Chapter 2
Aleks
“I just wanna go home.”
“I know you do, but your parents can’t take care of you anymore, Aleks. They said it was just too hard.”
“’Cause they don’t have much money?”
“That… and ’cause you were bad.”
“I didn’t mean to be bad. Please, I’ll tell them I’m sorry and I’ll be good. I promise!”
“Aleks, it doesn’t work like that. It’s too late. I’m sorry.”
“No!”
“Hey, hey, calm down. Everything will be okay.”
“I wanna go home!”
“I know you do, but you can’t. But you can stay with me, okay? For as long as you want. Hey, don’t cry, Aleks. I’ll take care of you. I promise. We can be friends.”
“We can?”
“Best friends.”
“But… but you’re a grown-up.”
“I’m not that much older than you. Besides, being friends with a grown-up would be kind of cool, right? We can do lots of fun things. Like eat ice cream for breakfast and play video games all day. That sounds cool, doesn’t it, Aleks?”
“Can… can I go home and we can still be friends?”
“No. Remember what I told you about your parents?”
“But… but maybe Dante can take care of me. He can talk to Mama and Papa…”
“Dante? Is that your brother?”
“Yes, he watches out for me and he—”
“He knows you’re here, Aleks. Who do you think told us about your Mama and Papa being mad at you and not wanting you anymore?”
“No… no, he… he wouldn’t do that. He… he loves me.”
“Well, maybe he does. How about you come stay with me for a while and if he wants to come see you, he will?”
“You’ll tell him where I am?”
“I will, I promise. But if you want me to do something for you, you have to do something for me.”
“Wh… what?”
“You just have to behave, Aleks. That’s all. Just do what I tell you. And you can stay with me until Dante can convince your Mama and Papa to give you another chance.”
“Um…”
“You trust your brother, right? Then he should be able to come get you real soon. But my house is much nicer than this place. You can have your own room and watch TV and eat whatever you want. As long as you behave.”
“Okay… but I can go when Dante comes?”
“Of course. But until then, we’ll be the best of special friends, how does that sound?”
“Okay.”
“My name’s Brian, Aleks. Let’s go home, okay?”
“No… no!”
“Aleks, wake up, you’re dreaming!”
“No, I don’t want to go with you!”
“Aleks, damn it, wake up!”
I jerked awake at the voice that was too deep and desperate to be Brian’s.
Brian never got angry. He punished, he manipulated, he threatened, but he never raised his voice to do it.
There was a slight pressure on my upper arms as I tried to get my eyes to open, but between the pounding in my head and chest and the way my eyes felt stuck together because they were dry, I couldn’t escape that moment when I’d na?vely put my hand in Brian’s and let him lead me from the dark, empty room with just the one mattress on the floor.
I began to cry because I couldn’t even tell my young self to run.
Just run.
I’d never run.
I’d never even tried.
“Just behave, Aleks, and your brother will come soon.”
“And you’ll tell him I was good?”
“I’ll tell him you were the best.”
Meu melhor…
My best…
“Dante,” I whispered as I forced my eyes open. “Meu melhor,” I gasped as I sat up.
I waited for him to play the game with me. The first time I’d called him my best, he’d started making up ridiculous guesses to finish the statement and it had become our thing. Even now, we still did it and it was how I knew I was okay… that everything was finally okay.
But it wasn’t Dante’s gentle expression that met mine when I managed to focus. And it wasn’t his big hands on my upper arms.
“Vaughn,” I breathed in relief.
Until I remembered I couldn’t feel relieved around this man.
Not anymore.
I scrambled back from him and he immediately released me. My back slammed into something behind me and I realized it was a headboard.
Jesus, I was in bed with him.
I lurched away from him and would have fallen out of the bed if he hadn’t chosen that moment to latch onto my arm again.
“Don’t!” I screamed and he instantly released me.
I’d regained enough of my balance so that this time I didn’t fall, but I quickly got out of the bed and backed up until I was lodged into the nearest corner.
I began jerking my eyes around the room to look for Father when my brain caught up to my reality.
Father was dead.
I’d seen his body for myself. I’d felt his warm blood on my skin. I’d stared into his open, empty eyes. Those eyes haunted my nightmares, just like Vaughn’s eyes dominated my dreams.
Father was dead. I knew that.
Vaughn was here.
He’d kidnapped me.
I knew that too.
But that was all I knew.
I looked down at my hands and saw they were no longer bound. Not like they’d been in the car.
I fought to remember the events after he’d told me he wasn’t taking me home, but there were only bits and pieces.
“Where are we?” I managed to get out, despite my ragged breaths.
The room was dim, but not dark. It had old-looking wallpaper and there were just a few simple furnishings including a bed and dresser with a vanity mirror on it.
There were two doors. One that was closed, either for a closet or a bathroom.
And one that led out of the room. It was currently open and I wondered if I could make my escape through it.
Don’t run, Aleks. Just do as you’re told and you’ll be okay.
I felt bile rise in my throat as Brian’s voice filtered through my head. I actually had to close my eyes because I felt so dizzy. I hadn’t heard his voice in years, but it was like he was standing right next to me.
“In a safe place,” Vaughn responded as he slowly got up off the bed.
He moved around the foot of it, his eyes wary, like he was waiting for me to try and get past him.
I wanted to laugh at that because not only would my body not respond to the instinct, but I knew he’d catch me with next to no effort.
“Why?” I bit out as I looked at the bed, then myself. I was still wearing all my clothes. All except my shoes, and I could see those sitting on the floor next to the bed. I looked at the bed again. There were no restraints of any kind.
But all he’d need were plastic ties like the other guys. They could easily be in his pocket. And in truth, we both knew he didn’t need them. He was much bigger and stronger than me. He’d have no problem subduing me, assuming I could even find the courage to fight back.
And since I couldn’t find the guts to even try and run, I knew there was no chance of me fighting him. I had no doubt he knew it too.
“Is it you?” I asked. “Or someone else?”
“No one is going to hurt you, Aleks.”
He had the audacity to actually look pained as he said the words, but I didn’t believe him or the imagined emotion. I might be a coward, but I wasn’t stupid. I’d long ago learned that the master manipulators were the ones who knew how to use the words you wanted to hear against you.
I took a moment to study him. He looked the same, though there was a certain tiredness to his eyes that I’d never noticed before.
Like his soul had aged at a considerably faster rate than his body.
I guessed him to be in his mid-thirties or so.
He was taller than me by several inches and outweighed me by maybe sixty pounds.
He wasn’t a muscle head, but he was really well built with a broad chest and trim hips.
The muscles of his thighs flexed beneath the black dress pants he was wearing as he moved a little closer to me.
He was wearing a light-blue button-up dress shirt but had taken his jacket off at some point.
I didn’t see his gun, but that didn’t mean anything. It could easily be at his back.
Vaughn’s black hair was a little longer on top and trimmed short on the sides.
His beard was also a touch longer than it’d been two years ago.
I’d always had this weird obsession with wanting to know what the neatly groomed hair would feel like beneath my fingers.
I’d only ever seen Vaughn dressed in suits, so it had always fascinated me to see the single black earring he wore in his left ear…
I always imagined it to be some kind of silent “fuck you” to the world.
My gaze dropped to Vaughn’s muscular forearms. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up so I could see that his right arm had a tattoo on it, but his left didn’t. Another silent act of rebellion? Or was that who he really was and the suits were the fake part?
Why did I even care?
He wasn’t real.
At least not the version of him I’d imagined in my head. The one who’d saved me two years earlier.
Why had he done that?
Maybe his goal had only been to kill Father? Maybe they’d had some kind of falling out.
But he’d let me and Dante and Magnus go.
Oh God, Dante… he had to be going crazy with worry. How long had it even been since I’d been taken?
I looked at the single window in the room but the curtain was drawn. There was no light filtering in through it, so that meant it was probably still dark out.
Or dark again.
God, why couldn’t I remember anything?
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.
My limbs felt heavy and before I could even consider the vulnerable position I was putting myself in, I slid my back down the wall and dropped to the floor.
I drew my knees up against my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
I was aware of Vaughn moving, but I was suddenly too tired to care.
He’d do whatever he wanted. Better to let him get it over with.
Because there would be no rescue this time.
Even once he got me back to Chicago, he or whoever he was delivering me to would make sure Dante could never find me again.
When I’d first been taken as a child, they’d moved me around from place to place so many times I’d eventually lost count.
All sense of time had been stolen from me until Brian had come and offered me a chance to go home.
And stupid kid that I’d been, I’d taken him up on it.