Atonement (The Protectors 6)

“Magnus,” Dante whispered, his voice sounding parched. His eyes opened marginally, but that in itself was a weight off my shoulders.

“I’m here, baby,” I said as I carefully stroked his face.

“Aleks?” he asked.

“Look up.”

Dante lifted his head a little to see Aleks watching him. He once again had Dante’s head cradled in his lap.

“Aleks,” Dante breathed in relief and then his hand was coming up to search out Aleks’s. Aleks took it in his and then leaned down to press his forehead to Dante’s.

“Meu melhor,” Aleks whispered.

A smile spread across Dante’s mouth and he closed his eyes. I heard him say something back in Portuguese and could only assume it was in response to their childhood game. I left them to it as I focused on getting us out of there. I remembered Vaughn’s instructions and searched out the gasoline in his trunk. The sight of a pack of matches sitting next to the gasoline had me wondering what exactly Vaughn had been planning and why. But I didn’t have time to give it much thought because suddenly a huge explosion rocked the night air and I was knocked off my feet. I looked up to see the mansion consumed in a ball of fire as smaller explosions began going off one right after the other. I clambered to my feet and grabbed the gas. It took only a few seconds to douse the inside and outside of the car in gas and then light it on fire. I wiped my prints off the gas containers as best I could and threw them in the open trunk before getting in the rental car. We’d only made it a few blocks when I heard another explosion.

Dante and Aleks had both fallen quiet in the back seat, but I could see that Dante was still awake. I searched out my phone and dialed, knowing we needed help.

Thankfully, help answered on the second ring.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dante

“And if you ever go into a situation without adequate back-up again, not only will I fire your ass, I’ll hire you back just so I can kick your ass and then fire it again!”

I hid my smile as Memphis ranted on and on as he paced back and forth in front of the bed. But my smile died a quick death when Ronan began stitching up the wound on my shoulder. Despite the injection Ronan had given me to numb the area, it still hurt.

“Do you need more?” Ronan asked me softly as he paused in what he was doing.

I shook my head. “Just finish it, please.”

Truth was, I was fucking glad to be feeling the pain. I was glad to have Memphis tearing me a new one, even if I knew his anger was based on concern. I was thrilled beyond words to have my brother sitting next to me on the bed, holding my other hand as I was getting patched up. And I had no words for the sight of Magnus watching me from a chair in the corner, his beautiful blue eyes telling me exactly how he was feeling at the moment.

I’d been so certain I was going to lose him. That my life was over in those few seconds as Parks had walked towards me, gun pointed at my head. I’d already died a thousand deaths after realizing Aleks had betrayed us and then understanding why he’d done it. I’d been horrified as I’d watched him strip and bend over that desk like he was nothing more than a plaything for Parks, but in that moment, I’d realized that was exactly what he’d become. At some point in the years after he’d been taken, he’d learned to focus on one thing and one thing only.

Surviving.

And for that I was eternally grateful. Pride, dignity, self-respect, pleasure, happiness – those could all be restored to him in time. But they would have cost him his life if he’d tried to stand up to a narcissist like Parks. I’d seen the marks on Aleks’s back…I’d heard him refer to the man as ‘Father.’ There was no fighting that kind of evil, there was only surviving it.

Magnus hadn’t said much as he’d gotten us out of Chicago. I’d been in too much pain to notice what was happening around us and by the time Magnus had stopped the car, I’d been on the verge of passing out again. Once he’d gotten me onto the bed in our new hotel which was actually a run-down motel several hours outside of Chicago, I’d done just that and I hadn’t come to until Ronan had started examining me. I’d garnered that Ronan and Memphis had been the people he’d called as we’d driven away from the ball of flames that had once been the Parks mansion. I was glad he’d made that call rather than risk taking me to a hospital because the staff would have called the cops for sure.