”

Maybe that was part of the problem. She was all too willing to go along with whatever he wanted, and he was perfectly fine with letting her do exactly that, too. Maybe that was what would get them in the most trouble.

Only time would tell.

THIRTEEN

Lucia hung back from Renzo as they entered what he called the shop. She didn’t think the run-down warehouse looked anything like a shop. At least, not from the outside. He’d vaguely explained that they worked on cars inside the shop, but he didn’t give her much else to go on.

She knew why now.

Lucia understood perfectly well what was happening once they were inside the building, and she had a clear view of the men working. Sparks flew and danced across the cracked cement floor from a lit torch as it was brought down through metal. She was quick to turn her eyes away from the bright light. Car parts were being packed in plain brown cardboard boxes filled with packing peanuts. Every single part from lights, to a smaller box for an emblem.

A Rolls-Royce, by the looks of it.

A Phantom.

That was, by no means, a cheap car. And without sounding like a spoiled, rich little bitch, Lucia highly doubted anyone in this warehouse could afford to go out and buy a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

She took in the sight of the unknown guys packing away a car they’d clearly just chopped down, and said nothing. Yeah, she knew what they were doing. It wasn’t very fucking hard to figure out.

Renzo’s fingers tightened around hers, and he tugged gently on her arm to bring her attention back to him for a second. “You good?”

She nodded. “Absolutely.”

A little curious about whose car that might be, though. She suspected there were only so many Phantoms in the city. It wouldn’t be very hard to track down the owner.

“Sometimes they get requests,” Renzo muttered, drawing Lucia to his side as they had to pass the torch-wielding duo cutting the chassis apart. He kept her just far enough away from the sparks that none would catch her shoes or clothes. “You know what I mean?”

“Not really.”