My heart pounds wildly as I step into the sterile room. My gaze goes to the bed, but it’s empty and looks like it hasn’t even been sat on. I move deeper into the room, but Mason’s nowhere to be found. Moving back to the hallway, light from the cracked bathroom door catches my eye. My cheeks heat, and I contemplate waiting until he’s finished, but the sound of his mumbled voice pulls me to peek inside.
I cover my mouth to keep from gasping aloud at the sight of Mason. His hands are flexed, fists braced on the sink, and his wide and powerful back ripples with tension. White gauze and tape litter his flawless skin in patches over his left bicep, forearm, and ribcage. My gaze slides down his muscular back to the swell of his backside, which peeks up from above the loose-hanging scrubs. I gawk shamelessly at him, this warrior.
My warrior.
“Trix, baby.” His soft whisper brings my eyes up to find him staring at me through the reflection in the mirror.
Time ceases as our gazes fuse in an unrelenting hold.
He studies the gauze wrapped around my upper arm and then drops his gaze to my neck, which is wrapped in bandages, with a few stitches underneath.
To think he was stabbed, could’ve died there in the middle of the desert as I held him to me. I’d never have survived that. My hand goes to my throat, realizing how quickly both our lives could’ve been over. Tears prick my eyes, and I roll my lips between my teeth to keep them from quivering.
He turns and crosses to me in long strides. “No, baby, don’t cry.”
Pulled tight to his chest, I wrap my arms around his hips.
“Shh. Everything’s okay.” He rubs my back, pressing firmly to loosen the tense muscles. “My brave surfer girl.”
The warmth of his bare skin on my cheek fills me with a sense of belonging. “I’m so sorry, Mason. This is all my fault. I should’ve walked away like you said. I should’ve—”
“No.” He grips my chin and tilts my head back to meet his glacial eyes. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever fucking apologize for them, do you understand?”
My eyes dart to the side. “Prison, Mason. I know what the detective said, but what if you end up in prison because of me?”
His eyebrows drop low beneath the shag of his blond hair. “About that . . .” He shifts me, and with his hand splayed at my lower back, he leads me to the bed. “There’s something you need to know.”
Whatever calm I’d found dissolves, and my blood turns cold.
He crawls onto the bed, motioning for me to join him on his right side. I curl into him, and he wraps an arm around me, settling in deeper.
“What is it?”
He clears his throat. “We got played.”
I jerk my head up and wince as pain slices through my neck. “What? By who?”
He presses my head back down to his chest, resting his big hand on my neck as if to soothe it. “Jessica’s pregnant and—”
“Oh wow, really? That sucks.” I shrug. “Spawn of the devil and all.” I can’t help but hate Drake after everything he put us through.
His thumb runs along the tender skin of my jaw in a way that feels like he’s trying to placate me. “Drake wanted out of his obligation to Elijah, but they made some kind of blood oath, a life for a life.”
He doesn’t have to explain more. This is the part of the story I already know. “I was the life.”
“Yes, and also a sacrifice that would bond an alliance he was forming with some new guys.” His fingers flex against my neck. “But apparently everything that happened tonight was put into motion months ago.”
Months?
“Your buddy Hatch was on the run in Mexico—”
“I know.”
He makes a sound deep in his chest, half groan, half growl. “Right, but what you don’t know is the cops found him.”
I peek up at him. “Really.”
“Mm-hm.” He presses my cheek back to his chest. “Turns out Hatch confessed to his crimes, and in order to get a more lenient sentence, he agreed to lead the cops to someone they’d been after for a long time now.”
“Elijah.”
“Exactly. So when Hatch realized Drake was Eli’s kid, he made sure to organize the drug deal that I stupidly interrupted.”
“Okay, so Hatch was working for the cops, but why did they kidnap me?”
“Drake wanted out; Eli wouldn’t let him go. After Drake found out Jess was pregnant, he went to the cops. He told them that he’d share all the information he had if they’d make sure to end Elijah and his crew and never tell them who’d outed their operation.”
“Oh my God, so . . .”
“The cops agreed, let D in on the fact that Hatch was working with them, and together they figured out a way to get Elijah and the majority of his crew away from the city and together where they could be taken down.”
“So they used me as bait.”
“Once Hatch found that picture of Svetlana at your place”—the growl in his voice demonstrates that the very idea of Hatch being in my place still makes him furious—“he’d found his golden ticket.” His thumb rubs my jaw again. “He knew all along Eli killed your sister, baby, and he knew once that piece of shit Eli knew you were snooping he’d never resist the urge to take you out too.”