Chapter 11 #2
“Luca,” I warned, but my brother only looked at me for a split second, then his eyes were back on Aleks.
“They had orders not to hurt you,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft.
I was about to speak when Aleks’s fingers squeezed mine hard.
The silent message rendered me speechless.
“And that makes it okay?” Aleks asked, his voice sounding stronger than I’d ever heard it.
Luca had the grace to look momentarily ashamed. Then he shook his head slowly. “Do you know what was supposed to happen the night you supposedly ‘died’?” he asked.
Before I could tell my brother to shut up, Aleks said, “No… what?”
“Marcus was meeting a man who knew where my son was,” Luca declared.
“We don’t know that for sure,” I reminded him.
Luca ignored me and continued. “Vaughn had already made arrangements to get you out the moment that meeting ended and we had the information we needed.”
“What information?” Aleks asked.
“The man’s identity,” Luca said. “Fuck, we didn’t even need that…
we just needed him to show up somewhere so we could put a tail on him and track him back to whatever hole he crawled out of.
The son of a bitch was a ghost… but he agreed to meet Marcus Parks at his place for one reason and one reason only. ”
“Luca, don’t,” I snarled.
“What reason?” Aleks asked, his voice thick with fear.
He already knew the answer.
“You,” Luca whispered.
“Jesus, Luca, just shut the fuck up!” I snapped as I got to my feet.
I grabbed the gun and suddenly I was the one pacing.
“Con, get him the hell out of here!” I shouted.
When Con didn’t move, I dropped down into a crouch next to Aleks.
“Aleks, please, just come with me now. It’s not safe to stay here. ”
Aleks didn’t move at first. When he did, he turned just a little so he could look me in the eye. “Why was the man meeting with Father?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past,” I said quietly, wishing like hell he would drop it.
“Was Father going to sell me to him?” Aleks asked.
I lowered myself to my knees. “It looks that way,” I finally said.
“Why didn’t you want him to tell me that?” he asked as he glanced at Luca.
“Because I knew what it would do to you,” I answered as I dropped my eyes to his lap. His fingers were lax, but I knew that didn’t mean anything.
“What will it do to me?”
“Even though you’re safe, you won’t be able to stop thinking about what it would have been like…
to have to start over with someone new… to think about that fear of needing to learn how to please someone new, to obey them so they wouldn’t hurt you.
You’ll think about how close you came to never seeing your brother or family ever again. ”
“That’s not all,” Aleks whispered. “Is it?”
I shook my head.
“Is he… do you think he’s the one who sent those men after me?”
When I didn’t answer him, I felt his fingers stroke over the back of my head.
“I’ll keep you safe, Aleks. That’s all that matters.”
I knew Aleks was no longer talking to me when he asked, “So you wanted to use me as bait?”
I willed Luca not to answer.
He didn’t.
But whatever Aleks saw on his face was answer enough because he pulled his fingers from my hair and asked, “Can I please go to my room now?”
I wanted to tell him we needed to go, but I knew he wasn’t in any shape to do anything but escape.
I was half-tempted to ask him if he wanted to call his brother, but I was afraid of his answer so I merely nodded.
He got up, making sure to get off his chair on the opposite side so he wouldn’t touch me even by accident.
I stood with my gun in hand to make sure Luca didn’t try to make a grab for him.
Despite my brother not being armed, he had the skills to hold Aleks in such a way that I’d have no choice but to put down my weapon.
I watched Aleks go to the stairs and head up them. There was no way for him to escape from the second floor so my biggest concern was keeping an eye on Luca and Con so neither tried to take him from me while the other distracted or disabled me.
The reality was that if they really wanted to, it wouldn’t take much for them to incapacitate me. The only thing protecting me was my gun, and the idea of shooting either man, despite my need to protect Aleks, left a dead weight in my belly.
“Vaughn, sit,” Con said. “I’ve got some steaks in the freezer that I can defrost. There aren’t any eggs but I can fry up some canned potatoes—”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
Con sighed and Luca shook his head.
“We were so fucking close,” my brother finally whispered, his voice full of bitterness.
I knew what he was talking about, of course. “What was I supposed to do, Luca? Let them all die? The meeting had already been fucking canceled!”
“And why didn’t you know about that?” Luca shot back. “That kid’s brother—”
“His name is Aleks and he’s not a kid!” I bit out.
“That fucking brother of his told him of his little escape plan hours before it actually happened! If you’d been there, you could have found a way to stop it… to make sure the meeting still happened.”
I laughed harshly. “God, you give me way too much credit, little brother.” I leaned back in my chair.
“I was still just the goddamned hired help, Luca! Even if I’d known Dante and Magnus would show up, how would it have looked to Marcus if I’d suggested he keep that meeting?
That’s why I went in eight years ago and you didn’t,” I said as I pointed at him.
“You have all the finesse of a bull in a china shop when you decide you want something. They would have made you on day one!”
Luca leaned forward across the table, his eyes glittering with anger.
“Then explain to me how a kid, who was and still is our best hope of finding my son, is alive and well two years after he was supposedly killed during a scuffle inside the Parks mansion before it blew up? Explain to me what fucking hold he has on you that you would choose him over the child you loved like your own son!”
Con put his hand on Luca’s arm to draw him back into a sitting position, since he was practically in my face by the end of his rant.
“You want to know why, Luca?” I asked. “Because I just couldn’t do it anymore,” I said.
“I couldn’t leave one more victim behind, even for a day, a minute.
You all say I was the best equipped to go in after Gio, but not one of you knows what it’s really like in there.
” I shifted my eyes to Con briefly, then pinned Luca with the harshness of my gaze.
“I’m the one who listened to their screams every day as they were being violated.
I’m the one who had to look in their terrified or dead eyes day after day as they tried to find a reason to take their next breath.
I had to listen to them cry every night for their mom or their dad or whoever was out there in the world looking for them.
You got them out after I told you about them, Luca.
That’s fucking fantastic. But I never got to see any of that because I was on to the next monster trying to find Gio.
Every day for eight fucking years I’ve watched kids suffer and I blocked it off so I could remember that Gio was the one waiting, the one who needed saving. ”
I paused to pull in a breath and automatically glanced at the stairs Aleks had disappeared up.
Then my eyes were back on my brother and my friend.
“So yeah, I saw an opportunity and I took it. I set Aleks free because I knew you’d want to use him.
You wouldn’t have just sent him home or found him a new life like the others.
You’ve become so fucking blind to everything in your desperation to find Gio that I couldn’t trust you to let Aleks go.
” I pointed at the stairs. “His family came for him! Just like we’re coming for Gio.
Aleks and his brother had a right to put their lives back together. And the fact that you can’t see that…”
Luca’s mouth was set into a firm line and he didn’t even move a muscle as I spoke. But I saw something flash in his eyes the moment I accused him of not letting Aleks go… of choosing his son over Aleks’s freedom.
I was surprised when he finally lowered his gaze and stared at his hands.
“What would you have me do, Vaughn? Every second that passes, my son waits for me to come for him. Eight years… eight years of sick fucks hurting him and him calling for me.”
Con settled his hand on Luca’s shoulder, but Luca pulled away.
He lifted his eyes to meet mine and I saw a moment of agony before he hardened his jaw.
“Yes, I would have taken advantage of having Aleks in my hands, but he would have been safe. And I would have made sure he made it home, both then and now. I did some unforgivable things in those early days when I was trying to find Gio, but I’m not…
I’m not a fucking monster. If anyone should know that about me, it’s my own goddamned brother. ”
With that, Luca stood and headed for the front door. I reached for my gun with the intent of calling him back so I could keep him in my sights, but Con reached across the table and grabbed my arm. “Don’t,” he said softly. “Let him go… he can’t go anywhere and there’s no way for him to call anyone.”
I sighed and lowered myself back down to my seat. “What did he mean about that unforgivable part when he first started looking for Gio?” I asked.
Con shook his head. “I don’t know. You know he doesn’t talk about those first couple weeks where he tried to find Gio on his own. Maybe he just meant the guilt about not asking us for help sooner.”
I stared at the door my brother had walked through. Con could be right, but I wasn’t so sure. My brother wasn’t one who dwelled on the mistakes of the past. He put them behind him and moved on; he focused on the task at hand.