Chapter 19
Headlights washed over the warehouse, and my fingers tightened around the back of Lorenzo’s neck. I wanted to dig my fingers in harder, wanted to feel the muscles shift under his skin.
Diego had one foot out of the car before it ever stopped.
He ran up the sidewalk, more panicked than I’d ever seen him.
"What the actual fuck happened? We watched them take you.
Black bags, zip ties, the whole kidnapping special.
Jasper wanted to engage but there were too many, and we couldn't..." He shook his head.
"Mierda, we thought you were dead. Or worse. "
"We're okay," Lorenzo said.
"Who took you? How did you escape? We've been driving around for hours trying to figure out where they'd take you, and then we get these mysterious coordinates and..."
"It was Luka."
Diego blinked. "What?"
"The extraction team. It was Luka's people. He staged a kidnapping to get us out of the airport without being followed."
"He WHAT?" Diego clenched his fists. "That hijo de puta! I'm going to kill him. I'm going to actually murder him. We thought Constantine had you!"
"So did we for about twenty very unpleasant minutes."
Jasper rolled down the window and leaned out, a cigarette smoking between his lips. "Were you followed?"
"No, Luka was thorough. Overly thorough."
"Scared the shit out of us, though," Diego pulled Lorenzo into a hug.
Jasper tapped the side of the car impatiently. “Get in. We need to move. Now.”
In the car, Diego's eyes found us in the rearview mirror. "Luka's lucky he's not here, or I'd be having words with him about his extraction methods."
"Get in line." Lorenzo murmured against my shoulder. He'd collapsed into me the second the car door closed, and I pulled him close, one hand fisting in his shirt to keep him there.
Diego's voice brightened. "Please tell me you hit him."
"Broke his nose."
"GOOD."
Diego kept talking, but the words dissolved before they reached me.
Lorenzo relaxed against me, and I buried my face in his hair, breathed him in like I was drowning and he was air.
He smelled like espresso and burnt sugar and underneath it all, blood.
His blood, my blood, it didn't matter anymore.
We were stained with the same violence, baptized in the same sins.
I pressed my lips to his temple. He made a small sound in his sleep, and my cock thickened in response, blood rushing south so fast it made me dizzy.
I had the sudden urge to wake him up with my teeth on his throat, my hand wrapped around his cock. I wanted to hear him make that sound again when he was awake and knew exactly who was touching him, who owned every gasp and moan.
Later, Rafael. When you’re not running for your lives.
But when would that be? After we collected these blood seals, after we confronted Minos, after we survived an unsurvivable challenge?
The drive stretched forty minutes through increasingly empty roads. When we reached the airfield where the Cessna waited, I helped Lorenzo up the stairs. He was still half-asleep. Part of me wanted to carry him, but the other part knew his dignity would never let me do that in front of his friends.
On the plane, Lorenzo dropped into the seat beside mine. His head went back on my shoulder, fingers twining in mine. I squeezed hard enough to make him understand this wasn't gentle, this wasn't safe. This was me giving him one last chance to pull away before I stopped letting him go.
He squeezed back harder.
Diego and Jasper ran through pre-flight checks up front.
The engine roared to life and vibration shook through the cabin.
“This baby’s gonna need a checkup before we get airborne again,” Diego muttered. “Lorenzo, you’re paying for all the bullet holes, yeah?”
“Sure,” Lorenzo said, and yawned.
The takeoff was a little bumpy, but not nearly as bad as the one in Rio. The ground dropped away, and we glided up to altitude.
"Should only be a short thirty-minute jump to the safe house," Diego called back. "Try to get some sleep, though. You both look like you haven't slept in days."
"That's because we haven't," Lorenzo muttered, but his eyes were already closed.
My fingers tangled in his hair, holding him where he belonged against me.
"You two are disgustingly sweet," Diego said.
The word was wrong. There was nothing sweet about the way I would kill to keep Lorenzo breathing.
But I didn’t argue. Instead, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off.
The second I believed we were safe, the devil came for his due.
Something slammed into the plane from below.
The impact punched through my bones, and my skeleton rattled inside my skin. The plane bucked like a living thing trying to throw us. My shoulder cracked against the bulkhead.
Diego was shouting, but I couldn't hear it, couldn't hear anything past the blood roaring in my ears and the alarms shrieking. Lorenzo jerked awake and gasped against my chest.
Orange flames bloomed outside the window. The plane lurched hard left. My stomach dropped as we tilted, kept tilting, past any angle that meant survival.
No. No no no!
I grabbed Lorenzo, hauled him against me and wrapped myself around him like I could hold back metal and fire and the earth rushing up to meet us. His heart slammed against my chest, and I thought, mine, mine, mine, even as we fell to our deaths.
"Rafael!"
"I've got you." The words ripped out of my throat, equal parts promise and threat and vow.
The plane shuddered. Something tore through the cabin behind us and insulation exploded into the air.
Cold wind blasted through and stole the air from my lungs.
Lorenzo's fingers dug into my jacket and clawed for purchase.
I crushed him closer until there was no space between us, until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began, until we were one thing falling together toward whatever waited below.
“HANG ON,” Diego shouted, fighting with the controls. “We’re in for a bumpy landing!”
We were going to die.
"Look at me." I grabbed Lorenzo's face. "Stay with me. Whatever happens, stay with me."
He nodded frantically and tucked his face back against my chest, burrowing in like he could crawl inside my ribs and hide there.
I held him tighter and wrapped myself around him like I could shield him from metal and fire and gravity itself. If death wanted him, it would have to go through me first.
The impact threw us around like rag dolls in our seats.
The seatbelt bit into my shoulder and sawed deep.
Lorenzo's weight crushed against me, and I held on, refusing to let go even as the world disintegrated.
We bounced and hit again. Something behind us ripped away with a sound like creation ending.
Metal shrieked against metal, and dirt and fire sprayed up everywhere.
My head whipped forward and my vision went white, then black at the edges, but my arms were still locked around Lorenzo, still holding, still keeping him with me because I'd rather die than let him go.
Then, everything stopped.
My ears were ringing, and there was fire and twisted metal everywhere, but Lorenzo was still in my arms, still breathing, still mine.
"Rafael?" He groaned. “You alive?”
"Right here." My voice broke. "I'm right here."
He turned his head to look at me, and relief hit me so hard my vision blurred. Blood streaked down his face, but his eyes were open. “Diego? Jasper?”
"We're alive," came Diego’s call from the mangled front end. “But we need to go now. If this thing is leaking fuel…”
I shifted, and pain lanced through my ribs. Lorenzo hissed when I helped him up. We crawled through the wreckage, toward…
Jesus, the entire back half of the plane had been ripped away. If we’d been sitting on the back seats…
No. I couldn’t think about that. We had to get out. Had to live.
I crawled forward, making sure Lorenzo was in front of me, and kept going when we made it to the grass. We broke into a run, tumbling to the ground some fifty yards from the burning wreckage lighting up the rural New York night like a bonfire.
Lorenzo collapsed onto his back, breathing hard. "That was fun. Let's never do it again."
A laugh tried to escape my throat and broke into something that might have been a sob. "Agreed."
Behind us, Diego dragged Jasper from the wreckage. All of us were breathing when we shouldn't be.
Then I heard it. Engines rumbling through the trees.
Headlights cut through the darkness, multiple beams converging on us. My heart dropped into my stomach as figures emerged from the darkness and moved in formation. Armed men surrounded us. They'd been waiting. They shot us down, and now they were here to finish it.
My hand found Lorenzo's and squeezed. If this was the end, they'd have to pry him from my arms or kill us together. Even then, I’d find him in Hell and claim him there too.
I wasn't letting go. Not now. Not ever.