“I didn’t,” he says, his sharp tone meant to assure me.
I don’t respond, not knowing any longer what to believe.
“Are you sure you want to discuss this over the phone?” he asks after a moment of quiet, and I already know I shouldn’t. I pause, and he continues.
“Do you know who it was?” my father asks, but there’s something in his voice that’s off. Something that makes my blood turn cold. “Was there anything on him?” he asks me with a hint of desperation. The line is silent as I look at the syringe on the table.
“No,” I say, my voice falling flat.
“Where is he?” he asks me.
I clear my throat and say, “There wasn’t anything on him.”
“Tell me his location, I’ll take care of this. You don’t have to worry—”
“He’s gone!” I scream into the phone, feeling increasingly angrier.
A hitman. I only know one man who’s ever hired a hitman, and he’s on the other end of the phone.
The front door was locked. Someone made that bastard a key. I was only downstairs in the office to talk to my lawyers about the separation of the business. I was preoccupied as he crept up the stairs.
My father knew about the call. He knew. My vision turns to red and even though, for a small moment, I questioned if it could be him, it has to be.
It was my father. All the logical pieces click together, fitting nice and pretty as my father’s voice comes through the phone. He just happens to call when the bastard got away? I don’t fucking believe in coincidences.
I stare at the syringe on my desk. An overdose of something. That’s why there was no gunshot. Too messy. The gun was for protection only.
He was here to murder Jules in a clean way so that no one would know, not even me.
My father set me up. I grip the phone tighter. He tried to kill her. A dark whisper deep in the back of my head hisses, Just like he killed your mother.
“It was you.” The words come out of my mouth as an accusation. “You’re fucking dead.”
“Me?” My father’s voice echoes with disbelief. “You can’t be serious, Mason!”
My skin feels like it’s on fire; I try to contain my rage, but it’s useless.
“Never,” he says on the other end. “I would never hurt her. She’s yours, Mason. I’m very aware of that,” he tells me, and he sounds so sincere.
I don’t respond, thinking. Trying to think who would want to hurt her. Or maybe me. Maybe the asshole was after me. He didn’t shoot her. He could have, but he didn’t. Maybe the syringe was meant for me. Maybe the man was hired by whomever left the note. For all I know, that man is the one who left the note.
“Scare her, yes. Yes I would and if she ever did anything to hurt you, she’d be there on my list, Mason. But I would tell you. It would be your call.”
My father disgusts me. Just the thought of what he’s done and what he’s willing to do is sickening. But he’s saying this wasn’t his doing. If it wasn’t him, I have no clue where to look next. Nothing but a note with no name and this syringe.
“Who then?” I finally say and as I do, I hear Jules’s faint steps as she comes down the stairs. I turn in my seat in the dining room to watch as she walks down slowly and then freezes when she sees me.
Her large eyes plead with me, and I instantly rise to meet her.
“Upstairs, sweetheart,” I tell her as my father speaks.
“Has she upset anyone? What was she at the station for? You need to be honest with me.”
I place my hand on the small of her back and lead her up the stairs. Her eyes dart to the phone as my father talks, and I know she can hear.
“No, she hasn’t upset anyone,” I tell him. “Her going to the station was a mistake.”
“Well, someone knows something, Mason.” He says it like it’s obvious. “What about Liam?” he asks me. “He knew we’d be having the conference about the division of the assets. He has a motive.” Jules nearly trips on the stairs. She shouldn’t be listening to this shit.
I grab her hip to keep her from falling and almost drop the phone.
“I have to call you back,” I tell him, content with the fact that it wasn’t my father.
Someone knows what I did, and they’re after me. They may also be after Jules. Especially now that she’s seen this. We both saw his face. She’s woven so deeply into my mess.
My father continues speaking into the phone but his words turn to white noise, and I simply end the call. My focus is entirely on Jules.
Her grip on me is tight, and she lets me hold her as I drop the phone to the ground and simply pull her into my lap to sit on the stairs.
Maybe it’s the shock, maybe it’s something else.
But I don’t want to let go of her.
I don’t want her to let go of me either.
“I’ll find out who did this, Jules,” I whisper. “I’ll find them, and I’ll kill them.”
Jules
The stars are always present,
Even though we cannot see.
The clouds will block them out,
And leave us with a plea.
Sometimes it takes the darkness,
And the coldest, purest lights.
To see what’s always been there,
And cherish those stars at night.
“Mason.”
He’s silent as he sits on the chair in the corner of the bedroom. It’s a reading chair that I bought a while back and tucked into the corner of the master when I moved in with Mason. He seems to prefer it now when he’s thinking about what to do. Or maybe it’s when life is breaking him down to the point where he can’t stand on his own any longer.
“Mason?” I call out his name, my voice soft and again he doesn’t seem to hear it. There’s a comfortable groove and warmth that surrounds me since I haven’t moved from my spot on the bed since we came back in here after he talked with his father. Silence sits between us, with both of us letting our thoughts run wild. His chin rests in his hand and his eyes are staring straight ahead at the armoire, unblinking.
Someone attempted to kill one of us. Or at the very least, inject whatever is in that syringe… Closing my eyes, I calmly breathe out, my fingers tightening on the blanket huddled in my lap.
“Mason, please talk to me,” I say, raising my voice even louder. I want to know what he knows. I can’t be left in the dark. This time his gray eyes look back at me, smoldering the moment he sees me. As if I’ve lit a fire, and the intensity of it stops me right where I am.
The only thing I can think in this moment is that he’s going to eliminate the distance between us, to push me back on the bed, to take me like he used to with that look. My breath halts and my body stays frozen, but not with fear or denial. This is lust. I want him to take me, to feel my body and for me to feel his. Right now I need to be held. Just like I did all those months ago when Mason first took me home.
I want to forget it all.
Mason doesn’t do any of that. The chair scoots back against the hardwood floor as he rises from the corner. He walks past me leaving a trail of coldness in his wake as he stands in front of his dresser, his back to me for a long moment.