Page 67 of Mason

He frowns, and the vein in his neck does the little pop it always does before he screams. “He abducted you.”

“He saved me,” I correct. Twice, but I won’t get into the details with him. He might have a coronary if he finds out about Mason cutting my dress off.

“He stole you.” He shifts in his seat, sweat dotting his forehead. His anger is barely contained, the fury begging to fly out at me. “I see I’ll be investing in a shrink, too, since you’ve come down with a case of Stockholm syndrome.”

My own anger cuts through the clouds of post-surgery fatigue.

Mason and Dixon might’ve held me against my will, but neither technically hurt me, aside from Dixon drugging me. Mason treated me more like his grandmother’s dog than a prisoner, feeding me and checking in every so often. He brought me in from the cold, too, when I wandered off. It’s fucked up, but it’s the truth.

“Hardly.” I scoff. “The last I checked, someone on your payroll was in on his brother’s plan.”

Papa’s face reaches a purplish red. “What?”

Mason didn’t tell him?

I swallow hard, uneasy with the sudden power thrust on my shoulders. I’d rather not be the one telling him all this. I don’t have names. “Yeah. Fun times. You employ someone who was hired to kill me. That’s why Mason and his friend took me.”

Papa’s answer is succinct, delivered like venom from a spitting cobra. “Bullshit.”

“Ask Mason.” I roll my eyes, turning my head away from him to stare at the closed door leading to the hall. He seems to think he knows it all, which is funny coming from a man that let his own men run circles around him.

“I can’t.”

I stiffen, and a tiny piece deep inside cracks. “Where is he?”

“Surgery. The gunshot to his shoulder nicked a vein. He lost a lot of blood.”

I look back at him, lip quivering. “He’ll make it though, right?”

Papa nods. “He’s lucky. And so are you. You know who called me here?”

I shake my head. I imagine the hospital staff did, but for all I know, he could have a mole here, too. He has eyes everywhere.

“Dixon Roberts.”

Dixon’s name means nothing to me, so I shrug. All I know is he’s friends with Mason and scares the absolute shit out of me.

“Dixon gives me nightmares,” he says, eyeing the door. “You’re lucky. He’s the kiss of death.”

I smirk. “He calls himself Death.” I’m relatively sure he said his friends did, but he told me about it, so it must make him feel big and bad. Personally, I think it’s corny. Not that I’d tell that scary bastard anything to the contrary.

Papa’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. “You talked to Dixon?”

“He’s the one who forced closing time on me at Down Under. He bought me a drink.”

He rakes a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“Promise you won’t hurt him.” I pull the blanket close, the starchy material a downgrade from the plush one Mason brought me at the cabin. “Either of them.”

His hands fall to his lap, and he wrings them for a few seconds before he looks up at me. “You have my word.”

---