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Stylianos.
“Mr. Stylianos will compensate you quite well for your loss, Mr. Black,” the man said.
I could sense Luca’s hesitation and I knew why he wasn’t jumping to respond.
Because I’d told him we needed to go and he was focused on that rather than finally meeting the man who might know where his son was.
Luca was putting Aleks’s and my safety first. Part of me wanted to just get Aleks out of there, but the other part knew we might not have this chance again. I glanced at Tuxedo Man. Both he and the guard were still there and I didn’t see any kind of commotion to indicate Brian had been found.
“The auction won’t start for another fifteen minutes, sir,” I said to Luca in the hopes he would understand my message.
Luca considered it for a moment, then looked at the man.
“Lead the way,” he finally said.
Chapter 24
Aleks
I could barely breathe because my heart was pounding so hard in my chest. I still couldn’t process that Brian was lying tied up in a room with Vaughn’s sock in his mouth and the evidence of Vaughn’s fists on his face.
I wanted to laugh because the whole thing was just so unbelievable.
But it wouldn’t have been a real laugh… it would have been one of those loud, inappropriate laughs like when someone saw something truly horrible and their brain couldn’t believe it and the signals got all jumbled in their mind and the only sound that came out was a weird, all-wrong laugh.
I’d somehow managed to keep it together up until that point, even when Luca had touched me and that disgusting Mr. Oak had started saying terrible things about the boy he owned like the boy wasn’t there and couldn’t hear every word. The old me would have tuned the man out, but the new me had actually had to keep from getting up and slapping the man across his fat face. The fact that Mr. Oak had wanted me hadn’t even really registered because I’d known I was perfectly safe. Between Vaughn and Luca, I might as well have been wrapped in a protective bubble.
Yes, I’d been scared when we’d entered the party.
I would have been a fool not to have been.
But I’d been more scared for Luca and Vaughn and what would happen if we were all discovered. I hadn’t been worried that someone would somehow manage to steal me away from them.
Brian’s presence had changed things, though.
Because I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I’d ever see him again.
All the growth I’d experienced over the past two weeks had pretty much been obliterated when Brian had spoken those words to me… the ones that still haunted me in the worst of my nightmares.
What did I always tell you about being good, Aleks?
I felt a chill run up my spine as I heard his voice all over again, but I managed to keep it together as I followed Luca toward the back rooms.
Where Brian presumably was still out cold.
I’d been so out of it when Brian had said that phrase to me that it had taken me several long seconds to process what the sound I’d been hearing in my head had been.
The sound that hadn’t been in my head.
It’d been coming from right in front of me and Vaughn had been the one making it… every time his fists had connected with Brian’s face.
It’d been a gruesome sight, but a small part of me hadn’t wanted to stop Vaughn. But the risk of discovery had been too great so I’d managed to snap out of my stupor long enough to make Vaughn stop. Everything had happened so fast after that.
I’d wanted to tell Vaughn I could see this whole thing through before we’d left that room to return to Luca to tell him we were getting out, but I’d also known that if someone found Brian, we’d all be at risk.
And I honestly couldn’t have guaranteed that I could have continued to play my role.
But it looked like I was going to need to do just that, because we finally had our shot at Stylianos. I just hoped that King and Con would be able to get to us in time if things went wrong. I’d heard how concerned all of the men had been that communication would be so limited. Vaughn and Luca also hadn’t been able to bring guns in, so neither of them was armed. The only ones who had guns were all the guards standing by the doors. I’d heard enough to know that King and Con’s first job when they’d arrived at the same time as us had been to figure out where all the doors were and find ways in when the sixty minutes were up or if Luca or Vaughn said the code word.
