Chapter 17
ASHLYNN
I surfaced from sleep at the dip of the mattress, twisting to look up at Mason as he slid under the covers beside me.
He pulled my back against his chest and settled his arm over my waist, the weight solid and familiar.
He didn’t say anything right away, only molded his body to mine like we’d been sleeping together for years instead of weeks.
“You’re back,” I murmured into the dark. My voice was still thick with sleep, but my brain was already wide awake, chasing answers to questions I hadn’t asked yet.
“Yeah.”
I rested my hand on top of his forearm, noticing how tight his muscles felt. “What happened?”
“Jax is on it.” His low voice almost blended with the steady thump of his heartbeat against my ear. “Go back to sleep, angel.”
It wasn’t an answer. Not really.
The part of me that hated being left out wanted to press, to roll over and catch his eyes and make him give me more.
But the warmth of his hand on my stomach and the way his thumb dragged idly against my skin through the fabric of my borrowed shirt made it harder to keep my grip on that stubborn edge.
Figuring it could wait until morning, I let out a slow breath as my eyelids pulled shut again.
Mason’s presence anchored me, the faint weight of him at my back enough to pull me under.
I always slept better when he was here—as though I knew deep down inside that the darkness couldn’t touch me with him standing guard.
The last thing I was aware of before drifting off again was his fingers flexing against my stomach, a protective little squeeze that followed me straight into my dreams.
I was grateful for the sleep when I woke up the following morning because I was back on the bathroom floor before the sun was even up, knees digging into the cold tile again while my stomach twisted and heaved for the second morning in a row.
Mason was right beside me, as though he’d expected it. Ready to gather my hair and stroke my back, he kept me anchored while the worst of it passed.
When I finally sagged forward, breathing hard, he eased me upright against his chest and reached for the glass on the counter.
“Rinse,” he murmured, holding it to my lips.
I swished, spat, and croaked, “I think your kid’s trying to kill me before it’s even born.”
His palm slid from my back to my stomach, covering it completely. “Our kid’s making sure you remember who you both belong to. Me.”
“Sounds a lot like someone else I know,” I muttered.
He brushed his lips against my damp temple. “’Cause he takes after me.”
That fierce note in his voice did something ridiculous to my pulse. I managed a weak eye roll. “Pretty sure it’s not a badass biker. Yet.”
His mouth curved slightly, but the heat in his gaze didn’t fade. He stood, hauling me up with him like I weighed nothing, and carried me straight into the shower.
The steam was warm, but his hands were even hotter, gliding over me in slow, thorough sweeps—part comfort, part claim. Every now and then, his thumb would stroke across my hip, and I couldn’t tell if it was meant to soothe me or remind me I was his. Probably both.
By the time we stepped out, my stomach had settled. He wrapped me in a towel, then did the same for himself before pressing a kiss to my temple.
“Get dressed while I grab you some herbal tea, angel. Headed to Jax’s office, and I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
With the help of the warm drink I’d sipped while Mason watched, the nausea was still at bay when we got to Jax’s office.
Judging by the look of the room, he’d been busy while I slept.
All of the screens were lit up, half-empty coffee mugs sat in random clusters, and wires snaked over the floor like a maze.
Mason steered me inside with his hand on my lower back, making me ultra-aware of his presence. Jax barely looked up from his main monitor before dragging a file window across one screen and expanding a grainy video feed.
“Thought you’d want to see this for yourself.”
His tone was clipped, and I mentally braced myself for what he was about to show us.
The angle was security-cam high, looking down on a sleek glass office, focused on a perfectly coiffed woman in a tailored suit, leaning across her desk toward a man I didn’t know. Her voice carried even through the tinny audio. “Take care of him. I don’t want any loose ends.”
Then she slid a folder across the desk and signed a document with a flourish, her penmanship so distinct I could see the loops and angles even on the pixelated screen. My stomach knotted.
“That’s Bellatrix Creed, in her own words, tying herself to the hit,” Jax said. “And that signature matches her contracts.”
“At least it doesn’t look like it’s the paperwork for the one she put out on me,” I mumbled, clenching my fists since I couldn’t climb through the screen and strangle her like I wanted. “What about Elias Leek? Did he confess to everything last night, and that’s how you found this?”
Mason led me over to a chair and lowered me onto it. “Turns out, he’s a whistleblower, just like we thought.”
After he gave me a quick run of what had gone down while I was sleeping, Jax flicked to another screen with spreadsheets, bank routing codes, and offshore account numbers scrolling past. “She’s prepping to disappear.
Scrubbing her identity, consolidating her assets offshore.
The second she sells The Ledger, she’s gone. ”
Gone, with her empire intact. While everyone she’d burned was left with the wreckage—the ones who were lucky enough to survive, anyway.
I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. “We can’t let that happen.”
“She’s going down,” Mason confirmed, deadly determination shining from his hazel orbs.
Before I could respond, Jax’s phone lit up. He accepted the call in speaker mode, and Deviant’s voice came through.
“Got something. That drop Ashlynn was supposed to make? You know the instructions were tampered with before they ever reached her. But it turns out, Bellatrix didn’t squeeze the broker. She found a mole in his network and blackmailed them into giving up the info on Axle’s girl.”
As much as I enjoyed how he so easily referred to me as Mason’s, that skin still went cold. “So I was never…?”
“You were bait,” Deviant finished. “She wanted the drive and used the drop to smoke out who had it. But she never wanted a public failure. Skulls were there for the same reason because Bellatrix put out the bounty on you to all the mercenaries she had contact with, figuring one of them would come through and probably kill the others in the process. Only the suits got there first.”
I wasn’t just a loose end. Or in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’d marked me from the get-go. Designed the whole damn thing so I’d walk straight into her sights.
“It was also a private show.”
“A show?” Mason growled.
Jax exhaled harshly and ripped the ball cap off his head, slamming it down onto the desk.
“For the buyers,” he guessed.
“Yup,” Deviant answered. “Footage uploaded that night to the secure server where she’d previously kept The Ledger. Mercenaries were all wearing recording devices, button cams, dash cams, and shit.”
“So the potential buyers would know what happened if they tried to fuck with her,” Jax finished.
I blinked as realization hit me. “And I screwed up her plan by surviving.”
“So she knew who you were,” Deviant muttered. “It’s a damn good thing Axle had you sequestered in the clubhouse.”
There was silence. No one wanted to say the next part out loud. So I summed it up for them. “Or I’d be dead.”
My heart thudded, sharp and fast, like my body was finally catching up to what my brain had just pieced together.
Mason cursed under his breath as his hand slid from my shoulder to my hip, fingers curling in a grip that bordered on bruising.
It should’ve grounded me. Instead, all I could think was that Bellatrix had marked me for death long before I’d even known I was in danger.
“C’mon, angel.” Mason helped me from the chair, keeping himself locked at my side as we stepped out of Jax’s office.
His touch was warm, steady…the opposite of the cold knot in my chest.
The chain of events reeled through my head. If that ambush had gone the way Bellatrix planned, I never would’ve met him. Never would’ve known what it felt like to belong to someone so completely. And now, it wasn’t just my life on the line. I had his baby growing inside me.
I pressed my palm over my stomach, like I could shield both of us from the danger still circling out there. A rush of heat surged through my veins at the thought of Bellatrix wanting to get rid of me because, to her, I was just a loose end. Not fear, but fury.
Almost as though he heard the thoughts circling my brain, Mason muttered, “Not gonna let anything happen to you.”
His thumb stroked along my spine, and I breathed in deep, letting the strength in his presence sink into my bones. She could try to erase me. She could come at me with every trick in her arsenal. If I went down, it’d be while I was fighting. And I wouldn’t be alone. Not anymore. Not ever again.