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Vaughn rubbed my back. Then he was poking a finger at Willa’s tummy. “How are you, sweetie?” he asked. His deep voice made the baby sit really quietly in my hold for a moment, then she was babbling and holding out her arms.
I chuckled. “Smart girl.” I handed the baby to Vaughn, who easily took her. He began making all kinds of cooing sounds that clearly fascinated the child. Then she was grabbing his beard.
“Are we going to do this too, James?” I asked as I put my arm around him. I wasn’t ashamed to admit to him that I wanted it all. We’d gotten the first part behind us already by moving in together, but I still wanted the vows and the kids and the white picket fence.
“Yeah, Aleks, we are,” Vaughn said.
A moment later, Caleb and his boyfriend, Jace, appeared and Willa went crazy with happiness when she saw them.
And the bottle in Jace’s hand.
“Hi, my girl,” Jace said as he reached for her.
We were all admiring how quickly the baby got the nipple of the bottle in her mouth when Vaughn’s phone beeped. He looked at it, then leaned down and said to me, “Luca’s here. He’s waiting in the driveway.”
I nodded. “I’ll come with you,” I said as I took his hand. We said our goodbyes, then worked our way through the partygoers.
Things with Vaughn’s family had gone well when he’d told them he was staying with me in Seattle and taking a job with Ronan. The men had figured as much and with the return of Gio, Luca’s life was in limbo anyway, so Con and King were still trying to figure out things when it came to what role they played in continuing to get kids out of the sex trafficking world. I’d gotten the impression that Con was interested in working with Ronan and his men, but King wasn’t as trusting. Lex had also become a bigger issue for the two brothers because the man was still MIA. He’d finally talked to Con on the phone, but he’d refused to tell him or anyone where he was. Con had actually gone to Los Angeles to look for Lex, but none of the people in Lex’s life had known where he’d gone… he’d only told them he was taking some time for himself. The organization he ran that helped kids rebuild their lives was being run by his assistant and his video game business was being managed by his business partner.
He’d basically walked away from it all without any kind of explanation.
I could tell it frustrated the hell out of all the brothers, but Con was taking it especially hard. King seemed to know more than he was saying, but that didn’t seem to be an unusual thing for King.
As for Gio and Luca, things were an absolute mess.
I hadn’t been there when Luca had been reunited with his son, but Vaughn had.
It was as Ronan had predicted. The boy either hadn’t recognized his father, or he’d pretended not to. When Luca had tried to touch him, Gio had lashed out at him. Then he’d gone silent.
Completely silent.
His doctor at the institute was calling it a complete break from reality and the result was that Gio didn’t do anything more than lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Luca had finally been able to touch his child, but he may as well have been touching a corpse for all the emotion Gio had shown.
The doctor was hopeful the boy would recover, but the whole thing was devastating for Luca and his family. The reunion they’d all envisioned wasn’t to be.
Since Gio couldn’t be moved, Luca had decided to stay in Seattle for the time being to be close to his son. His business apparently had a branch in the city that he could work out of, but Vaughn had made a comment about Luca having lost all his fire.
We found Luca about a hundred yards down the driveway. Dante and Magnus’s reception was being held at Ronan and his husband, Seth’s, house on Whidbey Island. The driveway was lined with cars. I could see that Luca’s rental was double-parked next to another car, so I knew he wasn’t planning on staying. And I suspected he hadn’t come closer to the house because he hadn’t wanted to intrude on the party.
When we reached Luca, Vaughn hugged him, but Luca didn’t return it. Luca looked like I’d always felt when I was feeling too raw, so I didn’t reach for him.
“How is he?” Vaughn asked.
Luca’s expression remained stiff and there was just a little bit of a shake of his head.
Which meant there’d been no change with Gio.
“I’m just heading back into the city,” Luca said after a moment. “But I wanted to drop this off for the grooms,” he added as he handed Vaughn a bottle of wine.
