Page 61 of One Step After Another

“Barely,” she replied.

Luca grinned. “Right.”

The prick.

He was too cocky for his own good. And she liked it.

Too much.

That was the problem.

Refusing to let her thoughts dance near that danger, Penny reached for the doorknob while she pointed her finger at Luca in warning. He made her stupid; not that he could possibly know it. She made dumb choices with him involved.

Even now.

She had opened the door and didn’t even look to see who was waiting out in the hallway until she heard a male chuckle.

“Did I interrupt?” came a voice she knew.

Not well.

She did know it, though.

“Renzo,” Penny said, facing their guest.

In the hallway, Renzo Zulla leaned a bit to the side, staring past her at the man in the bed. She hadn’t seen the older League assassin in a couple of years. He’d come in to help train a new recruit a little while back, but she was overseas during that time. Now based and living in New York, it made sense for Cree—or Dare—to send him to find her.

“Well, did I interrupt?” Renzo asked again.

Penny opened her mouth to speak, but Luca beat her to the punch as he reached for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter he had somehow managed to find over the past day. “Not at all, man. What’s up?”

She sighed, ignoring the gazes that came her way from both men. It was obvious what the two of them had been doing before Renzo came along. She wasn’t going to indulge these two idiots by saying anything about it. All one needed to do was look at what she was wearing and Luca’s lack of clothes.

Renzo smiled, clearly amused. “Penny, when you have a minute ... I’ll be downstairs. We need to have a chat.”

As she thought.

Her time with Luca was undoubtedly coming to an end.

• • •

“I DIDN’T REALIZE MYinvitation extended to your ... friend,” Renzo said, eyeing the man who followed behind Penny when she approached the table inside the bar.

Luca grinned, passing the two of them by as he pointed at the booth a few feet away. “I’ll just be over there. Listening, of course.”

Renzo’s brow lifted.

Penny shrugged. “Hazard of my current situation. He kind of got stuck here with me. For the moment, anyway.”

“Mmm.” Renzo pointed at the chair opposite to his at the table. “Sit.”

She did.

Two glasses of water appeared from the man who served drinks like Renzo had planned for that. Penny didn’t touch hers while the man across from her downed half of his in ten seconds. She could get water anytime; right now, she wanted news.

“Well?” she demanded.

Renzo sat the glass down, glancing her way. “It’s like Dare suspected. Someone is onto you. The system The League has been using to track and dismantle members of The Elite is the same thing they’re doing to you right now. Every move you make in any capacity, they’re turning it around to their benefit. They had the chance to draw you out because you had already attached yourself to Elijah Smithenson with his murder, and so the bait was set.”