33. Mason
33
MASON
I had to look again, but the reports weren’t wrong. My father’s business was doing just fine. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! That meant he was fed a bunch of bullshit. He killed himself because of some bullshit fucking lie. I was inclined to believe Kai Bennett, which meant we had an enemy with no face and no name, and right now, I had no idea the reason for why this all happened.
I sent a text to my private investigator.
Me: I need you to pivot in whatever you’re finding or not finding on Kai Bennett. He came to me himself, told me he’s not trying to force his way into this company. I’m inclined to believe him.
Lael: What the hell???? You have time for a call?
Me: No. Send whatever you do or don’t have. I don’t want our time wasted looking one way when we should be looking somewhere else. My dad believed that Kai Bennett was coming after him. We need to find out why he believed that.
Lael: That means I’ll need to investigate your father.
Me: Do it.
Lael: Okay. I’ll send one of my colleagues with the Bennett file. What I do have, I only trust that it’ll get to you in person. I’ll change my focus.
Lael: Are you okay? I’ve seen Kai Bennett in person. He’s… Just, are you okay?
Me: I’m fine. I’ll be better when I know who killed my dad.
Lael: Got it. On it.
My phone buzzed a second later. It was the main lobby receptionist.
“A Zeke Allen is here to see you,” she said when I answered. “He does not have an appointment, but he’s insisting that you’ll see him. Should I send him up?”
I wasn’t even surprised. That’s what I would’ve done in his position. “Send him up.”
“Yes, Mr. Kade.”
Mr. Kade. I’d been called that a few times, mostly by Maddy’s friends. News reporters used my first name. Coaches called me Kade or Mason. Mr. Kade, though, that was my father.
I swallowed tightly at the memories.
Logan: Heads up, Taylor and I talked. It feels too chaotic for me to leave, so I’m staying. She postponed our flight. Sammy’s going to stay here since he’s attached to David’s hip. Taylor’s due a ton of vacation, so she’s going to take it early, extend it hopefully to when she’s due, and then she can switch to maternity leave. Hoping we’ll have things figured out by then on the home front.
Me: What about your firm?
Logan: I booted some of my cases to associates. Everything else I can do here. Just feels right staying.
Me: Thanks, brother.
Logan: Don’t need to thank me. You’ve done it for me. Love you, brother.
Channing: We need to have a serious talk. It’s getting hard to cover your back when I’m getting questions from all over and I don’t know what to say. Why are you setting up a fight night with the Red Demons’s Frisco charter? Do you know anything about Zeke Allen suffering a knife wound to the gut and looking like he was tortured? Samantha asked Heather to keep Zeke’s wife out with them last night. Ava’s a sweet girl, but she’s not someone Sam usually seeks out. Optics don’t look good. What the fuck are you doing?
Channing: I don’t think I need to remind you that Allen is close to Nate’s brother-in-law, whose bloodline is connected to my sister’s husband. Are you following the dots here? That’s a lot of family connections there. You need to loop me in on what’s going on.
Channing: I found your security guards. They were knocked out and tied up, left behind the west wall of Kade Enterprises. All were fine when we dropped them off at the hospital.
Channing: Fucking call me back, Mason.
There was a slight knock on the door, and I looked up as it opened. So many things depended on the man coming to see me in person.
I motioned to him. “Come in.”
He moved slowly, one arm held across his stomach. He was pale, but his shoulders were set with determination. I studied him, and the previous times I’d seen him came to mind. He’d written letters to me since he began seventh grade. Only later did I attach those letters to a name, to a face, to someone who knew other people in my life. The letters became messages on my social media. There’d been nothing crazy or worrisome in them, just contact from a fan who declared his appreciation for my endeavors. He wasn’t a stalker until he started dropping by the house.
He followed Samantha and me around town a few times. He’d been at the grocery store, the coffee shop, at a table all alone at Manny’s. Always there. Always watching.
He’d approached my father.
He’d approached Analise.
When he approached Maddy, I had enough. We got an order of protection against him so he’d stay away from my immediate family. Other people in our lives knew him, but they didn’t know about those visits. That was kept to ourselves.
He always had an odd look in his eyes when I saw him in person, as if he wasn’t really seeing me in front of him—more like a poster that had come to life. That look was gone today. He could see me.
“You probably should’ve stayed in the hospital another day,” I noted.
He laughed, which ended in a wince as he lowered himself into the chair across from my desk. “Right. Well, Logan’s avocado-related accidental self-stabbing story wasn’t holding up. The longer I stayed, the more questions I got. A few of the nurses weren’t buying how it happened when we were drunk, on a golf course, and why the fuck would we be trying to cut open an avocado? I had to check out. Out of sight, out of mind. That sort of thing.”
“Logan said the story was so preposterous that it would have to be true.”
He laughed, and immediately paled. “Oh. I regret that.” He coughed, readjusted himself again. “So, uh, you and your brother tortured me. I want to know why. Was it just for information?”
I frowned. “Do you not remember?”
He grimaced, his face going pale. “No, I do. Though I wish I didn’t. I know you.”
I gritted my teeth. He didn’t fucking know me.
Zeke dropped his gaze. “I know you don’t want me to know you. You probably think that I don’t know you. I get that in the past I’ve crossed a line, but…” His eyes lifted to mine. “None of those times were malicious.”
“You followed me and Sam around town.”
“I happened to be in a few of the same places at the same time.”
“Multiple times,” I bit out.
“Yeah. I mean, what do you want me to say? You’re my idol.” His eyes fell. “Were my idol.”
“My father? What’s your excuse with approaching him?”
“I wanted to introduce myself. Before his death, we were in similar social groups here. The elite business world of Fallen Crest isn’t that big.”
“Analise?”
“Ah…” He frowned, his head folding down. “You won’t believe me, but I only approached her once and it was because she looked upset. She was walking on the sidewalk. I just wanted to make sure she’d be okay.”
He had a goddamn excuse for every time.
Last one. Worst one. “My daughter?”
He coughed, tugging at his shirt. “Would you believe me if I said—”
“No,” I barked. “One time. I would believe you if it happened one fucking time. Not multiple times. Not with the letters. Not with the private messages. No one in your little social group knows the extent of it. They’re all telling me you’re safe. You’re cool. We can trust you.” I shot forward in my seat. “No, I goddamn can’t. You approached my kid—”
“She—there were some guys. It looked like they were messing with her—”
“—in fucking San Diego! You approached her in another city. You weren’t there by coincidence. You looked for her. You found her. You approached her. I want nothing to do with you. Nothing. But after last night, we have a problem because it seems like my brother cares about you. Go fucking figure on that one.”
He fell quiet until he mumbled, “Guessing the torture had more to do with this than the hacking, huh?”
I stared at him. It was all I could do in this moment because all my grief, all my anger, all my frustration, everything that had been accumulating over the last week, all of it had a target. He was sitting in front of me, but fuck him very much. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do with him because Logan cared about the guy.
I shook my head, needing to let some of my anger go. A small trickle of it. “I’m a celebrity. I get that. Because of what I earned playing a game I loved, a lot of people think that makes me theirs. Theirs to inspect. Theirs to tear apart. Theirs to objectify, hate, project all their own shit onto. It comes with the territory, and yes, stalkers happen. But you are here . You are local. You are connected inside my circle, and you are fucking weird. I didn’t know you. I didn’t want to know you, and after you approached my daughter, I loathed you. We tortured you because you were hacking into Kai Bennett’s family’s accounts, and you brought that motherfucker to my front door.” I leaned forward again, my eyes hard. “ Why ?”
He opened his mouth but then shrugged, leaning back in his seat.
“I know I didn’t read you in on my situation. I can’t believe the few who knew would’ve done that.” I asked a different question. “How did you know to look into Kai Bennett?”
He frowned, looking away. “I got a text alert.”
“You got a text alert? What does that mean?”
He shifted in his seat, perspiration coming to his forehead. Tugging at his shirt collar, he coughed. “I—oh fuck. You can’t say anything…”
“I’m not promising you shit. You stalked my family.”
“I know. I know.” He held up a hand. “I’m—things are starting to look different to me since you and your brother strung me up. But look, Channing sent a text to the Brenster—”
This fucker could somehow read text messages from Channing to his sister.
“The Brenster?” I asked.
“Bren. Channing’s sister.” He sighed. “I call her the Brenster since she said I couldn’t call her Brentress—like the Huntress. Bren’s kick ass. It’s, like, literally what she does for a living. She’s more badass than her brother—”
I growled.
He changed his tone. “Right. What was I saying? Text alert. Yeah. The Chanster texted the Brenster and asked if she’d heard anything about Kai Bennett operating in the area, specifically Fallen Crest. I thought it was weird. Bren said she didn’t know anything. When she offered to look into it, the Chanster shut her down right away. That set off my alarms too, so I did some digging. And…” He trailed off, but after a bit he focused on me. “Once I started digging, I couldn’t stop. Are you aware of who they are?”
“Yes,” I said dryly. “So you didn’t know about their connection to me?”
He shook his head. “No. I about pissed myself when I woke up and saw you standing there. I can’t figure out the connection. Channing asked about Kai Bennett. That made me start looking into him. He visited you, told you to get me to stop? That sent you and your brother to me, but I’m not understanding how Kai Bennett is connected…” He trailed off. His eyes got wide. Bright. He shoved up in chair and cursed right away. “Fuck. That hurts. But—” his gaze latched onto me. “Did Kai Bennett have anything to do with your dad’s death? That’s the only…” He trailed off again, seeing my face.
He gulped. “You’re not happy.”
“What is wrong with you?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You look excited just now. Like you’re thrilled . You’re not comprehending the magnitude of this situation.”
Zeke gulped again. His hands curled around the chair’s armrests. “Uh…”
He had no clue. No goddamn clue. I snapped, exploding out of my seat. With one arm, I swept everything off my desk, moving the computer to the edge. All the papers went flying, the stapler Maddy had played with, my phone, paper clips. And I didn’t see any of it.
All I saw was red.
Zeke jumped up, backing away from me. “Hey, man—”
“You have no fucking idea what you’re messing with!” I thundered. “They’re the mafia. ”
Zeke’s eyes widened. He took another step, missed the floor, and crumpled.
I didn’t care to help him, not one fucking bit. I stood over him. “Stop fucking hacking into Kai Bennett and his family. He came to me, dipshit. If he’d gone to you, you’d already be dead !” I bellowed.
Zeke winced, making no attempt to stand up again.
“The connection is me, dumbass. Someone told my father a lie, and that lie had to do with Kai Bennett. He came to me within a day of you hacking into his family’s business. One fucking day, Allen. He told me flat-out that if you’d gotten into his account or his wife’s, you’d have a bullet in your forehead.”
Zeke began breathing hard, raking a hand over his face. He was visibly shaken, and his eyes took on an unfocused glaze. He wasn’t here in this room with me anymore. I didn’t know where the fuck he was, or what kind of thoughts were going through his mind.
I stepped away, giving him some space. He didn’t seem to notice.
“You have to stop hacking.”
He looked my way, his eyes flaring. “Like fuck I’m stopping.” He climbed to his feet, a storm on his face. “Fuck you, Kade. Hacking is—I hack. I’ve done it all my life. No one’s caught me—”
“Until now.”
He stopped, blinking, as my words hit him. “Well, yeah. I’ll just be smarter.”
I shook my head, knowing a lost cause when I heard one. “You’ll stop looking into Kai Bennett and his family—”
“I’ll be smarter.”
I’d planned to follow that up with a threat, but the way he said those words—so earnest, so determined—I swallowed it instead. He was going to do it anyway. I pointed to the door. “Get the fuck out.” Once he got himself there and opened it, I added, “When he kills you, I’ve had my funeral quota. I’m not going to another. And if you violate my goddamn privacy, my family’s privacy, my kids, my brother, his family, anyone I love, I’ll come back for you. I won’t be bringing my brother.”
He stared at me, long and hard. His jaw clenched. A myriad of expressions crossed his face, but none of them were good.
He was pissed. How dare I take away his passion. That’s what he was thinking. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know how good he was. Maybe I didn’t, but I did know how easily it’d been for Kai Bennett to get between my daughter and myself.
That shook me.
Once he was gone, I made a few calls. Security was told to make sure Zeke Allen was escorted off the premises and put on the banned list.
Next I called Channing Monroe.
“Are we going for a beer tonight?” he said in greeting. “I figure I’ll need a few to have the conversation I’m owed.”
“Logan and I needed to blow off steam,” I told him, getting the business talk done first. “I reached out to the Red Demons thinking they could help with that. I was looking at a potential war against an adversary in a world that I knew nothing about, and I thought I might need more than one alliance. I don’t believe I’ll need that anymore, because Kai Bennett himself showed up. I’m not sorry that I made the call to reach out to the Red Demons. I can’t. It was for my family. They have a bigger footstep in the same world that also has Kai Bennett, bigger than yours. But I am sorry that in making that decision, I needed to cut you out. I hope you can understand my reasoning, but I’ll understand if you can’t.
“Incidentally, Kai Bennett is also the reason I had you check for my security guards at my place. His men disposed of them to ensure he and I could have a private conversation, and by private I mean that he got between Maddy’s vehicle and mine, and went on a walk with me and eight of his own men patrolling with their guns.
“The topic of that conversation was that he had nothing to do with my father’s death. I’ve looked into things a bit more since then, and I’m inclined to believe him.”
“Mason.”
“I’m not done.” I was absolutely done giving Zeke Allen any leeway. “Check your phone because Zeke Allen just informed me he picked up a text you sent your sister , one where you asked her about Kai Bennett. You do what you want with that information.”
Channing was quiet for a long moment. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Channing was going to filet Allen alive, and if he didn’t, his sister would. Despite him giving her some cute nickname, people did not mess with Channing’s sister. Zeke knew this. He dug his own grave.
He spoke slowly as he was still processing all that I said, “Shit, Mason. When you unload, you really unload.”
“We can have that beer, but I’m figuring you got things to do now?”
“It seems I do. I’ll reach out later.”
The kid wasn’t going to stop hacking.
He’d face the consequences.