what she got—she either wanted to be good for her kids, or she could fuck off.
That’s just how it was going to be.
Carmen made a screech—a little too high, he thought. She wasn’t strung out as badly as she had been the night before. But she had definitely smoked something to keep the shakes away and make sure she was up. She hadn’t been home when he took Diego to the daycare, but she was there by the time he got back.
Someone was feeding the bitch’s need for a fix. And it was somebody close.
That was probably going to be a problem. One Renzo would eventually have to deal with, but today was not that day. Already, he was late for the daily meeting with his guys down by the corner store. He was already edgy enough considering he had a whole brick of cocaine in his messenger bag, a half a pound of weed, and a bag of opiate pills that were all too popular on the streets lately.
He hadn’t had time to drop that shit off individually to each guy who needed to deal it. He preferred to do that late at night when he could just skip from building to building without being seen until he had nothing left but his own shit to sell. He certainly didn’t like walking around with this much product in broad daylight.
If someone thought to jump him, and they took it?
He’d be the one who had to fix it. Come up with the money to pay it back—impossible, there was at least a hundred-thousand dollars’ worth off drugs in his bag—or something. If he thought to run from the higher ups who kept him supplied with drugs, well … that wouldn’t end well for him.
They’d hunt him down.
Like a dog.
That’s all he was to them, anyway.
Just a fucking dog.
Renzo kept his pace at a normal speed as he left his apartment building. He didn’t do any more or less glancing around than he normally would. There was no fucking need to draw unneeded attention to himself because he was acting strange.
Somehow, he made it to the corner store without any trouble. As he expected, his guys were waiting, and they looked like they weren’t pleased about it.
Renzo jerked his head to the side, and without needing to be told, Perry, Noah, and Diesel slipped into a connected alleyway. He wasted no time pulling out the packages from his bag, unwrapping the plastic wrap around the bricks of drugs, and handing each person their take for the week. They’d go home, weigh and package everything, and get to work. In a week, they’d all meet up again to hand over money and get their take of the cash, too.
There was a bit of trust involved in all of this. He had to keep up with the street price of everything. That way, when the guys came back with empty bags but hands full of money, he knew whether or not they were stealing from him.
So far, none of them dared to.
A while back, he had four guys. The other three got to learn really up close and personal what happened when someone stole from Renzo. It hadn’t been pretty, but really, it couldn’t be.
He needed that lesson to stick.
“Thanks, Ren,” Noah muttered, shoving his take into his own bag.
The other two echoed the same thing.
Then, Perry said, “Hey, guess what we heard?”
“I imagine a lot of things,” Renzo replied. “And probably nothing that I’m very interested in hearing.”
Diesel laughed. “Right, I bet. Anyway, we heard you got dropped off last night with Diego. Quite a fucking car, we were told. A Mercedes, right? Who are you messing with that they’re driving you home in a Mercedes?”
Fuck.
Not the kind of attention he needed. It would not do him any favors for these guys to think he was reaching higher than they could. He didn’t need to be seen as out of their league in any regard. It would make discontent, and he couldn’t fucking trust or control any of them when they thought he was hiding shit like money.
Renzo glanced up, and gave the three a look they would recognize as him reaching the end of his very thin and frayed rope. “Get to fucking work, and stop listening to the nonsense you hear on the streets.”
FIVE
“Just make a choice, Lucian,” Jordyn said. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
“Well, it is, bella.”
Lucia was drawn from her mind at her parents’ voices filtering through her