Unbroken (The Protectors 12)

I looked at Magnus. He sent me a reassuring smile and then his eyes met Vaughn’s and he tipped his head.

I got the impression they were even now. Vaughn had saved all our lives two years ago and Magnus had returned the favor.

“So you know about Gio?” Luca asked, his voice losing some of the edge it’d had before. “And Stylianos.” I knew it was just now hitting him that we weren’t any closer to finding Gio.

“We do,” Ronan said. “As I said, Daisy is the best. She hacked all of your computers and found the transcripts you’d saved where you tried to draw the man out two years ago. We made the connection as soon as we saw you were trying to locate a child with hair that was so light it was almost white and nearly clear eyes.”

My heart broke for Luca as he dropped his eyes. I felt fresh tears stinging my own eyes as I realized we’d never really even gotten close to finding the now fifteen-year-old boy.

“We found Stylianos, Luca. We have him,” Ronan said softly. The entire room went so incredibly quiet as Luca, Vaughn, and I, and presumably Con and King, looked at Ronan.

“What?” Luca whispered.

“He was in Chicago. He’s now in a secure location trying to save his ass by naming names.”

“And Gio?” Vaughn asked, his voice breaking. I suspected he and his brothers both couldn’t wait to hear the answer and were afraid of it too.

“He told us about a boy who matched your son’s description,” Ronan said to Luca. “But he swore up and down he didn’t know where he was.”

“He was probably lying,” King cut in as he stepped forward. “You have to question him the right way!”

“We did,” Ronan assured him. “This is Vincent,” he added as he motioned to one of the taller men in the group. He was older than most of the other men in the group, but just looking at him intimidated the heck out of me. “Vincent came out of retirement to help us with this,” Ronan said.

King turned on Vincent and began asking him what techniques the man had used. He wouldn’t even let Vincent respond before he turned back to Ronan and said, “Let me talk to him. I can get the truth out of him.”

“We got what we needed,” Ronan responded. “Vincent,” – he nodded toward the older man – “got what we needed.” Ronan looked at Luca again. “Stylianos didn’t know where Gio was or who he was with, but he did eventually remember something.”

“What?” Luca breathed. He seemed terrified to even ask the question.

“The online screen name the man who was talking about Gio used.” Ronan paused only for the briefest of moments before saying, “Daisy’s motto is that you can’t ever really delete things from the internet and she was absolutely right. She found the alias and that led us to the man who your son was sold to shortly after he was taken.”

“And?” Con asked.

Ronan kept his eyes on Luca. “We found a boy that matches his description, Luca. Alive.”

Luca let out a harsh sob and then covered his eyes with his hand. He reached out his other hand to Vaughn and his brother immediately took it.

“Where?” Luca asked. “Where is he? Please…”

“He’s safe,” Ronan said. “As I said, he fits the description and we had one of our guys who used to work for the FBI do an age progression photo using one of the last photos you’d taken of Gio… the one you use as wallpaper on your phone and computer. It seems to be him, Luca, but the only way to know for sure is to do a DNA test.”

“I’ll know,” Luca said. “I’ll know it’s him,” he cried, then he and Vaughn were hugging. “It has to be him, Vaughn. It has to be.”

“It is, Luca,” Vaughn said. “They wouldn’t have told you if they didn’t think it was.”

I turned and walked into my brother’s arms. He hugged me hard. “It’s him, right, Dante?”

He kissed the top of my head as he hugged me back. “We’re pretty sure it’s him, Aleks.”

I let out a sob and nodded. I knew Dante and Ronan were both reluctant to commit to saying it was Gio, but Vaughn was right. They wouldn’t have gotten Luca’s hopes up if they hadn’t truly believed they’d found his son. No matter how angry my brother might have been with Luca and his family, he never would have used something like that to punish the men.

“Where is he?” Luca asked. Con and King had moved to his and Vaughn’s side.

“He’s in Seattle,” Dante said.

“Luca,” Ronan said softly when Luca and his brothers began talking excitedly amongst themselves. Luca turned to look at Ronan.

“The boy is physically okay, but he had to be hospitalized.”