Page 29 of Battle King (Princes of Devil's Creek 4)

“Is Marcello alive?” Dad asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Cole admitted, his voice filled with uncertainty. “If we cut too big of a hole into the cave, it could collapse. The pressure could take the whole thing down on their heads.”

Cole was an engineer and had more knowledge than any of us. It was a good thing he’d agreed to accompany Marcello on this mission.

Time was of the essence.

I curled my hand into a fist on the table, attempting to still my nerves. “Can you enter at a different point?”

“Yes,” Cole confirmed. “We’re drilling now. But I’m not sure how much air they have left. I only made it a few minutes into the cave before I needed the respirator. Marcello, Drake, and Tate have been inside for too long.”

“I understand that,” I told him. “Let’s focus on gaining access to the cave. We’ll have a medical team on standby.”

“Give us another hour,” Cole said, breathing hard. “I’ll call when I have news.”

I hit the button on the phone to end the call.

My father’s deep brown eyes bore into my blue ones. He looked like he was trying to dig through my brain and extract each thought. “Marcello is alive,” he said with confidence as he rose from the chair. “He’ll come home.”

It was almost as if he were saying this for himself. Like he needed to hear the words aloud to believe them.

“Of course.” I followed him to the door. “Marcello will find a way out of there.”

Dad nodded. He was a man of few words, and at times like these, he often retreated into himself.

He gave me a quick pat on my shoulder and then walked down the hallway toward the stairwell. I spun around and found Damian and Bastian a few feet from me.

None of us had spoken much.

Damian even less than usual.

“It’s time to tell Alex the truth,” Bastian suggested, running a hand through his caramel brown hair. “She will lose it when she finds out Marcello is lost and might not come home.”

Damian brushed his thumb over the black stubble on his jaw. “We should give her a sedative first.”

Carl Wellington armed us with plenty of drugs that were safe for Alex to take during her pregnancy. She was so nervous and upset all the time. It seemed like my boys were fucking with her mentally. Alex often joked that it was because they were my demon spawn.

Maybe that was true.

I nodded in agreement. “C’mon, let’s rip off the Band-Aid.”

* * *

After we left my office, the three of us sought out Alex. She was in her studio with Olivia, showing her how to paint. Unlike Alex’s work, Olivia’s canvas looked like Sofia was attempting to finger-paint. But the girls were laughing and joking about their mess on the tarp.

Alex never had a lot of friends.

That was mostly my fault.

I wouldn’t allow anyone in Devil’s Creek to speak to her when we were in high school. Even when she studied art at the Rhode Island School of Design, I kept tabs on her. I wasn’t that far away at Harvard and had my security team watch her. If she made a friend, I chased them away. Same with men. They disappeared from her life as quickly as they entered it.

Now that I saw the error in my ways, I wanted her to have friends. A family. I wanted Alex to have everything she never had growing up, everything I denied her because of my hatred.

Alex glanced over her shoulder when she heard our shoes tap the floor. A smile lit up her face. “Why do the three of you look like you’re up to no good?”

I smirked, extending my hand to her. “Because most of the time we are.”

Damian snickered, shoving a hand through his black hair that needed a cut. A few strands dropped onto his forehead that was so pale it made his lips appear even redder.

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