Page 29 of The Wrecked One

Girlfriend? No. Mya was more than that. She was who I’d hoped would be the love of my life, and I’d spend my forever-days making her happy (and driving her a little nuts).

But now she was the woman I failed. The woman I left behind.

“Cleared?” I finally echoed back.

Without looking at me, Dad walked out the front door. I followed him, allowing the door to slam shut behind me.

“I was buying groceries in town this morning. Saw the story in the paper. Did some googling on their computer, because small-town folk are good to each other and John let me use it, and discovered your names were cleared.” So casual. So nonchalant. Like he’d been giving a tip in the stock market rather than letting me know I was no longer wanted for murdering Interpol agents and resisting arrest in Thailand.

I caught Dad’s arm, needing more information since the Wi-Fi was shit out there, and I’d been out of the loop.

Not that this news changed the fact that the Sorens knew who we were, so Mya would still need to hide out, but my traitorous heart wanted to go back to her. To take her in my arms and keep her safe. Eliminate Mason’s obligation to do it for me like I’d basically texted him to do.

It made my stomach turn to think of someone else holding Mya. Mason and Mya would probably marry and start a family. That was probably how it was always supposed to be. M&M. Mya and Mason. Sounds about right. But fuck right. Fuck it all.

Gritting down on my back teeth, I forced away the mental image of the two of them getting back together before I snapped. I’d done enough snapping for now, hadn’t I?

What were we talking about again? I tried to recalibrate before my mind had dipped into the depths of hell where Mason stepped into my shoes and won Mya back over.

“Your alias is clear,” Dad said as if reading my messy thoughts. “Still no mention of your real name in the papers.” He secured his Stetson in the small storage area of the snowmobile, along with a canteen I hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed before leaving the cabin, and hopped onto the seat. “Joseph Jendell.” He snickered. “What kind of alias is that, anyway? Should’ve just gone with Jimmy Olsen.”

We really did think alike. It was eerie.

I stood by him, not prepared to get on yet.

“I guess you really are pals with POTUS, though, if he cleared the two of you like that.”

The President did what I’d hoped he’d do. After all, Falcon had been working with him to hunt The Collective. That didn’t change anything for me, though.

My gaze fell to my gloved hands, feeling as though Anurak’s blood was seeping through the leather. Remorse clawed its way back to the top as my number one emotion. But I knew anger would replace it the second I thought about the asshole who nearly raped Mya. I would’ve had to lie on that bed and watch, powerless to stop it, and it was that nightmare that kept me up at night.

I’d had to see that monster’s face on the news at my friend’s place in Jakarta. My only regret when it came to killing that Interpol agent? I didn’t take my time and slowly drain the blood from his body, starting with castrating him.

Between thinking of him, taking Anurak’s life, and leaving Mya behind, I had plenty of reasons and solid grounds for drinking myself to sleep every night.

“Son?”

I gulped and looked down at him, lowering my hands to my sides.

“There’s a reason I live in a small town of one-fifty,” he emphasized, clearly not happy with my earlier jab about the population. “They protect their own. No one will ever run their mouths that you’re here, fugitive or not.” He motioned for me to get on. Like a good soldier, I shut my mouth and followed orders.

And off we went to Emerald Fucking Lake so he could lecture me as if he didn’t know exactly what I was going through. And hadn’t left our family for almost the same horrific reasons.

“What kind of man does this make me? I’d have killed ten more people if I had to. I’d have done anything to keep that woman safe.” The fact Dad had me talking, opening up like I was on the couch of a therapist, was almost as shocking as him even asking me to express my feelings in the first place.

“It makes you my son. It makes you the man I raised, even if I left far too soon.” He went quiet for a moment, fidgeting with his hat as if still growing used to the idea of wearing it. “It makes you a man who respects women.” He gestured toward the woods by the lake, where we sat in the freezing-ass cold. “The kind of man a woman wouldn’t fear, even if she didn’t know you and stumbled upon you here alone.” He pointed at me, no longer treating me like a disease, but like his flesh and blood. I suspected his change of heart had to do with what was in that canteen he’d been drinking from. Dad never could handle his liquor. “The world needs more people like you. And so help me, if you try and follow the same path your brother took and wind up dead . . .”

“You were at his funeral, weren’t you?” My shoulders slumped. “Mom’s, too. I didn’t see you, but I could feel you.”

He quietly nodded, unscrewing the lid of the canteen. Yeah, we were alike. He needed alcohol to get through this conversation as much as I did to sleep at night.

“And in Dubai, when I was in prison, were you there, too?”

“When that woman’s husband beat her, and you, being the good man you are, went to confront him and were framed for killing him . . .” He took a long swig. “Yeah, I was there. And trust me, I didn’t think twice about organizing a team of vets to break you out of one of the world’s most secure prisons.”

Oddly enough, I believed him.

“But that friend of yours, Julia, had her pals find a lawful way to save your neck,” he added.

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