Page 8 of Harbor

Renzo glanced up, and smiled at his brother. “Sure, just like that.”

Seemingly satisfied with his brother’s answer, Diego scooted back inside the hatch and bit into his burger again while scribbling on the notepad with a red pencil crayon. He wasn’t paying Lucia and Renzo any attention, now. Renzo quickly finished up his work of switching the license plates on the vehicles—well, he didn’t put their original stolen plates on the white car. Instead, he tossed it inside the SUV to keep it before coming to stand next to Lucia. That left the white car with no plate but it was unlikely the owner would even notice that until they got off their shift later in the day.

“You sure you don’t want some food?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“We’re not going to stop for a while.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re—”

“Why did you switch the license plates again?” she asked. “No, sorry … took the license plate from that car and also kept ours.”

“I told Diego why.”

Turning her back to the hatch, Renzo did the same. Lucia lowered her voice as she replied, “Yeah, but maybe I don’t believe that’s why.”

Renzo snuck an arm around her waist, pulled her in close, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Murmuring, he admitted, “You’re right. I was thinking it’d be better to switch the plates back to the old one after we cross over into Nebraska.”

“But why—”

“We need more money.”

Lucia stilled. “We have money, Ren.”

“Not enough. Not enough for Vegas.” His hand tightened on her waist, squeezing just hard enough to take her breath away but ground her all over again. Without a word, he tugged her around the SUV where Diego couldn’t see them. Renzo backed Lucia against the SUV, and came close enough that his nose brushed against hers. All she could see was him clouding her vision, and for a moment, the rest of the world just disappeared. She sucked in a quick breath a second before his lips grazed hers. “Vegas is the most expensive place to live—and we have to stay underground, so that’s going to make it worse. We’re gonna need shit, Lucia.”

“I know.”

“Fake IDs. A place to stay. That’s going to eat up a lot of cash all at once right there.”

Would it?

Lucia didn’t know.

“We need to eat, to sleep, to get dressed every day … more. Okay? So let me take care of it. Let me handle getting cash to do something with. You just keep Diego in the car, and keep him down out of sight until I get out of here. Then, we’re on the road again. No looking back, baby, right?”

“No looking back.”

He let her go then only to pull the gun he’d kept tucked in his waistband out of his jeans. Pulling out the mag, he checked the gun, and then quickly tucked it away once more. Passing the fast food restaurant a look, his attention came back to her in a blink. “I’ll hit somewhere as we head out of Nebraska.”

She knew, then.

He was going to rob a place.

Not this place, she didn’t think. He’d said elsewhere. Plus, it wouldn’t be smart for them to be seen going inside a place, and then one of them coming back in to rob it. That felt crazy.

Like all the rest of this wasn’t crazy, too.

Lucia could tell him no. She could have stopped him, but she didn’t. She only nodded.

Whatever he needed, she was going to do.

That’s why she came.

That’s why she was here.