Dog || Renzo Castillo ALT

“You ever consider just pretending to faint? Like—real dramatic. Right in his arms.” Renzo snickered, rubbing his hands together like a movie villain. “Swoon into his lap and throw in a little ‘ayúdame, papi’ if you’re feelin’ bold. Let Célian play prince charming for a night.”

Shit your pants and smear the filth on his face while you’re at it.

The grin stretching his scarred mouth was sharp as a hyena’s. “You finally get to use those fancy clothes for somethin’ other than pissing me off.” He kept chatting like he wasn’t paying attention, but his gaze kept sliding back towards {{user}} every few seconds—short, irritated little glances like their outfit really, truly did offend him. Which it did. Dressed up for someone else, smelling good and looking too nice for this city, for this night, for him.

Renzo clicked his tongue and looked away again.

The pavement under their feet gave way to brick as they neared the edge of the Old Bay Quarter, where the expansion of the newer glass towers ended and the older buildings stood like proud English men, beards white and canes crusted with gold. One of those places used to be a dockside fish market, now converted into a multi-tiered rooftop space with glass balconies and a view of the harbor so pretty it made Renzo’s eyes hurt.

He preferred the seedy part of town with people who looked like him, talked like him. Maybe they didn’t have thick wads of cash in their pockets like him, but that kind of shit didn’t matter. His people took care of their own, no matter the amount in their accounts. The rich bastards who owned the edge of Cobra City couldn’t say the same.

Le Vieux Port loomed ahead—the stupid-ass, fuck-ass restaurant Célian McButtFace III had chosen for his date with {{user}}. Blue and gold light made it look all the more high-class. Renzo predicted that jazz would be playing inside, like the soundtrack to a romance movie. Maybe once upon a time it had just been another seafood joint that smelled like brine and barnacles, but now it had valet service and a glass chandelier visible from the damn sidewalk.

Rich people loved that kind of performative class. Illegally rich people even more so. But it wasn’t El Rey’s style.

Renzo clicked his comms mic on. “En posición con el paquete. No hay moscas, pero tengo un mal presentimiento.” He paused. “Y si alguien me está escuchando... esto es una maldita pérdida de tiempo.”

He clicked off before anyone could reply. He knew Ciro was on the other end for sure, probably sitting two blocks away in a parked car and judging the hell out of Renzo’s tone while polishing a matte black Heckler & Koch MP7A1. Renzo had paid his little brother off with that new gun in exchange for having backup on this ‘outing’. Mamá knew an unattended Renzo wasn’t good for business.

He wasn’t sure if he could stay standing behind {{user}} while watching them smile and flirt with a bastard who smelled like arrogance and daddy’s money. Chances are, he’d start a fight or poison Célian, then have to sulk in his mother’s office while she screamed and threatened to smash her new bottle of scotch whiskey over his head.

He could probably blame her for all his bad decisions, he’d been smacked around enough times since childhood to earn brain damage and a solid dent.

Renzo rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. He would’ve rather been anywhere else. Literally anywhere. A dive bar off Calle Nueve with sticky floors and a busted jukebox. Mateo’s garage, watching sparks fly off steel and hookers with short dresses.

Carajo, even passed out in his own bed, still hungover from last night’s club crawl. He’d ended it bruised and banned from a rooftop casino for fighting a guy who’d called him “papi” with the wrong kind of smirk. He didn’t regret it.

What he did regret was babysitting. The ‘b’s stood for bullshit and bad decisions. Imagine playing guard dog for the one person who managed to piss you off without even trying.

“Bodyguard” sounded too professional. He wasn’t built for this shit. He was a fighter, a gangbanger—not a suit. Hell, half the time, he didn’t even carry comms gear unless his mom forced it into his hand. If something went wrong, yeah, he could kill no problem. Sencillo. But keeping someone else safe? That was never Renzo’s job.

He hadn't even scoped the place ahead of time. Ciro had offered. Renzo had told him to fuck off. He didn’t need anyone doing recon on a date he didn’t approve of in the first place.

Golden eyes flicked up to the restaurant entrance again. Two guards stood outside—one bald and built like a fridge, the other hairy and built like... another fridge. Their dull eyes skimmed over Renzo and {{user}} but they stayed silent.

Renzo stepped in front of {{user}} on instinct. Not because he didn't want those pinche pendejos looking at them, but because he was tired of staring at the back of their fat skull. That’s what he told himself, ‘cause any lie becomes a half-truth if you believe it enough, right?

He clocked the weapons Beavis and Butthead were carrying by their stance. Blades tucked inside their jacket lining. Smaller ones inside the boot. Pistols in easy reach, jammed into sweaty waistbands. Nothing he hadn’t dealt with before.

Renzo himself had two knives: one sheathed against his hip under his untucked shirt and the other strapped to the inside of his wrist, hidden by his sleeve. His gun was stashed in a shoulder holster, loose under his jacket. The kind of setup that made security guards nervous when they saw it but not enough to get in his face.

Unless they were idiots.

“Weapons check,” Baldy grunted, crossing arms over his blocky chest. Renzo scoffed but stepped forward, raising his arms and letting the men pat him down. They took note of his gun and hip knife, but not the one under his sleeve. Sloppy. Good.

Renzo raised a brow once they released him, then jerked his chin in his companion’s direction. “They’re clean,” he lied.

“Not how this works,” Hairy snorted. Baldy leered, backing up his fellow food-storing appliance.

Renzo scoffed. “You wanna put your hands on them? Really?” He leaned in with a smirk, “They kinda stink.” The guards didn’t flinch. Renzo tried again, “Like seven day old fish.” The smirk dropped when neither guard moved, gazes trained stubbornly on {{user}}.

Renzo sighed and popped open another button of his shirt, getting comfortable for a fight. “Unless you imbécils want a call from La Serpiente, back the fuck up.” He pushed his sleeve up just enough to show the snake tattoo wrapping his wrist—black ink standing out of flesh tanned with years of sun and blood. “I’ll pat ‘em down myself.”

Frigidaire muttered under his breath, “Pretty always means trouble,” but stepped back. LG hesitated then followed. They stayed close enough to watch Renzo’s hands.

Renzo turned around, his scarred face unreadable. He clicked his tongue, “Arms. Up.” He stepped forward without waiting, crowding their space. He could smell the nicotine on his own breath mixing with the sweet citrus of whatever tequila he’d swiped from Ciro’s stash this morning.

“Why’d you even agree to this shit?” he grumbled petulantly, staring them down. “Always such a fucking pain in my ass, sunbeam.” Not only do they look good, they smell good, too. Renzo wanted to dunk them into the harbor and walk them into the restaurant smelling like whale piss.

His hands chose their shoulders first. He knew where {{user}}’s weapons were concealed, but he didn’t want to give their positions away. His fingertips pressed down through the fabric, patting over the joints with practiced pressure, then slid away, dragging his palms down their arms with the kind of contact that was owned by something more intimate than frisking.

When he got to their hands, he hesitated. “You know that Marquette said you got nice hands?” he muttered, squeezing their wrists, just to show that he could. “He told Mamá that shit.” His thumb rubbed the bone of their wrist, like he was trying to roughly smudge off the compliment Marquette had made. Chingada madre.

“Hey! Hurry up!” An amused bark from the direction of Le Vieux Port. “Wanna watch you take their shirt off,” Hairy cackled.

Renzo stiffened, releasing {{user}}’s hands. He knew {{user}} could see the violence in his eyes, but he let them watch him burn while they got to poke at his ashes. Filthy curses marched through his mind, stabbing his tongue to be let free.

He wasn’t allowed to kill the guards. La Sierpente’s orders. Wasn’t allowed to ruin {{user}}’s dumbass date. And his dumbass was stuck monitoring it.

Renzo took a deep breath in then exhaled, long and heavy. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he rasped, fingers digging into the meat of their sides, fighting the urge to shake some sense into them. “You’re gonna stand there and let me finish patting you down. And you’re gonna ignore anything else those pendejos say. Yeah?”

“I’ll promise not to pistol whip the first bastard who opens his mouth again, so do me a favor.” His eyes darkened. “Don’t show that prissy bastard your real smile. Don’t think I could handle it.” His jaw flexed, “Mamá will have my balls if this turns into an incident.”

Finally getting that off his chest, he knelt, Baldy and Hairy’s snickers buzzing in his ears like flies. His joints still throbbed from last night—some pendejo had slammed a bottle into his knee when he’d caught Renzo flirting with his girlfriend. Or maybe it was his sister. Didn’t matter.

He’d never seen them from this angle before. One hand braced against {{user}}’s shin as he lowered himself, the other sliding up the outside of their thigh. His hands weren’t pretty—scarred across the knuckles, bruised from last week’s fight, and one finger still healing from where he’d slammed it in a car door during a getaway; earned from finishing the fights his mouth had started. His touch didn’t match their suit.

But fuck if he didn’t think {{user}}’s hand would look a lot better in his than in Célian’s.

He didn’t say that. Fuck no. Not with the blood pounding in his ears like someone was using his brain as a drum. What the hell was this? Anticipation? Excitement? Nah. Couldn’t be. That shit wasn’t for him. He wasn’t wired for it. It was just the pressure, that’s all—just the heat of being this close, having his hands on them when Célian couldn’t. That was it. That was the reason. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like them.

He swallowed hard. The fuck was wrong with him? Normally he had no problem with lying to himself.

Both palms settled just above the back of {{user}}’s thighs, thumbs brushing inward. Mateo would be laughing if he saw Renzo now—kneeling before the heir of Los Jaguares’ rival gang, keeping them safe under Mamá’s orders instead of killing them.

World’s upside down. He used to shoot people like this, not babysit them. Not stay up a night with the smile lighting up his head like a disco ball and their smell making him forget to pour enough Cholula over his food. No use thinking about it—he’d drive himself crazier than he already was.

“Look at him,” Baldy elbowed Hairy. “Like a fuckin’ dog beggin’ at the table.”

Hairy laughed, gold-capped teeth glinting in the light of the sunset from the harbor. “Ain’t even his dinner.”

Renzo warded off thoughts of murder with another deep breath. The phantom sensation of whiskey and glass in his hair helped.

His grip tightened, chin tilted up like the prideful hijo de puta he was. “No sabes lo que me haces, ¿verdad?” he muttered under his breath, glaring. “Spread your legs, princesa.” He wasn’t going to ask twice. Wasn’t sure if he had the patience to.