Chapter 24 Mason
MASON
“Filey’s getting impatient.” A brooding Kane paces up and down the quiet lane behind East Bridge Police Station.
“Filey can wait.” I take a slow drag on my cigarette. “He gets paid for his impatience.”
Kane throws me a look without missing a beat. This arsehole has had a thorn in his side ever since he saw me with Eva. The two-hour drive to London was fun with him sulking through every mile. He’s only gotten worse since I picked a fight with her brother tonight.
I saw Daniel Etheridge walking up to us, nostrils flaring, ready to peel her from me. His so-called message failed to deliver.
So, of course, I had to stake my claim on her in front of him. How else would the fucker know who she belongs to? The prick still seems to be under some misconception. One I will be happy to clarify if he had the balls to face me without his guards or his sister to save him.
Kane doesn’t want any friction with Etheridges that will risk whatever he is hiding. Well, fuck him. If he wants to keep me in the dark, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. He can’t have it both ways.
Still, it’s a fucking drag being in his proximity when he walks around with a clenched jaw as if the world owes him an apology.
“Where the fuck is Pike?” he grumbles. “The fucker has one job—show up.”
“It’s not every day Hugo gets to dip his dick in London.” I snort. “You’ll just have to wait.”
A loud engine interrupts us, before headlights cut through the pitch dark, and tires grind to a halt on uneven asphalt.
“All right, fuckers.” Hugo steps out of his car and slams the door. “Let’s get this over with. There are some very hot girls I need to pay a visit to.”
Kane gives him a hard stare while Hugo grins like an idiot.
We head to the back entrance of the police station at half past midnight, right after the next shift change.
Special Constable Filey, the short, slender officer, who has been a Fort recruit since his induction a year ago, lets us in and leads us into a small closet office.
The kid is practically sweating bullets as he locks the door behind us. Hands shaking and everything.
“So, what you got for us, Filey?” Hugo smirks and shoves the officer onto the chair with his hands on Filey’s shoulders.
“I told Tom I would be happy to send this over. It’s likely nothing. I—”
“We’re here now,” I snap. “So quit wasting our time and get on with it, will you?”
He flushes red, fixes his glasses, then spins around and starts typing on his screen.
“It came from an unknown source tonight. Unlabeled. It made no sense because it’s out of our jurisdiction, but then I noticed something…”
He clicks on a link—
The video rolls. From the frame and angle, it appears to be a cell phone recording.
An SUV lies upside down—a crumpled shell of metal and glass.
The visual flashes, bright to dark, with each flicker of broken headlights shining over the carnage on the road.
The driver lies still, probably dead behind the wheel.
Farther down, a woman is sprawled on tarmac, a large piece of metal twisted in her ribs.
Then a second pair of headlights cut through the frame.
A truck reverses into the adjoining field and then speeds off.
The fuck?
Filey’s shoulder hits the wall when I shove him aside and leap for the mouse, then tap rewind to watch the truck reverse.
The registration plate.
I look over my shoulder, my nostrils flaring.
Hugo is reading the plate, just as I am, all humor gone from his smug face.
That truck is one of Fort’s service vehicles, which Hugo is supposed to be in charge of, but the fucker keeps losing track of them.
Kane places a hand on my shoulder, summoning me not to throttle Hugo right this fucking second.
A movement pulls my attention back to the screen as a limping figure—tall, blond—emerges from the other side of the car.
I can only see the back of his head, but he looks familiar.
He stumbles toward the woman, kneels to cradle her head for a heartbeat, then he’s up again, half running, half dragging himself to the car.
He yanks open the rear door. A girl covered in blood falls out.
If I had a heart, it just exploded in my chest.
“Is that…” Hugo gasps.
“Shut up,” Kane hisses.
I stare at the screen, like my life depends on it. It does. Because if a Fort man did this… My empty chest rises and falls as we all watch Daniel Etheridge limping on a twisted ankle, carrying Eva.
“Who’s he talking to?” I demand.
“No one,” Filey replies.
“His mouth is moving, prick.” I point at the screen. “There must be someone there.”
“Yeah, I thought so too,” he adds proudly. “But when I ran it through lip-read, it’s just numbers. He’s counting.”
“Counting what?”
Filey stares at me blankly.
“Her pulse,” Kane answers from behind me.
She was dying?
My vision tunnels, fingers turning numb, hanging useless at my sides.
“So, I was right to report it?” Filey looks between us, his excitement barely masking a thread of fear. “I pulled the case file. It was marked as a hit-and-run. But there’s more.”
He clicks through a maze of links and passwords until a page opens—most of it buried under thick black bars.
“All redacted,” he explains. “Except they missed this.”
He scrolls to the bottom, to the list of evidence.
E27: Gunshot residue.
“Gunshot residue?” Hugo asks, as if saying it out loud will change the meaning of what is in front of my eyes.
The accident.
Fort truck.
Gunshot residue.
The picture forming in my mind threatens to buckle my knees.
“Delete the video,” I order. The words come out of my mouth before I fully consider the consequences. Because no other consequences matter. Only one does.
Filey grows red under my glare, then reaches for the keyboard.
“Don’t you dare.” Kane pulls Filey back. “We’re not touching this.”
This motherfucker.
“I told you not to get in my fucking way,” I hiss, forcing him into the drywall.
“It’s a trap,” he says, cooly. “Trust me.”
My nostrils flare. Kane didn’t so much as flinch when he saw the video, which can only mean one thing: he’s already seen it. He knows I’ll put him in the ground if he crosses me on this, yet he is willing to risk it.
“Mason.” Hugo cocks his head toward the door.
“Fuck this up and you’re done,” I spit at Kane, then storm out with Hugo on my heels.
My head is shades of black and red as we retrace our steps to the cars. Someone ran her down like roadkill and almost took her from me before I even laid eyes on her. And that someone could have been one of my men? My chest feels molten hot—rage without an outlet, violence without a target.
“Fucking fuck. Tom is going to have my fucking head,” Hugo grunts.
“Tom won’t get to you if this is your fault, prick.”
We come to a halt on the narrow bridge that arches over the Tube, rumbling beneath in a blur of light and sound.
“Well, I didn’t fucking do it.” Hugo shrugs. “Guys take out the trucks all the time. It couldn’t have been one of them either. Even the fucking gardener knows to take the fucking plates off.”
He’s not wrong. It’s rule 101. But then what did I just see? I let Hugo mull in his cursing spree and wait for Kane to return.
A few minutes later, he walks up the bridge in his long black coat, collar swaying with the wind.
“Start talking,” I bark.
“We have a leak at Fort, and Filey’s compromised.”
“The fuck I care about that slimy twat,” I roar. “Why did you let him keep that video? If Daniel Etheridge gets his hands on it—”
“The accident happened in Northumberland,” Kane cuts me off. “It has nothing to do with the Met. It’s not a coincidence it landed on Filey’s desk tonight. Who do you think sent it to him? Let me give you a hint. You’re fucking his sister.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“It’s a warning, prat. Since the last one didn’t quite break through your head.”
“Bollocks! If he thought we killed his parents, he wouldn’t be sending warnings; he would be sending coppers and snipers after us.”
Kane’s face grows stern, lips in a thin line.
“You took care of it already?” Hugo asks, already knowing the answer. “Tell me you did.”
“Of course I did.” He lifts a shoulder. “The plate was sold to the garage, backdated six months before the accident.”
“Thank fuck.” Hugo looks to the skies with open arms. “Wait, if you took care of it, why the fuck does Etheridge still think it’s us?”
Kane’s eyes slowly rise to me.
“It’s complicated,” he mutters.
“Don’t fuck with me, Berkeley.” I walk up to Kane face-to-face, chest-to-chest. “Daniel Etheridge called you by a different name tonight. Eva recognized your father at your lodge. And mine is bending over backward to make a truce with them. Give it to me straight.”
“Sure, you can handle it?” He cocks an eyebrow. “She won’t look the same after, you know.”
“Spit it out.”
With a long exhale, Kane starts talking.
The Tube roars through the tunnel underneath, drowning every word in steel and thunder.
The truth detonates as sparks dance off the rails.
Questions I wish I’d never asked, answers I didn’t want to hear, all of it finally in front of me, a bed of thorns—carnage.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Kane watches me after pulling the pin on the grenade, waiting to see what explodes.