The lost triplets

chapter 24

Being safe was an entirely new thing for Alex.
He didn't know what it meant to be safe. He didn't know how it was suppose to feel.

For as long as he could remember he had never been safe. He had to always protect his siblings. He spent his days in a cold damp basement taking beatings and at night he was forced to sell drugs to their clients. The buyers were always almost just as bad as them. They would beat him and do just about anything to hurt him.

He wanted to believe Lorenzo and maybe a small part of him did.
Because believing in something that was practically impossible was better then facing reality. And the reality was, he was terrified. He was terrified that one wrong move would result in pain, more so for James and Skye. He was terrified that they were playing a sick game on them and they would end up being beaten and thrown in the basement.

For tonight though he felt a little better, the hug they had shared meant alot to him and just for a while he decided to allow himself to believe they were going to be okay, that they were safe.

Lorenzo seemed to have that effect on all three of the triplets. His cold demeanor that had all of his siblings obeying him was not as scary to them as they first thought however for Skye it was more to do with the fact that as long as Lorenzo was around Marco couldn't hurt her.

The rest of the evening was uneventful until it wasn't. Until everything went wrong.

After having dinner which was mostly in a comfortable silence, Rafael  had convinced them to spend time as a family so they were flicking through the channels looking for something to watch.

However the news station had a breaking news headline causing Rafael to stop.

The report was on a drug gang that had been prosecuted and locked up but sources say their main drug dealer was still out there.

Alex felt himself tense. His siblings didn't know. He never told them. But the men keeping them hostage were the drug gang shown on tv.

James and Skye figured it out rather quickly and tensed to when the news showed a picture of some of the gang members, their captors.

"Thank god you are out of that state"  Rafael mumbled as he continued to listen to the crimes the drug gang were facing.

"You three okay, you seem on edge" Rafael picked up on their behaviour instantly.

"We are fine. When we were at the station giving a statement we saw one or two of them that's all" Alex lied with ease. He had lied all his life at first the men could always tell he was lying but after a while he mastered lying, it rarely helped but sometimes it did save him from a beating.

Alex and James were sat at either side of Skye and both of them looked at her with concern. On Alex's other side Lorenzo was sat. As soon as Lorenzo heard about them being in the same building as the drug gang he put his arm around Alex. Alex would never admit it but he felt sort of comforted by his actions.

Lorenzo was a little shocked by his own actions but as much as he didn't want to admit it that hug they shared meant alot to him. From the moment he met Alex in the social workers office he thought him to be annoying and wanted to put him in his place. Mostly due to the fact he reminded Lorenzo of his younger self. But what pissed him off the most was how protective Alex had been on the plane, it was like Alex thought he would end up hurting them. And that pissed Lorenzo off.
But now he understood why.

The hug had been something Lorenzo had wanted to do for 10 years. He wanted to hug his mini me.  And from that hug he grew even more protective of the boy.

With Skye she needed the reassurance, she needed someone and so he openly gave it

But with Alex, Lorenzo recognised the boy didn't want to be seen as weak so he didn't show how protective he was of him, he made sure to do it in little gestures.