“Yeah, I do,” Robbie said, sounding fractionally more confident.
“Good.” Luca crossed his arms. “Let’s put our little bit of history aside for just a second, OK? The past is the past, and I think we should move on from it. This is really none of my business anyway.”
Robbie nodded like one of those bobble dogs on car dashboards.
“I’m in the market for some new furniture, believe it or not.”
“Really?”
“And I thought, to make up for our unfortunate run-in a little while ago —” Luca pointed his finger at Robbie’s bruised face, twirling it round and round for added effect. “Do you remember that?”
“Y-yeah.”
“And that?” He indicated toward his rib cage.
“Obviously,” Robbie hissed, cradling himself with his meaty arms.
“Well, I thought, to make amends, that I might send some business your way. I need a lot of stuff.”
Robbie relaxed his shoulders.
“I’m not a bad guy,” Luca continued, and I got the sense he was smiling — an event rarer than a solar eclipse. “So why don’t we talk some stuff over?”
“Now?” Robbie cocked an eyebrow. “The movie’s about to start again. Why don’t we do it when I’m at work?”
“The matter is time-sensitive, so let’s talk now.” Luca clapped his hand on the back of Robbie’s neck. “Come on.” He pulled him away from the park and toward the trees. “Wave good-bye to Gracewell,” he prompted. “She’s going to be staying here.”
I sensed the warning in his words, but as I watched them disappear behind the taco truck, I found myself contemplating an unexpected dilemma. The movie’s about to start, I reminded myself, yet my feet were leading me toward the trees and not back to where Millie was sitting on the lawn, waiting — impatiently, no doubt — for the tacos I now had no intention of buying her.
The way Luca draped his arm around Robbie’s shoulders made them seem almost like friends, and I had to admit there was something undeniably convincing about the way he had spoken to him. I, unlike my assailant, was not dumb enough to fall for it. I knew, better than most, that Luca had no need for friends. Or furniture, for that matter. Whatever was going to happen in those trees was unlikely to be a business transaction — for Robbie, at least. But like a bona fide idiot, he let Luca lead him away, and I couldn’t not follow them.
Hurrying my pace so as not to lose them completely, but keeping far enough behind that they wouldn’t notice me, I slipped around the back of the taco truck just as the movie flickered to life over my shoulder. Up ahead, I could see Luca and Robbie disappearing between two overhanging trees. I hung back again, tiptoeing across twigs and dry leaves as I followed their voices.
After I spent several minutes of sneaking around, their conversation reached me through a small clearing. They had stopped walking, so I did, too. Between the break in the trees, they were standing across from each other; Robbie had his hands folded around his ribs, while Luca’s were resting casually by his sides.
I crept closer.
“But I thought you wanted to know about furniture,” Robbie was protesting.
“I just remembered,” Luca replied. “I don’t need any furniture.”
“Then why are we —” Robbie’s breath was knocked out of him before he could finish his sentence.
I watched in muted horror as Luca slammed his fist straight into Robbie’s stomach, making him crumple in half onto the ground. He rolled over onto his side and moaned into the dirt.
“We’re here, Robert, because I heard what you said to Sophie.” Luca’s voice was eerily calm. He stamped down on Robbie’s foot, but the dirt muffled his scream. “And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s drug pushers.” He rounded on him, obscuring him in his shadow, and kicked him hard in the shoulder. “Especially someone who drugs a girl and then tries to rape her.” He pulled his foot back, and this time he hurled it into Robbie’s stomach. There was an audible crack. Robbie screamed into the dirt as Luca used his shoe to roll him onto his stomach. “I mean, it was bad enough when I thought you were just trying to hit on her, but now?” He stamped down on Robbie’s back so that he was spluttering into the dirt and weeds. “Now you’re the lowest of the low. You are scum.”
I started to stumble forward, half-paralyzed by fear yet determined to do something. But my attempt to assist the sobbing bundle of cracked ribs was short-lived as another figure entered the clearing.
“Get up!” he roared, and his voice stopped me dead.
“Nicoli, I told you to stay behind!”
But Nic wasn’t listening to Luca; he wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at Robbie’s crumpled frame, his eyes full of hate as he charged.
“Get up, Stenson!” he yelled in a voice I barely recognized; it was like glass, and edged with a kind of rage I had never known. “Stand up and look me in the eye, or I’ll come down there and cut you open!”
Slowly, Robbie heaved himself off the ground. He managed to half-lean against a tree by sticking his fingers into the bark and bending his knees in front of him. He puffed hard as Luca moved away from them, clasping his hands behind his back and tilting his head like he was watching a puppet show.
I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My legs were shaking violently beneath me and I had to claw against a tree to stop myself from falling to the ground in fear.
“I said stand,” Nic seethed.
“Nicoli,” Luca cautioned, but he didn’t move. “Be careful.”
Groaning, Robbie pulled himself up, the strain contorting his face. “My ribs,” he sobbed. “Please.”