Page 12 of Harbor

Maybe Renzo was expecting the older man to come back up with a weapon of his own—Iowa wasn’t known for their strict gun laws, after all. But no, the guy didn’t come back up with a gun. Rather, he edged higher until his eyes peeked over the counter and landed on Renzo as he aimed and fired for the camera up behind the counter that would catch anyone who approached in its view.

Once that was gone, he put his attention where it needed to be. On the counter, the cash register, and the man who controlled it.

“I really don’t wanna fucking hurt you,” Renzo muttered, “so let’s make this easy on me, okay?”

He stepped closer to the cash, and tossed the bag to the counter at the same time. Tipping the gun sideways, he gestured at the bag, and then at the wide-eyed, terrified man.

“Fill it with whatever’s in the cash drawer, and I’m gone. Any trackers in your cash?”

Some stores kept those just in case of a robbery to make it easier on police. Banks usually had them, too, as well as dye packs.

The guy shook his head, and swallowed hard. “We’re just a small store, we don’t—”

“Good. Hurry up, I’m running out of time.”

He wasn’t lying.

Already, he’d been in there two and a half minutes. Yeah, Renzo had been keeping count even with all the other shit running through his head and keeping him feeling like he was about to go insane. Counting down time made him feel slightly better, after all.

“Stop wasting time!”

Renzo never lowered his gun, or tipped up his head to give the guy a good view of his face. The man stopped fucking around then, and hit a button on the cash register that caused it to pop open.

It took thirty seconds to fill the bag.

Maybe a little more.

Renzo just kept counting down until he could finally get the fuck out of there. Back to who mattered.

• • •

The engine of the SUV was already running and warm when Renzo slipped into the driver’s seat. He threw the black duffle of money into the back seat—it couldn’t be much just based on what he’d seen the guy pull from the cash register, and he wasn’t willing to wait longer to make him open the safe in the back. Maybe three thousand, give or take a couple of hundred dollars. But add it to the money they already had, and they might be able to do something with it.

That’s what mattered.

He knew why the engine was still running, warm, and ready for him when Lucia was still moving from the driver’s seat into the passenger seat as he threw the SUV into drive, cut the wheel hard, and put the gas pedal to the floor. She didn’t even get the chance to buckle her seat belt as they burned rubber against the pavement.

“Thanks,” he said.

Lucia didn’t even ask for what. “Figured that was a few extra seconds we could afford to keep, you know.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Renzo kept darting to the rearview mirror, trying to see if anyone was following them, or if blue and red lights were going to start flashing in the background. They had maybe ten minutes to put as much distance between them and the store as they could manage before the cops would surround the place, and send out cars looking for him.

Speaking of which …

He grabbed the burner phone from the dashboard, and tossed it over to Lucia. “Find us another route. Not the highway.”

He didn’t explain more, and she didn’t ask. Renzo was grateful because the last thing he wanted to do was talk. While he’d went back to that calm state of his inside the store, he didn’t stay that way. The second he stepped back outside of the store, he was slammed into reality once again, raging heart, overacting nerves, and all.

“What about this?” Lucia asked, turning the phone for him to peek at what she’d found on the phone’s built in GPS. “Could that work?”

Possibly.

“Yeah, better than nothing, baby.”

Lucia smiled. “Next left, then.”