Page 71 of Mason

The vibe that had Delia pressed so tight against Mason, it felt like she was trying melt into him and hide. Not that he could blame her. Conner scared her, and after having lived with an abusive sperm donor for the first six years of her life, he understood the fear.

“Hello,malyshka.” Conner dropped down in a chair and gave Delia his full attention. “Your papa tells me you want to give Mason a perm.”

She nodded, watching Conner warily.

“I think we need to dye his hair pink first.”

That tugged a grin out of her. “And purple.”

“Why not rainbow hair?” Conner winked at her, and she giggled, starting to relax.

“Come on!” Mason groaned out loud, imagining it. He’d do it too, dammit.

“Mateo, is your mama outside?”

“Sí, Papa. She is talking to Aunt Lily.”

“Why don’t you and Delia go ask them to take you for ice cream? We need to talk to Uncle Mason alone.”

Mateo nodded and jumped down, lithe as a cat. The kid could move almost as quietly as Conner. Delia didn’t move so fast. She climbed up Mason until she was staring in him in the eye. “Don’t go to sleep and not wake up, ’kay?”

“You got it, Princess Peach.”

“Promise?”

“I swear it.”

“Pinkie swear?”

“I can’t lift my hand up that far yet, Peach, but I pinky swear. You can just pretend I moved my pinkie.”

She gave him a sloppy kiss before getting down. “Don’t let him go to sleep that long again, Papa!”

Dimitri laughed when the two of them raced out of the room. “I swear, I think they’ve grown a foot since I saw them last month.”

Dimitri looked more like their mother than he did the rest of the Kincaid men. He’d inherited enough of his father’s features to say he was related, but all that blond hair and blue eyes made him stand out like a sore thumb in a room full of dark haired, black eyed men. Fucker was the odd one out.

And Dimitri brought all the fear racing back. The kids had distracted him for a few minutes, but Jo was never far from his mind.

“Conner, I can’t fucking move. I’m trusting you to find my girl.”

“I will.” Conner leaned back, that same cold look that had been in his nephew’s eyes filling his. And in Conner, it didn’t just scare Mason shitless. It terrified him.

“I just got off the phone with Max. He said he’s close to finding Ray. Picked up his trail in Texas. Isn’t that where he’s from originally?”

Mason shrugged. He had no idea where Ray was from. “Talk to Keith. He’ll know.”

“Mason.” Conner leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I need you to think. Is there anything you can remember from that night before you were attacked? Anything that might have seemed unusual or strange? Gave you a weird feeling?”

Mason frowned but let his thoughts drift back to that night. It was all such a blur.

“Close your eyes,brat,” Kade told him. “Tell me about that night. The sounds, the smells. Everything from the moment you left the police station until you blacked out. Don’t think about it, just start to talk.”

Mason knew what his brother was doing. He’d seen him do it before. If you could get a witness talking and reliving the moment, details came back to them. Details they’d forgotten.

So he did what his brother asked of him. He closed his eyes and zeroed in on the memory he sought. The clearest one he had from that night.

“I stopped at a gas station to find her some kind of cake. I ended up with a cupcake. They had birthday candles. It was odd they’d have birthday candles, but I figured I wasn’t the only one who needed to make amends at all hours of the day and night, you know? I drove to Dimitri’s. The heat was off. I remember thinking I was going to beat his ass for even thinking about bringing my girls into a freezing house.”

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