Page 58 of Harbor

Lucia squeezed her eyes shut to drown out those vicious thoughts. This was why she wanted to stay sleeping, and not wake up to face reality. At least in her dreams, those thoughts and what she had done didn’t follow her to taunt her there, too. She had to do it—it was Renzo, or Tuck.

Simple as that.

She had to do it.

That didn’t mean she felt good about it, or that the guilt didn’t weigh heavily in her gut like a poison that was slowly starting to spread to the rest of her body. Because it did—she was trying not to let it kill her.

Lucia didn’t think her father had taught her to use a gun, and spent hours getting her aim just right for her to do this with it. Oh, sure, he’d meant for her to learn how to protect herself if she needed to, and the situation came up at some point in her life. But she seriously doubted her father ever considered this would be the first time she needed to use a weapon.

Not that it mattered.

He wasn’t here to know.

“Who’s that, Lucia?” Diego asked.

Despite the fact that Diego had woken her up, Lucia was grateful for his question right then. It brought her out of her thoughts, and away from things she didn’t want to deal with at all. Instead, she had to focus on him.

It was easier.

She followed the direction Diego pointed with his little finger. It was only then that she realized they hadn’t just stopped anywhere, but rather, in someone’s driveway. Her gaze caught the small, cottage-style home first. Some might consider it a bungalow given the single-level design, but Lucia thought with the high eaves and sloped roofs, it felt more cottage-like than anything else. The cedar siding had been painted with a medium blue, and the front had been decorated with a cobblestone pathway and colorful shrubbery. Quaint and tucked away between two much larger homes, she tried to figure out where exactly they were in San Francisco.

She’d come here once on a vacation with her parents, but she had been younger, then. Maybe twelve, if that. And as far as she remembered, they hadn’t done a lot of sightseeing.

Then, she noticed what Diego was trying to point out to her. On the front stoop of the home, Renzo stood talking to another man. Wearing jeans and a band Tee with a faded logo, the guy sported hair that touched his broad shoulders. His strong jaw hardened the longer Renzo spoke, and his gaze didn’t show any warmth, either.

Lucia thought—maybe—the shape of his face and the color of his skin was like Renzo’s in a way. And even the way the two stood with their arms crossed over their chests, and their backs straight was kind of the same. But that could have just been her mind playing tricks on her, too.

“Do you know who it is?” Diego asked again.

Lucia shook her head.

No, she didn’t.

She tried pulling anything from her memories, but nothing came. Renzo had never mentioned who they were going to find in San Francisco, honestly, but she sincerely hoped whoever this man was … that he wasn’t another Tucker.

“I don’t know, buddy,” Lucia mumbled.

“Yeah, me either.”

Diego seemed fine with that, though. Like the kid was learning to go with the motions, regardless of where it brought him to. He went back to playing with the steering wheel, and pretending like he was driving the car. Lucia, on the other hand, shifted in her seat until she was more comfortable, and then rolled down the window a bit to listen to the conversation happening on the stoop between Renzo and the man.

Eavesdropping was a bad habit.

It led to bad things.

Or, that’s what she had been taught.

She still wanted to know.

“Listen, Micheal,” Renzo said, “I wouldn’t come here and ask, if—”

“You shouldn’t be here at all. And your brother—he’s all of what, three?”

Renzo’s jaw tightened. “Four.”

“Should be with his mother, then.”

“Yeah, because she always took care of us, right?”