Page 43 of Harbor

That’s what he saw there. A fucking phone they paid for and couldn’t use—even if grabbing another one would be easy and cheap—it was still money they couldn’t afford to lose at the moment. Not that it mattered.

The phone was tainted.

It had to go.

The silence felt heavier after Renzo finished, but Lucia was there to break it as he felt her hands slide up his back overtop his shirt. Her lips touched down on the back of his neck, and instantly, he relaxed all over again.

“Everything is good,” she told him.

Yeah, he hoped so.

• • •

Renzo stuffed his hands in his pockets, and glared at the sight ahead of him. The barber shop looked old as fuck—certainly not anything modern, or whatever. It also looked, guessing by the chipped paint on the sign and the old curtain in the large front window, like it was on its last legs.

And this was the job from Tuck, apparently.

Or rather, the twenty-six-year-old man who ran the place. Renzo had been told by Tuck when the guy finally called—after figuring out the phone he’d been trying to call was no longer working—not to ask any questions about the place, the guy who ran it, or anything else that might come to his mind while he was in there getting the job done.

Just get my fucking money, Tuck had snapped.

That should have been easy enough, and it wouldn’t be the first time Renzo had taken a job like this. Although, it had once been Vito who occasionally threw something like this at Renzo. Never Tuck back in New York. But now, as Renzo was standing there looking at the business in front of him, he couldn’t help but wonder why a barber who owned a shop that looked like it was about to be closed down would owe a guy like Tuck money in the first place.

Maybe the shop is exactly why, his mind said.

Yeah.

Because that’s exactly how people like Tuck worked. They picked on the weakest chain. The struggling and the needy. Those who could use a hand up because all they knew was how to fall over time and time again. People who could easily be kicked while they were already down because that was fucking life in the grand scheme of things.

Nobody was out to help anybody else.

Renzo figured, since Tuck wasn’t willing to talk, the barber probably owed him money he’d taken to keep this place afloat. Likely one of Tuck’s sharks since the fucker wasn’t one to have his own hand in too many pots, but he didn’t mind having many different hands in several pots.

As much as that bothered Renzo—this was exactly why he didn’t like these kinds of jobs, because he got stuck in his fucking feelings—he shook off the heavy feeling that was keeping him standing on the edge of the street instead of inside that barber shop. Get the job done. Get the fucking money, and go back to Lucia and Diego. It was as simple as that. The quicker he was done here, the faster he could deal with Tuck, and go back to where he wanted to be the most.

Renzo read the business hours on the door as he stepped closer—another five minutes, and the business was closing up for the evening. Through the window, he could see a man in his black apron sweeping a checkered floor around swivel chairs. Pushing the door open, a bell rang up above, but Renzo didn’t pay it any mind.

Now, he had to focus on the guy who was looking at him.

“Sorry, we’re just about ready to close,” the guy—Connie, according to Tuck—said.

Renzo nodded. “Yeah, I saw the hours on the door.”

Connie frowned. “I don’t have time to cut anybody’s hair tonight, man.”

He wanted to ask why not—if the guy was struggling for money, then it would make sense to Renzo that Connie accepted someone even if the place was closing just to get a bit of extra cash. It couldn’t hurt. And then as quickly as he thought that, Renzo had to remind himself that this was not why he was here. He couldn’t fucking sympathize. He couldn’t let his fucking life of hard lessons and constant struggle affect the way he did a job. Or rather, the fact that he had a job to do.

No way.

Reaching back while still keeping one eye on Connie, Renzo flipped the lock on the barber shop door. The gun he never let get too far away from him was tucked into the back of his jeans, and he swore he’d never been more aware of that metal against his skin than he was in those moments. Maybe it was the way Connie’s eyes widened like he realized no, Renzo wasn’t there for a fucking haircut. Or it could have been the way the man’s hand twitched to his left like he was thinking about grabbing the closest thing he could use for a weapon.

What would it be?

The shaving razor on the vanity?

The broom in his grasp?

Nothing that would help him, really.