Page 85 of Privilege

The last thing he ever did was cause a damn scene.

“Something wrong?”

Renzo hadn’t even noticed Lucia coming out of the shelter until she spoke. He’d been too focused on keeping his anger in check, really. He didn’t want to blow up, and have his little brother see it. Diego saw enough shit like that from their mother, he didn’t need Renzo acting like a fool, too.

“No, go back inside, please,” Laurie said to Lucia.

She didn’t even listen to the woman, and instead, pushed past her in the entrance to come out further. Stopping directly between Renzo and Laurie, Lucia looked like Switzerland in the middle of a war. The only one who wasn’t really ready to go to war, yet stuck directly in the middle, anyway.

She looked to Renzo with her caring gaze, and concern writing lines across her pretty features. This wasn’t her fight, really. He didn’t want her to get in the middle of it, and hurt her position at the shelter. She genuinely loved the job, and the people inside of it. It wasn’t lost on him how he’d once thought this woman was nothing more than a trust fund baby with privilege stamped on her ass who wouldn’t ever be able to appreciate the struggle of someone else.

Mainly, that she wouldn’t be able to appreciate his struggle.

How fucking wrong he’d been.

About all of it, but mostly her.

Renzo had been oh, so wrong about her.

“Ren?” Lucia asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, not wanting her to get into it. “It’s fine. I have to head out, or I’m going to miss out on work today. I’ll give you a call—”

“Okay, I’ll take Diego in, then.”

Lucia held her hand out to Diego, but the boy hesitated in leaving Renzo’s side. Instead, he shot a wary look at Laurie on the step, and whispered to Lucia, “Mrs. Laurie says I’m not allowed in the daycare anymore.”

Renzo swore time slowed down. It was like life came around to laugh in his face, and give him every minute detail of Lucia’s expression and reaction as she realized why they were standing out there, and exactly what was going on that he hadn’t been willing to tell her. She was quiet for a second as her sweet mouth turned into a frown, and her hazel eyes blazed with an emotion he didn’t recognize.

“Why?” she asked Diego.

His little brother shrugged. “Don’t know.”

Lucia turned to Laurie. “Why?”

The woman sighed. “For reasons that I am not required to share with you, or anyone else. The shelter has the right to refuse anyone access to the daycare—it’s our policy. We don’t need to explain it.”

“Or you don’t want to,” Lucia countered.

Renzo didn’t know what it was, but something about the way Laurie’s throat jumped and her gaze darted away from Lucia felt … wrong. Lucia saw it, too, if the way she stepped toward the woman with a finger pointed was any indication.

“Please tell me,” Lucia started to say, “that this has nothing to do with me, or my father.”

Laurie still wouldn’t look their way. She seemed far more content to stare at the wall of the entrance where a few strips of paint were starting to chip, and fall to the ground.

Her silence was answer enough.

Was this what John meant, then, when he cornered Renzo a while back? This was how the Marcellos played dirty when it came to teaching somebody a lesson—they just fucked with their lives in such a way that it backed a person into the corner?

“What,” Lucia asked the woman, “did he stop by, and threaten to drop whatever donations he was making to the place if you kept Renzo away from me, then?”

Laurie’s jaw stiffened, but she stayed quiet. A silent answer, as far as he was concerned.

“Are you fucking serious?” Lucia hissed.

“He didn’t threaten to drop anything,” Laurie countered, “he offered to triple it.”

Renzo’s surprise came out in a harsh noise from the back of his throat. Just how much money was Lucian Marcello throwing at this place that Laurie would be willing to block one single person from using the daycare? It kind of stunned him, but then again … he wasn’t surprised at all.