“Knock it off, Luca,” I snapped as I eyed my brother. Aleks jumped at the sound of my voice and his eyes flitted from where Con was stitching up my arm to where Luca was sitting on the opposite side of the kitchen table. Luca shot me a brittle look before he stood and began moving.

Pacing.

Not something he did often.

That would have meant showing actual emotion and my brother just didn’t do that.

Showing emotion was like exposing one’s throat in our world.

It was a trait that had only worsened for him in the years since Gio had been taken.

“Stay on that side,” I said as Luca looked like he was going to expand his movements to the side of the table Aleks and I were sitting on. I still had my gun out and while I wasn’t pointing it at Luca, it was lying on the table in front of me and aimed in his general direction. Despite the fact that he hadn’t tried to grab Aleks and use him against me when he’d had the chance, I didn’t trust him for even a second.

Luca frowned at me like he was surprised by the command but remained on his side of the table. The fingers on his right hand were twitching and I knew why.

Yeah, he was definitely in a bad way.

But any pity I normally would have felt for him had been made obsolete the moment he’d sent his men after Aleks.

I glanced at the young man next to me. He was trembling, but I didn’t dare reach for him. I was still reeling from his attack on me. I didn’t care that he’d cut me – I was actually happy he’d finally defended himself. But to know I’d pushed him to a place where his psyche had felt the need to lash out so violently was heartbreaking. Even with all Marcus had done to him, I’d never heard of Aleks ever blacking out and fighting back against the man. But when I’d backed him into a corner, both literally and figuratively, he’d responded in the most unexpected way.

“Does it hurt?” Aleks asked softly when my eyes met his. He glanced at where Con was putting in the final stitches. The cut wasn’t overly long or deep, but it was bad enough that it wouldn’t have stopped bleeding on its own.

“Just stings a little,” I said. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but Aleks was already feeling a shitload of guilt for what he’d done, and I didn’t want to add even another ounce to that.

“He did worse climbing trees in Central Park as a kid,” Con said.

Aleks looked briefly at Con, then back at me. “You liked to climb trees?” he asked.

“He loved it,” Luca cut in. He was still pacing but wasn’t looking at us as he spoke. “He doesn’t have a lick of sense when it comes to heights,” he muttered. “Our mother called the fire department the first few times he did it because she was sure he couldn’t get down. He’d wait until the firemen got all the way up to him with their ladders and then he’d climb right back down the same way he’d gone up… on his own.” Luca waved his hand impatiently. “The neighbors actually used to ask him to go up after their damn cat because he could climb higher than any fireman, or anyone else for that matter.”

My brother’s voice was gruff, but I didn’t miss the admiration in it. It made his betrayal just hurt that much more.

“You weren’t scared?” Aleks asked me.

I shook my head. “Getting to the top of a tree always made it feel like the next step would be to start flying,” I said softly.

“Central Park… that’s in New York City, right?” Aleks asked. “I saw it in a movie once and Dante said he and Magnus would take me there one day. They say it has a little bit of everything.”

“It does,” I acknowledged and was about to offer to show him around someday when I realized he and I would never have a someday. When I figured out how to get him out of this mess, he’d go back to his life and I’d go back to mine. Even on the off chance I found my nephew, I knew I’d never truly be able to get out of the world of kids being trafficked for sex – there were just too many kids like Aleks out there waiting for help to come.

Not to mention I’d never be able to get Aleks’s trust back now. I didn’t deserve it anyway.

The look on his face when he’d put two and two together and realized I’d left him to Marcus’s cruelty, even though I’d had the power to stop it…

Right after that his eyes had gone blank. I’d been trying to talk to him to get him back at the same time that I’d been keeping an eye on Luca and Con, so I hadn’t seen him pull my knife from his pocket. When he’d suddenly darted past me, I’d grabbed him because he’d been heading right for Con and Luca. I’d been so stunned by the knife slicing through my skin that I’d released him and he’d run at my brother and friend.

But I suspected he hadn’t really even seen them in his altered state of mind. Con had rushed to aid me as I’d tried to catch up to Aleks but when I’d closed my fingers over Aleks’s, he’d swung at me with the knife again and I’d barely stepped back out of the way to avoid getting nailed in the side with it.

That was when Luca had intervened.

During the scuffle, Con had grabbed me to keep me from aiming my gun at Luca, probably because he hadn’t been certain I wouldn’t shoot my own brother to protect Aleks – a fact I hadn’t been so sure of myself in that moment – and Luca had grabbed Aleks’s arm from behind. Aleks had lashed out at him and the move had taken both men to their knees. Luca had managed to get a hold of the hand Aleks had been holding the knife with.

I’d been certain he’d do what we’d both been trained to do – snap the wrist to disarm Aleks.

That was why I’d knocked Con off me and put my gun to Luca’s head.

But unlike Con, my brother had seemed pretty certain I wouldn’t shoot him, because he hadn’t followed the order. Instead, he’d merely held onto Aleks until he’d managed to talk him out of the blackout that had so disoriented him.

Look at how far he will go for you, no matter what! He’s never betrayed you! You could put that thing in his fucking gut next time and he’d still lay down and die for you!

They weren’t words I’d ever spoken to my brother, but he’d clearly figured it out from my actions.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Aleks had been my weakness from day one and I knew what happened when you had something of value.

You lost it… usually because someone took it from you to use against you.

I’d learned that long before I’d been sucked into the world that had first taken Aleks, then Gio.

But I’d never thought I’d have to worry about protecting something I cherished from my own brother.

Luca and I had a relationship that was anything but traditional, but somehow, despite our father’s intent to keep us emotionally disconnected, we’d become closer than any blood bond could have predicted.

I couldn’t help but look at Luca again as he paced. Normally, I would have been giving him some kind of reassurances that we’d find Gio and he’d be okay and we’d bring him home. But the words got caught in my throat this time.

He went after Aleks, I reminded myself.

“You’re all set,” Con said as he tied off the last stitch. I eyed the fresh bruise on his face but before I could apologize, he patted me on the shoulder. Con wasn’t my blood, but he might as well have been because my bond with him, King, and Lex was just as strong as it was with Luca… well, had been.

I didn’t know what the fuck we were now.

Con went to the opposite side of the table after washing his hands and then stepped in Luca’s path. He said something softly to my brother that I couldn’t hear, then put his hand on his shoulder too. Luca remained stiff for several beats, then nodded. Then he was returning to the chair across from me and Aleks.

Con… ever the peacekeeper. He’d played that role when we’d been kids too. He’d usually been the first to get between me and Luca to break up a fight on the rare occasions when Luca and I hadn’t stopped on our own. And since he’d known how to kick ass better than the rest of us, the irony had never been lost on us… and we’d learned early on that when Con told us to knock it the fuck off, we needed to listen.

God, as shitty as my childhood had been, I’d take those days back in a heartbeat.

My eyes met Con’s and I said, “If you really want to help me, you’ll keep him here until Aleks and I are long gone.”

I held Con’s gaze, even though I could practically feel Luca’s eyes burning a hole through me.

“So you’re going to keep running?” Con asked. He looked at Aleks. “Is that what you want, Aleks?”

I managed not to answer for Aleks, despite my instinct to tell Con that what Aleks wanted was his life back.

I looked at Aleks, who seemed surprised at the fact that Con was actually waiting for a response.

“I… I want my family to be safe.”

“They will be,” I said automatically.

“No, they won’t,” Luca interjected.

I snapped my eyes to Luca and was about to rip him a new one when Con put his hand on Luca’s where it was resting on the table, likely in the hopes of silencing him. But Luca was Luca and said exactly what was on his mind.

“He won’t ever be safe, and neither will his family as long as they’re still looking for him!” Luca said impatiently to me.

“And you expect me to believe that’s why you sent your men after him?” I bit out. “To keep him safe?”

“No, I…”

“What?” I yelled when his voice unexpectedly dropped off. “You what?”

Luca opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. His look was icy as he eyed me. Then he shifted his gaze to Aleks. I put my hand over Aleks’s where it was resting in his lap because I knew the fear Luca could instill in a person with just a look. I half expected Aleks to push my hand away, but he curled his fingers around mine instead.

“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.

But then again, Luca wasn’t someone who spoke about what he was feeling, no matter what. Neither of us did. Our father had been a good teacher when it had come time to instill that particular lesson.

Covellos didn’t feel.

Even fake Covellos like me.

“We need to figure this shit out together, Vaughn,” Con said. “Otherwise it will just be you and him running.”

“We?” I asked. “Do you actually expect me to believe Luca suddenly only has Aleks’s well-being in mind? Because you know him as well as me, Con. He’s going to put Gio first, no matter what. And I get why… I’ve been doing that for eight years now! I love Gio and I hear the same screams and pleas from that boy that Luca does. But I will not use Aleks like that! Hell, it’s not even a sure thing… it never was!”

“King was able to confirm those were Stylianos’s men,” Con said quietly as he lowered his eyes.

My stomach dropped out. I’d suspected as much, but somehow hearing it out loud just made it all the more real. For whatever reason, the man was obsessed with Aleks, even though there was no evidence he’d ever even met Aleks. The rumor was that Stylianos and Marcus had gotten into a contentious bidding war over Aleks when his previous owner had sold him, but there was no proof of that. But if the bastard really had sent five men to get Aleks within hours of Aleks’s parents airing that picture and giving away both the fact that he was alive and where he was in the U.S., it was pretty telling how desperate the man was to get his hands on him.

“Is King on his way here?” I asked.

“No, he’s still cleaning up the mess you left behind,” Con said. “You can’t leave five bodies in the middle of nowhere and expect it to just get swept under the carpet… at least not without a little help.”

While King himself wouldn’t be doing the actual sweeping, since he was a more hands-on type, he employed enough people who had the skills to make things disappear, at least on paper.

“He’s heading to Chicago to see if he can pick up on anything… maybe there’s something we missed with Stylianos or one of our informants has heard something about Gio.”

I nodded, even though I knew King’s search would likely be fruitless. In the two years since we’d almost found the man who was only known by the name Stylianos online, we hadn’t had any real clues leading to him or Gio. That fact explained some of Luca’s uncharacteristic show of desperation.

He’s starting to lose hope.

I covered my eyes with my hands and felt a sharp pain shoot up my arm from the wound Aleks had inflicted on me. It was a reminder of why I was doing all this.

“This is undoing everything Aleks has accomplished in the last two years, Con,” I said softly. “The blackouts… he never had those with Marcus and the few he’s had since I got him out weren’t violent ones. His mind is so fucked up right now and his brain is trying to protect him in the only way it knows how. How am I supposed to ask him to be a part of something that did that to him? How am I supposed to ask him to give up what little bit of a normal life he managed to find in the last two years?” I shook my head and dropped my hand. “I can’t… I won’t.”

Because I knew that was the real reason Con had brought Luca here. He wanted us to find a way to accomplish both things – protect Aleks and find Gio. But the latter meant making Aleks relive every terrible moment he’d already had to survive once.

I couldn’t do that to him.

I loved Gio and I wanted him back, but it couldn’t be at the cost of Aleks’s sanity.

No, I’d find another way. I just needed to make sure Aleks was safe and out of reach from those fuckers and then I’d go back in and I’d find a way to get even deeper into the secretive network. Gio was there, somewhere in its bowels. I’d find out who Stylianos really was and I’d make him suffer a thousand times worse than any kid he’d ever put his hands on, and then he’d tell me where Gio was and I’d watch the fucker die a long, slow, painful death.

“I’m sorry, Con,” I said as I stood. As I went to move around him to head toward the stairs, Con stepped in my path.

“At least let me make you guys something to eat. Take the day to rest because I know your arm hurts like hell and Aleks looks like he hasn’t slept in years. Luca and I will stay here until you guys leave. I’ll make sure he can’t call anyone and I’ll keep him away from both of you.”

I began shaking my head.

“You can trust me, Vaughn. I know how you feel about him,” he said softly. “Aleks doesn’t know it and you might not believe it, but he’s family now and above all else, we protect our family.”

Con’s words were fierce and I wanted to cling to them because I felt so fucking adrift. I looked at him to try and find any proof that he was lying to me.

But Con didn’t lie and on the rare occasions he even tried, I could see it in his eyes. And I didn’t see even an ounce of dishonesty in them now.

He was telling the truth.

“Aleks likes grits. Do you have any of those?”

Con smiled. “My grandmother made them for my grandfather every morning for fifty years. If there isn’t a box of them in the pantry, I’ll throw my next match.”

I let out a little chuckle. We both knew he’d never intentionally let someone best him in the ring, so he had to be pretty sure about the contents of the pantry.

“I’ll bring them up in a bit,” Con said.

I nodded and moved past him, then went upstairs to the bedroom which, thankfully, wasn’t locked.

But it was also empty.