Unbroken (The Protectors 12)

I was shocked by how the boy in the picture looked nothing like Luca. His hair was a startling shade of blond…it actually looked white. And his eyes were a crisp, pale blue. A big, toothy grin spread across his features. I looked at Luca in surprise.

“I know,” he said. “He doesn’t look like me even a little bit… that’s all his mother,” he added as he motioned to the picture.

I understood now why Vaughn, Luca, and their friends believed the leads they’d been given about Gio. His unique look would have made him very valuable. The people who’d taken him might have temporarily colored his hair after first kidnapping him, but they would have let the natural color grow back as soon as they’d moved him some place he wouldn’t be recognized. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d never even colored it, because that would have meant having to wait to sell him.

“He has your chin,” I finally said. “It looks very stubborn.”

Luca actually chuckled. “I wish I could say that was the first time I’d heard that. About my chin… and his. He was… is a really good kid. Never gave his mother or me any kind of trouble. But he’s a fighter too. He… he…”

Luca’s voice dropped off before he whispered, “He’s a fighter.”

My heart broke for him because I knew what he was thinking.

Fighters in the world I’d grown up in suffered more. I’d seen it myself. The kids who’d tried to stop what was happening to them or escape it had been punished in the worst ways. My friend, Remy, had been one of those boys. He’d fought tooth and nail to escape the life and he’d suffered so much more than me. He was also the reason Dante had found me.

“My friend is a fighter,” I said quickly. “He survived, Luca. The things they did to him were terrible, but he got out and he’s got a good life now. And he saved me. He’s the only reason my brother even found me. He had the chance to get out and just run, but he called Dante and told him where I was. If your son is anything like my friend, Gio will make it through this and you’ll get him home and he’ll keep fighting.”

Luca turned away from me as he nodded and lit up another cigarette. I saw him wipe discreetly at his face and I quickly looked away so he wouldn’t feel as embarrassed about the show of emotion.

I thought about Remy and the day I’d met him. Though I hadn’t actually “met” him – I’d encountered him in a bathroom. He’d been badly bruised and I’d learned later he’d been violently assaulted just moments before I’d walked into that bathroom. We’d talked for less than fifteen seconds. He’d recognized a birthmark I had on my collarbone, the same one Dante had, and he’d called Dante as soon as he’d been able to.

I hadn’t known then that Remy and I had met once before… he and I had actually been kept in the same house when I’d first been taken. He’d remembered the birthmark from that first time and when Dante had initially come to Chicago to search for me, he’d encountered Remy who’d told him he’d seen me when we’d both been little. When Remy and I had run into each other in that bathroom years later, he’d reached out to Dante afterwards.

He hadn’t had to do that.

He’d chosen to help me. He’d had no reason in the world to do what he’d done other than it’d been the right thing.

You gave me hope when I had none left, Aleks. I couldn’t leave you behind.

That’s what he’d told me when I’d once asked him why he’d helped me. My aim had just been to comfort him when I’d given him one of the flowers from the ornate arrangement in the bathroom and had told him what it meant.

He’d never really explained how that had given him hope, but I’d never asked him to, either.

There were just some things that neither of us wanted to remember and that night was definitely one of them.

My heart began to pound in my chest as a thought took form in my head and wouldn’t let go.

“Luca,” I said quietly.

He turned to look at me.

“The man you’re looking for… the one who might know where Gio is…”

“Stylianos,” Luca supplied.

I startled at that. “I… I thought you didn’t know his name,” I said. Oh God, had they lied to me about all of it? Was this all just some elaborate scheme to mess with me?

“It’s not his real name, Aleks,” Luca said gently. “We didn’t lie to you.”

I managed to calm down a bit.

“Most of the dealing in kids happens online nowadays – in private chat rooms and forums on the dark web where it’s hard for the authorities to track. Stylianos is the name this guy started using online and so that’s what he’s known as. No one knows his real name.”