I was on Luca before he could finish the question. By the time Con managed to pull me off, Luca and I were both bleeding. I’d dropped my gun in the melee, but despite what Luca had done, he and I both knew I wouldn’t use it on him.
“We’re no longer brothers!” I said softly. To Con I said, “Get him out of here.”
“So you would just abandon your own nephew?” Luca asked as he wiped his face on his sleeve. He sounded uncharacteristically uncertain. He was one of the strongest, most ruthless men I knew, but I almost didn’t recognize him in that moment.
“No, you asshole,” I responded. “I’ll find Gio no matter what it takes. But I’m not sacrificing Aleks or any other victim to do it! But when we get your son home, you and I are through!”
I looked at Con and said, “I hope trying to play peacemaker was worth it.”
“Vaughn,” Con began, but I turned away.
“Get out,” I said quietly, then headed for the entrance so I could go upstairs and get Aleks. We needed to get the hell out of there before Luca could find a way to get reinforcements.
But I didn’t need to head upstairs to find Aleks.
Because he was standing in stunned silence in the entryway to the kitchen. And I knew instantly that he’d heard everything.
Chapter 10
Aleks
“Aleks—”
When he reached for me, I couldn’t help but step back. The trust I’d so unfailingly given back to him the night before felt like it had been obliterated in the last two minutes.
They were brothers.
Vaughn’s nephew was the one who’d been taken just like me.
And Vaughn’s brother had been the one who’d had me kidnapped again.
“Oh God,” I whispered as I took another step back. I ended up in the front room of the house. The door wasright there. Thankfully, for once, my body overruled my brain and I did something I hadn’t done enough of in my life.
I ran.
But Vaughn caught me before I could get the door open.
“No!” I shouted.
“Aleks,” he began as he grabbed my arm. Then the gun was suddenly in his hand, but he didn’t point it at me. Amazingly, he pointed it at the other two men who had followed us into the front entryway. “Don’t either of you fucking move,” he practically snarled. I’d never seen or heard him so angry.
Until a few seconds ago when he’d been fighting with the one named Luca.
His own brother.
I tried to catch my breath as bits and pieces of that argument came back to me.
You knew he was off-limits! I never asked for one goddamned thing from you, Luca! Not once in the eight years I’ve been doing this! All you had to do was leave him the fuck out of it…
What did that mean?
“Aleks—”
“Talk fast, Vaughn,” I said. “Because you’re scaring me and you promised me last night you wouldn’t let me down and I believed you—”
“The men who took you from the alley the other night weren’t his men,” Vaughn interrupted.
“But you said he had plans for me.”
