Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 95906 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 480(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95906 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 480(@200wpm)___ 384(@250wpm)___ 320(@300wpm)
“My PI found out Ricky was in jail and Clara was holed up in some piece of shit motel. I asked King to go talk to her because I didn’t want to just buy her off, especially knowing she’d put that money right into her arm.”
“You wanted to help her,” I observed.
“King found her servicing one guy after another in exchange for drugs. I don’t know what he said to her, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. But that’s part of the reason I sent him. His bullshit threshold is pretty much nonexistent. She agreed to give rehab a try. She asked King if she could still see the kids if she could get clean and stayed that way. I figured that was your call to make.”
“Our call,” I corrected.
Con smiled. “Our call,” he agreed. He fell silent and I knew he was back to worrying about whatever it was he needed to tell me.
“I wanted to tell you all of this a lot sooner, but it’s not just my secret to tell,” he finally said after several minutes.
“Okay,” I said. “I assume it involves your brothers.”
Con nodded. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “When Luca was in college, he had a son with a woman he’d been friends with. It wasn’t a planned pregnancy and Luca was struggling with his sexuality at the time. He was terrified at the prospect of becoming a father.”
I nodded because I totally got it.
“But as soon as Gio was born, Luca was all in. He loved that kid more than anything. Luca and Vaughn… they had a pretty messed-up childhood. They lost their mom when they were still pretty young and their dad was a piece of work. Anyway, Luca couldn’t be there for Gio as much as he wanted. Not because he didn’t want to be but because he needed to protect Gio from the life he’d grown up in.” Con paused for a moment. “We all fell in love with that little boy.”
My heart dropped as I realized where Con was going with the conversation. “What happened to Gio?”
“He was kidnapped when he was eight. His mother was shot and killed trying to protect him.”
I sucked in a breath at that but didn’t interrupt Con.
“We all thought he’d been kidnapped for ransom since Luca came from money. But there was no ransom call. The police couldn’t figure out who’d taken him, and they eventually told Luca there was nothing they could do. But that wasn’t good enough for Luca… for any of us.”
I nodded in understanding. I wouldn’t have given up on finding Rory or Christopher if they’d been taken from me.
“Luca began looking on his own for any clue of what happened to Gio. He eventually learned that he’d been taken by child sex traffickers.”
“No,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
“None of us knew a thing about any of that shit. But we knew if there was a chance Gio was still alive, we had to find him. So we learned all we could about that world. We knew we’d never find Gio from the outside, so someone had to go in.”
“Was it you?” I asked. I was relieved when Con shook his head. I couldn’t imagine the things he would have witnessed in that world.
“It was Vaughn. He was the best equipped to fit into that life. He couldn’t find Gio, but there were a lot of other kids that he did find. A lot of other kids who had families who were looking for them. Vaughn couldn’t risk breaking his cover, though, so…”
“So you and your brothers got them out,” I finished for him.
Con nodded. “King did a short stint in the military so he had some guys who helped him get the kids out after Vaughn fed us the information. Since a lot of those kids are bought and sold through the Dark Web, Lex used his computer skills to help find the kids and search for their families. Luca funded the whole thing.”
“What was your role?”
“Once the kids were out, I made sure they got home. A lot of the kids either couldn’t remember their old lives or didn’t want to, so it wasn’t just as simple as picking up the phone and telling some parents I knew where their kid was. More than a few weren’t even from this country which made trying to find their family even more difficult. And not every kid had a family to go home to.”
I leaned back against my chair as I tried to take in everything he was telling me. I’d hoped he hadn’t had to witness what was happening to those kids, but he’d had to deal with the fallout. He would have had to experience all of that pain those traumatized kids had been forced to endure. I thought back to how he’d taken care of me and the kids after Ricky’s assault. It made complete sense that Con would have been the one to get those kids home, considering his gentle nature and ability to stay calm under even the most intense of circumstances.