Chapter 26
Aleks
I held my breath for what seemed like the longest time.
“No, irm?ozinho,” Dante said.
I felt my stomach drop out because I thought that was his answer, but relief shot through me when he quickly added, “I would never ask that of you.” He glanced at Magnus and I saw the pair exchange a smile.
But it wasn’t until my brother tucked his gun into his waistband behind his back that I finally relaxed.
Until I remembered where we were.
And why.
I dropped Vaughn’s hand and rushed to Dante. “They lost someone just like you did, Dante. I need to help them. We need to help them. And all those kids out there. Please—”
“We will, Aleks,” Dante quickly assured me.
He looked at Ronan. I still felt like a fool for not having recognized the man at first when he’d entered the room, but I’d been too scared to really process what was happening.
The sight of Dante pointing a gun at Vaughn’s head had pretty much caused my brain and my body to go to war as one tried to win out over the other.
“How did you know about Stylianos?” Luca asked. “We never posted his name online.”
“You think you’re the only ones who know how to track who hired a bunch of assholes to kidnap a person?” Dante asked.
“We also know they weren’t the only men sent to take Aleks that day,” Ronan said.
“The part that wasn’t clear was why the brother of the man who’d had his own men try to kidnap Aleks would stop them…
and then let Aleks call home to tell his family he was okay.
It took longer than we would have liked to figure out exactly who you were,” Ronan said to Vaughn.
“But once we did, the pieces started to fall into place. And led to you,” the man continued as he stopped in front of Luca.
“You all are pretty good with computers,” he acknowledged. “But you don’t have what we do.”
“What’s that?” Luca asked.
“Our wife,” one of the men near Luca said. He was huge with short black hair. He was motioning to the man next to him.
“That’s Cash and that’s Sage,” Ronan said as he pointed first at the bigger guy, then the one with the reddish-orange hair.
“They’re married to Daisy, who’s currently expecting their first child.
Daisy is the one who helped us put the brakes on your plans by messing with your tech.
” Ronan nodded toward Luca’s suit jacket and I knew he was talking about the button that was also a video camera.
“Once we found out who you were, we had to find out why you’d taken Aleks.
The picture nearly ended it all,” Ronan admitted.
“You have Magnus to thank both for stopping Dante from storming into your house and killing you all and for making us look harder for the truth.” He looked at Vaughn.
“He was convinced that something he saw between you and Aleks two years ago was the real deal.”
I looked at Magnus. He sent me a reassuring smile and then his eyes met Vaughn’s and he tipped his head.
I got the impression they were even now. Vaughn had saved all our lives two years ago and Magnus had returned the favor.
“So you know about Gio?” Luca asked, his voice losing some of the edge it’d had before. “And Stylianos.” I knew it was just now hitting him that we weren’t any closer to finding Gio.
“We do,” Ronan said. “As I said, Daisy is the best. She hacked all of your computers and found the transcripts you’d saved where you tried to draw the man out two years ago.
We made the connection as soon as we saw you were trying to locate a child with hair that was so light it was almost white and nearly clear eyes. ”
My heart broke for Luca as he dropped his eyes. I felt fresh tears stinging my own eyes as I realized we’d never really even gotten close to finding the now sixteen-year-old boy.
“We found Stylianos, Luca. We have him,” Ronan said softly. The entire room went so incredibly quiet as Luca, Vaughn, and I, and presumably Con and King, looked at Ronan.
“What?” Luca whispered.
“He was in Chicago. He’s now in a secure location trying to save his ass by naming names.”
“And Gio?” Vaughn asked, his voice breaking. I suspected he and his brothers both couldn’t wait to hear the answer and were afraid of it too.
“He told us about a boy who matched your son’s description,” Ronan said to Luca. “But he swore up and down he didn’t know where he was.”
“He was probably lying,” King cut in as he stepped forward. “You have to question him the right way!”
“We did,” Ronan assured him. “This is Vincent,” he added as he motioned to one of the taller men in the group. He was older than most of the other men in the group, but just looking at him intimidated the heck out of me. “Vincent came out of retirement to help us with this,” Ronan said.
King turned on Vincent and began asking him what techniques the man had used. He wouldn’t even let Vincent respond before he turned back to Ronan and said, “Let me talk to him. I can get the truth out of him.”
“We got what we needed,” Ronan responded. “Vincent,” – he nodded toward the older man – “got what we needed.” Ronan looked at Luca again. “Stylianos didn’t know where Gio was or who he was with, but he did eventually remember something.”
“What?” Luca breathed. He seemed terrified to even ask the question.
“The online screen name the man who was talking about Gio used.” Ronan paused only for the briefest of moments before saying, “Daisy’s motto is that you can’t ever really delete things from the internet and she was absolutely right.
She found the alias and that led us to the man who your son was sold to shortly after he was taken. ”
“And?” Con asked.
Ronan kept his eyes on Luca. “We found a boy that matches his description, Luca. Alive.”
Luca let out a harsh sob and then covered his eyes with his hand. He reached out his other hand to Vaughn and his brother immediately took it.
“Where?” Luca asked. “Where is he? Please…”
“He’s safe,” Ronan said. “As I said, he fits the description and we had one of our guys who used to work for the FBI do an age progression photo using one of the last photos you’d taken of Gio…
the one you use as wallpaper on your phone and computer.
It seems to be him, Luca, but the only way to know for sure is to do a DNA test.”
“I’ll know,” Luca said. “I’ll know it’s him,” he cried, then he and Vaughn were hugging. “It has to be him, Vaughn. It has to be.”
“It is, Luca,” Vaughn said. “They wouldn’t have told you if they didn’t think it was.”
I turned and walked into my brother’s arms. He hugged me hard. “It’s him, right, Dante?”
He kissed the top of my head as he hugged me back. “We’re pretty sure it’s him, Aleks.”
I let out a sob and nodded. I knew Dante and Ronan were both reluctant to commit to saying it was Gio, but Vaughn was right.
They wouldn’t have gotten Luca’s hopes up if they hadn’t truly believed they’d found his son.
No matter how angry my brother might have been with Luca and his family, he never would have used something like that to punish the men.
“Where is he?” Luca asked. Con and King had moved to his and Vaughn’s side.
“He’s in Seattle,” Dante said.
“Luca,” Ronan said softly when Luca and his brothers began talking excitedly amongst themselves. Luca turned to look at Ronan.
“The boy is physically okay, but he had to be hospitalized.”
“What?” Luca asked. “I don’t understand. If he’s physically okay then why—”
“The man he was living with killed himself as my men were closing in. Gio witnessed the whole thing. He tried to kill himself with the same gun the man used, but my men were able to stop him.”
Luca went ghostly white.
“Why?” King asked. “Why would he do that if he was being rescued?”
I saw Ronan and Dante share a look and I knew whatever Ronan was about to say was really bad. I went to stand by Vaughn and closed my hand over his.
“Gio told my men that the man was his husband… he said he loved him and he didn’t want to live without him.”
I felt like I was going to be sick, and I didn’t need to look at Luca or the other men to know the shock they had to be feeling.
“My men brought Gio back to Seattle and took him to a house my husband and I own on Whidbey Island. We were hoping once we’d gotten him out of that environment that he’d feel safer.
The second we turned our backs, Gio grabbed a knife and tried to slit his wrists.
He didn’t cut deep enough to do any permanent damage, but we knew he was mentally beyond our help.
I had to have him admitted to keep him safe.
It’s a private institution. A man my men and I once helped many years ago faked the admission papers so no one would question who Gio really is.
As far as the staff is concerned, he’s just the mentally disturbed son of an anonymous but very wealthy family.
The man we helped is the only one who’s actively treating Gio.
Your son has been there a little over a week now and he’s shown no improvement.
He continues to deny he was ever abducted and just keeps saying he wants to be with his husband. ”
“Oh God,” Luca whispered.
“He’s alive, Luca. That’s what matters,” Vaughn said firmly. “He’ll be okay.”
Luca looked at him, then me. He held my gaze for a long time before he nodded. “Yes, he will.”
“Would you like to see a picture of him?” Ronan asked as he pulled out his phone. “It was taken during one of his calmer moments,” the man added.
Luca nodded and dashed at his eyes. “Yes.”
He steeled himself as he took the phone from Ronan.
We all gave him a moment to himself to take in his son’s image.
“It’s him,” he whispered. “It’s him.” His voice cracked as he spoke.
Vaughn, King, and Con looked over his shoulder at the phone.
I managed to get a look but didn’t want to crowd Luca, so I did so from a distance.