Chapter 12 #3
But was that what he really wanted?
He’d said he wouldn’t have hurt me.
It wasn’t something I wanted to find out for sure, so I hurried to the kitchen and began scanning the counter for a bag of bread, then realized there probably wouldn’t be any because no one appeared to currently be living in the house.
The little food I’d seen upstairs had looked like it could have come from the freezer…
Dante often made potatoes like that from a bag that he just had to put in the microwave.
And there was always some kind of meat kept in our freezer.
I moved silently to the cabinets and began carefully opening them to see if there were any crackers.
I hadn’t thought to check if there’d been glasses of anything to drink on the dresser where the food had been, so I grabbed one during my search.
I’d be able to fill it with water from the bathroom faucet.
I was in the process of opening one of the long cabinets by the refrigerator when I heard a slight cough.
I froze, then began frantically searching the kitchen to see who’d managed to sneak up on me.
But there was no one. When I heard the sound again, I realized it was coming from outside.
I’d somehow missed the fact that the kitchen door was open but the screen door was closed.
There was a little bit of light out on the porch off the kitchen, but I didn’t see anyone.
It could only be Luca out there… or one of his men.
I carefully closed the cabinet and gripped the glass in my hand so I could use it as a weapon if someone came rushing through the door to grab me. Then I began backing away from the door and back toward the front entryway and stairs… and the safety of Vaughn.
Then I heard it.
This time it wasn’t a cough.
I stilled as I acknowledged what it was.
A sob.
I shook my head because it couldn’t be. Guys like Luca didn’t cry.
It was a trick.
He knew I was in here and was trying to draw me outside so he could grab me.
I took another step back and heard another sob, softer this time… muffled.
Guys like Luca didn’t cry… but fathers who’d lost their sons did.
I moved silently forward, the glass still in my hand. I listened for any creaking of the floorboards that proved he was moving around, but there was nothing but the sound of crickets.
And that occasional muffled sound that I could barely make out now.
I saw him almost immediately when I reached the door. He was sitting on the steps leading to the grass. His back was to me and he was wiping at his eyes.
If he was aware of me, he was really good at pretending he wasn’t. There was something in his hand that he put to his mouth, and a moment later I smelled a hint of smoke.
He was having a cigarette.
Brian had smoked. The smell had always made me sick because he’d smoked almost nonstop and I’d smell it on his hot breath while he was making me his special boy.
Fucking you.
I closed my eyes at the voice in my head. Brian had never called what he’d done to me that but some of the other men had. They’d liked that word.
Brian hadn’t.
He’d said it was crude and uncouth. I hadn’t known what those things meant, but I’d known that nothing about what he’d been doing had been special.
I felt nausea roll through my belly as the memories of the first time he’d hurt me threatened to steal into my mind.
No, not here. Not now.
Not anymore.
I willed the blackness away and opened my eyes. I was startled to see Luca watching me.
I automatically stepped back, but he didn’t make a move to get up.
I told myself to run, but his eyes were like Vaughn’s…
something about them made it impossible to move.
But with Vaughn it was more like I didn’t want to.
With Luca it felt like I was staring into the eyes of a predator…
moving would just cause it to hunt me down.
I was surprised when he turned his attention from me. He took another puff on the cigarette. “Don’t tell Con, okay?” he said as he held the cigarette up briefly. “He thinks I quit.”
I didn’t respond to him, but I took advantage of the fact that he wasn’t looking at me to check the screen door for a lock.
It had one so I flipped it.
If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. I started to back up.
“Aleks, can I ask you something before you go?”
His voice was so different than it had been earlier. The fury and rage were gone for the moment.
“You don’t have to answer,” Luca added.
“Okay,” I finally said when he didn’t make a move to even look in my direction again.
“The blackouts… did they… did they start when you first got taken?”
I wasn’t expecting the question so it took me a moment to find my voice to answer. “I’m not sure.”
He continued to stare into the inky darkness. It was several long seconds before he took another puff. “Did they make it easier?”
I tensed because I started to understand what he was asking me and more importantly, why.
“Yes,” I said. “The first time I went into my head, it was more like I was just in a dream. I knew what was really happening to me, I just didn’t feel it. Does that make sense?”
Luca nodded. “So not blackouts then,” he said.
“No… I guess not. I think those are more recent.”
God, that was hard to admit to. But I had no choice but to accept it. The proof was on Vaughn’s arm.
“I don’t know why, though,” I admitted.
“Because your mind feels safer now,” Luca said.
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
He finally cast me a glance over his shoulder.
“There was no one to take care of you when you were with those men. If you’d done what you did to Vaughn today, they would have killed you for sure.
Somewhere in your mind, you knew that. To escape that completely, that fully, you had to be certain you’d live through it.
That there’d be someone to watch out for you.
Back then you had to survive. Now your mind is trying to figure out how to… live.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. But he was right about one thing… if I’d lashed out at Father like I had Vaughn, he would have killed me. He’d tried to do exactly that the one time I had fought back.
“I don’t know what I want for him more,” Luca whispered.
I knew he was talking about his son. Gio would have been faced with the same choice as me.
“You want him to survive,” I said. I found myself flipping the lock on the screen door and opening it. I had a good view of Luca’s profile as I moved out onto the porch. He shook his head slightly and swallowed hard.
“I didn’t really understand,” Luca said softly. “Or maybe I didn’t want to.”
“Understand what?”
“The suffering those kids we got out went through.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “We saved them… I wanted that to be enough. It had to be enough. And the ones we couldn’t… I forgot about those. I had to forget… we all did.”
“So you could keep looking for Gio,” I said.
He nodded almost violently. “Vaughn thinks I didn’t see what he did and in some ways he’s right. But when they first took Gio, I went after him on my own and I did see things. There was this one boy… he… he…”
Luca just shook his head. “I had to forget about him,” he whispered. “I had to find my son.”
I felt myself softening a bit as I realized like Vaughn, this man was haunted.
And not just by the loss of his son.
“Will you tell me about your son?” I asked as I moved to stand next to one of the pillars that bracketed the steps Luca was sitting on.
Luca stubbed out his cigarette, then pulled out the pack from his pocket, along with a lighter.
I flinched when he reached into his pocket again.
He must have noticed my reaction because he said, “It’s a picture of Gio.
Most of them are on my phone but Con took that when he searched me.
I found the cigarettes in the pantry – I guess one of Con’s grandparents was a secret smoker.
Vaughn made Con remove all the knives and anything else that could be used as a weapon.
They’re with Vaughn in the room you guys are in.
So even if I wanted to do something to you, which I don’t, I couldn’t. ”
Luca kept talking as he pulled a small picture from his pocket.
I didn’t actually believe him about not being able to hurt me if he wanted because he didn’t seem like the type of guy who needed to have a weapon to subdue someone – hadn’t he proven that when he’d kept me from striking out with that knife for a second time?
“Gio gave this to me the day he was taken… school picture,” Luca said as he reached his arm out to hand me the picture.
I was shocked by how the boy in the picture looked nothing like Luca. His hair was a startling shade of blond…it actually looked white. And his eyes were a crisp, pale blue. A big, toothy grin spread across his features. I looked at Luca in surprise.
“I know,” he said. “He doesn’t look like me even a little bit… that’s all his mother,” he added as he motioned to the picture.
I understood now why Vaughn, Luca, and their friends believed the leads they’d been given about Gio.
His unique look would have made him very valuable.
The people who’d taken him might have temporarily colored his hair after first kidnapping him, but they would have let the natural color grow back as soon as they’d moved him some place he wouldn’t be recognized.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d never even colored it, because that would have meant having to wait to sell him.
“He has your chin,” I finally said. “It looks very stubborn.”
Luca actually chuckled. “I wish I could say that was the first time I’d heard that. About my chin… and his. He was… is a really good kid. Never gave his mother or me any kind of trouble. But he’s a fighter too. He… he…”
Luca’s voice dropped off before he whispered, “He’s a fighter.”
My heart broke for him because I knew what he was thinking.