Every 40 seconds, a child either goes missing or is kidnapped.
Senator Paolo's recent actions have cost him 27 percent of his supporters.
"What boys?" Sario's tone and expression were both confused. "What are you talking about?"
Luca made a vague motion toward the living room. "The boys my parents were talking about, the boys who disappeared the same time I did, those two boys who haven't been found. I need to know what happened and find a way to help them."
"Help them? Luca, they disappeared 13 years ago! This has got to be one of the coldest cases in the Falville police station!" Sario crouched down beside the chair and took one of Luca's hands. "Look, I don't want to discourage you from doing something good, but it's unlikely you'll find out anything other than what your…parents said."
"I think I saw something a while back. An article on a Laurel Kristopherson opening up a cold case on kidnapped sophomore boys. We could go down to the station, just ask them what they know." Luca turned his pleading eyes on, trying to mimic Sario's puppy eyes. "Please? Just one short trip?"
Sario sighed. "Alright. But tomorrow, if you're still feeling okay. And no lying to me."
"You're a great lie detector, Mr. Holt," Luca teased, getting up and sliding into his side of the bed. "I would never dare to utter a falsehood in your presence."
Sario rolled his eyes but got in beside Luca. "It feels wrong going to bed before we've even had dinner."
"Eh, dinner's overrated." Luca could not help his grin when Sario did not protest and simply wrapped his body around Luca's in a comforting, protective hug.
"Good, cause I need sleep."
Luca reached back and rested his hand on Sario's leg. "Alright, then stop talking."
With a huff of a giggle, Sario complied, his breaths slowly evening out until they were deep and steady.
Calmed by the soft puffs of breath on the back of his neck, Luca also slipped off into sleep. Demon's claws dragged him down into one of his daily nightmares, where a faceless creature of darkness ripped his skin apart. He tried to scream, but a hand tipped by sharp nails covered his mouth and then gagged him with a rag tasting of stale sex. The night shifted, and he was in the small room Paolo had kept him in after the first raping. He had tried to reason it away, make sense of the horrible violation, but his heart had ached until the pain of it was greater than the hurt Paolo had inflicted and he had tried to drown himself in a sink. So Paolo put him in a room with no access to anything that could kill him. He was strapped down, face first, on a cold, uncomfortable table. No matter how long he spent there, it never warmed. Maybe it was his own body, his own soul, going cold.
Paolo's hand slid up his back with no warning of his presence, chuckling when Luca flinched and tried to arch away from his touch. "There's nowhere to go, little one," he purred as he traced each knob of Luca's spine. "You're here, at my mercy. Or lack thereof." His sharp-nailed fingers were suddenly digging into the sensitive skin of Luca's waist. "It's so nice to finally have my whore all ready for me whenever I want a fuck." He ran a hand down the back of Luca's leg and then he was filling Luca, grabbing his hips painfully as he shoved himself deep into Luca without a thought or care of what he was injuring.
Luca could not scream with the rag tied into his mouth, but it hurt. It hurt so badly. Everything hurt. Everything.
"Luca! Luca!" Sario's voice, calling him out of the nightmare. "Wake up! Luca!"
He gasped awake, clawing away the sheets that clung to him like the hands of ghosts, and scrambled into the bathroom, where he barely made it to the toilet before he threw up.
Sario was there beside him in an instant, holding his hair back out of his eyes and saying soothing nothings while he whimpered and threw up again and again.
Luca could not get the taste of the gag, the taste of Paolo, out of his mouth. It burned his tongue and strangled his stomach. "I don't want—" he whimpered before vomit stole the rest of his plea. He knelt there for what felt like hours, his knees going numb where the tile edges bit into them.
Sario stayed, wiped his face, brought him water and then mouthwash, and even helped him brush his teeth when it was finally over.
Slumped against the counter with his back to the mirror, Luca decided to tell Sario the truth, even though his husband had not asked for it. "I dream about Paolo, what he did to me, every time I close my eyes."
Sario's fist clenched around the handle of the toothbrush as he rinsed it off. "That makes sense." His tone was far too calm. Where was the dramatic, I-always-have-to-prove-myself Sario? "You suffered extreme trauma at his hands. You never went to therapy. Part of your mind, the part he hurt, is still stuck there."
Luca blinked, unsure of how he was supposed to respond. "Um, how do you know that?"
Sario tapped the toothbrush against the side of the sink and slid it into its holder. He seemed to be trying to stay as casual as possible. "Know that the bastard traumatized you?"
"No, the last part. The part about my mind being stuck."
"Noah and Camille both go to therapy. Believe me, there is no end to the conversations about why therapy is important." Sario braced his hands on the counter, framing Luca in a way that felt close and comfortable. "And I can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth, but you definitely need to go to therapy." He quickly held his hands up. "I'm not demanding you go. This needs to be on your timeline above everything else."
Luca smiled and patted Sario's cheek. "Okay, well my timeline right now involves a snack and going back to bed." He rested a hand on his stomach, running his fingers across strained muscles. "My body is not happy with me at all."
Sario's hand ghosted lightly over Luca's stomach. "Throwing up probably didn't help." Without another word, he slid one arm behind Luca's knees and smoothly picked him up. "Let's get you back in bed," he said as he stepped out of the bathroom, walked back to the bed, and set Luca down gently. "I'll go get some crackers and water, okay? I'll be right back." He scurried out of the room.
Luca smothered his laugh in a pillow. He did not want Sario thinking he was getting made fun of. But it was so cute and so funny. Luca felt his breath catch painfully in his chest when he realized that, despite his prickly nature, Sario had stayed, and that had made Luca fall straight over the cliff of like into the deep canyon of love. What scared him was not the fall but the sharp rocks of betrayal and disappointment he knew waited for him at the bottom.
Sario came hurrying back, his hands full of a plastic roll of crackers and a glass of water.
Luca shoved aside all of his fears and smiled at Sario. "Thanks, asshole," he said teasingly.
To Luca's relief, Sario grinned back. "You're welcome, kitten. Now eat and drink slowly. I don't think either of us wants you to get sick." He sat on the edge of the bed, opening the crinkly plastic and handing Luca one cracker at a time. After the crackers and water were gone, he nestled into bed beside Luca, wrapping his whole body around him like he was scared of Luca making a run for it in the middle of the night.
It was warm and comforting, and Luca fell asleep in that tight embrace. It was all pleasant blackness until he woke up to Sario's fingers carding through his hair in soft motions. He did not want to get up and ruin what felt very much like a perfect morning, but at the same time he needed to get up. Sario had promised they could go down to the police station and talk to the agent who had reopened the cold case. So he got up, assuring Sario he felt fine (which he did) and getting dressed in clothes that would inspire some level of respect in a cop even though the jeans were uncomfortable for him. He could stand it and he would. He had to know about the other six boys who had gone missing. What if it was all connected? What if everything traced back to Paolo? What if he was still doing it? With a shudder, Luca walked out into the kitchen for breakfast.
Soon enough, they were in an Uber driving to the police station. And then they were at the police station, Sario taking Luca's hand and helping him out of the car. He even tucked Luca's hand beneath his arm as they headed into the brick building.
At the desk, Luca asked for Laurel Kristopherson's office and was pointed down an aisle of desks to the small room at the end. He nodded in thanks, headed down to the office, and knocked on the door.
The door opened, and a woman who looked on the young side of her middle-aged years stood there. "Hi, how can I help you?" Her voice was polite and inviting, perfect for a police officer who seemed to often work a desk job by the copious stacks of reports piled on her desk.
"We're here regarding the cold case kidnapping and murders that you reopened," Luca said, trying to keep his voice calm. "I'm Augustine Marlowe. I was one of the sophomores who were kidnapped."
Laurel's eyes went wide, and she hastily ushered them both inside and shut the door behind them. "I saw you were alive and safe when your wedding appeared in almost every city newspaper. I couldn't believe it! I mean…" She laid out seven files across the front of her desk, moving a couple piles of papers to do so. "Four of these boys — Timothy Randolph, Chase Schafer, Fynn Brown, and Jackson Wong — all turned up dead within three months of their disappearance. No one could figure out why these boys were killed and left for us to find when there were three who were never found." She shut five folders, those of the boys she had named and the one with Luca's last high school photo paper clipped to a report. "But now I'm down to two." She glanced up at Luca. "Do you think they escaped? Did you escape? Or were you let go?"
Luca clenched Sario's arm. "Neither. I was taken from my kidnapper by one of his guards. He thought I'd be good blackmail material. I wasn't. The cops got called on him and no one asked me too many questions because they thought I was just a domestic abuse victim."
Laurel nodded, jotting down notes on a pad with very few pages left in it. "And can you tell me how you were kidnapped in the first place? The more details you can give me, the better."
"My family started pulling away from me when we found out I was an omega instead of the beta I was supposed to be."
Laurel made a face that said she disapproved. Strongly. "I hate it when parents do that," she muttered. "Sorry, please continue."
"At the same time an older guy showed up in my life. He said all the right things, convinced me my family was out to hurt me." Luca leaned his head on Sario's shoulder to try and soak in more comfort. "When it got really bad, I thought he was right and went to his place. Willingly. He treated me well for a few days to make me feel safe and then…used me."
Laurel's face was positively green. "Son of a bitch. Please tell me you know who he was."
Luca glanced at the closed office door. "This won't go anywhere, right? I'm going to tell you the truth, but this guy has a big career and a huge sphere of influence and some people might think I'm only saying this to destroy him."
Laurel nodded. "It won't go any further than me and my partner on this case," she promised.
"Diego Paolo."
Her eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. "The new senator?"
"Yes, him."
Laurel sank down into her chair and leaned back, a thoughtful expression settling into her features. "This was at the beginning of his career. Why would he jeopardize that? I'm not questioning you," she quickly clarified. "I'm questioning his motives. And he could not have taken seven boys by himself. He had to have had help. Or it was a ring of men rising to power who all took one."
"He had friends," Luca offered quietly. "Friends who came over a few times that I remember. They didn't touch me. They had their own…" He reached out and flipped the closed files open. "Oh, my god." He tapped the faces of Chase Schafer, Fynn Brown, Jackson Wong, and Lamar Ace, one of the two boys who had never been found. "These four. I remember them." His knees buckled without warning, and Sario caught him and guided him to the chair on their side of the desk. "Oh god," he whimpered. "Why? Why would they do this?"
Laurel scribbled down the names of the boys whose files he had pointed to and then set down her pen. "There are horribly evil people in the world. And, unfortunately, I think Paolo and his friends are some of them." She took a deep breath. "I'll have my partner start looking into Paolo's friends, the ones who have been around since the beginning, the people who always support each other." Almost cautiously, she tapped the two photos Luca had not pointed out. "Do you remember these boys at all or just the four you pointed out?"
Luca forced himself to look at the photos and names. Timothy Randolph was a small, almost delicate looking boy, his thick wavy hair falling in a black shower into his dark eyes. The other, an Ezekiel King, was striking in the one of a kind model way with his almost luminescent blue eyes paired with shockingly blond hair that looked nearly white in the photo along with the many piercings running up the side of his left ear. Both of them were unforgettable in their own ways, and Luca was sure he had never seen either before. He shook his head. "I never saw them. Just the others."
Laurel noted that down as well. "It's possible they were trafficked out. Both of them fit common profiles for the type of boys pedophiles enjoy raping: small and weak-looking, hot and popular-looking. It's their way of taking out their rage on the person who rejected them or 'sticking it' to their childhood bullies. But it's strange that Timothy Randolph ended up dead so soon after his disappearance. Traffickers don't usually kill the kids they sell." She rubbed her forehead wearily. "I don't get it."
Recovered somewhat, Luca grabbed a pen and a piece of paper off the desk, wrote his number on it, and handed it to Laurel. "Please let me know if there's any further developments or anything I can help with."
Laurel did her best to smile. "I will. Thank you. Please get home safely." Then she returned to staring at the open files in front of her, looking like she would rather swallow acid than find out what had really happened to the boys whose lives they contained.