Page 98 of Harbor

Renzo blinked.

Lucian chuckled.

“Except I wouldn’t do that either, not knowing all that I do now,” Lucian muttered, glancing up at the ceiling. “I also can’t give you the easy way out, you see. Because you and me, we’re a lot alike in some ways.”

“How so?”

Because Renzo didn’t think they were anything alike.

“We’re not the kind of men—given the circumstances of where we come from—to just take things that are handed to us,” Lucian explained. “It’s too easy—we’ve not earned it. We’re not that type of men, let’s be honest.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

“What happens if you don’t pay back that debt to Vegas?” Renzo asked.

“A war, I imagine. One my family doesn’t need. They’d go for her first. Lucia, I mean.”

At that, Renzo felt cold all over.

“So, how do you pay them back, then?”

Lucian smiled over at him. “I kill two birds with one stone. I give you everything you want, Renzo, and them, too. All in the same breath, really. You can earn your spot in this world—have everything you want in time, and know it wasn’t something simply handed to you. And they get what they want at the same time.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Lucian smiled grimly. “What is five years of your life worth, Renzo?”

“In here?”

“Being free … well, as free as they’ll let you be.”

“Who is they?”

“The League.”

Renzo shifted in the chair. “And what do they do, exactly?”

“Everything and anything.” Lucian glanced at his watch again, and scowled. “Time’s up—they’ll be knocking soon. Do you want to hear the deal, and the plan, or not?”

To do what?

“What’s it going to hurt?” Renzo asked.

A lot, he suspected.

It was going to hurt a lot.

“Five years of your life will be contracted to The League,” Lucian said, “as a repayment for their debt. They have rules about things … who you can contact, and how you will live in those five years, of course. But that is up to them and how they decide it should happen. They’ll train you. Teach you. To be something you never even considered before—to be something greater than who you are. Don’t we all want to be better, Renzo?”

Do better.

Be better.

He’d been repeating those words all his life.

He also heard freedom.

That meant Diego, Rose … Lucia.