35. Mason
35
MASON
T ime doesn’t move in this room. It just sits.
Thick. Suffocating.
Every second that ticks by feels like it’s dragging claws down my spine.
I sit rigid, elbows on my knees, hands locked together so tight my knuckles have gone bone-white. I’ve stared at the same crack in the tile for what feels like hours, and every time my foot taps the floor, I remind myself that I’m still here. Still waiting.
Still powerless.
Maxine’s pacing again—three tiles, turn, three more. A habit she’s clinging to like a lifeline, because the alternative is thinking too hard about what’s happening behind those double doors. She doesn’t speak, and I don’t blame her. If I open my mouth right now, I’m afraid I’ll scream.
The others murmur, low conversations in corners. Lucky checking his watch. Brando rubbing Mia’s shoulder. There’s an army in this room, but no one can fight what’s happening inside that goddamn operating room.
Shelby.
Bleeding. Cut open. Holding on by a thread.
My leg bounces, and I can’t stop it. My body’s vibrating with adrenaline that has nowhere to go. Rage, guilt, fear—they’re all tangled together inside me, eating me alive. I keep replaying it. The dead look in her eyes when I found her under that overpass. The blood on her shirt. The way her body felt too light in my arms, like she was already halfway gone.
I’ve been through a lot of shit. I've buried people I loved, watched others fall apart in front of me.
But this?
This one’s got a blade to my throat.
I can’t lose her.
Not when I’ve only just found her.
She’s the first person who didn’t see me as a weapon. Who looked past the scars and saw me. And now she’s behind those doors, being stitched back together by strangers while I sit out here like a fucking ghost.
The waiting room doors hiss open.
I lift my head, every muscle locking. My heart punches against my ribs.
A nurse walks out. Young. Scrubs spattered in blood—Shelby’s blood, and Jesus Christ, if I don’t get to my feet right now I’m going to fucking collapse.
“Family of Shelby Monroe?” she calls out.
I’m already moving, the words dragging me to my feet like a magnet. My heart’s in my throat. My throat’s in my gut. The world narrows down to the space between her mouth and the next words she says.
She looks right at me.
“She made it through surgery,” she says, voice steady but strained. “It was close. But she’s stable now. She’s going to make it.”
For a second, I don’t breathe.
I can’t.
The weight of every worst-case scenario I’ve been clinging to drops out of me all at once. I exhale like I’ve been underwater for years, and the air that rushes in tastes like salvation.
The room moves around me, but I don’t register anything. All I can do is drop into the nearest chair, bury my face in my hands, and let my soul claw its way back into my body. Piece by piece. Breath by breath.
She’s alive.
Shelby’s alive.
She’s still here.
And yeah, maybe we’re still in the middle of this war—maybe the hits will keep coming, and the blood won’t stop spilling—but for tonight?
Tonight, we claim a win.
A small, hard-fought, bloodstained victory.
And I’ll fucking take it.
I sit next to Shelby’s bed, elbows on my knees, head bowed, hands clasped together as though in prayer.
But I don’t pray.
I’m not a praying man.
And yet, here I fucking am.
The machines beep around me, a steady rhythm, a cruel reminder that she’s still here, but just barely.
She hasn’t woken up.
Not since I found her in that godforsaken place, bleeding out under the overpass, her body so cold, so fucking still in my arms that I thought I’d already lost her.
I grip her hand, the only part of her that doesn’t look broken, and squeeze.
“Come back to me, baby.”
She doesn’t move.
She doesn’t squeeze back.
The anger I’ve been clenching in my teeth threatens to crack wide open.
I could’ve lost her.
I still might.
The thought alone guts me.
I hear movement behind me, soft murmurs, the weight of watchful eyes.
Friends. Family.
They’re here—rallying around me, around her, filling the hospital hallways like a silent fucking army.
Mia hasn’t left.
Neither has Maxine.
Kanyan, Scar, and Brando move through the room in turns, watching me like they’re afraid I’m going to snap at any second. And maybe I am.
Because I’ve never been good at waiting.
At feeling powerless.
But sitting here, watching Shelby’s chest rise and fall with the help of machines, I realize something I’ve never let myself think about before.
I can’t fucking lose her.
I rub a hand over my face, exhaling slow, feeling like a man who’s run out of fucking road.
I’ve spent so long thinking I had time.
That there would always be another day to fix the mistakes I’ve made, to mend the shit I broke.
But life isn’t like that.
Most people don’t get second chances.
And I know that better than anyone.
Because I already had one shot at something real.
And I fucking let it go.
Mia’s mother.
I haven’t thought about her in years, but now she seeps into my mind, ghosting around the edges of my thoughts like she always does when I get too quiet.
She was married to my best friend. And somehow, we made it work.
An open marriage. Three people, one bed.
No regrets.
At least, not at the time.
Now, though? Now, I see it for what it was.
Because in the end, they had each other.
And I had nothing.
They’re both gone now.
And what’s left?
Me. Mia’s real father.
A truth I kept from her for too fucking long.
A truth I should have told her the second she was old enough to understand.
It wasn’t fair.
And it’s not fair now.
I glance at Mia, sitting across the room, her arms wrapped around herself, watching me with careful eyes.
She knows.
Maybe she’s always known.
Maybe she’s just been waiting for me to be man enough to admit it.
And I will.
I have to.
Because I don’t have forever.
None of us do.
I turn back to Shelby, brushing my thumb over the back of her battered hand.
I’d sell my fucking soul to whoever’s listening if it means she wakes up.
I don’t pray. I never have.
But I do tonight.
I keep my eyes on Shelby, my fingers light but steady where they rest against the back of her hand.
I don’t even realize Mia’s beside me until she bumps my shoulder.
It’s light—barely a touch, barely any pressure at all. But after the last twenty-four hours, after all the rage and blood and fucking helplessness, it’s enough to feel like an anchor.
I huff out a breath, running a hand down my face. “You’re still here?”
Mia smirks, arms crossed. “You’re one to talk. Have you even moved from that chair?”
No.
And I won’t.
Not until Shelby opens her eyes.
Mia exhales, shaking her head. “She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
I don’t answer right away.
Because I don’t have an answer.
Not one that makes sense.
Not one that explains what Shelby is to me—what she’s become.
Instead, I turn my head just enough to meet Mia’s eyes. She’s searching me. Studying every broken, ravaged piece of me, like she’s trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing parts.
And then—she softens.
“She’s going to be okay, Mason.” Her voice is quiet, unshakable. “I know she will.”
I wish I could believe that.
I want to.
I turn away, swallowing down the lump in my throat. “I don’t deserve another loss.”
She doesn’t answer immediately, just looks back at Shelby, then sighs.
“You’re not going to lose her, Mason. You’re not going to lose any of us.” Mia doesn’t look at me, just keeps her gaze ahead, her voice steady, even. “I’ve always known, you know.”
“What?” I look at her, confused.
“That you’re my father.”
Everything inside me freezes.
The weight of those words slams into me, so sudden and unexpected I can’t fucking move.
I turn to her, but she’s still staring ahead, like she’s not even aware she just ripped open something inside me.
I clear my throat, working my jaw. “How?”
She lets out a short, humorless laugh. “I overheard them talking when I was twelve.”
My fingers tighten. “Your parents?”
She nods.
“Mom and Dad thought I was asleep,” she says, voice lighter than I expected. “I had snuck out of bed to get something from the kitchen, and I heard them arguing. Mom was telling Dad how grateful she was to him for ‘raising another man’s child as his own.’”
A dry, humorless chuckle escapes her lips. “I stood there in the dark, just… listening.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand. So I just pushed it down. Set it aside. Refused to believe it.”
I let out a slow breath. I don’t know what the fuck to say.
Mia looks down at her hands, flexing her fingers like she’s holding something invisible between them.
“I was an angry kid, Mason.” Her voice is softer now, raw in a way that makes my chest ache. “It was right around the time everything was changing—my body, my mind, my whole fucking life. I was confused, and hearing that? It just made me angrier. At you. At them. At everything. Because I didn’t understand it.”
I take a breath, sitting heavier in the chair.
She turns, finally meeting my eyes. “That’s why I pulled away. Why I was so distant. Withdrawn.” She swallows. “I didn’t understand what I was feeling, and I sure as hell didn’t know how to process it.”
My chest feels like a vice is squeezing the breath out of me.
Because I remember.
I remember when Mia went from being the vibrant little girl who followed me around, always wanting to sit in my lap, always dragging me into whatever ridiculous game she made up?—
To the teenager who barely spoke to me.
The one who gave me one-word answers, who looked at me like I was a stranger.
I always figured it was just the growing pains of adolescence.
I never thought—fuck.
I rub a hand over my jaw, my throat tight. “I should have told you.”
Mia sighs. “Yeah. You should have.”
The weight of my regret settles in, thick and suffocating.
Years. I’ve wasted years.
“But I get why you didn’t.”
I snap my head up. Her expression isn’t hard anymore. It isn’t even angry.
It’s understanding.
It’s accepting.
She smirks a little, shaking her head. “Honestly? It made more sense the older I got. I started thinking about all the time we spent together growing up, all the ways you were always there. The way you treated me, the way you looked out for me.” She lifts a shoulder. “That doesn’t come from nowhere.”
I let out a breath, one I feel like I’ve been holding for years.
The silence stretches between us for a moment, not uncomfortable, not tense—just full.
Then she bumps my shoulder again.
“So, what now?”
I exhale, dragging a hand through my hair.
“Now? I stop being a coward.” I turn to her, meeting her gaze. “I make it right.”
Her lips twitch. “Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She looks back at Shelby, her eyes darkening slightly.
“I just didn’t realize Shelby meant so much to you,” she says, watching me now, really watching me.
I glance down at the woman in the hospital bed, still, pale, too fucking fragile with all those wires hooked up to her.
I brush my thumb along the back of her hand, my throat burning.
“She does.”
Mia nods slowly, a soft certainty in her expression.
“Well,” she says, reaching over to squeeze my wrist. “Then I guess we’d better make room for one more person at the dinner table.”