43. Mason
43
MASON
I ’ve always been a weapon.
Clean. Purposeful. Built for a single function: to destroy. It’s what I do best.
Give me a name, a location, and a reason—and I’ll end it. Efficient. No hesitation. No conscience. Just steel and fire.
But now?
Now I’m something worse.
I’m unused and underutilized. I’m aimless.
Like a loaded gun rusting in a drawer—forgotten, dangerous, and waiting to go off in the wrong hands.
Shelby’s absence doesn’t just ache. It devours.
A hollowing that started in my chest and is now rotting through every inch of me. I try to tell myself I’m fine. That I’m working. That I’m functioning.
But I haven’t slept in five days.
I haven’t eaten in longer than I care to count.
Whiskey coats my throat so often it tastes like water now—no burn, no bite. Just something to drown in. Expensive or cheap, it all does the same thing: numbs the edge of the grief that never dulls, the rage I have nowhere to bury.
Because the man who hurt her?
He’s already dead.
And I made sure he earned every second of it.
I carved fear into him with the patience of a man who knew there would be no satisfaction at the end. Every crack of bone, every rasp of breath was for her .
For the broken sound of her voice when she told me she didn’t feel safe in her own skin. For the way she flinched when I touched her. For the bruises he left on her body and the ones I couldn’t see beneath. For her scars.
Scars she may carry a lifetime.
He begged. I didn’t care.
I didn’t grant him mercy until the last defiant spark in his eyes turned to terror. Not until he understood .
And still... it wasn’t enough.
Because she left me. She packed her bag and she left.
And now I’m left behind—breathing, bleeding, rotting. A man with nothing but fists and silence.
I throw myself into work because it’s the only thing I still know how to do. I memorize numbers, routes, shipments. I handle security checks I used to delegate without blinking. I’m everywhere, and still, I’m nowhere .
The men keep their distance. They know better.
One of the new kids fumbled a handoff last week. I slammed him against the warehouse wall so hard he couldn’t breathe. His head bounced off the concrete, and his legs buckled.
Kanyan was the one who stopped me—one hand on my chest, one word: enough.
“Enough. She’s gone,” he said. “You punish her ghost all you want, but you’re gonna end up killing one of your own.”
Maybe that’s the point.
At night, I prowl the underground clubs, looking for violence. Looking for something that can cut me deeper than the memory of her walking out. I let a guy slash me open once—across the ribs, just below the tattoo I got when I thought I’d live long enough to regret it.
He got one hit.
I got twenty.
He's probably still picking his teeth out of the gutter.
Meanwhile, I stitched myself up with a flask between my knees and fell asleep staring at the space in my bed she used to curl into.
I was a monster before Shelby.
But she made me forget .
Now? Now I remember everything. Every scar. Every kill. Every fucking thing I was trying to bury in her softness.
Until they find me.
Mia and Maxine.
I don’t even hear them come in.
I’m in the back room of some piss-soaked bar I don’t remember walking into. The stale air reeks of blood and whiskey. My knuckles are shredded—skin hanging, blood dripping onto the floor where some guy’s curled at my feet, groaning through broken ribs.
Then I hear it.
The familiar click of heels and a voice sharp enough to split stone.
“Jesus, Mason,” Mia barks. “What the hell are you doing?”
I blink through the haze.
She’s standing there like a storm in a bottle. And Maxine’s behind her, arms crossed, expression pure steel.
“Get your shit together, Ironside,” Maxine snaps.
I grin. Dry. Dead. “When are you girls gonna start calling me daddy?”
I try to stand, but the room spins like it’s been tipped sideways. I sway, stupid and slow.
“Jesus Christ,” Mia mutters again.
“No wonder she left your sorry ass,” Maxine says, yanking my arm over her shoulder like I’m not twice her weight. Her words hit harder than any punch I’ve taken in weeks.
Mia grabs the other arm, and for one horrific moment, I realize they’re dragging me out like I’m some drunk nobody—and they’re my daughters.
I’m that man now.
And then Brando’s there, storming in, his face carved from fury.
“I told you not to come without me,” he growls at Mia, voice low, shaking. “You don’t belong here, princess.”
My back straightens despite the liquor. My lip curls. “Hey. Watch your tone with my daughter.”
Brando steps forward. “My wife ,” he bites out. “In a place like this, cleaning up after your mess because her sorry excuse for a father can’t keep it together. Come on, man,” he snaps. “This isn’t her job. It’s not Maxine’s, either. They can’t keep cleaning your shit. You’re burning down, and they’re standing in the wreckage.”
“I didn’t ask them to come,” I snarl, not even sure what the hell I’m saying anymore. My voice feels far away.
Mia pulls back like I hit her.
“I don’t want to be babysitting a grown man either,” she says, voice trembling with anger. “But this is what I get for giving a damn .”
My jaw tightens until my teeth ache.
“She left me,” I rasp.
“Shelby left,” Mia hisses, “and you’ve been acting like she died . You think this—” She waves a hand at me, at my bloodied clothes, my slurred words, my entire pathetic existence. “You think this is what she’d want to come back to?”
“She’s never coming back,” I mutter.
“She left because she’s broken ,” Maxine says softly. “And you—you’re making it all about you.”
I flinch.
I actually flinch.
“You loved her,” Maxine continues. “I know that. But she’s not dead, Mason. You are. You’re dying piece by piece and taking everyone down with you.”
I look down at my hands. At the blood. At the bruises. At the rage I thought would make me feel alive.
And for the first time in days, something else creeps in.
Shame.
“You’re not alone, you idiot,” Mia says, folding her arms across her chest. “You still have us. You still have people who care.”
And maybe that’s the worst part.
Because I don’t know what the hell to do with people who care.
I was supposed to protect Shelby.
I was supposed to be her shield when the world went dark.
But I watched her tremble under my touch.
Watched her walk away.
Watched her choose a life without me, because being alone was safer than being mine.
And I let her.
Because I thought maybe she needed space.
Now?
Now all I have is space.
And regret.
And this goddamn war inside me that no amount of bloodshed can quiet.
The second the front door clicks shut, silence floods in—thick, accusing, heavy as hell.
Maxine and Brando are gone. Thank God. Brando’s glare still burns in the back of my skull like a bullet I probably deserve. The man looked at me like I was roadkill, like he couldn’t believe my grown daughters had to scrape me off the bar floor.
And now it’s just Mia and me.
She doesn’t speak right away. She just stands there, arms crossed so tight around herself, like she’s holding in something sharp. Her eyes—God, they look like hers. Her mother’s. And right now, they’re staring down at me like I’m some kind of broken thing she’s not sure how to put back together.
I sink deeper into the sofa, the leather creaking under my weight. My head’s pounding. My throat tastes like ash and regret. I can’t look at her for long, but I do it anyway—because if I don’t face her, I’m a coward on top of being a drunk.
“You gonna yell at me too?” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face. “Brando already did. Called me an embarrassment. He’s not wrong.”
“You are,” she says softly. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You didn’t have to come.”
“I did.” Her voice cracks like she’s been holding it in for miles. “Because I don’t think you want to die, Dad… but you’re acting like you do.”
Dad.
Fuck. That word slices me clean open.
I blink hard, heart stuttering in my chest. She’s never called me that before. Not like that. Not when I was too drunk to earn it.
She walks over—graceful, careful—and kneels in front of me. Her hand touches my knee, light, like she’s afraid I’ll break. Joke’s on her— I’m already broken.
She looks up at me, eyes glossy. There’s so much love in them it makes my stomach turn. I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve her.
“I’m pregnant.”
Everything in me freezes.
My ears ring. Maybe I heard her wrong. Maybe the booze is messing with me worse than I thought.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m pregnant,” she says again, voice steadier now. “That’s why I’ve been so emotional. That’s why I panicked when you went to prison. I thought—God, I thought you were going to die in there, and I’d be left alone to raise this baby without a single damn trace of you.”
I can’t breathe.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, trying to stay grounded, trying to absorb what she’s telling me. My daughter—my only child —is going to have a baby.
“How far along?” I ask, even though my mouth feels like sandpaper.
“Three months.”
Three months. That’s three months of her carrying this weight without me. Three months of being scared and not knowing how to tell me. Three months of me being useless.
I rub my face again, slower this time. “Jesus,” I whisper. “I’m going to be a grandfather?”
She nods, eyes brimming. “Yeah. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I want you here. I want you sober. I want you alive, Mason.”
Mason.
Not Dad this time.
That stings more than the first. Because now I know what I’m losing if I keep this up.
“You don’t think I’m trying?” I rasp. “Every day I wake up and this... pit is inside me. This guilt. Over your mother. Over you. Over everything I couldn’t give.”
“I know.” She’s crying now, but it’s not loud. Just soft, steady heartbreak slipping down her cheeks. “And maybe you’ll never fix all of that. But you can show up now.”
I can’t look at her. I really fucking can’t. Because all I see is what I ruined. What I missed. But then her hand finds mine, and it’s warm. Solid. Real.
“You can be there,” she whispers. “For the first kick. For the birth. For every single milestone I’m terrified to face alone. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be here.”
My whole chest caves in.
I pull her into me before I think too hard about it, arms wrapping around her like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. She doesn’t resist. She holds me right back.
She’s shaking. I’m shaking.
And then, it just... breaks.
I cry.
Not the loud kind. Not the violent kind. Just these quiet, gut-wrenching sobs I didn’t even know I had left in me. For what I missed. For who I failed. For the tiny heartbeat growing inside the woman I barely just started to call my daughter.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper against her hair.
“You don’t,” she says, voice thick with emotion. “But you’ve got me anyway.”
I hold on tighter.
Because maybe this—this one thing—I can still get right.