Chapter 28
Mason
No one has rung this bell in years, so I’m appropriately on edge when I make my way to the door. Leaving Grace behind like this is a risky move in itself, because as much as I want to, I’m not sure I can trust her.
But if she runs, she runs. There’s nothing I can do about it—and if she doesn’t, we’re in a much better place to have the conversation we need to have at this point.
Right after I find out who has been ringing at my door like a crazy person.
I don’t know what to expect when I open the door, but still find myself surprised, when I find a shabby looking dude standing a few feet away from the entrance, his head turned away from me. He’s wearing ripped jeans and a worn out shirt beneath a battered leather jacket, giving me the same vibe as tacky gold teeth guy who stopped by at my office.
“Hey, what-”
I’m startled when he begins running away all of a sudden, his anxious eyes locked to some place to his left, down to the street that leads up to my house.
“Hey!” I yell again, as I begin running after him. But when I turn the corner around the house, I notice the tattered truck parked down the street—and Grace, fighting in the grip of a man with a familiar face.
He’s dragging her into the truck, as the other guy closes in on them with incredible speed.
“Fuck!” I hiss, reaching for the keys inside my pocket. There’s no point in running after them, if they manage to get inside that damn truck and drive off.
With Grace. I don’t know if she ran outside or if that other guy broke in and got her while I was out, but either way, she’s with them—and I have to get her back.
I jump into my Ranger Rover and start the engine, driving off with screeching tires as I take up pursuit. I speed down the driveway and out to the street just in time to see them driving off, the car already moving before the second guy even managed to close the door after jumping in. I hit the gas, wishing I could see which side of the car Grace is on, so I can make sure to hit them from the other as soon as I’ve caught up to him.
But our chase is cut short just a few moments later, when another car appears seemingly out of nowhere and rams into the side of the truck. Whoever it is must have been hiding behind the thick wall of bushes and smaller trees that line the street on one side, where it curves to the left to circumvent a small hill.
The impact is strong enough to bring both cars to a halt, metal clashing and tires screeching across the asphalt. I step on the breaks with full force, coming to a halt with a dramatic turn, before I jump out of the car and head for the truck. My heart skips a beat when I hear a shot being fired inside the truck. A split second later the door on the driver’s side swings open, and I see one of the guys running away from the scene—closely followed by someone who just jumped out of the car that just brought the truck to a halt by running into it.
I only throw a short lived look in the guy’s direction, but it’s enough to recognize him as Grace’s brother. Instead of wasting time on him, I focus on the truck, speeding up when the door on the other side is pushed open—and I almost faint with relief when I see Grace climbing out, throwing something in the grass that turns out to be a gun, before she stumbles away from the truck backwards. Her horrified gaze is locked onto the car, and she’s too paralyzed with fear to even notice my presence.
“Grace, oh my God, Grace!” I call out for her, and my heart stings when she turns to look at me.
Her eyes are wide with terror and her lips quivering when she sees me, and she closes the remaining distance between us with two wide steps as she lunges into my arms. Her legs give in as soon as I hold her in my embrace, tumbling to the ground with her, while I make sure that no one is coming out from the truck after her. But all I find is a limp body, slumped on the seat and most likely bereft of life.
“Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” I blurt out, feeling her dainty, shivering body as I pull her close to me.
“Grace, are you okay?”
She nods, trembling as she looks up at me with an apathetic look.
“I shot him,” she whispers. “I... He… the gun fell out of his hand, and… and I took it, and I shot him.”
“It’s okay,” I assure her, pulling her in a tight embrace. “It’s all good, you’re safe now.”
She mewls against my chest, and I can feel her relaxing in my arms, her shoulders slump down before she reaches up to hug me.
I squeeze her tight as I help her get back up on her feet, and we both flinch when another shot is fired a few yards away from us.
She squirms in my hold, trying to turn around and look in the direction of where the shot was fired, but I tighten my grip around her. I saw what happened, and I don’t want her to look at it.
The second guy, the one who rang my doorbell, is lying in the grass not too far away from us—shot down by her brother.
“Fuck,” I hiss, dragging her with me as I try to put more distance between us and the scene.
“What-”
“It’s okay,” I hush her. “Your brother is safe.”
“My brother?” she asks, looking up me, still trying to free herself from my embrace. But I refuse to let her go, not just yet.
“My brother is here?” she asks, stunned.
I nod, my eyes fixated on him, as I watch him tower over the body. For a moment it looks like he’s about to fire another shot, just to make sure the job is done, but thankfully, he decides against it.
However, the gun is still in his hand when he turns to look at us--and my grip on Grace tightens.
She cranes her neck, struggling to look back over her shoulder, and I give her just enough leeway to turn and face Tyler, as he marches toward us with a grim look on his face.
“Let go of her!” he barks, now pointing the gun at me.
“Tyler, no!” Grace yells back, before I get a chance to speak. “Lower your gun!”
He looks at her for a split second, scanning her from head to toe before he looks back at me, the gun still raised.
“Listen to your sister,” I tell him. “Put that gun away!”
“You let go of her first!” he snarls, coming to a halt when he’s about ten feet away from us. “Now!”
“Tyler!” Grace snaps, but he ignores her.
She looks up at me with pleading eyes, but before she opens her mouth to speak, I loosen my hold on her. To my surprise, she doesn’t run away, but positions herself in front of me, raising an appeasing hand at her brother.
“You can put the gun down now,” she says.
Tyler glares at me, and I can’t blame him for it. If things were the other way around, I probably would have shot him by now. It’s his sister after all.
He hesitates for a few more moments, before he finally lowers the gun, and Grace exhales with relief.
“What are you doing here?” Tyler asks, directly to me. “What is she doing with you?”
“He’s my therapist,” Grace blurts out, surprising both me and her brother.
“What?” Tyler probes, indignant disbelief lacing his features. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I’m not,” Grace says, her voice surprisingly firm and steady. “He’s helping me. He kept me safe.”
“By kidnapping you and then lying to me about it?” Tyler implores, throwing me a nasty look. “That bastard acted as if he had no idea where you were when I talked to him at the ward. What the hell is going on here?”
“Yes, what the hell is going on here?” Grace retorts, pointing at the car she just jumped out of. “Who are these guys? And why are they after me?”
Her brother growls in anger, side-eyeing the two men they just killed.
“Just two idiots who fucked with the wrong people,” he murmurs.
“Oh, let me guess, mafia?” Grace asks with a naturalness that almost makes me chuckle, especially when I notice the look on Tyler’s face. He looks at his little sister like a bad little boy who just got caught in the act.
“They’ve been giving us shit for months, threatening our family. We had to keep you safe,” he laments. “They’ve been threatening to go after us, and you especially, when they were the ones invading our territory and-”
“I don’t fucking care!” Grace erupts, stunning both me and her brother. “Is that why you had me locked away? To keep me safe from these idiots?”
“Look, we had to-”
“You know that guy showed up at the ward?” I interject.
Tyler looks at me as if he’d already forgotten I was here, a gigantic question mark gracing his face.
“That’s right, the one with gold teeth, he came to the ward, asking about Grace,” I go on. “They knew where she was. You didn’t keep her safe by what you did. It would have been easy for them to snatch her from the ward.”
Grace gives me a short look, before she adds: “Yes, I might have been dead, if it wasn’t for...”
“Mason,” I fill in the gap, meeting her wide-eyed gaze.
“Mason,” she repeats, still looking at me, when she begins to smile. “He knew I’d be safer here than I would be at the ward, so-”
“So, he kidnapped you without telling us what the hell was going on?” Tyler cuts her off. “And I’m supposed to believe that? Why the hell wouldn’t he tell me?”
“Because we didn’t want you to know,” I jump in. “Kinda defeats the purpose if you guys had known, don’t you think?”
Tyler shakes his head. He’s not buying our story, and again, I can’t blame him for it. I, myself, don’t fully understand why or how Grace just came up with this.
Why is she defending me? After all I did to her?
Could I have been right all along? Did I actually give her what she wanted me to give her?
When I look at Grace now, with her tiny fists and the stern look on her face as she faces her brother in a defiant stance, I can’t help but feel proud of her. Proud of the fierce lioness that refuses to be a damsel in distress—not my victim or anybody else’s.
“I don’t believe this shit for one second,” Tyler lets both of us know. “I don’t know why you’re lying for him, Grace, but whatever he did to you, he’ll pay for it.”
“He won’t,” Grace objects. “And do you really want to call the police on him, Tyler? Because if you do, there are a few things I’d like to tell them myself.”
His eyes turn into narrow slits as he glares at me first, then at Grace.
“You can’t be serious,” he hisses, sounding defeated. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me,” she warns him, pinning him down with an intense stare as she takes a step toward him. “Try me, brother.”
Tyler retreats, releasing a heavy sigh as he eyes his little sister, in disbelief as he seems to see the warrior in her for the very first time in his life.
But I’m sure, it won’t be the last time.