Atonement (The Protectors 6)

Aleks looked around the stall. Ace had taken a few steps away to feed on some slivers of hay spread around in the soft bed of shavings.

“Papa wanted to take it off,” he said as he fingered the collar. “He found someone at the hotel with the right tools to remove it.” My brother swallowed hard. “I told him Father would be angry…”

I felt my insides tighten. I could only imagine what my parents would have thought of hearing Aleks refer to his captor as ‘Father.’ They’d known why Aleks had been taken as a child and they were smart enough to know that the man who’d been holding him hadn’t treated him as a son.

“What did Papa say?” I asked, the term ‘Papa’ sounding foreign to me since I’d never been allowed to call my stepfather that.

“He told me…he told me that the man was gone and I needed to forget about what had happened. That I was safe and things would go back to normal now.”

Anger simmered in my veins. How the hell did my parents think anything my brother faced going forward would be normal?

“He said it was coming off in the morning and that was it,” Aleks continued. His pain filled eyes shifted to me. “I know he’s…he’s dead, but…”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Aleks,” I said softly. “From this moment on, nothing happens that you don’t want.”

And I realized it was true. I would fight my parents with everything I had to make sure Aleks got what he needed. And what he needed was the time and the freedom to start making his own choices.

Aleks dropped his hand from the collar. “I wanted to call you…I wanted you to tell them not to take it off, but they took the phone you gave me away. They said…they said I couldn’t see you anymore…that it was your fault I got taken in the first place.”

A wave of heat passed through me as I realized we were at the moment I’d been dreading from the instant I’d discovered my brother was alive. But I wasn’t the same person anymore. I’d changed because there’d been someone out there who’d shown me it was okay to be the flawed man I’d become.

Flawed, but not broken.

Tarnished, but not irredeemable.

“Do you remember that day? We went to the arcade, but you wanted to go to the toy store?”

Aleks nodded. “I wanted to spend my birthday money. You told me we’d go after you were done at the arcade.”

“I told you that I was there to interview for a job.”

Aleks shrugged, but I wasn’t sure if that meant he remembered or not. “I lied to you about why we went there. I was meeting someone. A man.” I paused as I tried to figure out how to proceed. For all the things my brother had been through, a part of me still saw him as the little eight-year-old boy he’d been. I drew in a deep breath and said, “For sex.”

Aleks remained quiet as he dropped his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Aleks. If I’d known what could happen, I never would have left you. I’ve wished for those few minutes back so many times…”

“You believe it too,” he finally said. “You think it’s your fault.”

I dropped my gaze. “I guess a small part of me will always wish and wonder how things would have been different if I hadn’t left you alone.”

“Just like I keep wishing I’d listened to you and played some games like you told me to,” Aleks said softly.

“It’s not your fault,” I said firmly as I carefully grabbed his chin to force him to meet my gaze. “You were just a kid. It was my responsibility to look out for you.”

“Dante, it just happened. There’s no reason for it. It just was.”

I nodded and released him. I could feel tears stinging the backs of my eyes, but I managed to keep them at bay.

“They told me Mama and Papa were hurt,” Aleks said softly, his eyes going to Ace. “They said they’d already gotten you and were taking you to the hospital to meet them there.”

“Who?” I asked.

“A man and woman. They were dressed like police officers.” Aleks was quiet for a moment before saying, “Even if I hadn’t left the arcade, I would have gone with them.”

I nodded as I realized it was true. At sixteen, I would have believed someone in uniform telling me something like that too.

“Mama and Papa want me to go back to being who I was. They want it to be like I was never gone.”

“They love you,” I said. Despite my own toxic relationship with them, I knew my parents loved Aleks with everything they had. I didn’t agree with their approach in how they were handling his return, but I knew they were likely in their own state of denial. No parent wanted to accept that their child had been a sexual plaything to grown men. I didn’t even know the details of everything that had happened to Aleks, and it was nearly crippling. The reality had to be a hundred times worse.