Unbroken (The Protectors 12)

Don’t run, Aleks. Just do as you’re told and you’ll be okay.

I felt bile rise in my throat as Brian’s voice filtered through my head. I actually had to close my eyes because I felt so dizzy. I hadn’t heard his voice in years, but it was like he was standing right next to me.

“In a safe place,” Vaughn responded as he slowly got up off the bed. He moved around the foot of it, his eyes wary, like he was waiting for me to try and get past him. I wanted to laugh at that because not only would my body not respond to the instinct, but I knew he’d catch me with next to no effort.

“Why?” I bit out as I looked at the bed, then myself. I was still wearing all my clothes. All except my shoes, and I could see those sitting on the floor next to the bed. I looked at the bed again. There were no restraints of any kind.

But all he’d need were plastic ties like the other guys. They could easily be in his pocket. And in truth, we both knew he didn’t need them. He was much bigger and stronger than me. He’d have no problem subduing me, assuming I could even find the courage to fight back.

And since I couldn’t find the guts to even try and run, I knew there was no chance of me fighting him. I had no doubt he knew it too.

“Is it you?” I asked. “Or someone else?”

“No one is going to hurt you, Aleks.”

He had the audacity to actually look pained as he said the words, but I didn’t believe him or the imagined emotion. I might be a coward, but I wasn’t stupid. I’d long ago learned that the master manipulators were the ones who knew how to use the words you wanted to hear against you.

I took a moment to study him. He looked the same, though there was a certain tiredness to his eyes that I’d never noticed before. Like his soul had aged at a considerably faster rate than his body. I guessed him to be in his mid-thirties or so. He was taller than me by several inches and outweighed me by maybe sixty pounds. He wasn’t a muscle head, but he was really well built with a broad chest and trim hips. The muscles of his thighs flexed beneath the black dress pants he was wearing as he moved a little closer to me. He was wearing a light-blue button-up dress shirt but had taken his jacket off at some point. I didn’t see his gun, but that didn’t mean anything. It could easily be at his back.

Vaughn’s black hair was a little longer on top and trimmed short on the sides. His beard was also a touch longer than it’d been two years ago. I’d always had this weird obsession with wanting to know what the neatly groomed hair would feel like beneath my fingers. I’d only ever seen Vaughn dressed in suits, so it had always fascinated me to see the single black earring he wore in his left ear… I always imagined it to be some kind of silent “fuck you” to the world.

My gaze dropped to Vaughn’s muscular forearms. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up so I could see that his right arm had a tattoo on it, but his left didn’t. Another silent act of rebellion? Or was that who he really was and the suits were the fake part?

Why did I even care?

He wasn’t real.

At least not the version of him I’d imagined in my head. The one who’d saved me two years earlier.

Why had he done that?

Maybe his goal had only been to kill Father? Maybe they’d had some kind of falling out.

But he’d let me and Dante and Magnus go.

Oh God, Dante… he had to be going crazy with worry. How long had it even been since I’d been taken?

I looked at the single window in the room but the curtain was drawn. There was no light filtering in through it, so that meant it was probably still dark out.

Or dark again.

God, why couldn’t I remember anything?

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked. My limbs felt heavy and before I could even consider the vulnerable position I was putting myself in, I slid my back down the wall and dropped to the floor. I drew my knees up against my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I was aware of Vaughn moving, but I was suddenly too tired to care. He’d do whatever he wanted. Better to let him get it over with.

Because there would be no rescue this time. Even once he got me back to Chicago, he or whoever he was delivering me to would make sure Dante could never find me again. When I’d first been taken as a child, they’d moved me around from place to place so many times I’d eventually lost count. All sense of time had been stolen from me until Brian had come and offered me a chance to go home.