LOGINChapter 243: Olive's POVA familiar voice. Calm and steady, the way it had been for as long as I'd known him. The way it had been the night he'd called me and told me to come stop Zane before he did something he couldn't take back."Hello, Olive."Nikolai.I closed my eyes for a second. I had been hoping for Zane, and instead I had gotten his father, and somehow that felt like a kind of consolation prize that I shouldn't have been grateful for but absolutely was.Because Nikolai was the closest thing I had to a connection to Zane right now.And right now, I would take whatever connection I could get."Hi," I said quietly. "It's good to hear from you.""I imagine you've been worried.""I have.""I figured."He let the silence stretch for a moment."How are you holding up?" he asked."I'm fine," I lied. "Honestly. I'm fine. Just trying to settle back into normal life. My mother is out of the hospital. She's doing better. Brenda is staying close to her. We're all just—we're all just tryi
Chapter 242: Olive's POV"You could call him, you know?"Hunter was staring at me across the breakfast table with that look he got whenever he caught me drifting off into space. Eyebrows raised. Fork suspended halfway to his mouth. That mix of concern and judgment that only step-brothers could pull off without it being insulting."I tried," I said, sighing. "He's not picking up any of my calls."It had been two weeks.Two weeks of finding out the truth about my brother's death. Two weeks since the night I had walked into Williams's dining room and heard things I would never be able to unhear. Two weeks since Zane had walked past me without a word and driven away into the dark. Two weeks of trying to reach him through every channel I knew, only to be met with voicemails and silence and the terrible understanding that he was either ignoring me or had decided to disappear entirely.A lot had happened in those two weeks.My mother had been hospitalized the day after the warehouse. Stress,
Chapter 241: Zane's POVHis eyes were the eyes of a man who had been holding something in for so long that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like to let it out and standing beside him was Olive.I wasn’t expecting her to be here, and I didn’t know how long she had been here, and her face showed so many emptions and one which I hated so badly.Pity.And I had to turn my head aside to look at Nikolai who looked distressed."What are you doing here?" I asked."I came when you didn't answer my last call. I needed to see you and stop you from causing any problems.""Nikolai—""Zane."He took a step into the room.Then another.He stopped about three feet away from me. Close enough that I could see the fine lines around his eyes, the small scar on his jaw that I'd asked him about once and he'd told me he didn't remember how he'd gotten."Williams isn't going to tell you the rest," Nikolai said. "Because he doesn't think it's his place. And he's right. It's not.""Then whose place is it?""
Chapter 240: Zane's POV"Because you're not my son."The words landed quiet. Final. Like a door closing on something I hadn't realized was still open.I stopped breathing.I stood there in the middle of his dining room with my hands at my sides and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, and I waited for him to take it back, to laugh, to tell me he was being cruel just for the sake of it.He didn't."What?""You heard me, Zane.""Say it again.""You're not my son. You've never been my son. And I've spent twenty-eight years trying to make peace with that, and tonight, I'm done trying."I heard a sound that came out like a choke, it was Sophia crying.I could hear her even though I wasn't looking at her, the small choked sounds of her trying to keep it together and failing. Antonio had gone completely still in his chair, the wine glass abandoned in front of him, his eyes locked on Williams like he was waiting for the punchline that wasn't going to come.Cole was watching me. Hi
Chapter 239: Zane's POV"Yes, Zane. I knew."The words hung in the air between us, and I felt every cell in my body go still with the force of them.Knew.He knew.He had known the entire time. Known about Klaus. Known about Operation Resonance. Known about the people who were after me. Known about every threat that had been circling my life for the last decade, and he'd just sat back and let it happen.Antonio was looking at our father with confusion now, his fork still suspended halfway between his plate and his mouth."What is he talking about?" Antonio asked."Nothing," Williams said calmly. "We can discuss this later.""We're discussing it now," I said."Zane—""You knew about Klaus." My voice was rising. I couldn't help it. "You knew what happened to him. You knew what I was forced to do. You knew everything and you let me carry it alone for eleven fucking years.""Sit down, Zane.""No.""Sit down. We can have this conversation like civilized adults, or we can have it in front o
Chapter 238: Zane's POVOr at least, he'd benefited from it.Either way, when I walked into that family house tonight, when I looked him in the eyes and demanded answers, I was going to find out exactly how much of my life he'd been controlling from behind the scenes.And then I was going to make him pay for it.I drove.The roads were getting emptier as I got closer to the outskirts of the city, the houses spreading further apart, the lights getting dimmer, the sky stretching out wider above me. By the time I turned onto the long private road that led up to the family estate, the only thing I could see was the gate at the end of it and the soft glow of the house beyond.I stopped at the gate.I punched in the code I hadn't used in years.It still worked.That was almost insulting. That after everything that had happened, after every time my father had told me I wasn't welcome, after every fight we'd had and every silence that had stretched between us, the code was still the same.He
Chapter 60: OLIVE's POVThere was this one time, about a year ago, when Cole had filmed me in the kitchen.I was making pancakes, flour dusted across the counter and somehow in my ha
Chapter 56: Zane's POVThe conference room doors slid open and I walked in.Black suit. Tailored perfectly. The kind that made me look like a Brooklyn CEO, not a hockey player. Nothing about my appearance today said athlete. Everything said untouchable.Twelve board members sat around the massive g
Chapter 61: OLIVE's POVA small, satisfied, absolutely delighted smile that curved her lips like she'd just tasted something sweet.Then it was gone, replaced by a carefully constructed expression of concern, but I'd seen it.I'd fucking seen it.Why was she smiling? What did she have to do with th
Chapter 52: Zane's POVI was dangerous. That was true. And greedy. And I probably wouldn't let her go even after two months.But I shouldn't have called her weak. Because she wasn't. She was stronger than anyone I'd ever met.But I wasn't going to tell her that. I was going to make her feel it. Und







