Renzo + Lucia: The Complete Trilogy - Bethany-Kris Page 0,35

such a mess. He needed to get a handle on that first, and then he would go from there.

“Where is this party, then?” Lucia asked.

“Here in my stomping grounds. A few blocks away.”

“The Bronx.”

She said it simply—just as though it were fact, and not that she had an opinion either way. Not like she was judging the area, or concerned about the trouble that might find her if she went down that way with him.

“It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever experienced,” Renzo said, “I can promise you that.”

Lucia nodded, and dug in the pocket of her white dress to produce a pair of keys with a familiar L emblem on the fob. Not saying a word, she tossed the keys to him, and Renzo caught them easily enough. He shot her an inquisitive look to which she only shrugged.

“You wanna drive?” she asked sweetly.

Renzo stared down at the keys in his hand. The most expensive car he had ever driven was a friend’s secondhand Jeep to help the guy move some shit from one apartment building to another. He never really needed to drive a lot in his work. The city was always congested as fuck with traffic, and another accident was usually right around the corner to make it worse than it already was. There wasn’t anywhere he couldn’t get to by using the city bus, or subway and it was typically a faster way to travel.

He did have his license, though.

He could drive.

Lucia laughed the longer Renzo hesitated to answer. “It’s insured. You wreck it, and it’ll be fixed. Try not to wreck it, though … because it won’t be the car that someone will be pissed about, you know. More like the woman in the passenger seat. They’ll be really pissed about that.”

Renzo met her gaze, and expected to find that same joking amusement he found earlier. Instead, she was stone-cold serious, and not even a hint of mirth reflected back in her eyes.

Well, then.

“All right,” he said.

Lucia nodded, and the smile of hers that he was enjoying so much came back like it had never left in the first place. “A date, then?”

Yeah, shit.

Renzo hit the unlock button on the fob, and the Lexus lit up on all corners. “A date, Lucia.”

• • •

“Oh, my God.”

Renzo nodded to the guy who’d just taken two twenty-dollar bills from his hand without as much as a word about who he was, his age, or where he came from. Then again, the guy was a regular at these things. He usually watched the door, and on more than one occasion, probably saw Renzo walk through wherever they popped up once or twice to make a sale or two.

“Not what you expected from the outside?” he asked Lucia.

She turned slightly to look at him, but her gaze was quickly drawn back to the light show happening just down the main hallway of the warehouse. “No, I can’t say it is.”

Renzo figured that.

Placing his hand at the small of her back, he pressed and pushed her forward. Walking in step with her, he chuckled as the music ramped up a bit louder, and he swore he felt the floor of the old building start vibrating as people shouted in response to the fast beat of the next song.

Knowing she wouldn’t hear him otherwise, Renzo moved closer to Lucia to murmur in her ear, “Fair warning, there’s going to be a lot of people.”

And when he said a lot, he meant a fucking lot. That was always a guarantee with these things. Given the fact these pop-up parties—some people still liked to call them raves—were illegal, that was one of the major factors that drew people in. It also helped that no one was there to police anybody’s behavior or business. It was a free for all, in a way. As long as everybody was safe, stayed hydrated, and minded their own business, nobody had a problem.

“Some of them will be high as fuck,” Renzo continued on, and hand curving tightly around Lucia’s waist as they came closer to the large main section of the warehouse. “Some of them are going to be getting high. Some of them won’t be high at all. Some might be hooking up in a corner, or on the floor, or … wherever they can find a spot.”

She made a noise under her breath, but Renzo still heard it over the loud music nonetheless. It sounded like a mixture of curiosity and disbelief all rolled into one.