Help was not coming.
Mason’s familiar cologne was heady. The same scent I had smelled in the carpark stairwell and in my bedroom that night. Mason grinned, eyes gleaming with the ease of it all before looking languidly over my bare breasts that now bore vicious red cuts and scrapes.
“You two sure did put on quite the show back there,” he started. I cringed, and he noticed. “You like your hands pinned while being held down and fucked? Baby, I could have done that for you back when we were teenagers. I could have been your first.” He demonstrated his spite by thrusting his pelvis hard against mine, his restrained cock begging for release. Gritting my teeth, I refused to take the bait.
He considered this a challenge.
“Gotta say, though…” he said, bringing his lips down to graze my ear, “… hearing you orgasm never gets old. Watching how you handle yourself is always a thrill.”
Heat flooded my cheeks even though my blood ran cold. My body stilled momentarily with shock before I erupted. Screaming, I bucked and writhed trying to dislodge Mason, but he remained on top straddling me. The rocks beneath angrily stabbing into my back making me even more livid.
“How dare you, Mason. How dare you think this is okay!”
“Don’t you wanna know how many times I’ve watched you pleasure yourself? I’ve been watching since I first moved in next door to you when you moved to NYC. I know your favorite positions. I know how you like to arch your back every time you come. I particularly like how you can do it multiple times before you collapse in exhaustion.” His grip around my wrists tightened, and the smile faded. “So how about it, Gem?” Mason grappled my breast with his free hand. His fingers dug deep, coaxing a cry from me. “How about you give me what you have left? Let me take what’s owed to me.”
His mouth crushed mine in a possessive kiss driving my pounding head into the unforgiving earth beneath. Mason bit down hard on my bottom lip and despite my wails and the blood, he persisted. Again, I bucked, tears spilling down my temples, willing the excruciating pain to ease. Finally, he pulled away, blood smeared over his face like he was some rabid dog feasting.
I sobbed.
I was hurting all over.
Lucas was either wounded or dead, and Mason wasn’t giving up the fight.
“You win.”
This pissed him off.
He recoiled and then became enraged. “You don’t get to say that, Gem. You don’t get to surrender when you’ve spent years pining after my brother. You don’t get to tell me when I’ve won before I’ve taken what’s mine.”
Using his knee, he pried my legs open and unzipped his pants. My mind was already compartmentalizing what was transpiring. I was forcing myself to become numb while Mason took what he felt owed. It was like the world had slowed while it translated defeat. But I still had one question.
“Why do you hate me so much?” It was a weak question. But after so long, I needed to know. It wasn’t just because he wanted me for his own. This level of hate ran much deeper.
He paused to consider me through narrowed eyes, his erection pressing against my belly, ready and waiting.
“You always came between us, Gemma. Lucas wouldn’t leave Delaware because you were still there. I tried on so many occasions to get him away from that bastard, but he stayed every time. And every time we’d both receive another beating for our efforts. He stayed all for a bit of pussy that you never gave until now. You fulfilled his wish, now it’s my turn.” With a swift motion, Mason pushed his length all the way in, thrusting hard as if the movement contained all the hate, spite and anger he’d carried with him for ten years.
I cried in pain, and he groaned in both delight and victory, but it was all short lived.
The world around us exploded with a sudden gunshot, the sleeping birds erupting in a frenzy as they wailed into the dark night seeking sanctuary once again. There was a sharp jolt, and a thick coat of blood sprayed over my face and into my mouth. Mason groaned in pain, baring his teeth, nostrils flaring with fury as he collapsed further onto me.
“Get off her, Mason,” came a voice that caused my heart to soar.
Lucas.
Mason laughed maniacally, refusing instruction.
“I said get the fuck—”
“Or what?” Mason roared. He rolled to the side and stood, his own Glock pointed at Lucas in a standoff. “Or what, brother?”
I scrambled across the ground, only to be yanked back hard against Mason’s chest, my long hair tangled in his fist. The barrel of the gun pressed against my temple crushing the bone.
There we were, the three of us. Me naked, wounded from head to toe, covered in dirt and blood that belonged to everyone present. Mason lost to a world of passionate revenge, bleeding from under his collarbone. And Lucas who stood with a gunshot wound to his shoulder and bleeding furiously from his temple. We were trapped in headlights, illuminated dust particles floated past, unconcerned with the violence unfolding in the middle of the deserted woods.
A hand wrapped around my throat pushing me harder against the gun’s barrel. I winced but remained as still as possible, fearful the slightest movement would cause Mason to squeeze the trigger.
“This is your fate, brother,” Mason warned. “This is how it’s all gonna end tonight because you chose her all those years ago. Because you should have left with me when I said, not when we had no choice. Because of her! Everything we had that we fought to keep is fucking over, Lucas,” he bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth. “And yet you hold the gun at me… for her?”
Lucas was having none of it. “This is all on you, Mason. You perpetuated this. You’re obsessed. You did this. All of it.”
Mason laughed, incredulous and almost hurt by the accusation. “You know that’s not true.”
“Gemma only held a small part of the story. You created all this hurt, and it has to end.”
“You wanna see what fucking hurt is?” Mason seethed. He pushed me away setting me up as a target, pointing his Glock at my head. I looked between the two, Lucas’s eyes widened in horror, his next move already determined, his hand forced.
“This is how it ends! You eliminate the common denominator.” Mason’s arm straightened to take the shot, his face reflecting his animosity toward me as he went to pull the trigger.
I screamed, cowering down, uselessly covering my face when two shots fired. I waited for impact, but it never came. Confused, I opened my eyes in time to see Mason jolted by bullets hitting him from both sides, a string of blood pouring from his mouth. His eyes were wide, but his soul had already left. The Glock slipped from his hand before he fell onto the dirt road, landing in a heap.
I had survived, but my body succumbed to defeat. The world moved in slow motion. A figure rushed to me in a blur while I watched an immobilized Lucas drop his own gun and stare at the body of his dead brother. I was falling, and someone was calling out my name. They grew closer, their assertive voice doing its best to pull me from the haze.
But I could do nothing.
Like a rag doll, I collapsed, saved by a pair of arms hooking under mine. My head rested against his chest as he carefully lowered me to the ground. A jacket was wrapped around my nakedness, and I finally recognized the voice calling my name.
Detective Kinross.
But it was too late.
Chapter 30
THEN
LUCAS
“Why don’t you just fuck off like you always do, Mason?” my mother slurred her words. Her pink lipstick was starting to smear, a tell-tale sign. “You’re just like your father, you know that?” She pointed her index finger in spite. “So, pack your shit and go.” Callously, she threw her coffee mug in the sink, but it hadn’t been used for coffee. It hardly ever was these days, but she didn’t know that we knew her ill-disguised secret.
Mom was drunk.