29. Mya
29
There were hard days, and then there were these kinds of days, where one word couldn’t quite describe it.
Standing on the back deck, I stared at the lake, trying to make sense of everything. From Oliver’s nightmare at four in the morning to now, so much had been crammed into that space, and I wasn’t sure how to fit it all into my mind. Too many feelings. Too much to process.
I heard the glass door slide closed behind me as Oliver said, “I don’t want you out here alone. Actually, I don’t want you outside at all.”
“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.
His brows tightened as if putting two and two together, fully grasping what I was implying. “Right now, I’m wherever you need me to be. So yeah, I’m here.” His glossy eyes had me fighting back more tears. “So, talk to me. Let’s get through this together, okay?”
Together. A solid plan. All I’d wanted for months. So, I gave him a small nod of concession.
“My parents aren’t Collective-rich, but they’re wealthy and very, very connected. My dad may not have a seat at the table, but he could still be a high-profile member.” Bullet point one checked off. “My dad golfs with a lot of billionaires. Belongs to the same clubs. He’s close with Sydney’s dad, and her dad is the one who gave us the trackers in Thailand.” Point two had Oliver’s eyes narrowing as those dark and ugly dots probably began to connect into a line for him as they were for me.
“Mom was excited about me taking the job at FYVM. She thought it’d be a great move for my future. My parents obviously had no clue I was going undercover since they didn’t know about Falcon, but maybe that’s why they kept calling to check in. Asked if I’d met the owner yet. I just thought they were being nosy like always. What if they wanted me to work there because they hoped for a matchup with Hugo, especially if the Sorens are near or at the top of the food chain like we suspect?”
Oliver continued to quietly stare at me, allowing me to talk and work my way through this. Gentle squeezes of my hand to let me know he was hearing me—maybe even agreeing with me.
“It wouldn’t be the first time my mom pushed for a union like that. When I was in my twenties, she pressured me to marry Mason after catching us . . .” I made an awkward choking sound before continuing, “. . . kissing one time. And, um, I’m sure you remember Mason and his brother inherited their father’s defense company when he died. Heck, for all we know, maybe their dad was even Collective.”
Oliver’s jaw clenched at that part, and it was obvious I’d struck a nerve.
“I mean, Mom wanted that union with Mason for a reason, and doubtfully because of Mason’s inheritance. Maybe my parents have their foot in the door with The Collective, but since they’re not billionaire-rich, they can’t secure a seat at the actual table.” Similar to how things went for that asshole senator, Craig Paulsen.
“If your parents were clueless we were undercover, and they are part of the organization, what tipped them off we were after The Collective? Why the listening device before we were intercepted? Why set the trap to draw out our team?”
“Paranoia? Or maybe Hugo planned to bring me into the fold, knowing I was Tony Vanzetti’s daughter, but he had to be certain he could trust me first. He couldn’t risk tapping my room, but having a guy bump into me and plant a device en route to our meeting . . . yeah, I’d never suspect that.”
And I hadn’t. I blinked rapidly, everything adding up more and more now.
“That’s how those Interpol guys knew I wasn’t using an alias. There was never a doubt about my real name as there was with yours, because they knew my parents. Well, know them.” I was speaking fast, but I knew he could keep up with me. This wasn’t his first verbal-vomit-all-the-ideas rodeo with me. “My parents probably vouched for me when I applied for the job at FYVM. And who knows what other conversations they’ve had since then.”
“They had the police on standby. Corrupt Interpol agents there, too.” He let go of me. “This was thought out beforehand.”
“Yeah, and that’s exactly a Collective thing to do. They cover all their bases and have contingencies for their contingencies, just like we do for every mission.” I waved my hands in the air, channeling my second-generation-Italian parents and how they always talked. “If Hugo wanted to bring me in, that’d be a huge deal. He’d have a backup plan to take me down if he decided he couldn’t trust me.”
“Make it look like you’re a tourist getting arrested and passed over to Interpol from there.” He glowered the second he uttered the word Interpol. The memory of what happened to us both in his mind now. “Freeing themselves of what happens from there like always.”
“Listening device or not, if I’d turned him down at our scheduled meeting, he’d need to handle me. So, yeah, officers on standby regardless.”
“They were going to blow up Carter’s jet, though, and you would’ve been on it.” He tore his hands through his shaggy hair. “And do you really think Hugo would’ve given a heads-up to your parents that he’d planned to have you taken back in Bangkok? No, The Collective kills people that get too close. It doesn’t matter if they’re within their own group, either. They’ve proven that time and time again.”
“So, if my parents are connected, they’re not the reason those men didn’t shoot at the plane today. They’re not trying to keep me alive.”
“That all makes sense, but too many other things don’t add up.”
“I guess so, but . . .” But my gut told me I wasn’t wrong. Not about this, at least. That nagging nightmare-memory had to mean something, too.
“Have they said or asked you anything in the last four months that’d be a red flag? Anything that wasn’t obvious before but maybe is now that you’re thinking this . . .?” His voice dropped lower, trailing off at the end, clearly hating this idea of their involvement as much as I did.
“Aside from scolding me about lying to them about my job and what I’d been up to the last several years? Not that I can think of. But that’s typical parent stuff.” Right? “And that’s not enough of a reason to take them off our suspect list. There are too many other red flags to consider.”
He nodded. “Let’s talk to the team. See if Teddy and Easton got anything out of that guy, too.”
I arched a brow, trying not to be encouraged by his words, but I’d latch on to anything positive I could. “Our team, or my team?”
Hands to his hips, he blew out his cheeks as if contemplating how to answer. “Our team,” he confirmed, but then poked a hole through my hope and added, “But it’s my last and final mission. I want to be back with the team, and with you, trust me.” Eyes closed, he added somberly, “But I can’t rewrite the past and what happened that day in Thailand, which means I’m done for good.”