Page 3 of Brox Boar

I shake my head. This would be too much to ask, even for us. But then again, she works there. And this time, she won’t be drugged.

“We’ll call her,” I say, forcing calm into my voice.

Morti exhales as if he’s just been hauled out of deep water. “Okay. Great. Please tell her to hurry. They’re getting restless.” Relieved, he exhales. “And I need some TLC too.”

My eyes meet Rio’s again. I can feel the blood rushing to my head.

“Morti?” I pause long enough for him to feel it. “One wrong move around her, and we’ll have a different problem.”

There’s a pause before he speaks again, as if he checks himself, making sure he heard me right. “S-sure.”

“Stay with Alessio. That’s literally your job.”

I end the call before he can answer, and the car falls silent again. The engine ticks.

Rio leans back in his seat, staring at the dashboard. His cell lights up once more; it’s Italy again. He hits decline without looking.

“They will not stop calling you,” I say.

“They can talk to my voicemail,” he waves it away.

How are we going to tell her she’s going back to Alessio’s room back in the hospital? We promised her a break. We promised her fun. But the logic is brutal and simple. She’s the only one who can do this.

I think about her lying there in our bed. The sheets tangled around her legs, the slow rise and fall of her chest under the cover. The tiny snore she makes when she finally gives in to sleep.

We step out of the car, and Rio locks the Corvette behind us, its chirp echoing off the concrete and bringing me here and now.

I feel both of us are now eager to get to Lana. The elevator is waiting for us with an open door. Rio presses the top button. The doors close, and the elevator moves, a gentle rise through the building.

In the reflection, Rio straightens his tie half-heartedly. “We should bring her food,” he says. “She’ll say she’s not hungry and then eat half my plate.”

“We’ll order something up,” I say. “After we talk.”

“Pizza,” he decides. “No, wait, pasta. That place she likes.”

“She likes anything she can steal off your fork.”

Rio grins at his own reflection. “She likes me.”

“She tolerates you.”

“You love me.”

“Unfortunately.”

He chuckles, then falls quiet, his shoulders relaxing. He’s already there in his head, in the penthouse living room, dropping onto the sofa with Lana sprawled on top of him. That picture is so vivid that for a second, my cock twitches with it.

The elevator doors slide open to our private foyer. I step out first. The familiar scent hits me, leather, our cologne and a soft note of her floral shampoo.

My mouth curves without thought. “Ready to face Sleeping Beauty?”

“Always,” Rio says.

CHAPTER 2

RIO

The floor-to-ceiling windows show a slice of the city skyline; the living room is how we left it, with the sofa in the center, the coffee table littered with empty glasses and a deck of cards from last night. A throw blanket lies bunched at one end where Lana curled up between us to watch a film and fell asleep halfway through, mumbling protests when we carried her to bed.