Chapter 27
Vaughn
“The key is using stone-ground grits and if you have the time, put them in a slow cooker,” Magnus said as he held up a bag of grits. I nodded in agreement.
“You writing this down, son?” the man asked as he looked pointedly at the piece of paper and pen in front of me.
The ones Magnus had put there as soon as I’d sat down at the kitchen island.
“Oh, um, yeah, sorry,” I said as I rubbed at my eyes and grabbed the pen. I knew Magnus wasn’t actually that much older than me, so calling me “son” probably wasn’t an age thing, but it sure as shit was an indirect reminder that he loved Aleks like a son, not just a future brother-in-law.
I somehow managed to listen and take notes as Magnus got the grits in the slow cooker, but I was more than a little bit happy when he said the things needed to cook for several hours.
It was early Sunday morning and we’d been back in Seattle for just over thirty-six hours. Things had gone down exactly as Ronan had said they would after we’d left the party. I’d seen proof of that for myself on the morning news when we’d landed in Seattle.
Not only had the cops raided a building based on an “anonymous” tip and found nearly twenty men tied up with flash drives containing evidence of their crimes stuffed in their mouths, a whole passel of kids had been brought in by a couple of men who’d claimed to have found the children just outside the Emergency Room doors.
Those same men had magically disappeared during the commotion of the kids being treated and the cops still hadn’t been able to find them or whoever had left the gift of twenty perverts bound and gagged for the police to find.
Since learning Gio was alive, we’d all been eager to get to Seattle, and while Luca could have made arrangements for us to fly there on one of his private jets, we’d been too shell-shocked by the news of Gio to do anything but agree to fly to the Emerald City on one of Ronan’s planes.
Several of the men Ronan had introduced us to that night at the party had been on the plane with us, but two had been notably absent and that had made me very happy.
Vincent, the so-called interrogator.
And Dante.
And no, I hadn’t been happy Dante hadn’t been on the flight to annoy the ever-loving fuck out of me. I’d been happy he hadn’t been on there because it meant he’d been dealing with Brian. And if Dante had had Vincent with him, it meant Brian had probably felt some pain before he’d died.
Well, a lot of pain.
And since Dante hadn’t actually needed any information from him, the only end-game would have been to make Brian feel every one of the things Aleks had felt when Brian had hurt him. Oh, and of course, Dante’s need for blood.
Aleks had been upset to learn his brother wouldn’t be flying home with us, but he hadn’t asked why, since he’d probably known himself why his brother had stayed behind.
Magnus and Ronan had returned with us and while Aleks had slept against me, Ronan had used the time to talk to me and Luca more about Gio.
King and Con had stayed behind in New York to monitor the fallout from the party and to make sure Luca’s name didn’t come up in the investigation, something Ronan had assured us wouldn’t happen.
As grateful as I was to the guy, I was still struggling to accept the power and resources he seemed to have access to. Maybe once I saw Gio for myself, that would change. I just couldn’t relate the little boy I’d known to the tormented young man Ronan had described.
But if what he was saying about Luca’s son was true, bringing Gio back to us had gotten a lot more complicated.
Because it didn’t just sound like Gio had been sticking to certain behaviors like Aleks had when he’d been rescued…
it sounded like Gio had been brainwashed into believing he really was married to the man who’d purchased him like he was some prize-winning steer.
I’d already seen the damage a manipulator like Brian could do after just a couple of years.
If this guy had had Gio the entire time, the damage to his mental health would be extreme.
“Here,” Magnus said as he pulled my coffee cup toward him and filled it up again.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Go get a few more hours of sleep,” Magnus suggested. “They probably won’t be up for a while yet… they were talking pretty late last night.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything and I didn’t get up to go back to Aleks’s room.
Magnus chuckled. “Yep, you’ve got it bad already if you can’t sleep without him beside you.” Magnus filled his own cup. “Been there, done that – last night, actually.”
I smiled at that. I’d figured Magnus would be kicked out of his and Dante’s bedroom while Aleks and Dante had “the talk” Aleks had insisted on the second Dante had gotten back home the previous day, but I hadn’t realized the man hadn’t been allowed to sleep in his own bed.
“Do you know if Aleks ate?” I asked. “He’s just now starting to eat when he’s hungry rather than waiting until his alarm reminds him to.”
“I took them both some food before I went to bed… in the guest room,” Magnus said.
“They were under the covers just talking. The guest room is next to ours so I could hear them throughout the night… there was lots of laughter… some tears too,” Magnus added solemnly.
“But when I just looked in on them, they were both asleep.”
I nodded and took a sip of my coffee.
“You and Luca going to check on Gio today?”
“The doctor thinks today might be a good day for Gio to see Luca. I guess the medication they’ve put him on is supposed to start kicking in and calming him down without knocking him out, you know?”
“Yeah,” Magnus said with a sigh. “Just tell your brother… just tell him that no matter what he sees today, his kid’s still in there.”
The confirmation that the boy in the hospital was, in fact, Gio, had come in the night before.
The second we’d landed in Seattle, Ronan had taken some blood from Luca for a DNA test. He’d already had a lab waiting to run the results, something I suspected the wealthy surgeon had paid quite a bit for.
We’d had the results that the boy was Luca’s son in less than twenty-four hours.
But Luca had known just by looking at his picture that the boy who now called himself Nick was his child. He hadn’t doubted it for even a second. And he believed that as soon as Gio saw him, this nightmare would end.
I wasn’t so certain.
I’d seen the results of long-term mental torture for myself.
Yes, Gio was a fighter, but he’d been programmed to believe something and that was what he would probably fight for first. Like Aleks, at some point after he’d been taken, his brain had made the switch from needing to fight back and escape to needing to do whatever was necessary to survive.
I downed the rest of my coffee and pushed the cup away. Magnus took it, then said, “Can I fix you something while we wait for the grits?”
I shook my head.
“When was the last time you ate?”
The question came from Aleks and it actually felt like a balm on my soul. All the stuff with Gio was still there, but it ducked behind the shadows for now so that I could take pleasure in having the man I loved back in my arms.
Aleks’s fingers slid up my back and along the nape of my neck as he sat down next to me. He turned my head so I was looking at him.
“Not sure,” I admitted.
“Grits will be a while,” Magnus said with a wink.
“Magnus, do we have any cereal with the tricky rabbit on it?” Aleks asked.
“No, but I know who does,” Magnus returned. “Let me make a call.”
Magnus stepped out of the kitchen and I used the opportunity to pull Aleks to me and kiss him deeply. He moaned under the onslaught and then tried to crawl into my lap. Someone clearing their throat had us separating.
Dante was standing in the kitchen, his hard eyes on us. “Aleks, I think we need to talk about some rules when it comes to having your… friend… over.”
“Boyfriend,” Aleks slowly corrected as he eyed his brother suspiciously. I was glad that there was nothing meek or nervous in his manner. I also liked that he was still touching me.
“Like maybe when you have a friend in your bedroom, you leave the door open.”
“Do you mean all my friends, like Caleb and Remy, or my naked sex friends, like Vaughn?”
I had to give Aleks credit because his timing was stellar. Dante had just taken a sip of coffee when Aleks said the words “naked sex.” Dante choked and then spit out the hot coffee. “Because I closed the door when Vaughn and I got home the first night. We were naked but we were too tired for sex.”
I laughed as Dante glared at his brother.
Whatever the pair had talked about the night before seemed to have given Aleks a newfound sense of freedom.
He began trailing his fingers up and down my arm as he continued with, “So I should leave the door open when Vaughn and I want to have naked sex, but close it all the other times?”
“One trickster rabbit cereal coming up,” Magnus announced as he returned to the kitchen. He patted Dante’s back. “What’s got you looking so surly this morning, MawMaw?” he asked.
Dante ignored the nickname and went to clean up the coffee he’d spit out. “I was just telling your future brother-in-law that we need to come up with a few ground rules if his fri—”
“Boyfriend,” Aleks smoothly interjected.
“…if his boyfriend” – Dante swallowed as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth – “is going to be staying with us.”
“What kind of rules?” Magnus asked. He winked at me and Aleks from behind Dante’s back.
“Like no more closing his door when he and Vaughn are in there,” Dante said, sounding proud of himself for how reasonable he’d made the request sound.
“I think that’s actually a good idea,” Magnus said.
“You do?” Dante asked in surprise as he watched his fiancé pull out a container of milk from the fridge, then go search for some bowls and spoons.