har·bor

/ˈhärbər/

verb

1. keep

a thought or feeling, typically a negative one

in one’s mind, especially secretly.

2. give a home or shelter to.

There’s got to be more to life than this.

Even as the old man landlord bitched in the apartment doorway, Renzo Zulla’s mind was on something else entirely. Somewhere that bills weren’t a problem, and rent wasn’t due. Somewhere that a newborn didn’t cry harder than other newborns, and he didn’t have to stay up all night just to watch the baby shake in his sleep because the drugs their mother had pumped into her body during his pregnancy hadn’t left his blood yet.

Somewhere that was better than here.

He’d not found it yet.

“Where is your mother?” the landlord demanded.

Renzo came out of his thoughts to stare the man head-on. What should he say?

I don’t know.

She left the night we brought Diego home.

Probably shooting up somewhere.

Renzo figured none of those things would help his case here. If only because, well, the man might call someone on Renzo. It was just him and Rose, and two-week-old Diego in the apartment. He wasn’t even fucking seventeen yet, either.

“She’s out,” Renzo lied.

The bitterness that festered in his chest whenever he lied for his mother grew each time he had to do it. Mostly because he didn’t want to have to lie for her at all. It wasn’t like she deserved it. She couldn’t even do the bare minimum for the three kids she brought into the world, but here he was protecting her time and time again.

Even if it wasn’t really for her.

Still pissed him off.

“When is she gonna be back?” the landlord demanded.

Renzo swallowed the thickness in his throat, replying, “Later, maybe.”

Days was more like it.

If not weeks.

Carmen was harder to predict than the weather, and Renzo had stopped trying. Besides, he didn’t have the time or patience anymore. He had other things to worry about—the two-week-old in his arms, for example. Diego needed to eat, and Renzo was running low on that powder formula. Or even the girl in the living room trying to get her brush stroke just right with paint brushes he’d lifted from an art store, and a canvas her teacher let her take from school.

He couldn’t worry about where the fuck his mother was right now, or when she was going to get back. Frankly, a part of him wished she would never come back because honestly, life might be easier.

It would certainly be better.

“Well,” the landlord grunted, pushing his heavy body away from the door finally, “I am gonna need that rent before the end of the day, Renzo, or a notice is going up on the door. Do you hear me?”

Renzo wished his throat didn’t feel so fucking tight, so he could tell this man where he should shove his goddamn rent money. “You’ll get your money.”

“Make sure of it.” The man’s beady eyes dropped to the swaddled—the lady next door showed Renzo how to do it for Diego—baby tucked into Renzo’s arms. “Cute kid—having them younger and younger, huh?”

The landlord didn’t give him a chance to reply and deny that Diego was his son before he turned and left. Not that it would matter, really. Very few people had even known his mother was pregnant with a third child she would never be able to care for because of her drug habit and lack of love for her children. All the drugs she used kept her sickly-skinny, and sickly-looking, too. She’d barely looked pregnant when Diego was finally born, and he barely broke five pounds on the scale, too.

“Ren?”

Closing the apartment door, Renzo turned to face his almost-fifteen-year-old sister with what he hoped seemed like a smile. He couldn’t be fucking sure. Even smiling was more difficult than it should be, really.

“Yeah, everything is fine, Rose,” he told her.

His sister didn’t look like she believed it.

He didn’t have time to placate her. Not right now. A quick peek out the window told him they were getting close to the day being over which meant the rent needed to be in that asshole’s hand. He didn’t have the rent money—all the money he had saved up from doing odd jobs for Vito Christiano—which wasn’t very much—went straight into getting them into this place before Diego was born, keeping his mother calm so she didn’t ruin the whole damn thing, and making sure Diego had what Renzo assumed a baby needed.

He was deadass broke.

He hadn’t been able to pick up a job from Vito since Diego was born because he hadn’t been able to leave the baby alone. Who the hell else was going to take care of him? His mother? Her coked-out ass could barely take care of herself when she was around to do that.

“I need you to look after Diego for a couple of hours,” Renzo said, passing over the sleeping baby. “Do not put him down and walk away from him, Rose. He’s still shaking, and he doesn’t sleep a lot as it is. It helps when you hold him—he doesn’t get as scared or loud.”

Really, Renzo thought it didn’t hurt the baby as much when someone was holding him. It calmed him. Rose didn’t really understand because Renzo never thought to explain to her that drugs plus a pregnancy didn’t equal anything good, but as long as she followed his direction with Diego, then that was all he cared about.

Rose peered down at the swaddled baby. “What if he wakes up?”

“Change his diaper, and give him a bottle.”

“But he throws up every time he eats, Ren!”

Yeah, that was another thing …

“As long as he doesn’t choke, then he’s okay. Just pat his back and see if he’ll take more. Can you handle it, or what?”

Rose didn’t look all that confident, but Renzo didn’t have the time to find someone else to watch the baby.

“I need to get out of here—I will be two hours, tops. Okay?”

“Just two hours?” Rose questioned.

Renzo shrugged. “Maybe less.”

Unlikely, but if it got him out of that apartment …

“All right,” Rose said.

Great.