Chapter 44 – Mason
Chapter
Forty-Four
MASON
After we got to his place, King realized he’d forgotten to get butter and broccoli from the store earlier and had to go back, so I took care of putting the potatoes in the oven before grabbing a shower.
I’m still drying off when there’s a loud knock at the door.
I pull on a clean pair of boxers and head out into the living room.
“Did you forget your key, babe?” I call.
But when I pull open the door, it’s not King standing in front of me. The entire world freezes, and my knees buckle. I grip the doorframe to stop myself from crumpling into a heap.
“Who the hell are you?” His face is twisted in a confused sneer. I would recognize those cruel features anywhere. He’s barely changed in eighteen years. It seems the sick fuck doesn’t recognize me though. All the breath leaves my lungs in a rush.
“I’m looking for my son,” he says, looking over my shoulder before his eyes land on me again. Revulsion written all over his face, he looks me up and down. “Who are you?” he asks again.
I want to say, “I’m his boyfriend, you disgusting piece of shit,” but I’m not about to out King to his father, so I swallow down all the things I want to say and tell a partial lie. “I’m a friend of King’s.”
His lip curls. “A friend who prances around his house half naked and calls him babe?”
I lift my chin and roll back my shoulders. Kyngston Worthington III might have terrified me once, but he doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest now. “Your son isn’t here right now. How about you come back some other time when you’re welcome?”
Bristling, he makes a fresh assessment. I’m an inch or two shorter than him, and not as wide in build but over twenty years younger. He might be questioning whether he can take me. Any doubts he might have don’t stop him from scowling at me like I’m something he stepped on in the street.
His cruel taunts come back to haunt me. Disgusting little pervert.
Unnatural. Should have been smothered at birth.
I recall the smell of him. The acrid taste.
The sensation of his flaccid dick hardening in my mouth.
The pain in my throat. Gagging. Tears rolling down my face as I choked on his length.
How he laughed. How much he fucking enjoyed it.
He gives me a final once-over. “Disgusting pervert,” he mutters, turning to walk down the hallway.
Eighteen years I’ve held onto what he did to me. Hid it like it was something I had to be ashamed of. Buried it so deep that it was never supposed to reach the surface. And now he’s judging me like I’m the one who’s fucked up. I snap. “What the fuck did you say to me?”
He spins around, face still twisted up. “I said you’re a disgusting pervert.”
“You really don’t remember me, do you? You hypocritical piece of shit.”
That gets his attention. His scowl deepens, and he comes back to the doorway, staring at me intently.
Inspecting me like I’m some kind of exhibit in a freak show.
His narrowed eyes flicker with a hint of recognition.
His lips twist in a cruel sneer. “You’re that dirty little deviant who seduced my boy. ”
His words are like a lit match to a pool of gasoline, causing rage to explode inside me.
So intense I’m blinded by it. He anticipates the punch I aim at his jaw and ducks before it can connect.
Using all of his body weight, he barrels into my midsection and pushes me back into King’s apartment.
I land on the rough carpet with him on top of me.
He straddles me, raining blows down on my head while he spews vile, hateful words. Because of who he is, the words hurt more. Because of what he did to me. I keep my arms over my head and feel myself revert back to that seventeen-year-old kid who was too weak to stop him.
But I’m not weak. I’m not a kid.
I hook my leg over his and roll us over so he’s pinned underneath me.
Blood drips from a cut above my eye, peppering his cheeks with red droplets, and I wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze.
“You raped me, you sick fuck! I was a fucking kid, and you raped me!” Squeezing his throat tighter, I watch his face turn purple.
Everything happens so fast. He’s clutching at my wrists with one hand. His other hand appears. There’s a glint of metal. A flash of movement. He’s got a fucking gun.
King’s voice rings in my ears. “Mason!”
I’m on the floor, blood thundering in my ears. It all plays out like a movie.
Beside me, King and his father wrestle for the weapon. King comes out the winner and brandishes the gun. He stands over his father, his chest heaving, the gun in his hands pointed down. “Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t pull this trigger.”
Fighting through the fog of anger and confusion, I jump up and place my hand on his forearm.
King keeps his finger on the trigger and his glare trained on the piece of shit on the floor.
My voice firm but gentle like my touch, I say, “Because if you shoot him, there’s every chance you will go to prison.
And he is not worth it, King. He is not worth giving up your life for. ”
A muscle tics in his jaw. “I heard what he did to you. He brought this gun here. He was gonna use it. I can say it was self-defense.”
I hate that he heard what his father did to me.
It was easier to pretend it never happened when he didn’t know.
It was easier for me to forget that part of myself.
I look down at Kyngston. A dark patch has spread across the crotch of his gray suit pants, and he’s trembling violently, hands held up in surrender.
“Look at him,” I say. “He’s a pathetic piece of shit.
You’d really throw your whole life away—throw our life away—for him?
” I place my hand on his cheek and turn his face so he’s looking at me instead of his father.
“He’s not worth it. You know that better than anyone. ”
He stares at me for a few beats, his green eyes swimming with tears.
Then he draws a deep breath before redirecting his attention to his father.
“Get the fuck out of here. But if you ever come near either of us again, I will fucking kill you.” He lowers the gun, and Kyngston scrambles to his feet and runs from the apartment like the coward that he is.
After closing the door, King locks the deadbolt and puts the gun down. “Why didn’t you tell me, Mase?” he asks in a low voice, his back to me.
“And when would I have done that? You fucking ghosted me, and then you walked back into my life after eighteen years. Eighteen fucking years, King. And what? I’m supposed to drop that into conversation?
‘Hey, babe, do you fancy Thai or pizza for dinner—and by the way, your dad forced his cock down my throat.’” I can’t fucking stand the tremor in my voice.
I knew this would come between us, that he’d find a way to blame me.
I knew it would fuck everything up. The truth has a way of doing that.
I’m spiraling fast, and I don’t know how to stop it. This isn’t King’s fault, but he’s here and he’s talking to me like … like what? Like he feels sorry for me. Like all he sees is that pathetic little kid who couldn’t stand up for himself. Who couldn’t stop what happened.
King turns around, his cheeks wet with tears. He scrubs them dry and places his hands on my hips. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry? I swallow down the pain, anger, and sadness blocking my throat. “Would it have made a difference? If you’d known what he did? Would you have come back for me?”
His lower lip wobbles, and he bites down on it but doesn’t answer.
“King?” I bark his name.
“I wish I could tell you that it would have made a difference,” he says, pulling his hands back and looking down at his shoes. So now he can’t even look me in the eye?
Stepping back, I suck in a breath that doesn’t reach my lungs.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think beyond my rage. So much fucking rage. It bubbles up inside of me, fighting to be let out. And I feel King’s pity too. Is it pity? Or does he feel as much guilt and shame as I do?
I’m too overwhelmed to know what the fuck is going on right now. I need to go. Need to find space to breathe. Room to think.
“I have to go.” I grab my clothes from my overnight bag and get dressed. He doesn’t try to stop me, and I fucking hate him for it. When I get back to the living room, he’s sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.
Still, he doesn’t look up. He doesn’t ask me to stay.
“You were right, King. I do deserve better.”
My heart splits in two when I walk out the door. It shatters into a million pieces when I step onto the elevator and the door to his apartment remains closed. Once again, the only man I have ever loved has failed to fight for us.
Outside, it’s pouring, and I tip my face to the sky and let the rain wash away my tears.
I don’t want to go home to my empty penthouse.
But I also don’t feel like unburdening myself to my brothers, which is what will happen if I turn up on any of their doorsteps in this state.
I love them all dearly, but my older brothers are overprotective and will immediately go into destroy-every-Worthington-who-ever-lived mode, and Maddox is working.
I hail a cab and give the driver Tyler’s address. Outside of my family, and at least for now, he’s the safest place I know.
“Holy fucking shit.” Tyler blinks at me from his seat on the armchair across from me.
I blow out a breath and down the Scotch he poured me when I got here twenty minutes ago. He asked me what was up, and I unloaded everything. “I know.”
“I can’t believe you’ve held that in for all these years.”
“Actually, I had extensive therapy. Then I held it all in.” I laugh, trying to ease the tension.
“What a degenerate piece of shit.” He shakes his head and downs his own Scotch. “Why didn’t you ever tell your brothers?”
Immediately, my hackles rise.
He holds up a hand. “There is absolutely no judgment from me, Mase. I get why you didn’t tell me, but … You’re all so close. I assumed …”
I tell him about the day it happened, how determined I was to tell my family and ruin Kyngston Worthington III, and then how we were all shattered by my mother’s news.
“I couldn’t do that to them, Ty. They needed me.
Mom needed me. If she’d known what he did …
” I pour myself another drink from the bottle on the table.
“You never met her, but my mom was the kindest, toughest woman on the planet. She could make grown-ass men tremble with fear.” I smile, recalling the time she chewed out our pediatrician in front of an entire waiting room full of patients for misdiagnosing my strep throat as attention-seeking.
“Sick or not, that woman would have torn Kyngston Worthington III a new asshole before slitting his throat and burying him in our garden. I kid you not.”
“Sounds like an incredible mom.”
She was the best, and I wish he’d known her. “Yeah, she was.”
He gives me his undivided attention, his eyes never leaving my face. “What about later? After your mom passed?”
I take a gulp of the Scotch and relish the familiar burn in my throat.
“You mean did I think about telling anyone? Yeah, a few times, but after Mom died, there was the whole thing with Mad, and …” I shrug.
“There never seemed to be a good time to open up that old wound, you know? I was dealing with it. At least I thought I was.”
He nods. “I get that.”
“And also …” I swallow hard. This is hard to admit, even to myself. “I felt ashamed, Ty. As a rational man, I know I have absolutely no reason to, but it’s not easy telling people I was raped by my secret boyfriend’s dad and that I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him.”
“I get that too, buddy.”
He sits quietly, letting me process. One of the many things I love about Tyler is that he only gives advice when it’s asked for.
“Wise men don’t need it, and fools won’t heed it,” he told me when I asked why he’s like that.
Although he did once give Nathan a piece of advice that my older brother still thanks him for whenever he’s had a Scotch too many.
“You think I did the right thing keeping it to myself?” I ask.
His bright-blue eyes narrow. “I think you did what you needed to do to survive, and how can that not be the right thing?”
“And King?” I wince. “I walked out on him, Ty. He just found out his father is a rapist piece of shit, and I up and left.” I drop my head into my hands.
“You had every right to leave, Mason, and you know that.”
“I feel like this whole mess has fucked everything up.” I sigh and lean back against the comfy sofa.
Tyler comes to sit beside me, placing a comforting hand on my thigh. “While you weren’t wrong for leaving, it sounds like King had a lot to process. And yeah, maybe he could have handled it differently and begged you to stay. But would you have?”
“I have no fucking idea. But it felt like he gave up on us so easily. Again.” Pain lances through my chest.
“It couldn’t have been easy for him to hear what his father did to you. Maybe he was doing what he needed to do.”
“No.” I shake my head. “He couldn’t stand to look at me. Every time he looks at me now, all he’ll see is what happened to me. What his father did.”
“You don’t know that.”
“What if that’s what I see?” I say, admitting a deeper fear. One I’ve been afraid to admit aloud until now, and I can’t help wondering if King is thinking it too. “What if the next time I’m on my knees for him all I see is his father’s disgusting fucking face?”
“Has that ever happened before?”
I sink deeper into the chair with a heavy sigh. “No. But I could always separate them before. It was like there were two different versions of me, and now King knows both of them.”
Tyler wraps his arm around my shoulder and drops a kiss on top of my head. “It will all look better in the morning, buddy. I promise.”
“Yeah?”
He winks at me. “Things always do.”