“I never knew that.”
Luca shrugged. “Your dad said that he’ll consider telling me what I need to know about the Shadow Syndicate…if you come and see him at the prison.”
Mack’s expression hardened. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Luca watched him absorb the information, but the kid didn’t say anything. He probably didn’t know what to say. Mack was the kind of guy who thought a whole lot and then measured his words carefully. It was nice on a rough day, when everyone was tired and overwhelmed by what’d happened. Out in the backcountry somewhere, exhausted from fighting fires and dealing with the loss of someone they weren’t able to save. The kid’s natural quietness had been a kind of peace they’d all needed.
But right now, Luca needed someone to give him something. “I don’t even know if he has information or if he’s stringing me along. I just wanted you to know what he said.”
“You aren’t going to tell me to go see him?” Mack seemed surprised.
Luca shrugged. “That’s up to you. I’m not going to force you to do something you don’t want to do just because it might get me an answer on my case.”
“I’ll think about it.” He took a big bite of his sandwich.
“Thanks.” Luca finished his burger and wiped his hands on his napkin. “Want some company for that movie later? I need to go to the hospital and get started on a security job I was contracted for, assessing all the measures they already have in place and making some suggestions. But I could move some things around and come with you.”
Mack shrugged. “If you want. When you go by the hospital, see if my friend Kira is there. She’s a doctor in the ER. She seems kind of lonely, so I always talk to her when I go in. She’s super nice.”
Luca forced himself to not react. “Dr. Kira Yassan?”
Mack frowned. “You know her?”
“A little bit.” How else was he supposed to explain their encounter years ago? Or the one this morning. “You think she’s lonely?”
Mack shrugged one shoulder. “Whenever we take a patient into her ER, she and I grab a soda from the vending machine and chat for a minute. I’ve told her all about Hammer and Sierra, and you and Kane. Not all the sensitive stuff about Maria and her father. That stuff seems pretty top secret, and it wasn’t in the news articles.”
“Did she ask you about all that stuff?”
“I don’t remember. We just started talking about it, and like I said, she seems kind of lonely. Like she needs someone to talk to.”
This didn’t sound good at all. If Kira was going around questioning people connected to Luca about all the things that’d happened the last few years, it could be because she was here as a covert operative to gather information. Even the paper trail of her having been here for a few years could be fake. She may have shown up recently, purely to get close to the Trouble Boys in Renegade—Hammer and Luca.
“Could you do me a favor?” When Mack nodded, Luca continued. “Maybe pull back a little on telling her stuff. Just for a while. Until I figure something out.”
Mack’s expression shifted to something that looked like worry. “There’s something about her that I need to know?”
“I don’t have an answer for that yet. But I’ll keep you posted.”
Mack rolled his eyes. “Maybe you just don’t know her. She’s not some kind of bad guy like the people we’ve met before, terrorists and whatnot. She’s just a doctor. And a nice lady.”
Of course the kid would call someone ten years older than him a “lady.” But Luca still needed him to be careful. At least until Luca knew who Kira really was and what she was doing here in Renegade.
“I hope you’re right.”
Mack shook his head. “You know, she’s pretty good-looking as well. If you’re going to be so cynical, thinking everyone you meet is a bad guy, you’ll never end up with a date. You’re way too suspicious.”
The kid probably thought he knew Kira a whole lot better than Luca did. But there were too many things Mack didn’t know about her. Mack didn’t seem worried at all that Kira would turn out to be someone with ulterior motives.
That’s what had burned him with his father. Believing Alden Jenkins was a nice guy, when in the background, he was terrorizing people and arranging their deaths. Eventually, Mack had been forced to face the fact that his father was abusive to his family as well.
In time, he would realize that he was in denial about Kira in the same way. Luca would break it to him gently, but Mack needed to realize that people were usually someone other than who you thought they were. And most folks couldn’t be trusted. That was just the way this fallen world worked.
He’d seen way too much evil to believe otherwise.
Luca knew who the people were in this world that he could trust, and he would happily lay his life down for them. He didn’t need to widen his circle of who he put faith in. That would only burn him when someone inevitably stabbed him in the back—like a doctor who wasn’t just a doctor.
Making the world a safer place for people to raise their families was the reason he did everything he did. And that included keeping Mack safe from himself.