Page 8 of The Unravelings

I don’t have a choice. They’re making me go back. He’s making me return. In any other circumstances, I’d be pulled from the field, and the mission would be postponed until a better time. But for some reason, the higher-ups want me here. No one else. Maybe I am the only useful option. Even though I wish I wasn’t.

I nod slightly, sighing. “So, the big boss really has you by the balls, huh?” I quip, trying to ease all the tension out of my body.

His lips pull at the edges again, and he huffs a laugh. “One day when you meet the man in charge of all this, you’ll understand why my hands are tied.”

Relief runs through me at the sight of the uncle I’ve come to know and trust. He’s always been a hardass, but he’s always had a soft spot for me, too. Maybe because we grew up in the same sort of family structure with the Viottos nipping at our heels and laying down the laws.

“Are you ever going to tell me about the big boss?” I ask.

Jonathan smiles. “One day, when you have higher clearance.”

The boss has always been a big mystery. Jonathan runs things, but there’s a big boss making all the decisions within the agency. My uncle answers to him and then relays everything back to us.

“Remember to do your check-ins. I expect you back in your dorm room with a page of notes on what happened and sent to us through the portal. Tonight.” He eyes me with a softer gaze. “Now, I need to attend to other recruits. You’ve got this, Olivia. You’re the best woman for the job.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, straightening my spine. I’ll have to turn it to steel to do what I have to do in the next few hours.

I’ll have to return to campus. Dress as Oliver. Sleep in my dorm room with my enemies twenty minutes away across campus. They’ll know who I am. That I’m not buried in the dirt.

They’ll have questions.

Questions I’m not sure I can answer.

Veritas is a protected agency. Very few people know that we exist. They’re the people who reach out for help and call us.

So, how can I explain to them that I’ve been a ghost within an agency? That I didn’t really die, and they can’t destroy me now. That I’m here to investigate Franco and take them all to prison after I’m done.

The answer? I can’t. I can’t say anything of that nature. Not with the oath I took when I swore in. So, how can I pull this off? How can I pretend that JJ didn’t look right through me and see Olivia?

I can’t.

I take a shuddering breath of fresh air outside the warehouse. The quiet streets do nothing to hide the anxiety building inside me. Nothing can stop the utter panic growing.

I quit walking and lean against the building with my heart in my throat and bile rising by the second. There’s only one person I can call. Only one person who will understand the pain squeezing my heart into a vice.

“I need you,” I murmur into the phone once it’s dialed and he picks up, quickly agreeing to meet me for food and a vent-fest.

3

JJ

She’s alive. My spitfire. My fucking girl.

The girl who colored my world so brightly that the moment she died, I was drowning in gray. Dismal and fucking miserable. I’ve been half alive since she was put into the ground. Like my soul went down with hers, too.

But now her heart beats. She’s alive. Breathing. She’s real. Here. Warm.

And so fucking angry.

“You killed me!”

Her hate-filled words pierce through my skull like sharp arrows, landing how she wanted them to. My head throbs with all this information I’m not processing very well. I don’t understand. Killed her? How could she think that?

Olivia.

My damn girl. Our girl. The one we mourned and buried and took a piece of us with her.

Is alive.