Page 105 of Contempt

“Ren?” Lucia asked.

Finally, he looked her way. He didn’t seem all that surprised to find her standing there. He gave her a halfhearted smile, and a nod. It didn’t seem true. It felt more like he was trying to placate her, but something was certainly wrong.

She felt it in her bones.

“All right, don’t move,” Renzo said. “Don’t let anybody leave in case he’s got an ambush planned for when you all leave. I knew we couldn’t trust him. I knew this fucking meeting was a ruse for something else. Fuck.”

He hung up the phone, but didn’t give Lucia the chance to ask him anything before he was grabbing her hand, and tugging her toward the bank of waiting elevators. It would take them up to the floor where her father would probably be just finally finishing up his treatments. Renzo stayed quiet as he hit the button for the elevator at the far end, and five seconds later, it opened up for them to step inside.

It was only after the doors closed, and they were moving upward that he finally spoke.

“You’re going to have to stay here with your dad,” he said. “I have to head out. Your brother needs me for something.”

“For what?”

Renzo didn’t look away from the elevator doors that had yet to open for their floor when he replied, “That meeting for Christian, Lucia. It was today. But the fucker hasn’t shown up, and all the beads I have on him are dead right now. I figured he was planning something, but John was thinking with his emotions, you know.”

“Because of the threats, you mean.”

He nodded. “Yeah. And I get it—he was worried about his kids, and you. His fucking wife. I get it. But you can’t trust someone like Christian. He’s not the type to have one plan, not when several works far better.”

Something cold dripped down Lucia’s spine. It felt like it seeped into her bones and blood, then wrapped around her lungs, and finally, her heart, too.

It froze her to the spot.

Silenced her.

“Where are they?” she asked.

“At the meeting location,” Renzo replied.

“I don’t understand—”

“Approximately twenty Marcello men, including several of your direct family members, are in a warehouse in Brooklyn right now, ready to do this meeting with Christian as he demanded. Problem is, he hasn’t shown up, he isn’t picking up calls, and I don’t know where he is, either. That spells bad news.”

Lucia wet her lips, but damn, her mouth felt dry. She found Renzo’s hand with her own at her side, and wove their fingers together. She just needed to feel him a little closer to her—maybe his warmth would help her.

It did.

And it didn’t at the same time.

“Do you think he has something planned for them?” she asked quietly.

Lucia didn’t miss the way Renzo’s jaw ticked. “I would bet on it, actually.”

God, no.

Not her brother.

Her family.

“Do you think they’re waiting for them to leave the warehouse?”

“Possibly,” Renzo said. “That’s why I need to get out of here, and get there. Scout the place, or see what in the hell is going on around them. I can feed John information from the outside, and then we can decide what to do from there.”

That made sense.

And terrified her.