"Our brother Luca's son. He was kidnapped eight years ago when he was eight years old. We've been looking for him ever since."
"When?" I managed to ask. "When did you guys find him?" The guilt that I hadn't been around to help in the search for Gio over the past several months was like acid eating away at my belly.
"Sixteen days ago," King responded. "But it wasn't us who found him."
"What?" I asked in confusion. Something soft was pressed into my hand and I realized it was a dishtowel. I used it to wipe at my tears.
"It's a long story, but basically friends of a friend found him."
I wanted more details, but I was too hung up on the tone of King's voice. Instead of being overjoyed, he sounded grim.
"You said he's alive," I said softly. I wanted that to be it. I wanted that to be the end of the story. I wanted King to tell me that the little boy who was now a teenager was back home with our brother and everything was fine. But I knew in my heart it wasn't. I'd spent years working with my brothers to find Gio and while I hadn’t been on the front lines like them, I'd seen enough from behind the scenes to know what happened to kids when they were stolen from their families.
We'd always assumed Gio had been taken because of who his father was. Luca had inherited a list of enemies a mile long from his own father and while he’d done everything in his power to protect Gio from them, it hadn't been enough. Or so we’d thought. But the more we'd searched for the little boy, the more we'd learned of the dark world of child sex trafficking and we’d realized the child hadn’t been taken as an act of revenge at all.
"No," I whispered in denial. But King didn't deny it. The fact that he didn't even try to sugarcoat it was proof enough that Gio hadn't come home unscathed.
I stood up so quickly that I ended up knocking the chair over. I felt Gideon's fingers close around my upper arm to steady me.
"I have to go," I said aimlessly as I was bombarded with one image after another of Gio being violated. I hadn't known Gio as long as the others because he'd been born while I'd still been in foster care, but I remembered a free-spirited little boy who'd adored his father and had called me Uncle Lex.
"I have to go," I repeated. "To New York." Despite my declaration, I couldn't move.
"We'll go, Lex." Gideon squeezed my hands. "Let's go get our things packed."
The mere fact that Gideon was coming with me without me needing to ask helped make it possible for me to move. But as Gideon began to lead me from the kitchen, King said, "Gio isn't in New York. Neither is Luca."
"Where are they?" Gideon asked before I could.
"Seattle. The people who found Gio took him back there. Gio…" King began, but then his voice dropped off and I swore I heard a hitch in it. But that wasn't possible. King didn't get emotional.
Ever.
"Tell us," I demanded. As much as I wanted to bury my head in the sand, I knew it wasn't an option. "Tell us, King!" I shouted.
My brother’s continued silence was terrifying. I gripped Gideon's hand hard.
King seemed to take an inordinate amount of time clearing his throat before he said, "The people who stole Gio sold him to some fucker in Texas. The guy brainwashed him. Gio thinks they were married and he thinks… he thinks he loved him. The guys who found Gio killed the man, but when Gio learned he was dead, he tried to take his own life." King paused for a moment. When he spoke again, I almost didn't recognize his voice. "Twice."
I found myself once again seated in one of the kitchen chairs, though I had no clue how I'd gotten there. This time, Gideon was sitting next to me. He had an arm wrapped around my shoulders and he was whispering something in my ear.
He was telling me to breathe.
I wanted to be strong, I really did. But all I could think about was my brother and the agony he had to be going through. And poor little Gio…
I was dimly aware of the kitchen door opening and slamming shut, but I couldn't find the energy to ask Gideon where King was going. I knew enough about my brother to know that whatever he was going through, he wouldn’t want me to see it… or hear it, anyway.
We'd all worked tirelessly to bring Gio home and while we'd always known that this kind of outcome was a possibility, there hadn’t been any way to prepare for it. Like with my vision loss, King would feel the most helpless. He and Con were the fixers in our family, though they went about it in different ways.
"Lex, come lie down with me for a while," Gideon murmured in my ear.
I nodded but that was all I could manage. I felt like I was slogging through water as Gideon led me back to his room and got me settled in the bed. He lay down at my back and wrapped his arms around me, but he didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say. He didn't try to reassure me that everything would be all right or that we’d figure things out.
He just did exactly what I needed him to.
He stayed.
It was the robotic voice of the controller for my insulin pump that woke me up. My eyes felt like sandpaper as I opened and closed them a few times. I didn't see any kind of light, so I knew the room had to be dark. The warm body wrapped around me reminded me that I wasn't alone.
That I'd never be alone again.
"What time is it?" I asked.
Gideon's lips skimmed my temple. "It's just after four in the morning," he murmured. "I know you probably don't feel like it, but you need to eat something, Lex."
I nodded. "In a minute," I said. The last thing I wanted to do was eat, but it wouldn't do anyone any good if I had another episode. The last thing Luca or any member of my family needed was to have to deal with my illness.
"Are you all right?" Gideon asked.
"No," I admitted.
Gideon dropped a kiss to the top of my head. I had my cheek pressed against his chest and my left hand resting on his abdomen. One of his arms was wrapped around me and he was skimming his fingers over my bicep.
"I spoke to your brother last night after you fell asleep. He says your nephew has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He had some kind of mental break when Luca showed up. He's denying he's Gio."
I hadn’t wanted to believe it could get any worse, but obviously I'd been wrong. "Poor Luca," I whispered. "He gave up everything to find Gio."
"You all did," Gideon responded. "King told me what you guys have been doing. How you've been helping other kids like Gio. He said you used your skills with computers to track the kids and the guys who bought and sold them."
"I did it all from the safety of a computer screen," I said quietly. "Vaughn, King, Con, Luca, they—"
"Couldn't have done it without you," Gideon interjected before I could finish my sentence. He tightened his hold on me. "The things you must've seen on that screen of yours. In what universe did you ever think you weren't strong enough, Lex?"
I shook my head. "I wasn't strong. I went home every night and cried myself to sleep as I thought about what all those kids were going through. I couldn't disconnect from it."