"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.
