It was the sculpture Aleks had thrown through the window.
Con stepped through the shattered window, his boots crunching on the broken glass. He was rubbing the green rock as if to get some scuffs off it. Somehow the ugly decoration had survived Aleks’s rare show of force. Con glanced at us and shook his head like he was disappointed. But I could tell he was just fooling around.
Aleks, on the other hand…
“This thing cost me a fortune,” Con said, feigning anger as he went to open the main door to the room. King and Luca were both standing outside it. “Look, Luca, it’s okay,” he said with a big smile. “No reason to worry.”
Concerned Aleks would take Con’s pretend irritation to heart, I said, “Stop fucking around with him, Con.”
Aleks was tense in my hold but relaxed when Con winked at him.
Luca grabbed the sculpture. “Oh good,” he muttered. He looked at me and Aleks. “Everything okay in here?” he asked. His face was a mess. He’d cleaned the blood off the worst of the wounds I’d inflicted on him. I was still every bit just as angry as I’d been when I’d stormed through the door, but my fury was tempered by the fact that Aleks was safe.
“Yeah, we thought we heard yelling,” Con said. He looked pointedly at Luca and King. “Told you fighting isn’t what they were doing in here. Pay up,” he said as he held out his hand.
“You need to grow the fuck up, brother,” King said with a shake of his head, then he went to sit down on the sofa.
“What?” Con asked innocently.
Luca warily approached us. His eyes met mine briefly, then surprisingly, they shifted to Aleks. I was stunned to see what looked like protectiveness in my brother’s gaze as he looked at the man in my arms. “You good?” he asked.
Aleks nodded. “I’m sorry about your window… and your rock,” he said as he motioned to the sculpture. He was still a little stiff in my hold, but he wasn’t pressing into me like he was afraid. And I loved the fact that he was still in my embrace and the fingers of his left hand were running up and down the forearm I had pressed against his chest… like he was trying to soothe me as if I were a wild animal or something.
“The window can be fixed,” Luca said. “As for this thing,” – he held up the sculpture – “we just need to work on your aim a bit.” With that, Luca drew back his arm and threw the sculpture through the broken window. It landed in the huge pool that was a good deal away.
“Hey!” Con called indignantly. “Do you know how long it took me to find something pretentious enough for this room?” he asked. “See if I bother to get you something for your next birthday.”
I couldn’t help but smile. But it was Aleks who surprised us all because he looked pointedly at Con and said, “Con, I’m sorry, but that rock was ugly as fiddlesticks.”
We were all silent for a beat before bursting into laughter.
Even Con.
And Luca.
“Good one, baby,” I said as I hugged Aleks from behind.
“It wasn’t quite right, I think,” he said.
I tipped his head back enough so I could brush my mouth over his. “Actually, I think it was fudging perfect,” I said with a smile.
He laughed and turned into my arms. I held him as I met my brother’s gaze. Seeing Luca laugh for even that brief moment made him seem twenty years younger. My brother had never exactly been an easygoing guy, but he’d been a different man around his son… a side of him our father had tried really hard to snuff out. But Gio had allowed my brother to be who he really was and that light had been stolen just as surely as his son had been. I was certain I’d never see it again.
But just those few seconds was enough to temper some of the rage I was still feeling toward him.
If Aleks could put aside his fear to help us find Gio, then I could put the shit with Luca aside for a while too.
Everything from here on out would need to be about finding Gio and protecting Aleks.
I held Luca’s gaze and saw him nod slightly.
So he was on the same page as me.
It was a truce.
For now.
Chapter 16
Aleks
Despite Vaughn’s reassurance that I wasn’t broken, I was a far cry from being fixed. Not that I’d expected some miracle cure with his words or because I’d given myself permission to shout a swear word a few times. Even now as the men around me began strategizing, it was all I could do not to call out for the darkness that had been my comfort for so long. Since I needed something to ground me, I began twisting my hands together as I tried to listen.