30. Mason
30
MASON
W e don’t have a lead. Not a single goddamn clue where she is or who’s holding her.
The only thing I have is a gut-wrenching truth that settles in my chest like a lead weight: Shelby has been taken.
Kanyan orders a meeting in the war room.
Because that’s who Kanyan De Scarzi is. A leader. A king among wolves.
The kind of man you’d follow into battle without question, without doubt, because you know he’ll get you out—or die trying.
He doesn’t deal in emotions or uncertainty. He deals in action, in control.
And when he commands, you move.
I don’t ask questions.
I move.
We meet in the basement of Scar Gatti’s home—the most secure, impenetrable location in this godforsaken city.
This is where our most sacred meetings take place, where whispered threats settle heavy in the air alongside blood oaths and unspoken alliances.
This is where men decide fates, where kingdoms are either fortified or burned to ash.
This is the place where Scar reigns.
Where his word is final.
Where the future of the Gatti empire is carved into stone.
Scar has spent years trying to separate business from home, building an invisible wall between the bloodstained world we rule and the life he has painstakingly built with his wife, Allegra Marone.
Allegra.
The only daughter of mafia scion Pietro Marone. A woman born into power but shielded from the brutality that forged it.
She was never meant to inherit her father’s world.
Never meant to bear the weight of his empire.
Pietro kept her tucked away, protected, untouched by the bloodshed that lined the streets with bodies.
She was meant for something softer, something distant from the underworld Scar calls home.
Their marriage was never supposed to be more than an alliance.
A contract inked in blood, binding two powerhouses together in an unshakable truce.
But somewhere along the way, they fell in love.
Scar—the cold-blooded killer, the ruthless mastermind, the man feared by his enemies and revered by his allies—he loved her.
Not as a trophy. Not as a duty. But with a force that shook him to his core.
And Allegra? She didn’t just love him back—she chose him.
Not out of obligation. Not because their fathers dictated it.
But because she saw through the beast to the man beneath.
But don’t mistake her for some delicate, coddled princess.
Allegra Marone is no fragile thing.
She proved it when she was taken.
Kidnapped.
Held captive by Altin Kadri—the Albanian who thought he could use her as leverage, who thought he could break her the way others before him had broken women weaker than her.
She was locked away alongside Lula, Kanyan’s girl—two women stolen from the men who would burn the world to bring them home.
But Allegra? She did not break.
She did not bow. Did not beg. Did not shame the legacy of her name.
She endured. She survived.
And when Scar found her—when he laid eyes on his wife after days of blood-soaked rage, after slaughtering his way through hell to bring her back?—
He knew she wasn’t just his wife.
She was his queen.
And that is why, when Allegra put her foot down and told Scar that the war room belonged here, beneath their home—he listened.
He wanted to believe he could keep the empire separate.
That their house could remain untouched by the violence.
But he isn’t a fool. Not after what happened. Not after nearly losing her.
So now?
This basement—layered with steel-reinforced walls, armed with a security system that makes government facilities look like a joke—this is his real throne.
His city office still stands, but it’s an afterthought.
A relic of a time when he thought he could be two men at once.
This is where he rules.
And tonight?
This is where we prepare for war.
I sit at the long table, my fingers drumming against the polished wood, my leg bouncing in restrained fury. The men file in, one by one, each taking their place, the weight of what’s about to happen settling into the air like an unspoken decree.
Scar sits at the head, his expression carved from stone. Kanyan takes his usual place beside him, his dark eyes scanning the room, measuring the tension in the air. Lucky Gatti leans back in his chair, a cigarette dangling from his fingers, but even he isn’t as relaxed as he pretends to be. The stakes are too high for that.
Scar clears his throat. “We’ve gathered from Clay Monroe that Shelby has been taken over the existence of a hard drive. But he has no idea who exactly?”
Scar seems confused. How can you know why but not who ? Don’t the two obviously go hand in hand?
A muscle ticks in my jaw as I fight back the urge to smash my fist into the table. “The list of suspects is long and only growing—he has enough dynamite on that drive to blow up this whole city.”
Kanyan watches me closely. “You’ve seen what’s on it?”
My fists clench at my sides. Shelby is out there, and we’re still sitting here, talking?
“No, but to hear him talk about it, it’s explosive.”
Scar leans forward. “Our men are combing through surveillance footage, tapping into police reports—anything that looks remotely related. Our hackers are trying to access camera feeds across the city to try to track the van that was seen leaving the school.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
My voice is low, controlled, but my rage simmers beneath it, barely leashed.
Scar’s lips curve slightly, but there’s no humor in it. “Then we stop looking. And start burning.”
Kanyan nods. “We send a message. We’ve made it known that anyone who even breathes near Shelby without our permission is a dead man walking.”
I exhale through my nose, the edges of my vision blurring with rage.
This isn’t enough. This is too slow.
Shelby doesn’t have time for us to play chess.
Scar must see it in my face—the raw desperation, the need to act—because he levels me with a look sharp enough to cut through my rage.
“We’ll get her back, Mason. But we do it the right way. You charging in, guns blazing, won’t do shit but get more bodies in the ground. Maybe even hers.”
His words land like a punch to the ribs, knocking the wind right out of me. I clench my jaw, swallowing the response burning the back of my throat.
He’s right. I know he’s right.
But knowing it doesn’t make it any easier. It doesn’t stop the clawing need inside me to do something —to put a bullet in the bastard who took her, to rip apart every brick standing between me and Shelby.
I drag a hand down my face, trying to force some kind of control back into my body before I break something.
Scar has been here before.
So has Kanyan.
They’ve both had to live through the unbearable nightmare of a missing partner, and I know—I know —they feel my pain just as acutely as I do.
But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s out there.
Alone.
In danger.
And I’m standing here, wasting time.
Scar claps a firm hand on my shoulder, squeezing just enough to ground me.
“We’ll move when the time is right. But when we do, we make sure every single motherfucker responsible for this pays in blood.”
That, at least, is something I can hold on to. A promise. A vow.
My hands curl into fists as I lift my gaze to Scar’s but don’t say the words sitting on the tip of my tongue.
I just hope we’re not too late.
The room empties like a slow exhale.
Scar’s words still echo in my chest. “We make sure every single motherfucker responsible for this pays in blood.”
It’s the kind of promise you don’t write down. You carve it into your soul and bleed for it.
The men file out—some silent, some murmuring updates into earpieces. The Gatti war machine is in motion now, gears grinding, engines purring. But it still feels too slow. Too measured. I don’t want strategy.
I want retribution .
I push off the wall and move to the one way window, staring out over Scar’s compound. Armed men. Motion sensor lights. Steel gates and reinforced glass. A fortress built on vengeance and blood. This is our life. And yet Shelby—sweet, brave, mine —was taken right out from under our noses.
She trusted me.
And I failed her.
Behind me, I hear the soft clink of glass. Lucky pours two fingers of whiskey and holds it out without saying a word.
I take it. Knock it back in one go.
“You look like you’re about to walk out there and set the whole city on fire,” he says, voice low.
“If that’s what it takes.”
He studies me for a long beat. “You’re not wrong.”
I turn to him slowly, my chest tight with something that feels a hell of a lot like shame. “You’ve been here before. With Jacklyn. You know what this feels like.”
He nods, jaw flexing. “I do.”
“Then you know that every minute we waste in this goddamn house feels like we’re letting her slip further away.”
“I also know what it’s like to storm into a trap and nearly get her killed.”
That lands. Sharp and clean.
“I’m not trying to lecture you,” he adds. “But you’re no good to her dead, Mason. You’re no good to her out of control.”
I press a hand to the wound on my shoulder. It’s bandaged now, the bleeding stopped, but it aches like a warning.
“She’s not just some girl,” I say quietly. “I can’t explain it. She’s... more . Like I’ve been walking around hollow and didn’t even know it until I met her. And now she’s gone, and I?—”
I stop.
Lucky just watches me, eyes dark and unflinching.
“I know,” he says simply. “We get her back. And when we do, you tell her that.”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
I just grab my gun, check the clip, and chamber a round.
And I swear to God, I will drag her home with blood on my hands and smoke in my lungs if I have to.