Page 42 of Brox Boar

“Someone had to,” he says. “He was already inside my mind. I was trying to keep him out of yours for as long as I could.”

I pace away to the floor-to-ceiling windows, then circle back, restless energy ricocheting under my skin. “You really believe the mind games stopped with you?”

He sits back against the bar, arms folding loosely. It is not a defensive pose; more a habit. His attention sharpens. “I never said he stopped. I said I diverted what I could when we were small.”

A bitter sound escapes me, half laugh, half something else.

“He made me spar with grown men twice my size, again and again, until my vision blurred,” I say. “He tied my hands behind my back, dumped me in the woods outside in winter with no coat, and no shoes, and told me to get back before dawn. He put a gun in my hand empty, pointed his own at my head loaded, and asked if I trusted his judgment.”

My voice drops into a lower register without conscious choice.

“He told me you needed me strong,” I continue. “He said Rio is fragile inside. Said I had to become the wall for both of us. So he gave me every method he had for turning a boy into a weapon. Later, when I started using those skills for our gain, he smiled and called me his success story.”

Rio’s eyes stay on mine, unwavering. His jaw tightens. A shadow of something complicated moves through his stare: guilt, anger, grief, all layered so close together I cannot separate them.

“I didn’t know he took you to the woods,” Rio says quietly.

I move around the bar and step closer to him, closing the space. I need him near for this. I need to see his face from this close when I say what comes next.

“Waddington’s file broke something open,” I say. Rio nods once, a small, controlled movement.

“You didn’t look surprised,” I accuse. “In that office. You looked… haunted, maybe, but not shocked. So tell me, what’s going on.”

He takes a breath and lets it out slowly.

“By the time I turned sixteen, I started to doubt everything. That’s what happened at Waddington’s.”

Part of me wants to keep pushing, wants to blame him for every doubt lodged under my skin. He was older. He had more access. He should have done more. Another part of me looks at him—this man who stood between me and chains when we were small—and knows he carried his own share of hell.

Our childhood rearranges inside my head, pieces sliding into new positions. On the nights when he sent me upstairs early, his voice firm, insisting I sleep. I thought he wanted quiet. Maybe he wanted me away from the storage room. And throughout the days when he enrolled me in extra training, always praising my strength. I thought he was proud. Maybe he was making sure I could survive the world he saw outside.

“Out lives are shaped by Valentino’s rule,” I say. “How we fight. How we trust. Waddington’s file took us back to a point before all that.”

Rio’s eyes meet mine again, clear and tired. “Yeah.”

I take another step closer. We stand nearly toe to toe now, suits almost brushing.

“We find out who we are,” I say. “We discover who signed our lives over.”

He studies my face. “You sound ready for a war,” he says softly.

“We were raised for nothing else,” I answer.

He huffs out a breath that might, on another night, almost count as a laugh. Not tonight.

“Do you hate me?” he asks suddenly.

The question catches me off guard. I reach out and grip his shoulder, fingers digging into the fabric. He does not pull away. He places his own hand over mine, anchoring both of us.

“We start with Waddington,” I say. “We tear through every document he sends. We find out where we came from.”

Rio’s fingers tighten over mine once, brief but firm.

I release his shoulder and step back. He straightens his cuffs, and stands up, we’re ready to head downstairs.

CHAPTER 11

LANA