Page 40 of Harbor

Putting the phone back to her ear, Lucia said, “Rose?”

“No, it’s not Rose, Lucia.”

It took her a second.

Then, two, and … three.

John.

It was her brother’s voice on the other end of that call.

She had to take those couple of seconds to fully realize the voice that was speaking back to her. She hadn’t talked to him in a month or a little more. Not since before he cornered Renzo in an alleyway, and warned him to stay away from Lucia. Oh, sure, he had tried something akin to communication with her. Hundreds of texts—at least fifty missed calls, all accompanied by him leaving her message after message on her voicemail that she simply deleted without even listening to.

John had been her best friend. Not just her brother, but the member of her family that she was most close to. He was her big brother, but he had never acted like the stereotypical big brother until Renzo.

Maybe that was why hearing his voice made her heart kickstart for a second. It caused a brief warmth to shoot out from her chest, and travel into the rest of her body. Because her first inclination when she spoke to her brother was to always fill him in on every single detail of her life that he might have missed out on since the last time they talked.

Despite her anger, all that bitterness and contempt she felt with John for taking her father’s side, she still had a habit of loving her brother simply because he was John, and she was Lucia. The two siblings so far apart in age that they never should have made friends, and yet, they had done just that. More so than the rest of her siblings.

But as quickly as that happy, warm feeling came, it was replaced by something hateful and angry. That just made Lucia so fucking mad. She didn’t want to feel that way, but she did.

He did that.

Just like her father.

“You there, Lucy?” she heard her brother ask.

God, she hated that nickname.

Lucia sucked in a sharp breath, noting the fact that Renzo was now closing the door with a pizza in his hand. “How did you get this number, and why are you calling from Rose’s phone?”

“Those are good questions. None of which I really want to give you the answers for.”

“Well, then I have nothing to say to you, John. So, good—”

“Hackers can do anything, Lucia. Anything.”

“Babe?”

Renzo’s quiet call of her name made her turn to look at him, and it was the concern written heavily on his brow that told her that he knew something was wrong. She waved a hand, not wanting to get distracted before she could end the call.

Especially not after she heard someone in the background say, “Sixty more seconds, John, and we’ll have the area code, maybe a full number, and possibly a location. Just keep her there for sixty more seconds.”

They were tracking her. It didn’t surprise her that they had access to a hacker with a program to get into Rose’s phone, and somehow call back a private number without having the number. But if they didn’t have her location or number yet, then that didn’t mean anything.

Right?

Not if they didn’t know an exact location.

Surely …

And if they only needed sixty more seconds …

“Where are you?” John asked.

“Happy,” Lucia answered simply.

“But are you—are you safe? Do you care how fucking worried we all are? Do you—”