59. Zane

59

ZANE

"You fookin' lied to me!"

Owen's voice echoes down the hallway as I haul ass out of bed.

I've been here before. Last time, though, I dragged myself out of bed and started flushing shit down the toilet like the police were raiding my apartment, not a middle-aged Scottish man.

This time, I pull on boxers and toss the rumpled comforter over Mira's naked body.

For a second, I think maybe she slept through this.

Then I see she's staring at the ceiling, eyes wide, frozen in a look of fear I'm starting to recognize too well.

"Everything is fine," I rush to tell her.

She doesn't react. I try not to think about it.

One problem at a time.

Cabinets are banging open in the kitchen. It sounds like Owen is ripping into the walls.

He might as well be. When I get to the kitchen, the pantry is in tatters. Cereal boxes and Aiden's favorite fruit snacks are scattered across the floor. Owen is digging into a canister of sugar with his hands like a bear on a feeding frenzy.

"Where are you hiding it all this time?"

I grab his shoulder and shove him back against the wall. "What do you think you're doing?"

His face is red. When he sees me, his eyes narrow. "You lied to me, boy."

"Lied about what? What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to keep you from going off the fookin' rails!" He roars, shoving hard against my chest. "All this time, and you're throwing it away. Yer fooked in the head if you think I'm going to sit by and do nothin'!"

If Owen was anyone else, he'd be on the floor. I'd crack his nose and pin him to the ground with a knee to his chest. I'd demand answers.

But he isn't anyone else.

He's been the one to pin me to the ground when I need it, and I'm not used to the roles being reversed.

"Owen, man…" I shake my head. "What the fuck is going on here? What are you talking about?"

He charges forward, a meaty finger jabbing into my chest. "Don't lie to me. I dinnae ken what I'll do if you lie to me one more time."

"I'm not lying about anything. I don't know what you're?—"

He tries to grab me by the front of my shirt before he realizes I'm not wearing one and shoves me instead. "I'm nae stupid. I have eyes, ye fookin' walloper!"

I knock his hands off of me. "I don't know what the fuck you're saying."

"I'm talking about these !" He grabs a roll of papers out of his back pocket and slaps them against my chest.

They're… pictures.

My first thought is that Owen needs a new printer. Most people would keep pictures on their phones, but his phone is from the Dark Ages where people only used them for text and calls. It doesn't even have a camera. So he regularly prints out emails he wants to show me or sports columns that mention me that the secret old softie wants to keep.

Then I get a good look at the pictures, and my heart stops.

For a few miserable seconds, I doubt myself. My own mind. Where have I been? What have I been doing?

"Ye fell off the fookin' trolley," Owen growls.

I shake my head. "I didn't."

He swats the pictures out of my hands and they go flying across the floor. "Dinnae lie to me!"

"I'm not lying!" I snarl, bending to sweep up the pictures again. "Give me a fucking second to think."

I didn't do this. This can't be me.

"To come up with a lie, ya mean? Look at the pictures, Zane! It's you!"

"I know it's me!" It is me. I'm hunched over a glass coffee table, enough lines of powder in front of me to take down an elephant. The faces around me are scratched out and blurred, but mine is clear. Almost like someone sharpened my face intentionally.

Owen leans in, his voice dangerously low. "When was this?"

"I… I don't know." So much of the picture is blurry that I can't tell where it was taken. Even if it wasn't blurred, I might not know. So many nights like this one are blotted out of my mind. The drugs left wide, gaping holes in my memory that I didn't think I wanted back until this second. "I don't recognize it. But it wasn't recently. This is an old picture."

Owen laughs, but it's bitter and biting. His knees crack as he bends to grab another picture. He hangs it in front of my face. "Look at your ear, ye fookin' eejit."

It's another picture of me in front of the same table, but my head is cocked to the side. I'm talking to somebody who is blurred out, but the tattoo behind my ear is crystal clear. Aiden written in cursive, following the curve of my hairline.

I went to a tattoo parlor in Austin between games. I'd only been away from Aiden for a few days, but I missed him. I wanted to keep a little bit of him with me always.

I lean in, squinting. "It's too big. The tattoo is too big."

"You fookin'—"

"It's not mine," I argue, shoving the picture back to him. "This is an old picture that someone photoshopped. It's fake."

His top lip curls. "Then you won't mind if I take a look around." He brushes past me, continuing his rampage through the house.

"By all means." I let him go, my hands in fists at my side, and walk back to the bedroom. To Mira.

"Stay where I can see you!" Owen orders.

"I'm gonna put on some fucking pants," I fire back, not breaking pace.

Mira is still on the bed. At least she's sitting up now, but she's shaking so hard the headboard is rattling against the wall.

She glances over, but she's a million miles away. Too lost in her head to even recognize me.

I kneel next to her, take her hands in mine. "Owen came over. Everything is fine."

"The screaming," she rasps, closing her eyes. "The banging…"

I brush her hair away from her face. "It was nothing. He thinks I'm using again, but it's a setup."

I have no idea who would waste their time photoshopping old pictures of me. I don't even know where the pictures came from. Even when shit got bleak before, pictures like that never leaked.

Whoever it is has seen my tattoo. They've seen me recently. That means they?—

One problem at a time.

Mira wraps her trembling fingers around my wrist. "Did he hurt you?"

"He wishes." I manage a tight smile. "Owen is an asshole about it, but this is his job. If I lose control again, he's supposed to bring me back. I've lied to him so many times, he still can't trust me. He's doing what he thinks needs to be done."

I hear banging down the hallway. He better do what he needs to do quickly, though. I'm losing my patience.

Mira's brows knit together. She opens her mouth like she might say something… then my bedroom door smashes in.

"Hands where I can see ‘em," Owen snarls.

Mira flies back against the headboard. She collapses in on herself, eyes locked on the tangle of blankets balled in her white-knuckled fists, knees drawn to her heaving chest.

I stand up, putting myself between her and Owen. "I'm not hiding anything from you. Stop tearing up my house."

"I'll stop tearing up your house when I know you're not tearing up your life." He steps over the lacy scrap of Mira's panties on the floor and goes into the bathroom. He tosses the wastebasket to the side and rips through the drawers. Q-tips scatter.

"Do you fucking mind?" I growl.

Owen whirls around. "If you think I want to be here at the bum crack of dawn, yer fookin' mental. But I woke up to those pretty pictures in my email, and I rushed over to make sure you were alive."

"Who were they from?" I ask.

"Dinnae ken."

Of course the old coot didn't read the email. It might be a burner, but it also might tell me exactly who's trying to set me up.

"Did they say when the pictures were taken?"

"Last night."

I snap my fingers. "There ya go. I didn't even go out last night."

He arches a brow. "Says who?"

"Mira." I turn around and Mira is still staring down at her lap. She's fucked up over this. More than she should be. I want to know why and, after I kill whoever faked those pictures and sent them to Owen, I'll add whoever taught her to be this scared to the list.

"She looks like she's still strung out," Owen mumbles under his breath.

I throw him a warning look and then kneel next to the bed. "Tell Owen what we did last night, Mira. Where were we?"

She meets my eyes, and I nod, encouraging her. She swallows and her voice wavers as she says, "I watched him play and then we… we went to the roof. Then we came home."

"The roof?" Owen balks.

She's paler than I've ever seen her. "It was… romantic. Pretty. Zane took me up there to show me the sky and?—"

"We fucked," I interrupt. Owen's face was glazing over as Mira was talking. He didn't believe a word. Up until a month ago, I wasn't taking any woman on romantic dates. He would've thought she was full of shit.

But as soon as I explain, he nods. "That makes more sense."

I rise to face Owen, arms spread. "You searched my house and I told you where I was. I'm clean, O. There's nothing else to see here."

His eyes shift towards Mira. There's little here to see—she's covered by the comforter, but nothing else—but I slide over to shield her even more.

"I want to believe you…" he says. "But I can't."

"I'm going to weekly meetings with you. I told you about drinking that night at the bar. I've done everything I'm supposed to do," I grit out.

He shrugs. "And I still don't believe you. I won't until I have proof."

It sucks knowing this is my fault. I didn't do anything this time, but I've fucked up so many times in the past. Too many times. Enough that even Owen can't believe a word out of my mouth.

I'll die with this cloud of suspicion hanging over my head—and it's entirely my fault.

Which is why I lift my chin and meet his eyes. "What do you need me to do?"