Unbroken (The Protectors 12)

“Remy, are you all right?” I asked. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the line for the ferry. I’m okay,” Remy said. His voice actually sounded… normal. Which I knew wasn’t possible.

“Remy, just stay there. Vaughn and I will come get you. You can come stay with us.”

“Thanks, but I’m actually going to go stay with a friend for a couple days. I already called Dom to make sure it was okay.”

Dom as in Dom Barretti, his boss.

As far as I knew, Remy had never missed even a single day of work in the two years he’d worked for Dom.

“Will you tell the person whose car I hit that I’m sorry and I’ll pay for it?”

“I’ll take care of it,” I began. “But Remy…”

“Aleks,” Remy said softly.

“Yeah?”

“I’m okay, I swear it.”

“Please come stay with us,” I repeated.

Remy sighed. “I’m going to stay with my sponsor. I’ll call you from his house tonight when I get there and let you talk to him so you know I’m okay. All right? I need… I need to be with him because he’ll know what to say to me.”

I understood what it was that he wasn’t telling me.

He was fighting the urge to get high.

“Swear to me that’s where you’re going,” I said. “Swear it to me, Remy, or I’ll camp outside your door all night.”

Remy chuckled. “I swear it, Aleks.”

I felt a little bit of relief because his laugh sounded pretty good. And he’d never lied to me before.

Because he was my friend.

“I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” I said with a nod. “Text me, too. Every hour.”

“Aleks…”

“Every hour, Remy.”

“Okay, fine, every hour. I have to go, the cars are being loaded onto the ferry.”

I said my goodbyes and hung up.

“Is he okay?” Vaughn asked. I hadn’t noticed him standing next to me.

“I don’t think so,” I admitted. “He says he’s going to go see his sponsor and he’ll call me tonight.”

Vaughn’s fingers went through my hair, then he pulled me close. “Let’s go to the city and check on him,” Vaughn said. “And if he’s not at his place, we’ll wait to hear from him tonight and see if we can’t get him to let us come see him.”

“We should check on Luca, too,” I said.

“Yeah,” Vaughn said. “We’ll do that too.”

I barely remembered to say my goodbyes to my family and friends. It wasn’t until Vaughn and I were walking hand in hand to our car that I recalled Dante’s parting words.

“Dante said to tell you thank you for the wedding present,” I said as I glanced at him. Vaughn’s thumb was doing that amazing thing where he rubbed it over mine. “What present? We didn’t get them anything.”

Vaughn smiled and looked at me. “Besides Magnus and Matty, what’s the most precious thing in Dante’s life?” Vaughn asked.

“Me,” I automatically said.

When Vaughn didn’t continue, I opened my mouth to ask him why that mattered. But the answer hit me all at once.

We hadn’t given Dante and Magnus a wedding present.

Vaughn had.

He’d given my brother me.

Twice.

Once two years ago and again a month ago when he’d saved my life.

But he’d saved me in so many other ways too.

“Oh,” I said with a smile.

A really big smile.

“Would you tell Dante something for me when he calls you tonight?”

“Of course,” I said. My heart felt full as I realized my brother and Vaughn were actually going to get along after all.

But that lasted all of five seconds because then Vaughn said with a wink, “Tell him mine is bigger.”

I began laughing and couldn’t stop even once we’d reached the car. Vaughn opened the door for me and pressed me back against the frame of the car. He kissed me softly, then placed a piece of butterscotch into my hand. “Let’s go check on our family and then go home, Aleks. Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect, James. It sounds absolutely perfect.”

The End