Page 9 of Cusp: A Renzo + Lucia Companion

For Ren, it really was that simple. He wanted to be able to tell Diego that, too.

It was a good thing Renzo hung up with his sister before he walked into Dare’s office. Cree took the device from him and tossed it into a box under his arm without a word the second he passed the door’s threshold.

“Hey!”

From behind his massive desk, Dare peered at Renzo over the gathered team that had huddled over piles of familiar black clothing and gear to ready for departure. Already, Renzo didn’t like what he was seeing or what it probably meant.

Dare didn’t make him wait to learn.

“Sorry,” his boss told him, “but all phones are confiscated until you’re back in the country with a report. The job is moved up—we knew it was a possibility given the nature of the situation. The entire team needs to be on a plane within the hour.”

Luv, the young woman he was supposed to be mentoring, pushed away from the wall with a backpack in her outstretched hand for him to take. “Grabbed your gear bag from downstairs—Cree has your clothes.”

“Thanks,” he told her, though his attention was still on Dare. “My brother is flying in tomorrow. He was supposed to be here with me all week.”

“He’s what, seventeen?” Dare grinned, entirely unconcerned when he said, “He’ll be fine. Hell, let Luv look after him for the week. It’ll give her something to do. She’s not going on this job—not since shit changed and all.”

Cree jumped between team members, their voices and questions skipping over Ren’s head because he knew that he didn’t have a choice. Like a robot, he had already started stripping his clothes to get dressed in whatever black ensemble Cree had waiting for him. There was no point in arguing when it came to The League because that wasn’t how it worked.

You did what you were told, or you died.

Renzo signed up for this.

He did his fucking job.

“I’ll look after him,” Luv said, her smile bubbly when Cree came back their way with a pile of clothes in hand for Renzo. “I got your back, Ren.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“Not sure I have to.” The blonde shrugged, and those blue eyes of hers twinkled with mischief. “I just have to keep him out of trouble, right? Easy.”

But was it?

“I’m kinda worried about the kid,” Renzo muttered. “He’s … in a strange place.”

Yeah, that seemed like the right way to say it.

Cree’s dark eyes met Renzo’s. “Sounds like he might be searching for something—why not let him find what he needs to?”

Renzo couldn’t reply when his words were only drowned out by someone else. Dare’s voice boomed over the room with more orders. They had to be out of the building in the next four minutes.

Cree was the last thing he saw before he was shoved out of the office with the rest of the team. “Let her look after him—she’s been bored lately. It won’t hurt.”

Right.

Wouldn’t hurt a bit.

He couldn’t say he knew Luv well enough to trust what Cree said was fact. It bothered him more than he was willing to admit.