23. MASON
MASON
I leavethe door to the den open just in case my girl wakes up and comes down. The guys and I all find seats around the room, as we settle in to play a little video game. Damn, I can’t remember the last time we did something as simple as that.
“She’s going to be pissed and hurt,” I tell Hunter a moment later. “What are we going to tell her?”
“Erm, I’m not sure yet. I mean, before I got to know her, I didn’t think she’d be this stubborn, you know?”
“Ha! As if I don’t since I’ve been on the wrong side of that stubbornness for quite a while.”
“Well, I have a feeling I’ll be on the same side as you pretty soon,” he mumbles.
“How come you didn’t tell me that shit?”
“Umm, top secret. The old man didn’t want anyone knowing…” he says and then just trails off.
I’mreferring to the fact that her fucking father is alive and well, he’s in my house at this very moment. That was the shock of a lifetime, when I came back with the guys, after finally dealing with Amber and her crew once and for all. AsI sit here, my mind goes back to earlier…
“Holy fucking shit, is that…” I manage to say and then trail off as I stand there in shock, looking at the man that’s standing by the windows in my living room.
“Uh huh…” Royce says.
“How is that possible?” I ask out the side of my mouth, as I continue to look at Winter’s father standing there in the flesh. Alive…
“Uh maybe we should go ask,” Nate supplies helpfully.
“I think I need to sit down. My legs suddenly don’t feel like they’re working,” I mutter as we finally enter the room. He turns around and looks at us and we all take a seat.
“HelloMason,” he says with a slight edge to his voice. It definitely kinda sounds like he wants to kill me. I mean if she was my daughter, I’d definitely kill me…
“HelloMr. Crowne,” I say with a nervous edge to my voice. “How are you even here right now?”
“That’s going to be a long as hell conversation. One that we’ll get into much later because we have a common enemy that I’d like to get rid of,” he says and I know he’s talking about my dad and Emilia. I don’t care what he does with Emilia since he was married to her, but I’m going to be the one to deal with my father and I tell him as much.
“You know she’s going to be hurt and pissed at you right? She’ll probably react badly to your presence and hate you.”
“Well then, I’ll be in the same position you’re in right now, won’t I?” he tells me matter-of-factly and I wince in my seat.
“What do you know?”
“Everything and I have to say I never expected you to do all the shit you did, not to her…”
“Well, I never expected you to fake your own death, while leaving her alone with that viper and yet here we are,”
“Can you two not turn this into a pissing match on who has betrayed her the most? You both fucked up so you’ll both need to beg for her forgiveness. And you dragged me into your shit dad, so she’s going to be pissed at me too, when she finds out that I’ve known the whole time,” Hunter grumbles while pouting.
“Well at least you’ll be in the club,” I mutter.
“Where is my daughter anyway? I made it here a minute before you walked in so I didn’t get to see her yet. By the way when this thing is over with your father, me and you need to have a talk son,”
“She’s sleeping and you’re not going to disturb her. Wait until she wakes up because she’s not been sleeping well. The couple of sessions with the therapist we forced on her while we were at the cabin didn’t help much because she didn’t want the help. And you’re going to hide out somewhere in the house until we ease her into the fact that you’re still alive before you see her. And sure, I know we have to have a talk sooner or later, but just know that I love her. I won’t give her up no matter how long I have to wait until she forgives me. I truly hate myself for everything I did to her and wish I hadn’t, but I’ll make it all up to her.”
He doesn’t say anything after my long speech, just sighs and nods his head.
“Even if she hates you now, she’ll eventually forgive you. She always did love you more than what’s sensible.” he tells me and then walks out of the living room.
Thinkingthat he went somewhere to stay hidden until we told her that he was still alive, that”s how we ended up in the den playing games to pass the time. It’s about an hour after we came to the den when we hear the screaming.
Irush to my feet just as she enters the doorway. She’s blubbering incoherently and when I get the gist of it, I want to kick her father in the ass. He couldn’t have waited until we told her first, before letting her see him? WhatI managed to get through her sobs was that she saw her father and thought she was seeing a ghost and losing her mind.
Amoment later, he’s standing there in the doorway and her face flits between emotions as she stands there and watches him. From relief, to hurt, to anger, to betrayal, and a whole host of other ones.
Soonshe’s on one side of the room with the rest of us on the other as she demands answers from her father. He gives her the quick version and she yells and screams at him. I understand what she’s feeling right now and I wish I could stop this from happening, but I can’t. It seems like it’s just another thing that I can’t protect her from.
Whenshe looks at Hunter and asks him if he knew, he doesn’t answer and that’s answer enough. The look of intense hurt and betrayal that crosses her face guts me. I can see that Hunter pretty much feels the same way I am right now.
Itry to get her to calm down but she just screams at me. Looks like I’m being lumped in with these two. At this rate she’ll never forgive me. Before any of us know what’s happening, she flees from the den and runs.
“Shit!” I mutter before leaving the room as well. She’s fucking fast, by the time we follow her out the doors she’s already in the vehicle and pulling out of the driveway. I quickly radio the guys at the gate and tell them to open it because at the rate she’s going I don’t think she’ll stop.
Hunter, Gray, her dad, and I all jump into another vehicle and take off behind her. She’s driving pretty fast and I’m trying not to chase her and just follow at a decent pace. I don’t want her to go faster.
Shegoes in the direction of downtown and I’m pretty sure she’s heading for the apartment building. At least I know where she’s going. A minute later I see a car speed through the intersection and head right for her.
Isee my life flash before my eyes, as I watch the scene unfold before me. Her car spins a few times and when it stops the driver in the car that hit her slams into her again, which tells me that it wasn’t an accident. This was deliberately done.
Hercar slams into a tree and my car comes to a screeching halt, as we all hop out of the car to get to her.
“Does he fucking know that we’re here?” I yell out. “Fuck! I’m sure he does because this was no fucking accident! I’m going to kill him!”
I’mthinking either someone ratted us out or my father had his eyes out everywhere. He could have had someone watching the airport twenty-four-seven and if that’s the case then they definitely saw us when we got here.
Theycould have also followed us to see where we were going and then camped out somewhere in the streets just waiting to ambush any one of us. If that’s the case then my father is more of an asshole than I gave him credit for. Plus, I also know how he thinks a little bit, since that’s exactly what I would have done.
“Keep a cool head for now,” Gray says.
“Yeah, we need to get to her and get her to a hospital before we think about him. Listen to Gray and keep a cool head brother. We’ll deal with him when the time comes,” Hunter growls.
Inod, just as we get to her car and all work at getting her out of there. She’s unconscious and there’s a long as fuck, deep gash on her head that’s bleeding, which makes me concerned.
Ican’t tell if anything is broken but we gently ease her out of the car. We quickly get back in our car and floor it to the hospital. Hunter is driving this time and I’m sitting in the back with her in my arms praying that nothing life threatening happened to her.
Assoon as we come to a stop at the emergency room doors I get out of the car and run with her in my arms, like a bat out of hell. Two of the nurses rush over and they put her on a gurney before rushing off with her.
“What happened to her?” another nurse asks.
“Car accident,” I tell her quickly.
“If you can have a seat in the waiting room, we’ll do everything we can for her Mr. King,” the nurse says before rushing off as well.
Icollapse onto one of the chairs and feel tears well in my eyes. I beg and plead with God to not let anything happen to her, as I sit there with my head bent. Hunter claps me on the shoulders a moment later and I look up at him.
“She’s going to be fine. Don’t worry she’s a fighter,” he says trying to reassure me.
“I hope so man. I can’t fucking lose her.”
Wesit there for a few hours, then I begin to pace and even throw my fist against the wall a few times. It aches, but I need to feel physical pain instead of the one in my chest right now. After what feels like forever a doctor finally comes over to give us an update.
“She’s going to be fine. She suffered a dislocated shoulder, some cuts and bruises and there was some damage to her collarbone. We performed the surgery to fix it, though we had to place her in a medically induced coma since she has CerebralEdema which just means that there’s swelling in her brain. It”s just to make sure that there wasn’t too much damage to her brain. We’ll know more in a day or so and have an idea on when we can take her out of it,” he tells me. I feel like I’m going to pass out. My poor baby is probably in a lot of pain and I can’t do anything to help her right now. Feeling helpless fucking sucks.
“When can we see her?”
“In about an hour or so. Once we get her situated in her room.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
* * *
I spentthe night by her side, sitting on a chair while holding her hand the entire time. WhenI first walked into the room and saw her hooked up to all those machines, it brought back memories that I never wanted to revisit ever again.
Shealmost died the last time I witnessed her like this. I never wanted to see her like this in the first place and I don’t know why it keeps happening. I promised her that I’d protect her and told her she would be safe from now on and now look at her condition. I failed her yet again…
It’smorning now, and I haven’t slept all night. I stayed awake to watch over her and make sure that she was okay. I don’t need anything else going wrong on my watch. Tears spring to my eyes with the weight of everything on my shoulders. Lately it just seems like I can’t do anything right and it’s fucking with my head.
Icontinue to sit there until the doctor eventually comes in. He looks over her chart for a few minutes before speaking to us. Hunter and Gray are here with me, while her father is back at the mansion for obvious reasons. We can’t let anyone else know he’s alive yet.
“Well, everything looks good so far. We were concerned because of the gash on her head and the impact she suffered when she hit her head. The scan we just did confirms that there is no severe trauma to her brain so we’ve taken her out of the coma. She’ll wake up on her own when she’s ready,” the doctor tells us.
Hedoes whatever it is he’s supposed to, making sure her vitals are good along with her pressure, heart and all the other things I have no clue about.
“Why isn’t she awake yet if you took her out of the coma?”
“It usually takes at least a few hours for the patient to wake up once we take them out of it. Everything on our end shows that she’ll recover well. Her collarbone wasn’t too severely damaged in the crash so that should heal without complications and her arm will be sore for a while, but she’ll be back in good health in no time.”
“Thanks for taking such good care of her doc,”
“No problem Mr. King,” he says and then leaves the room.
“I don’t know how, but I know my father is behind this and I’m fucking tired of it. It’s time to end this once and for all,” I say as I turn to Hunter and my brother.
“What do you have in mind?” Hunter asks.
“Let”s go back to the house and talk to your dad,”
“I’ll stay back and keep an eye on her,” Grayson says and I nod my head.
“Okay. But call me immediately if she wakes up while I’m gone.”
“I will bro. Go take care of this,”
“How do you feel about all of this? I mean he’s your dad too…”
“I don’t care. The guy’s an asshole. He’s shown us that blood doesn’t always mean family. I mean, even if he hated her family, he knows that you love her. And, if he really did love us, then he wouldn’t have gone after her like he did. It just shows how much he doesn’t give a shit about us,” Gray says, and I nod, pulling him in for a hug before Hunter and I leave.
“You three protect this door like your life depends on it, because it does,” I tell my three guards that have been standing sentry by the door. “We’ll be back soon.”
“Absolutely boss,” they all say in response. I give them a nod and then Hunter and I leave.
Wemake our way to the parking lot and then get in the car with Hunter at the wheel. I honestly don’t even feel like driving since my head is all over the place. When we get home, we walk into the living room to find their dad in there.
“My office now,” I say and walk away without waiting for an answer. I take a seat at my desk just as Hunter and Aiden walk into my office and they both take a seat on the chairs in front of my desk.
“What’s the matter son?” Aiden asks, like he doesn’t know.
“It’s time for you to be resurrected from the dead,” I tell him and wait to see what his reaction will be.
“Figured at some point I’d have to,” he says, rolling his eyes. Gee, I wonder where his daughter got that from. “What do you have in mind?”
“Do you have contacts in the FBI? Or should we call Hunter’s brother and his guys?”
“I have some contacts of my own,” he tells me.
“Well, I need you to crack my father’s life wide open and hand them all the evidence you have against him. This is going to be big and cause a frenzy, so we need to prepare for that.”
“After what that asshole did to my daughter, I don’t give a shit. I’m more than prepared for the fallout to come,”
“That’s good.”
“They’re obviously going to arrest him when the story first hits and he has the money for good lawyers. What are you going to do if that happens?”
“That’s not going to happen because he’s not going to make it to trial. He’s going to be dead before he even gets there. I know it was him that had someone hit her and that was his last fuck up. They both will be. I’m not leaving her safety to chance again like last night, hoping that he’ll stop when it’s obvious that he won’t.”
“Well, you won’t hear any complaints from me.”
“Me either,” Hunter adds in.
“I need you to call your brother for me.”
Hunternods and then pulls his phone out of his pocket and then puts it on speaker as it rings. A moment later Carter answers the phone.
“Hey bro, what’s up? How are things there and how’s our sister doing?”
“Erm, never a dull moment that’s for sure. She’s in the hospital. She was in an accident last night.
“Damn! Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’ll be fine. The doctor says there wasn’t anything too serious and everything is looking good.. Anyway, I called because Mason needs to talk to you.”
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey man, what do you need? You have me and the guys here.”
“Can any of you guys’ hack into my father’s shit? I need you to drain all of his accounts and make sure that his will still states that Gray and I inherit everything. I need him broke, so that he can’t hire any lawyers when we get the ball rolling on his demise.”
“Of course, one of my guys can do it. It’ll take an hour or more depending on how easy it is to hack him, but we’ll get back to you soon,”
“No problem. We’ll be here waiting.” I say and then he cuts the call.
“Guess we have some waiting to do then,” Aiden says.
“Yep. Hold off on the FBI until we get confirmation. I want him to feel the squeeze as he’s going down.”
Ineed to find out if my theory of him having lookouts is correct or if someone from my team gave him information. I hope to God it’s not someone on my team or they’re dead. Once we’re done with business Hunter and I head right back to the hospital.