Page 16 of Cusp: A Renzo + Lucia Companion

EIGHT

Luv

Luv Moore had a great many skills. Her training for The League started just after what was assumed to be her seventeenth birthday, but no one was really sure of her true age because her past was full of shadows that even she couldn’t see through to understand what waited behind the veil.

She didn’t know where she had been born, or who brought her into the world. Just that she had been shuffled from hand to hand until finally coming to The League. A year and a half after finding her way to the organization hidden within the depths of the Nevada desert, she now toted a profile as an up and coming assassin that could do just about any task put in her hands.

She excelled in bombs. Hence her mentor in Renzo. Hacking was her favorite. Put any kind of weapon in her hands, and she could be a man’s worst nightmare. She also had a liking for all things undercover or even … jobs that required infiltration.

What she didn’t do, though?

Tracking, recon, and so forth. Luv found all of that to be slow and boring. And while she was supposed to have an easy week looking after Renzo’s younger brother, she certainly didn’t expect to have to track Diego down because he just decided to up and go MIA on her.

She had much better things to do on a weekday.

A touch-up on her blonde hair; a fill for her nails because they were starting to grow out. Hell, she could have stayed in bed all day and read a book. Literally anything except tracking a guy from New York all over Las Vegas. And yet, that’s exactly what she found herself doing.

Luv showed up at the hotel around noon on the third day of Diego’s stay. He hadn’t done much after their trip to The League’s complex, and he didn’t seem interested in leaving the hotel on the second day, either. She left him be figuring they could meet back up today and maybe his mood would be better.

Except he wasn’t there at all, and the clerk at the front desk simply said Diego had left. Knowing better than to call Dare and say Renzo’s brother was missing when she was supposed to keep her eyes on him, she decided to handle the issue herself. She put out a few calls to some people in the city with boots on the streets and ears to the ground. It was always good policy in her business to have contacts in high and strange places.

It took an hour.

She grabbed lunch while she waited.

Eventually, her contacts came through with the information she needed. Diego—or someone they thought fit his description well enough—had found his way to an indoor and outdoor skatepark a few blocks away from his hotel. Luv made her way to the address without rushing because what was the point?

The guy was almost eighteen. Basically an adult, or soon becoming one. If he wanted to do something, he could. He didn’t need to ask for permission. She just needed to make sure he was safe while he did it, right? Simple enough.

That was how Luv found herself watching Diego from a distance as he laughed with a group of guys who had music blaring from portable speakers while the sound of wheels rolling over cement echoed all around the space. In her shadowed corner, Luv stayed where she couldn’t be seen, both amused and curious about the boy from New York and how he seemed entirely different from the one she met in the airport just days before.

With the people at the skatepark, he seemed a bit looser. Lighter, if that were possible. He chatted with the strangers and flipped over his board while a blunt was passed around the group. At least they were in the outdoor section to smoke, she thought. It was also the first time she noticed all the gear Diego carried in the backpack that rarely left his shoulder.

Camera stuff.

Or something.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Hadn’t found trouble, either.

If anything, he looked like he was having a good time making friends with … normal people. People who seemed, from afar, more like him than her. It was so removed from what she knew—she didn’t really make friends when her life didn’t allow her to keep them for long. She didn’t really bother to try, either.

Luv stayed in the shadows until she decided to get a refill on her vanilla latte. Diego was just fine—they could catch up later.

• • •

“How long have you been standing there?”

Luv glanced up from the screen of her phone, her attention leaving the social feed she’d been scrolling down to find Diego standing only a few steps away from her current position. After coming back to the park, she found a post near the exit where she thought was a good place to lean and wait. So, she did.

“Didn’t really take you for the type,” she said, nodding at the item in his hand. The joint still curled with gray smoke at the cherry-red tip when he lifted it up for another quick pull from the end. “You seem too quiet for that—it’s always the quiet ones.”

Diego laughed, eyeing the joint in his hand. “Favorite part of my day, really. You didn’t answer my question.”

Luv shrugged. “Most of the afternoon.”

“How’d you find me?”