Page 1 of Man of Lies

Chapter One

MASON

The metalcot creaked under me like it was about to give up on life.

Couldn't blame it—I felt the same.

The mattress was thin enough to count as a form of penance, and the springs jammed into the base of my spine just hard enough to remind me that I'd hit rock bottom.Again.

The air in the storage room was stale and smelled faintly of dust, sweat, and old booze.Overhead, a single bulb drifted on a stripped wire, filling the room with weak light that illuminated every flaw:the scuffed concrete floor, water-stained walls, and a desk strewn with a graveyard of scattered tools and empty beer bottles.

The Dead End wasn't a place that improved anyone's life, but I kept crawling back for reasons I couldn't explain.It wasn't much, just a biker bar filled with outlaws and mean drunks, but the chaos drowned out the noise in my head.

Some days, that was enough.

A muffled crash thudded against the wall, followed by the sharp tinkle of breaking glass.A low rumble of voices rolled in beneath the mournful whine of good ol' Southern rock spilling from the jukebox.

I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling until my vision blurred.The bridge of my glasses pinched, but I didn't bother fixing it.I'd told Silas I just needed a place to crash—which wasmostlytrue.

What I hadn't told him was why.

I hadn't explained that the noise in my head was too loud tonight, or that the home I shared with my brothers felt so big and airless, I could barely breathe.

Eden House was meant to be a Beaufort family legacy, passed from one generation to the next—but Boone had no blood heirs, just a stubborn streak and a house too big for one man.Rather than see it handed off to the state, or worse, some distant cousin who'd never stepped foot in Louisiana, he'd left it to us instead.A pack of strays with his name on our adoption papers and nowhere else to go.

For a man who'd spent his childhood hopscotching between trailer parks, barely one step ahead of CPS, Eden was too big, quiet, and full of a past that didn't belong to me.Stately arches, polished floors, sprawling grounds…on paper, it had everything my brothers and I wanted.Wealth. Permanence. A place to belong.But I'd never been able to shake the feeling that we were just borrowing it, living in the remnants of someone else's history.

Sometimes, it was just easier to leave.

No one asked why. Not my brothers, and sure as hell not Silas.That wasn't his way. He just took one look at the strain on my face, pointed to the storage room at the back of the bar, and told me to lock the door behind me.

I liked to pretend I kept coming back because of the lack of questions, but I'd never had a talent for lying to myself.

I came here for him.

Silas McKenna was a problem I didn't need—and one I couldn't shake.

I found him the way I find all my trouble—by accident, with a bit of bad luck thrown in.My bike had decided to betray me at the worst possible moment.A brand-new fire engine red Ducati Panigale V4, all sleek lines and brutal speed, and it still managed to stall out like a temperamental show pony, thanks to some bullshit with the quickshifter.It left me stranded on a sweltering Louisiana highway, cursing Italian engineering,and torn between pushing the bike to the shade of a nearby lot or sticking around to watch a python slither across the pavement.

Silas stood behind the bar, lazily dragging a rag across the counter, all broad shoulders and long legs.Built like he knew how to take a punch but was better at throwing them.The permanent scruff darkening his jaw only added a careless charm to his easy, lopsided grin—the kind that said he didn't take a damn thing seriously.Least of all me.

"You buy that thing to ride or pose with it?" he drawled, glancing at my bike through the window.

I hated him instantly. Until I didn't.

Our dynamic hadn't changed in the past two months.Silas: the biker ex-con, chaos wrapped in denim and leather, driving me up the wall with his smartass attitude.And me: the uptight lawyer, fully aware I should stay away but unable to resist.Every few weeks, I found myself walking back through the door,tossing out some excuse about needing a place to crash, then locking myself in the back room he kept for drunks too far gone to drive.

Now, instead of sleeping, I lie there counting heartbeats while the last person I needed to be tangling with lingered on the other side of the door.Talking. Teasing. Saying things I didn't want to hear but couldn't stop listening to.

"Door's still locked, counselor," he called, his lazy drawl making the flimsy barrier between us feel paper-thin."You know, if you wanted privacy, you could've stayed home."

"Go away, Silas. I'm trying to sleep."

His laugh was a slow, knowing rumble that slipped under my skin and stayed there."You didn't come here to sleep."

No. I hadn't. That was the problem.

"Still playing hard to get?" The question was all smoke and whiskey."We both know this locked door is just for show.If I really wanted in, you wouldn't stop me."

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