Page 18 of Unmask
I already knew where this was headed. “Not happening.”
“Come on, man. She hates you right now. Me? She hates less than you.”
I didn’t say anything.
Mason shrugged. “Might be easier for her to talk to someone she doesn’t associate with breaking her heart.”
My fists clasped at the word. “Yeah? And what exactly would you say to her?”
“I don’t know. Probably something like ‘Hey, sorry we kidnapped you and manipulated you into trusting us, but in our defense, we kind of like you now.’”
I shot him a glare.
Mason smirked again, but his expression sobered. “Look, I get it. You need to talk to her. Just… don’t make it worse.”
My jaw locked.
Mason sighed, pushing off the desk, dropping the joker card on top of the table. “I can’t believe you’re going rogue. Do whatever the fuck you want, but if you come back looking like she took a baseball bat to your ribs, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I didn’t bother responding because I already knew the risk, and I was taking it anyway. I couldn’t keep living with this feeling inside me.
Needing an outlet for the turmoil buzzing and the nagging impatience within me, I headed downstairs to our home gym, letting loose on the punching bag. It was either the hundred-fifty-pound bag or someone’s face. The urge to drown myself in booze was just another reason to wear myself out in the gym. It was too easy to get drunk and forget her name. The only problem was I had yet to find out how much booze it would take. She never seemed to stray from my mind.
It was easy to convince myself I was tracking Kaylor for my father, but it was an excuse. I wanted to find her for purely selfish reasons, and it was time I acknowledged that I didn’t just want her back; I wantedher.
There was also the fact that there was a mole in her father’s crew, and no matter how many pieces I tried to force into the puzzle, I couldn’t figure out who it was, and my father sure as hell wasn’t volunteering the information. He had an arrangement. One that my father benefited from and would continue to profit from.
Someone had been feeding him information. Detailed shit. Timelines. Movements. Conversations that should’ve never left private circles. That betrayal was how her parents died. Not because of a business deal gone sideways, but because someone close to them, a friend, a fucking traitor, sold them out, and now my father was still pulling strings, still manipulating everyone like the greedy bastard he was.
For Donovan Corvo, it was never enough. No one knew the impossible expectations of him better than his sons.
I didn’t want to be concerned with Kaylor, but the fact that I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her drove me nuts. If the only way to make this insanity stop was to bring her back, then the choice seemed obvious.
Someone in her crew had blood on their hands. Her blood. If she got too close, if she trusted the wrong person again…
I pumped my fist into the bag over and over, my already raw knuckles protesting at the repeated pain.
I shouldn’t care.
I shouldn’t be concerned with what happened to her.
I was raised not to give a damn about anyone outside the family and the crew. Taught to shut down emotions, ignore feelings, focus on loyalty, strength, and power, but somewhere along the way, she cracked my shield.
Kaylor fucking Steele.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
The girl with sadness in her eyes and stubbornness in her soul. The girl I was supposed to isolate. Keep close until my father was done using her, but I lost control the second she looked at me like I was more than my name. The second she trusted me. The second she chose me.
And I broke that.
I broke her.
All I could think about was how to fix something I never deserved to have in the first place. I didn’t get to have people. Not like that. But I couldn’t let her go.
Not when the same people who betrayed her family could be circling again.
Not when there was still a target on her back.
