19. Mason
MASON
It slips through my fingers,
That which I cannot hold.
I cry for it, would die for it,
This love I can’t control.
T he only friend I ever had is dead to me.
The woman I love tried again to leave me, and only came back because she was threatened.
My father may be trying to kill the woman I love. If not him, then someone else.
I’ve run my business into the ground and with my reputation in the shitter, I don’t think I’ll ever come back from it.
Last, a secret is out there that could destroy me, evidence that I murdered a man, and I haven’t a clue who it is that knows or what they have on me. I’m waiting in the dark, and I can feel my sanity slipping away.
I imagine this is what they mean when they say rock bottom. I slip the heavy law textbook back into its place on the bookshelf as I hear my father’s office door open and then close. I don’t turn around to face him. I don’t have to in order to know it’s him.
My father's voice bellows from behind me. “You need to relax, Mason. That shit you pulled?—”
“What does it matter?” I say, cutting him off and turning to face him as his forehead creases with anger.
“You look like you’ve lost it,” he hisses at me, slapping the newspaper in his hand down onto his desk as he takes his seat.
“I have though, haven’t I?” It’s the conclusion I come to, knowing Jules was going to leave me. Again. That’s what did me in this time. I take in a heavy breath.
It’s all the lies too. Keeping track of them has pulled its weight in bringing me down.
I don’t even know what’s the truth anymore or who to trust. I only know that I hate everyone I’m surrounded by except for the one person who’s desperate to leave me.
“I need the truth,” I say, getting straight to the point as I stare my father in the eyes. Although I know it doesn’t matter, I add, “Don’t lie to me.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Ma—” my father starts, intent on saying something else, but I cut him off.
“You lie to everyone; why would I be any different?” I shrug my shoulders and stride closer to his desk, my pace quick and careless.
“What’s on your mind then?” he asks, his eyes narrowed and his frustration barely contained.
He must see how on edge I am. I can practically smell the fear coming off of him.
The fear of not knowing what I’m going to ask, or maybe of what I’m going to do.
“You called this meeting,” he adds as he sits back in his cognac leather chair.
He unbuttons his suit jacket and adopts a casual posture.
“Did you kill her?” I ask him in a whisper.
He cocks a brow at me before answering in a deathly low voice, “I’ve never killed anyone.”
I don’t know why his answer makes my lips tip up into a smile.
It’s sickening that he doesn’t take responsibility.
I nod my head, and a rough laugh spills from my lips.
“I do apologize,” I say as I pace in front of his desk, letting my fingers run over the edges of the leather chair opposite his and then the next. “You had her killed.”
“You’ll have to be more specific as to whom you’re referring,” my father says as he flicks a switch.
“You think I’m wearing a wire?” I ask incredulously. As if the police could help. As if I wouldn’t be completely ruined if I turned to them.
“I don’t know what to think about you right now.”
I stop in my tracks and face him, bracing a hand on each chair. “I don’t either,” I say barely above a murmur.
“You were saying?” he says before his eyes shift to the door. This time I know why the smile comes. It’s because he wants to get rid of me. He’s done with me. It’s about fucking time.
“You killed my mother,” I say, getting the accusation out into the open once and for all.
“I didn’t. I can’t believe you’d think that.
” I stare at him, hearing how false his words sound as they ring in my ears.
“There’s a difference between killing your own and protecting your own.
” My father’s voice turns hard and at first I think he’s justifying having her murdered, but then I realize he’s talking about Avery.
“Your mother hurt me,” he says and leans forward, placing his hand against his chest as he adds, “but I loved her. I would have never done that to her. Or to you.”
“I don’t believe you,” I tell him. “I think you murdered her, and I think you want Jules dead too.”
“You have her under control, don’t you?” my father says although he knows damn well I don’t. After last night, the whole city is talking and now Liam is the topic of the day, not her or me. But three people know what really happened last night.
Jules. Myself. And my father. He knows she wants to leave me. He just doesn’t know why.
He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead he pulls out a desk drawer and reaches in, rifling through paperwork while he talks.
“I looked into Liam’s books and subsequent finances.
” A thick stack of papers lands on his desk with a thud and then he slams the drawer closed.
“Would you sit down, Mason? You’re going to kill me with this,” he says and waves his hands in the air. “Just calm down.”
“Calm down?” I ask him before swallowing down the pain, pinching the bridge of my nose as I close my eyes. I’ve never felt quite like this. Only because the harsh reality has never been so clear to me.
“Mason,” my father says my name as if it’s a plea, “I promise you, I will protect you with everything I have. If that includes protecting her, I will. You’re my son. My one and only, and the only thing I have to live for anymore.
“Whatever it is that’s gotten into you,” my father continues as he breaks eye contact and shakes his head.
“I said I’m sorry about Avery,” he adds and presses his lips into a thin line.
“You weren’t here when she came in.” He turns in his chair and looks out of the window.
“Or Anderson.” He runs a hand down his face and stares out at the city skyline.
“There are choices we make that have to be done quickly.” He swallows thickly. “I was only trying to protect you.”
I finally take the seat opposite him slowly and wait for him to face me. “No. Stop protecting me.” I shake my head slowly and hold his gaze. “I don’t want your idea of protection.”
“Well maybe this will help,” he says as he slides the papers over to me. “Liam Olsen is in the hole, and his life is falling apart.”
I hesitantly look through the stack, lifting the corner of the top sheet to look at the next and the one after that. They’re all copies of bill after bill he’s racked up over the last year.
“We need to talk about what happened the other night before the gala.”
It takes me a moment before I realize he’s talking about the man with the gun. The intruder with a syringe. An obvious fucking hit. “Someone was hired to kill Jules. I don’t know who or why, but it was a hit.”
“Are you sure?” my father asks me.
“He could have killed me, he could have turned when I was chasing him and shot me. But then again he could have killed Jules too.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
I remember the syringe, the heroin. I shift in my seat, staring at my father as I tell him, “He had a syringe on him. He didn’t want the hit to be obvious.”
My father’s expression doesn’t change; he doesn’t give anything away. “A syringe?”
“Filled with heroin,” I tell him and this time he breaks eye contact. He pulls his jacket down and clears his throat, obviously uncomfortable.
“Your mother,” he starts to say but doesn’t finish. I give him a moment, again remembering the way my mother lay there on the tiled bathroom floor. “So, this is where that shit is coming from?” His question is laced with feigned anger. More than anything, it’s a veil over his sadness.
I nod once, not trusting myself to respond verbally.
He nods, although he doesn’t look me in the eyes. “Your mother ...” he starts to say again and then stops. He waves the thought away, shaking his head and dropping the discussion entirely. I’ve never seen my father so visibly shaken.
“I don’t see why anyone would want you or Jules dead other than Olsen.
Even then, it would have to be because of money and I’ve made it clear to him that the debt owed to me is void.
So killing you would most likely be related to some sort of quarrel between the two of you.
” He finally looks me in the eyes again before adding, “After last night, there must be something between you two … Undoubtedly.”
I don’t know what possessed Liam to go after Jules last night. I didn’t take him for that kind of a man. An arrogant ass, yes. A man who’d hurt a woman? I huff at the thought. Any man who would do something like that isn’t a man.
“If not Olsen, who else?”
Every hair stands on end and a chill flows down my skin. I question telling my father about Anderson, the entire truth. I have no one else, my back’s against a wall, and this is for Jules. I would do anything for Jules. If that means confessing murder to a murderer, so be it.
I look my father in the eye as I tell him, “I killed Jace Anderson and someone knows.”
I wait for a reaction and the only one I get is that his brows raise slightly and he tilts his head to the side, considering.
“I see,” he says after a moment and again turns away from his seat. His foot taps against the desk as he thinks. “Over Avery, I assume?” he says.
I nod once. He has the dignity to look ashamed for a split second.
“You didn’t love her. You didn’t want her. You told me that much.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” I say and grip the armrests, feeling the anger rise, but he holds up his hands in both defense and understanding.
It’s quiet for a moment, with only the ticking of the clock counting the seconds to keep us company as my father takes in the truth of what happened.
Finally, he looks up and says, “You could have come to me.”
“I was angry at you too,” I say and his eyes spark with indignation at my admission.
As if just now putting the pieces together, his expression changes and he asks, “That’s why Jules went to the police? She knows?”
“Yes.” I swallow the spiked lump in my throat.
“Who is it who knows?” he asks me, thankfully leaving the difficulties with Jules out of the conversation. “And what exactly do they know?”
“I don’t know,” I say and he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Jules received an anonymous letter.” The paper lays in my wallet as we speak, but I don’t present it to him. “It was a warning to get away from me with no evidence.”
“Someone knows you killed Jace, warned her to get away from you … but then tried to kill her?” he asks me with confusion.
I nod my head, fully comprehending the lack of logic.
“I don’t think they were planning on doing anything when it came to Anderson. They only told Jules to get back at me. And then tried to kill her to keep the secret silenced.”
“Who would do that?” he asks me.
You , I think, but I don’t say it. I don’t have to, though.
His face contorts with disbelief before he turns completely in his chair and opens a cabinet door. I watch in the reflection of the glass, clearly seeing a safe and what’s more, the numbers of the combination to open it.
It’s the same combination he had on the garage when I was a child. I rip my eyes away from the reflection when he peers back up, holding a stack of photographs in his hand and shutting the door to the safe and then the cabinet with a kick of his foot.
“I wasn’t sure if I should show you this or not,” he says and lets out an uneasy breath. “It would have complicated things between you and Liam.”
I glance down at the photographs and then immediately back up to my father’s gaze. Jace Anderson and Liam’s wife, Cecile?
“No,” I say and the word leaves me without my consent.
“They’re getting a divorce, so I imagine Liam found out about the affair somehow,” my father says absently.
“Maybe Liam? Maybe his wife?” my father says, shrugging. “Either way, I’m sure now that the hit failed, I doubt they’ll attempt it again.”
His last statement catches me by surprise, and I tear my eyes away from the evidence of Cecile’s affair to gauge my father’s reaction.
“I’m keeping my ear to the ground and waiting to hear back from a certain someone,” he says then shakes his head slightly, “but no one knows anything according to my source.”
I can’t imagine how deep my father’s depravity goes that he has contacts in such low places.
My father continues without looking at me. “I talked to the commissioner.” I’ve been waiting for this. I know there are consequences to what happened the other night. Liam’s gunning for me.
“You may have to go in for questioning. You won’t be charged with anything, of course. But they have to make it seem like they’ve done their due diligence.” Thatchers belong on only one side of the courtroom. It’s a saying the men in my family have carried for years.
“I need to go,” my father tells me, rising from his seat and gesturing to the door. “If you need help this time, let me know.”