I poured the water into Violet’s waiting garbage can and she clapped with delight. I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. I reached out to brush at the wet curls framing her chubby face.
It needed to be about Violet now.
Only Violet.
Of that I was certain.
Problem was, I had no clue how to make it happen.
Chapter Six
Luca
“How’s Gio?”
Those were the first words out of my brother’s mouth, even before I spoke. King wasn’t big on chit-chat, but since the day we’d received word that my son had been found and rescued from his abuser, none of my brothers had been the same.
And rightly so.
Maybe if Gio had been more of sound mind, we could have all gone back to who we’d been before he’d been stolen from us. But in my heart, I knew that wasn’t possible. While King, Vaughn, and I hadn’t exactly been saints in our previous lives, we’d done our best to stay on the right side of the law. Con and Lex hadn’t had to worry about that fine line as much. But the brutal murder of Gio’s mother and his subsequent abduction had changed us all.
And it was a permanent kind of thing.
“The same,” I said to King.
There was a beat of silence and then King practically growled, “He’s strong, Luca. He’s going to come back from this.”
His words tugged at something inside of me that already felt like it was only hanging on by a thread, so I didn’t respond. Despite him not being able to see me, my brother picked up on my lack of response and said, “What do you need?”
“I’m going to need you to run a name for me.”
“Go,” King said in a no-nonsense tone.
“I don’t have the name yet. Need you to be on standby when I get it. I want you to run it, not one of your guys.”
To his credit, King didn’t ask any questions. It was why I’d reached out to him instead of Con. While Con and Lex did most of the legwork to get an abducted child back to his or her family, King was the muscle. He’d always preferred vengeance to justice. Con had always been the more diplomatic one, though as a professional fighter, he used his skills both in and outside of the ring when needed. And Lex… well, Lex was the youngest and the best of us. He’d been the heart and soul of our group from the time he’d battled his own spindly body as well as the men and women who’d only seen him as a means to an end.
“Any word on Lex?” I asked.
This time King was the silent one. I’d figured King knew where Lex was, or at least what was going on with him, but he’d been keeping Lex’s secrets to himself for the past several months. I couldn’t blame our youngest brother for confiding in King rather than me… I hadn’t exactly been in any kind of position to support the younger man.
“Tell me he’s okay,” I murmured.
“He’s safe, Luca,” was all King said. It wasn’t exactly the answer I was hoping for, but I knew it was all I was going to get.
“And Con?” I asked. King didn’t say anything, and I let out a sigh. King and Con had been fighting about Lex for weeks. All three men had grown up in foster care together, and King and Con had taken Lex under their wing long before Vaughn and I had met the three boys. But whereas King would watch over Lex from a distance, Con was the one who’d be trying to fix Lex’s problems for him.
And since Lex had confided in King, it meant whatever he was dealing with probably didn’t have a solution. I didn’t want to even think about what that meant. But I had no doubt Con was out searching for the younger man. Lex had enough money to stay off the grid for a long time, but Con was as stubborn as they came. The only reason he’d left me behind in Seattle was so he could go find Lex.
“Fix it, King,” I muttered. I knew that the men probably weren’t even talking at that point, but I was in no position to play mediator and neither was Vaughn.
“Stay strong for our boy, Luca. He’s going to need you.”
“Us,” I responded. Gio was my son but my brothers had all helped raise him. King hadn’t been around as much when Gio had been growing up, but he’d fought countless battles to help us bring my child home, along with the hundreds of kids who’d been stolen from their families.
Kids like Aleks.
And Remy.
The reminder of the young man had my fingers itching. “I need to go,” I said.
“He’s coming home, Luca,” King responded, his voice sharp and unyielding.