Page 75 of The Wrecked One

“I just needed a minute to breathe.” To remember the breathwork Dr. Logan had taught me so I didn’t spiral. “Is my whole life a lie?” I spun around, leaning against the railing to look at him as he ate up the space between us, walking slowly as if in pain.

“We don’t know anything for sure. Innocent until proven guilty, right?” He slipped his hands into his pockets and kept some distance between us.

“That’s what the judge would say.” I frowned. The judge. My dad. Tony Vanzetti. The perfect family man who was actually screwing half of New York. And my mom? What about her? She’d rarely been at home while I was growing up. Instead of vacationing in the Hamptons with their kids like the other moms, my parents spent their time in Lake Como without me. “Maybe I don’t know anything about either of them,” I finished my rambling thoughts out loud.

“I just can’t imagine your parents would be connected to what happened in . . .”

“In that room in Thailand.” I know. Skating my hands up and down over my sleeves, I pointed out, “But I wasn’t hurt. At all. Mentally, yes, but they could’ve been bluffing just to get you to?—”

“Kill an innocent man.” He hung his head, and I lost sight of his eyes as his guilt pulled him away from me. “I can’t imagine any father allowing that fucked-up game to be played with his daughter, Collective or not.” His words were raw and raspy, his voice tight with emotion.

Would we ever be free of Thailand and what happened there? Whenever we took a step forward, we seemed to wind up falling back a mile, bouncing back and forth between his trauma and mine. I just wanted us both to be free of our pasts, but we couldn’t do that until we removed the massive obstacle in our way. The Collective.

“Look, I didn’t sleep last night, then we nearly died today, plus the whole fainting thing and whack to the head surely doesn’t help, not to mention the weird nightmare-memory, and I know I could just be off . . .”

He looked up, tipping his head a touch. “But?”

I erased the space between us and squeezed his forearm. “But too many things are now adding up that point to my parents being in league with our enemy.”

I cataloged the memories as facts, organizing them chronologically in my head. I needed to third-POV this instead of being the main character. I didn’t want to be in her head. I couldn’t be. I’d never be able to get through accusing my family of being part of an evil organization otherwise.

“How can I help you?” He removed my hand from his arm and laced our fingers together before bringing our clasped palms up to brush his mouth over my knuckles.

When he lowered our hands to our sides, I let go of a shaky exhalation. I had no clue how he did it. He’d spent his life burying his feelings and pain, masking it all for no one to see. And even now, when he shared that Thailand brought everything forward and officially sent him over the edge . . . there he was, shoving his own problems aside and stepping up to the plate to be there for me.

There were good men, and then there was Oliver Lucas, a freaking saint.

It was now obvious that much of his self-deprecating jokes and teasing BT had more than likely been a result of him hiding his feelings. He was probably also afraid to get hurt by me, in part because of my commitment issues. Maybe a bit worried about Mason, too.

He’d clearly used humor to shield his emotions in regard to what happened to his mother. And about his father leaving. Brother dying. Being accused of murder in Dubai. All of it. He dug a hole and buried it, decorating the graves with sarcasm and comedy.

Unfortunately, he could never bury those hurts deep enough. And all it took was the storm of Thailand to flood the grounds and unearth everything. He was forced to face it all, the same as I was.

“Mya, you’re not talking. That concerns me.” He dipped closer and kissed my forehead.

That kiss brought me back to the bathtub, when we’d both set aside our pain and problems to feel alive and safe for a few minutes. Could we go back there? To before? Bury that nightmare of a memory and the realization that my parents were possibly evil?

“I’m just thinking.” Too much, apparently.

“Think out loud, then,” he said without his typical BT humor.

“Once a thought leaves your head, it’s no longer thinking, right?” I countered, drawing things out longer than necessary. Because I didn’t want to bullet-point the facts indicating my mother and father weren’t just lousy parents, but shitty human beings.

“I’m worried about you,” he rasped, standing tall again to look me in the eyes, to try and read me.

I wasn’t in a book, though. I wasn’t a character in Savanna’s upcoming novel. I was real. Flesh and blood. I’d been deceived by the people who brought me into this world. There was no easy fix for this dilemma.

What if I couldn’t come back from this?

I blinked back tears, sniffling. But I didn’t want to cry and surrender. I wanted justice. Truth. Answers. Most of all, I wanted to keep it together so I could help Oliver find his way back, too.

I can do this. I’m a modern-day Lois Lane, right?

Oliver once told me I didn’t need Superman to save me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want him to have my six. To fly with him. (Without the jumping part, of course.)

“You’re still not talking.” He held my chin, and damn the one tear betraying the confidence I was trying to muster. “Please say something. I’ll even take something sassy or bratty.”

I half-cried, half-laughed at his adorable attempt to break through to me. “There you are,” I murmured, catching a tear with my tongue.

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