Page 81 of Mason

Mason

This will go one of two ways.

I’ll walk in the front door with Emily and walk out with my heart still beating, albeit rapidly, or I’ll walk in, Anthony will smell the sex on us, and my heart will wind up in the bottom of the Mississippi with the rest of my dead body.

Emily’s nervous in the passenger seat. Her eyes haven’t budged from her lap the entire ride. She’s likely a little salty that I have the child locks on, but I can’t take any risks of her flying the coop.

From what she’s said, Papa Bear’s had her stuffed in a hotel in town for the last few weeks, but he directs me to bring her to an address in Pass Christian instead. Apparently this vinyl-sided twin located dead center in a row of red brick is supposed to be safe. It’s her godfather’s house, and if he doesn’t sound like Don Corleone, I’m going to be disappointed.

This isn’t where I’d stash my kid if I had Anthony’s kind of money, but he trusts the guy, and he can kill me and what’s left of my family if I step out of line, so I need to do what he says. Even if I did just pound out his daughter and feel like my chest’s about to explode at the prospect of leaving her again.

The one-time fuck was a shit idea. Emily isn’t a one-time girl. She’s a lifetime girl. The woman you want to wake next up to and make crepes for if she asks, even though you’ve never made a fucking crepe in your life. You do it because she wants it, and in turn, you want to make her happy.

I want Emily to be happy. Happy, healthy, and far as fuck from this world. She’s too good to be hidden away and held back. She’s going to do great shit someday, and even if she doesn’t know it, I’ll cheer her on from a distance. I’d do it next to her if our circumstances allowed it.

A goodbye kiss would be amazing right about now. I’d rather it be a see you eventually kiss, but that’s out of reach. Though if Anthony’s watching, it’ll definitely be a goodbye because he’ll pull a shotgun on me and end this.

“This is it?” I ask, pointing at the eyesore of a home. I know it is, but I just want to hear her voice again.

She nods, still focused on her hands. “You can drive, Mason.”

“I can…” I trail, reaching out to squeeze her knee. Fuck, this sucks. “I’m terrible at parallel parking though. Crippling in the city.”

Her eyes drift over, shining with tears. “No. Right now you can drive. We can hop on I-10, head somewhere, and never look back. They’ll never find us.”

I don’t want to be the asshole here. I really don’t. But she’s too goddamn naïve. “They will, Emily. Your father’s pockets are deeper and his reach is farther. Running isn’t a way to live.”

She brushes away a tear with a shaky hand. “Neither is existing in a cage.”

“Listen, I don’t want to be the guy that makes promises he can’t keep, but maybe when this all cools off, you can fly out of that cage, and maybe Anthony won’t care where you rest your wings.”

Is what I’m saying a fantasy? Yeah, but it’s also hope, and hope might keep her hide intact while Giambelli runs his leads on his rat and I run mine, which are non-existent at the moment. Grady, while impulsive and sloppy with his lies, didn’t leave a paper trail to follow. Even his phone records are a dud of burner phones and phone-sex hotlines.

“He’ll always care because he decides where they rest, ultimately.” Her voice quakes as she pulls her hair from between my fingers and throws open the car door, storming out into the winter night.

I follow, giving her space to seethe as she stomps up the sidewalk, passing fences lined in Christmas lights and another with a Happy New Year banner. She might be furious with me for shooting down her pitch for a life on the lam together, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe for her to be out here alone, even if it’s only a few hundred feet to her godfather’s door.

“You’re cute when you’re angry,” I offer, and in true Emily style, she shoots me the bird over her shoulder, her hips swinging with extra sass. “See? Irresistible.”

All she offers is a grunt, quickening her pace up the walkway to the home’s door like she can’t get away from me fast enough.

Anthony’s waiting impatiently just inside the screen door, and I say a silent prayer of thanks I didn’t go for that kiss. He’s holding a tumbler of what I assume is whiskey, his suit coat open and golden tie undone. Based on the tie, I hope that Emily interrupted his New Year’s activities. We shouldn’t be the only ones suffering tonight.

Emily stops short of the porch, rooting herself on the cracked concrete path. Anthony beckons her forward, his face pinching with irritation, but she doesn’t move.

“What’s wrong?” I keep my voice low enough that he can’t hear when I catch up, stopping beside her.

She hangs her head and pulls her cardigan close. “I don’t want to go back.”

“It’s temporary.” I’ll make it that way by any means necessary. It won’t be long until Dad retires fully, and when he does, the Carlyle fold is mine. Money. Power. Reach. Who knows what doors that’ll open for us.

“Now,” Anthony snaps, flushing redder by the second. “You, too, kid. I’m missing out on my own fucking New Year’s Eve party because my daughter’s an asshole.”

“She is,” I agree, and Emily thumps me in the chest with a fist.

Taking the lead, I cross the threshold into the tiny row home first. Cheap cigarettes hang in the air that I politely ignore, though my lungs are begging me to cough one up within two seconds of breathing it in. If he says she’s staying here, I might take her up on that offer of skipping town with her. At least she’d live longer than two weeks without croaking of secondhand smoke.

A woman sits on a pinstripe couch just inside. Her hair’s extreme yellow tint looking mildly radioactive while a lavender muumuu covers her short, top-heavy frame. It takes a second to figure out she’s the source of the cigarette smell, one glowing in her right hand while an overflowing coffee can of old ones sits beside her on the couch cushion.

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