Renzo + Lucia: The Complete Trilogy - Bethany-Kris Page 0,9

could he do? His sister was in a far better place than he and Diego were at the moment. His goal was, hopefully, by the time Diego started school … Renzo might have enough money to put him in a decent school that would keep him busy for the day.

He just needed to keep Diego out of trouble, right? Make sure his little brother never had a reason to go out on the streets like he did to make up the difference, and take care of his family. Diego wouldn’t have to do that at all if Renzo was doing it for him.

That’s all that mattered.

Rose offered him a donut, but Renzo shook his head. He brought those for her, not for him. He should have grabbed food at some point over the day, but he ended up getting busy and shit like feeding himself fell to the wayside. He’d make sure to have something for Diego later, and maybe then he could eat for the first time all day.

But even that was a toss-up.

“So, hey,” Rose said, closing up the bag of sweets and giving her brother all her attention again. “I was talking to someone …”

She looked like their mother, he thought. Soft-features, dark hair like his, and brilliant green eyes with gold flecks. He’d taken their father’s russet eyes—darker than night itself. Renzo also took his sharp, strong jaw from their shared father, but everything else—high cheekbones, and straight noses to even the way their eyebrows quirked with a mind of their own—came from their mother. But you know, before drugs had taken away the beauty their mother had once been, dulled her skin, and took all the life out of her eyes.

“You were talking to someone, huh?” Renzo rolled his eyes, and shifted his shoulders a bit to get more comfortable. “Didn’t I tell you that talking to people gets you in trouble?”

Rose smacked him lightly with the back of her hand. “Just listen. It was my counselor at school. She said there’s a program at the Y coming up. High school equivalency, you know.”

“I don’t have time for that.”

And he didn’t.

Rose grumbled. “Don’t say I didn’t try.”

The knot between his sister’s brow tugged at his heart in a painful way. She worried about him far more than she should. He wished she wouldn’t concern herself over him and his affairs at all. It would be easier on both of them.

Pushing up to sit straight, Renzo bumped Rose’s shoulder with his own, and grinned in a way that had her smiling back. “Remember, kiddo, I look out for you. That’s how this has always worked. Not the other way around.”

“But someone’s gotta look out for you, Ren.”

“Maybe, but it isn’t you.”

With that said, he stood from the steps and dug inside his leather jacket to pull out a yellow envelope. He held it out for his sister to take. Rose did, but not before eyeing it first. This was their thing—a few minutes of chit chat every week, he handed over some money, and then he left her to her life until he came back around again.

It was better that way.

“Where did the money come from this week?” Rose asked.

“Does it matter as long as it keeps you here, and not in the Bronx?”

His sister didn’t reply.

Renzo didn’t need her to.

• • •

Renzo ignored the way the grease on the underside of the fast food bag seeped through to his palm as he balanced it with the rest of the shit he was carrying, and tried to unlock the door of his apartment. It took him entirely too long to realize he didn’t need to unlock the door at all because it was already unlocked.

Fuck.

Bad sign number one.

The second bad sign was the mess he walked into as soon as he opened up the front door. Papers and takeout containers scattered across the entryway floor. Discarded clothes beside the laundry basket he’d left out to wash later after Diego went to bed.

And the smell …

Sickly sweet.

Too sweet.

Renzo knew that smell, and it instantly turned his fucking stomach. As much as the smell of meth made him sick and angry, it also made him concerned. He dropped the bags he was carrying onto the chipped countertop in the kitchen as he passed through, and headed right for the living room on the other side.

Sure enough, he found his mother strung out on the couch. One leg had been tossed over the arm of the couch, while the