Page 70 of One Second After Another

Yeah.

Shit.

Just like that, the night before came rushing back. Not that he really forgot but in his haste to sleep off the exhaustion that carried his footsteps up to his parents’ home, he hadn’t stopped to explain very much when Luca and Katya came out of their bedroom to find him using his key to get in.

Clearly, Zeke found a way to fill in the blanks.

“What do you know about what’s going on?” he asked his father.

Zeke lifted one shoulder. “As much as Cross.”

Well, then ...

“The Vanquish is gone,” Luca muttered. “Or it will be.”

“And?”

“I don’t know about the lodge in—”

“I had that entire place designed for your mother, Luca.”

He winced. Zeke wasn’t even angry—the dip in his tone and almost resigned delivery spoke of disappointment. How long had he been doing that to his father—disappointing the man? Shit, even when he didn’t try.

“I’ll replace everything,” Luca said, pushing up to stand from the couch. He tossed the afghan blanket to the tan-colored, leather arm, and faced his father again. “Or Naz will. Penny, maybe. We have time to figure out the details.”

“Do we?”

He didn’t know what his father wanted him to say. No doubt, there was a whole spiel that Zeke was holding back. He wasn’t sure what he could do about that, either.

His father didn’t hold back for long.

“What in the hell are you doing?” his father demanded. “You disappear for weeks and days at a time—I can count on one hand the times you’ve called your mother in the past couple of months. How did you go from hunting down an invisible girl to—”

“I never hunted her. I only wanted to find her, Dad.”

Zeke’s tension didn’t ease. “To what cost? Have you really asked that yet? Really considered it?”

“Yes and no.”

Because it didn’t matter.

“Luca ...” Zeke dragged in a hard breath, stopping only when Luca felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. He didn’t pretend to be perfect—he could be selfish even if some people might call him selfless. It was why Zeke knew better than to ask for an apology when Luca wouldn’t say he was sorry. “This isn’t what I wanted for you, son. This—what you’re doing. I wanted you to be—”

“It’s what I wanted, and I can’t be like you. I won’t be like you.”

“What does that mean?”

Now or never, he supposed.

Right wasn’t always easy.

Penny taught him that.

“You were like me once—doing what you wanted, being who you wanted. The only difference between me and you is that you let your father decide your future, but we both know you won’t do that to me, too.”

Zeke said nothing.

Luca understood why.