CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
MASON
“Saint, I thought you—” the word clog in my throat. Fear consumes me in an instant, and I stagger backward as the man standing before me lowers his hoodie.
I try to bolt past him, but he grips my arm and shoves me backward. A yelp escapes my lips when my back collides against the marble vanity.
“Elio.” The cold, rough voice rips through the silence. “Don’t try to run. The party’s over. Saint left, and no one’s coming here to save you.”
An icy feeling twists through my spine. The room stretches and thins like it’s being pulled away from me. The floor feels unreal beneath my feet, weightless and heavy all at once.
He’s here.
He’s fucking here.
The world crashes around me. I thought I’d finally escaped him, but I’m back again at the beginning.
“I don’t know how you did it, but maybe sleeping with the fucker helped save your life after all.”
“Fuck you!” I snap at him. The air is too thick, impossible to pull in. My lips move, and a rough, restrained voice rises through my vocal cords. Tremors run up my arms. My foot taps against the marble floor as I straighten up. Memories flood me in an unbearable collision.
He steps closer, and I edge backwards.
“You chased me through the woods. You’ve tried to kill me multiple times.”
“I’m not here to kill you. I owed a debt, and your commitment to whatever Vincent wanted would have set me free.”
“You picked me as your fucking punching bag.” I grit. It beats me that after all these years, he randomly woke up one day and chose me again.
What is it about me that makes him see me as a weakling?
“Your parents poked the tiger’s tail and had to face the consequences.”
I’m at loss with his words. How does everything he’s done to me tied to my parents?
All my thoughts freeze. My heart hammers against my chest at the realization of what he might mean. “You know what happened to my parents?”
As he inches toward me, I don’t dare to move. I stay still until he’s barely a breath away from me.
He leans closer, breath against my skin as he whispers, “I killed them.” I gasp. A silent scream rises through my throat and stops in my mouth, trapped by the intensity of the tension around us. “Them or me? I chose them. I butchered them.”
“That’s not true.” It can’t be. I can’t be living with my parents’ killers for the past seventeen years.
“I don’t have a reason to lie.”
I face him as anger overcomes me in an uncontrollable wave. “Your days of being my captor, of torturing me, of emotionally manipulating me are over.” I fight through the cold, invasive panic that crawls over my skin as each word leaves my lips one after the other.
I see the mindless monster in his eyes.
The thing I’m afraid of becoming.
He stands there, looking at me emotionlessly.
I was ten when I walked into that room and asked him about his brother. He knew what happened to them. Matter of fact, he had killed them himself. And he lied. He lied to me.
Beyond his features, I see the blood of my parents marked across his face.
My brain plays a scene it never saw on a loop.
Sharp blade, severing their bare throats, blood soaking their skin.
Eyes wide in shock as life slips away from their fingers.
Knife guts. Brutalizes repeatedly. Blood smears across the devil’s face as he takes and takes until there’s nothing left.
I never wanted revenge. But watching this shell of a man stand in front of me and confess to his crimes, I want to do more than just kill him. He took away my family and glued himself to my side for seventeen years.
Seventeen years.
“You really think Saint King loves you? You’re disposable, Mason, and you’re only needed when you have something to offer.
You’re nothing. You think a man like him can love a broken thing like you?
” His words cut across my skin violently.
And I take the brutality of his hatred because that’s what I have done most of my life.
I’m a deception. A manipulative contract. A spy. A traitor.
And Saint saw all that and stayed. He must be really stupid to stay with a man like me.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t even realize when he leaves me in the empty restroom.
I’m too discombobulated that I can’t even stand on my own feet. What if David’s right? I was broken anyway, so there was no way Saint truly thinks he can love me.
One day, he’d get tired of me and ask me to leave, or maybe even worse, he’d have to choose between his family and me. And of course, his family would have to come first.
I’m never enough.
I’m never the one people would make an effort for.
I’m the pawn in a game of ruthless kings. Easily disposable. Easily picked apart.
I manage to leave the bathroom, a shell of myself, supporting the weight of my body against the wall. I slip into the elevator and chew on my lower lip, doing everything I can to keep my tears from falling.
All I have wanted since that night was to get this shit over with.
That was the job.
Earn my freedom and leave.
But here I am, entertaining the thoughts of a man I shouldn’t have even dreamed of wanting.
And I’m so fucking stupid for thinking that someone like me deserves a happy ending.
I have never gotten one, and I’m never getting one.
The cold night air traverses over my skin as I step outside the building. A few guests linger in front of the compound in groups, and others are leaving the premises in their expensive cars. I spot Bernard where we’d left him and quickly stride toward him.
“Hey.” My voice cracks. Guilt digs into my already devastated skin when I see the healed scars on his face. He bore the consequences of my actions, and I didn’t get punished for what I did.
Saint just took me back with open arms.
“Mason, you’re here.”
“Yeah. Can you drive me to my old apartment? I need to pick up some things.”
“Sure.” He holds the door open for me, and I get in, waiting for him to ignite the engine and leave this miserable place.
Bernard turns on the engine once he’s behind the wheel and reverses out of the parking lot. “I changed my mind. Please, take me home.”
“Sure.” Bernard nods and gives me a firm nod from the rearview mirror.
A hollow, unyielding ache sits in my chest as the building fades behind us, and the car zooms through the city. David’s words replay in my thoughts. His voice grows so loud that I’m unable to push it all away.
And I fucking hate that he’s getting under my skin.
I hate that all I feel is resentment and anger.
He took my parents away from me. He left me with only their memories, but even with that, his constant abuse had eaten away at the little I had of them until there was almost nothing left.
How do I move on from the fact that my parents’ killer had been close all along? All those years when I had asked questions, he knew the truth, and he kept it from me.
Maybe that’s why he turned out to be a monster.
Because the guilt had eaten deep into his soul and left him with nothing.
I’m not him. I’m not a monster. My anger doesn’t define me. I won’t let the wrath flowing through my veins overpower me or control my decisions.
“We are here.” Bernard’s voice breaks my train of thought, and I lean upright, staring at the house ahead of me.
Saint isn’t here, so I might as well sit outside and wait for him. I exit the car and trudge toward the entrance while Bernard stands outside with his gun in his hand.
“You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine on my own.” I lie.
I’m not fine.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be.
“I’ll stay here until the boss gets back.”
“Maybe he’s finished with the meeting and needs someone to pick him up.”
“If he did, he’d call me.” He insists.
“Fine, suit yourself.” I kick the dirt on my way to the door.
When I get to the stairs, I sit on the wooden floor and stare at the stars in the sky.
It gives me a shred of comfort, but it’s not enough to erase the ominous feeling cemented in the pit of my stomach.
I’m waiting for Saint because he’s the only good thing in my life right now.
No matter how much I try not to believe it, my mind ruminates on his words, on the memories I still have.
The family I had when I was a kid.
The family he’d taken from me. And all I feel is rage. Venomous rage curling inside me, unfurling every bit of restraint within me. And every ounce of hurt and resentment I have buried deep inside me leeches into my bloodstream, coiling tighter and crushing every other emotion I feel.