Chapter 264 Chapter 264: Olive's POV

Chapter 264 Chapter 264: Olive's POV
Chapter 264: Olive's POV

It didn't take long for Zane to come to exactly where I was standing, even after I'd told him to wait for me in the car.

But no. That was Zane.

He walked toward me with a face that held no room for performance, ignoring the amount of people whose mouths dropped as he moved through them, and in one instant he had me in his arms.

"Shit, I missed you, muffin."

His words were muffled in my hair, and I felt him take a long, deep inhale like he'd been waiting to do exactly that since the moment I'd stepped out of the car.

"God, I love this new shampoo." A pause. "No. I love everything about you."

His hands circled my waist, and I sighed into it, this feeling of being home, of being held by someone who grumbled their affection instead of performing it.

"People are watching," I said.

"I don't care." I could hear the grumble in it. "But I want to do things with you that I don't want them watching."

He pulled back, grabbed my hand before I could protest, and steered me toward the car with the ease of someone who had already decided how this was going.

The second the door closed behind us, I took a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

Zane started the car without a word. His hand landed on my lap automatically, warm and unhurried, slowly moving upward, and I held perfectly still, absolutely refusing to make a sound that would have him pulling over on a public road.

"You know you can give me a blowjob," he said suddenly, completely out of nowhere.

I laughed. Hard.

And that was the thing about him, even now, even after everything. He had somehow come out the other side of all of it with more air in him than before. Freer. I'd seen him stare at the sky sometimes, especially during Alonso's funeral, the grief sitting quietly behind his eyes. But then something would shift and he'd say something like this, and I'd remember that this man had been carrying himself through darkness since he was fifteen years old and he was still standing.

He had given Alonso an honorable, respectful funeral. Never once letting the history of what had happened between them define how Alonso deserved to leave this world.

"Is this your way of avoiding the conversation about your father?" I asked.

His hand stilled for just a second before relaxing again.

"He got arrested," he said. "Which isn't shocking at all."

I nodded and waited. He was avoiding it, but that was okay. He was allowed to avoid it for a little while longer.

"You never told me he abused your mother."

This time his hand didn't freeze. It kept moving, gentle, like the topic had already been somewhere inside him for a long time and he'd made a kind of peace with it that didn't require tension.

Cosmo had done extraordinary work.

"I never thought it was something the world needed to know," he muttered, almost to himself. Then he glanced at me, a real smile on his face despite everything. "She never wanted us to know. When I found out, it was after I returned from the military. I hated him for it. Especially when she died." A pause. "She committed suicide. He abused her so badly that she took her own life."

His voice was controlled. Steady. But I could hear the weight underneath it, the thing he carried without letting it break his posture.

He was still that boy, in some part of himself. The one sent away at fifteen to fend for himself in a military zone by a man who was supposed to protect him.

I reached over and wrapped my hand around his on my lap, and I squeezed gently.

"That's why I never wanted Cole for Sophia," he said, after a moment. "She reminded me of my mother. She'd take after her. She's a brat, a crazy one especially for the way she treated you, and I always let her know that. But she's still weak underneath all of it. Vulnerable. Thinks she's wise and lets herself be used by others, just like our mother did. That's why I never wanted her with Cole."

He shook his head, a low laugh escaping him.

After the incident, Sophia had tried to approach me, begging for some form of forgiveness, saying she'd never known the truth, blah blah blah. I'd waved my head at her and that was it. I didn't want anything to do with her, and Zane wholeheartedly supported that decision. He wanted nothing to do with any of his siblings.

But I knew one thing.

"Cole would never hurt her," I said, quietly. "Physically. He actually does care about her, in his own way."

Zane chuckled.

"Yes," he said. "And I'm not supporting Cole either. It's just that they have their own way of loving each other."

"Oh, you are slimy, Zane Mercer."

He chuckled again, pulling into his new property, the one he'd gotten because too many people knew where he lived before, a place only a small circle even knew existed. Nikolai had found it by tracking him all day without his knowledge, which Zane had called obsession, stalking, and several other colorful things while complaining to me about it all morning after Nikolai called asking whether he preferred bagels or doughnuts.

I stepped out of the car and looked around at the estate.

It was enormous. The kind of large where you couldn't see where it began or ended. There was even a horse stable. I remembered coming here for the first time and squealing with excitement, the first real laugh I'd let out since the incident.

"So you're not going to see your father?"

I don't know why I asked again. I think I just knew Zane, knew he'd bury something like this deep and convince himself it wasn't moving.

He turned to look at me. His hand found mine instantly, and then both arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me into him until my forehead touched his and we were just standing there, breathing the same air, his heartbeat finding mine.

"Do you want me to?" he asked.

"If you wish to," I said softly. "Just know that this time, you won't go alone. Nikolai will be there. Walter. My mom, who has somehow decided you're her favorite person and tells everyone. Hunter, who tells anyone who'll listen that you're his new best friend. Brenda, who will not stop talking about how hot Zane Mercer is."

He chuckled, low and warm against my skin.

"And everyone whose life you've touched without even knowing it," I continued. "They will be there for you, Zane Mercer."

"Hmm." His lips curved against my forehead. "I don't care about any of them. I only need you by my side. Mine."

"Is that a new name—"

His lips crashed onto mine before I could finish the sentence, hands sliding to my waist and then lower, and in one stride he lifted me clean off the ground, my legs finding their way around him without instruction, his mouth moving on mine with the kind of unhurried certainty that meant we had time, we had all the time in the world now, and nobody was coming to interrupt us.

I bit his bottom lip and felt the groan leave him before he could stop it, his grip tightening.

"Allow me to take you inside," he said against my mouth.

And for the first time in what felt like years, I had absolutely no objections at all.