48. Mason
48
MASON
S abrina Brickshire was a cocky little shit. Maybe there’s a better way to describe her, but I don’t care to expend that energy. I opened that door, took one look at her, and hated her on sight. She’s got Sam’s eyes, her chin, and her body type. And that is all. The rest of her is maniacal bullshit. I get why Axel said she was the mastermind. She was gloating when she got here.
This was always my dilemma.
I loathe when other girls messed with Sam because I couldn’t punish them. You hurt us. We hurt you back tenfold, except I never knew what to do with the female gender.
It was the same problem now, except what I really wanted to do, Sam would not be down for that. I’d wait. I’d hear it all, make my decision, and proceed from there.
She was almost skipping when I led her to the study. There was a bounce to her stride and she kept looking at me, giving me a fucking coy smile.
I gave her nothing.
It didn’t penetrate with her. If I hadn’t already been operating with the assumption the girl had legit mental instability, I would’ve thought she was on something. Her laugh was high and coarse. She was flushed. Some beads of sweat on her forehead. But her eyes were the kicker. They were not here. She was off in some other universe in her head.
I held open the door, and she went in first.
After Axel called her on my phone—and it should be noted that she answered, and agreed to coming without once asking about her brother—the guys had a heated discussion. A heated fight was a better word because all three threw down for their opinions.
Steele wanted them gone. This was family business, literally.
Axel and Beltraine vehemently disagreed.
Beltraine flat-out said, “Fuck no, dude. Your sister is the most cunning and unstable bitch I’ve ever met. I’m not fucking leaving.” He declared that and plopped down on a chair. Folding his arms over his chest, he gave Steele a pointed glare and smirked.
Steele’s mouth hung open. “I—you never said any of this shit to me before.”
Beltaine laughed before using his head to indicate the room. “And we’ve not heard any of this shit. You said you needed a place to stay and to tell people we’re cousins because you had family drama back home.”
“That’s the truth.”
Beltraine’s eyes flicked upward. “You lied to me, but whatever, dude. I love you and I’m not leaving. Next.” He jerked his chin toward Axel.
Steele cursed under his breath, his fingers dug into his temples before round two happened.
He started, “Axe—”
“No.” Axel dropped back on the couch where he’d been sitting before.
I liked both their arguments, but I liked Beltraine’s more. And I really liked it now after having met Sam’s little sister, but as we walked inside, I caught the look those two shared.
Neither were fans of Steele and Sam’s sister.
Sam, though, I studied her and a metal cage fell down around me, locking me in, because I was watching my wife fall in love all over again. This time it was with her sister.
Her eyes softened. Warmed. “Sabrina.” She started for her, her arms lifting for a hug when the girl in question started laughing.
Laughing.
And it was the same high-pitched unhinged laugh.
Sam stopped in her tracks.
Steele cursed. “Stop it, Brinna.”
The laughter died, and a hollowness lingered in an echo after.
I would never describe this girl as beautiful, because she wasn’t. On the outside, she might’ve passed for that description. She had wavy brown hair. It fell just past her shoulders. She was slender. I’m sure she was dressed as a normal college student would dress. Maybe one going to a party. A white crop-top. High-waisted jeans a lot of other girls wore. Sandals. Glowing, sun-kissed tan skin. Her face was what all the pretty girls looked like, but she couldn’t hold a candle against someone like her sister.
Sam was beautiful on the outside and inside. She surpassed this girl. Hands fucking down. Sam was better in every way, always would be better. The girl had no chance, but my wife, with the good heart she had, wasn’t thinking about any of that.
I knew what she was thinking.
She was thinking about the day she first held her sister in her arms.
She was remembering that day and remembering all the love she had for her, and after needing to suppress it for so long, it was flooding back to her. She wasn’t seeing how her sister wasn’t her sister anymore. She was an enemy. She was someone who wanted to hurt her.
I thought she could tell Sam, tell her what she did, how Steele had told Samantha who he was.
I was dead fucking wrong.
This girl was going to do it. She was, I saw that, but she was going to do it in the cruelest way she could. She wanted to inflict the worst kind of pain she could on Samantha.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“What, little brother? Aren’t you happy to see me?”
He didn’t go to her. He didn’t hug her. He just stood there, glared, and fisted his hands at his sides.
She’d been taking him in at the same time, because she let out a harsh laugh. “Are you kidding me?” Her head tilted. Her eyes narrowed, cold calculation smearing her face. Her lips twisted in a snarl. “You were supposed to make contact.”
“I did,” he bit out.
“You were supposed to become friends with their daughter.”
“I did do that.” He glanced at Sam, warily.
Her tone went mean. “You weren’t supposed to start caring for her, you dipshit.”
He flushed. “She’s my sister, Brinna.”
“So?” She taunted. “She’s also the reason Uncle Seb went to prison.”
Sam gasped, her eyes tearing my way, just as mine shot to hers. Shock and alarm branded me. “Uncle Seb?”
She went still, eerily still, before rotating to face me. The entire motion made my skin crawl, but the smile on her face wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. She continued with that mocking tone. “Yes. My godfather. I believe you knew him as Park Sebastian.” She winked at her brother. “Why do you think I wanted a different nickname? Seb is his name. Not mine. We can’t have the same nickname.”
Uncle Seb. Park Sebastian. Holy shit.
I was rocked.
The ground could’ve fallen out from underneath me and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Our past had come back to haunt us.
“He went to prison.”
“Yes, he did. For what The Network pinned on him.”
She knew about The Network.
She thought they set him up? For being a serial rapist?
She had no idea what he’d done. No idea at all.
“The—” Beltraine asked, his face scrunched up. He cast Steele a look before saying, “Never mind.”
“The Network.” She sing-songed the name, clapping her hands. “I’m so excited for this moment. I’ve been waiting so long for this. Yes, Traine. The Network. It was a secret society that your new Mommy and Daddy destroyed.”
Sam was so pale, shaking her head.
The list of shit he’d done to us, the worst was to her.
“Except they decided they didn’t want to be a part of it so they took something that generations built and they burned it all down to the ground. Much like another building, am I correct, brother-in-law?”
She knew about the fraternity house. She knew about The Network.
I said, “You’re still in contact with Park, aren’t you?”
She began laughing, this time a genuine trickle of amusement coming from her. “Still in contact? I’ve never not been in contact with my godfather. Some might say I’m closer to him than my own father.” Her lips curved up. “Those people would be correct. I know everything you’ve done to him—”
“I very much doubt that,” Sam snapped.
There she was.
The shaken look was gone. The old Sam was back, mixed with the new one, and she was even stronger. More powerful. This was the kickass Sam, and God, I loved her. Pride swelled in my chest, along with arousal and desire. My woman made me hard.
Sabrina frowned, and she faltered a step. This wasn’t the sister she thought she’d be meeting.
“What—” she started to say something.
Steele cut off his own sister. “He’s brainwashed her.”
“Steele!” She slapped him.
Whoa.
Sam’s eyes widened at how quick her reaction had been, and she wound up to do it again.
“I don’t fucking think so.” Beltraine was there, getting between her and her brother. “Step back, you bitch.”
Sabrina inhaled sharply, but her target just switched. Her hand went back again. She was going to slap Beltraine instead.
“Fuck no.” Axel got involved, shoving her backward. He followed her, stopping after a few feet, now blocking both Beltraine and Steele from her. “You ever touch your brother like that again and I don’t give a fuck who you are, I will ruin your life.”
I met Sam’s gaze over their heads, both of us in shock. These kids were us. Me. Logan. Her. They were in the form of Beltraine, Axel, and Steele? This was a whole head trip that I didn’t see coming.
Sabrina growled, “You’re the one who called me to come here.”
“Because your brother won’t tell them about whatever sick secrets you’ve made him keep. He came clean that she’s his sister, but that’s it. You have to come clean about everything else. Tell them the truth. Enough with these fucking manipulations.”
Her eyes grew uncentered, a wild gleam taking root in them. She tipped her head back, another chortling laugh rippling up and out of her throat. “Oh? It’s like that. Is it? I come on command and what? Confess? Is that supposed to save my soul, Axel? My brother’s soul?”
Axel switched, going from heated to a cold smirk in point zero seconds. But the transition made her uneasy. That only reinforced his smirk. “I don’t give a fuck about your soul. I’ve listened to you rant enough to know you are gone. You’ve been brainwashed. There’s no coming back for you.”
Her face grew heated, reddening. She flung her hand out, pointing at Sam and me. “These people—you don’t even know what they did.”
“I don’t care.” He got right back in her face. “You want to know what these people did for me? For Beltraine? For your own brother? You wanna listen to that because I can tell you. It happened in real time. In front of me. It’s not a story I’ve heard from someone else, who is so fucking obvious about his agenda, that you’re batshit stupid to believe one fucking word of it.”
“He’s been there for me—”
“I’ve been there for you!” Steele roared, stalking around his friends and getting in his sister’s face.
She blinked, and blinked again. He kept going at her, and she backtracked. They didn’t stop until she hit against the wall and even then, Steele got all up in her space. He was taller than her so he leaned down, his voice chilling. “Do you know what Bell’s dad was doing to us?”
Some of the fight faded. “Wha—what are you talking about?”
“Phillip Moreaux. We didn’t know anyone here. You’re the one who approached Moreaux. You’re the one who put me in Bell’s house, but I’m the one who got Bell to agree to lie for me. He just didn’t know the truth. How’d you know to contact Phillip Moreaux?”
“What… What was he doing to you? What did he do to you?” Her voice rose, becoming sharp again. The beginning of some panic was setting in.
Steele ignored her, speaking low, almost depressed. Some of his shoulders loosened again, becoming defeated. His voice become replete, empty. “It wasn’t just once. We’ve been playing football for almost two months now. We started the end of August. Do you know… You have no idea, but they did. They stopped it.”
“What did he do to you?”
Fuck. That voice. The unhinged tone was gone, and in that voice, she was stripped down to a sister. She fucking sounded like Samantha. The same voice. I did not want to hear that familiarity from her. Fuck no. I didn’t want a reminder whose blood she shared, because in that voice, as Sam heard it too, I saw hope rekindle in my wife’s heart.
Fuck, fuck, fuck .
The hope gave way to new determination. I knew, right then and there, that Sam was going to do what she needed to save this sister of hers.
Goddamn. No . No!
Steele didn’t tell her. Axel didn’t either. Beltraine did. And as he did, as we all heard what else his father had done to them and how many more times he’d had them go into that shed, more than I wanted to think about because he hadn’t used the excuse of a lost football game to justify his need to abuse them, Sabrina was shaking by the end of it.
“I didn’t know. I swear.” All the blood was gone from her face. Her lips were trembling. “Steele, I swear. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah,” he bit out. Rough. “But someone did. Who told you to contact him?”
“I didn’t contact him. That’s not how this happened. I was… We were introduced and we went from there.”
“Who did the introductions?”
The answer was there, right on the tip of her tongue, but as she thought about answering, she looked at my wife. Just that, one look, and I could see all the brainwashing return back to her forefront. The raw vulnerability she had when hearing her little brother had been hurt was covered up by the cruel gleefulness of whatever this creature was in front of me.
Park Sebastian did this. He did a masterful job of it. I had to give him that.
He took away someone Sam loved.
“Who do you think? Come on.” She laughed again; the chortling was back. “You want to know everything? I mean, that is why I came here. I knew when Mom and Dad figured it out, then the gig was up. Or most of it is up, but don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything. I want to tell you everything. Are you ready?”
Sam stared back at her, but she had masked the earlier love I saw in her gaze as she watched her sister. An expressionless mask was in its place. She deadpanned, “Not in the least.”
Sabrina didn’t care. She began talking.