18. MASON

18

MASON

L ying next to Cami felt like a slice of pure heaven. Her soft breathing, the way her body fit perfectly against mine—we were pressed together in her tiny double bed, but we didn’t need much space.

I wrapped my arm tighter around her, pulling her close, and let out a long breath. For once in my fucked-up life, things felt right. More than right. It felt like I’d finally found something that made the world make sense again.

Her cottage was warm and cozy. Different here in town, with people so much closer, nature so much further away… but I didn’t feel suffocated and trapped the way I’d imagined I would feel.

When Tanner had moved into town—on the edge, but still—I’d thought he’d lost his mind. But this wasn’t so bad.

In here, with Cami in my arms, I felt like I’d found something I’d never thought I’d have again. Warmth. Comfort. A reason to not just survive but actually live.

Things could be different. I could do a life like this. I’d never thought I would say it, but I could live this kind of life rather than being alone in the mountains.

She shifted against me, stretched, and it made me smile. She was perfect. Strong, beautiful, smart as hell. And more than anything, she made me think—think about the future. Things really could change. Maybe I didn’t have to keep running and live a life driven by regret and isolation.

“Cami,” I murmured. I loved the feel of her name on my lips and the smile in her voice when she responded to me.

“Yeah?” She nuzzled deeper into my chest.

I hesitated.

“I’ve been thinking…”

“That’s dangerous,” she said, offering me a cheeky grin.

I laughed. “Yeah, let me get this out before I sprain something.”

She giggled.

“I was thinking about us.”

She stiffened next to me. “What do you mean, ‘us’?”

I turned to look at her. “What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’? I’m not exactly doing this for you because I need regular exercise, you know.”

“Well, no,” she said, but her face had changed. Her relaxed, open expression had closed and even though she still lay against me, there could just as well have been worlds between us.

I frowned, pulling back slightly to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

My stomach twisted and my heart sank. Was this it? Was this the part where she told me she was just fucking around—literally—and this wasn’t the same for her as it was for me?

She didn’t answer right away, her eyes darting away from mine. My gut twisted, and that warm feeling from earlier was quickly replaced by a cold knot of anxiety. The temperature in the room felt like it had plummeted, and there it was—I might not have felt like I was suffocating before, but I sure as shit couldn’t breathe now.

“Cami, talk to me,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“We should probably talk.” She wasn’t making eye contact.

Fuck. Here it was. That feeling in my chest got heavier, and I narrowed my eyes.

“Yeah, I was under the impression we were already doing that.” I glared at her.

“That’s not what I meant.” She sat up, clutching the covers to her chest and sighed. Her face was turned away from me now, her dark hair falling over her naked back.

“A few days ago, some guys broke into my cottage.”

I sat up instantly, the blood rushing in my ears. “What the fuck?” I growled, my mind going into overdrive. “Did they hurt you?”

My instincts were on high alert, and I was in fight-mode immediately.

“No,” she said. “They just scared me.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, put my hand on her shoulder, forced her to look at me.

“And you’re only telling me now because…”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” she said, her voice pleading.

I frowned.

“What the fuck do you mean you didn’t want to worry me?” I snapped. “Someone broke into your place, Cami! How the hell am I not supposed to know that?”

She flinched at the anger in my voice, but I was fucking furious .

Just the thought that someone had been that close to her made rage boil inside my veins. I wanted to kill.

She didn’t answer me, and I tried to get my anger under control. Scaring her now wasn’t going to help.

“Describe them to me,” I demanded. “All of them.” If they looked like any of the fuckers I’d seen earlier today, I was going to hunt each of them down and they were going to regret they’d come to this town at all.

“Mason…”

“Tell me,” I said in a cold voice, and something must have shown on my face because Cami stopped arguing and started telling me what they looked like.

One by one, she described the men I’d seen around town. The strangers, the assholes who everyone had seemed to love so much. The guys who should not have been here.

Fucking tourists , my ass.

When she talked about the last guy, my ears started ringing.

“Are you sure?” I asked when she described him.

“Yeah,” she said. “I wouldn’t leave anything out.”

She had until now, but that was beside the point.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

Wallace. The knowledge hit me like a fucking freight train, slamming into me with the force of everything I’d tried to bury for years. I got up, adrenaline pumping through my veins.

I paced the little room.

“I’m so sorry, Mason,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make things harder for you. I just—”

“For me?” I spun around to glare at her.

She nodded, fear flashing in her eyes. “He… he asked about you.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Wallace was here. And he was after me. All the warmth, all the peace I’d thought I could have just a moment ago evaporated, replaced by the cold, hard reality. A whole decade of hiding wasted.

It was because of her. Wallace had found me because of her.

The anger that had been simmering under the surface boiled over.

“Fuck!” I roared, pacing the small space of her bedroom again, my mind racing. First Viktor, and now Wallace. Two men who should never have found each other. They’d created so much hell.

“This is a fucking nightmare.”

“Mason, I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t know ?” I snapped, my voice sharp and cutting. “You didn’t know that posting pictures all over social media, putting your life on fucking display, was going to bring them here?”

“Well, obviously not,” she shot back. “It’s not like I was doing it so that they could come here and find you, you know. I mean, I didn’t even know you before the drawing.”

I shook my head. “I was supposed to be able to trust you.”

“I told you, it was an accident,” she countered. Her fire was impressive, her fearlessness in standing up to me would have turned me on a second ago. But now, I was so fucking pissed. All I saw when I looked at her was another enemy.

“And that’s supposed to change anything?” I asked in a cold voice. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

She glared at me, her anger matching mine, but her eyes shimmered and then welled with tears.

I didn’t care. Not now that everything had gone to shit all around me.

Her lip trembled, and she really looked like she felt awful, but none of that would fix this mess. I found my clothes, pulling them on item by item.

“I never meant for any of this to happen,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“Sorry?” I growled, spinning around after pulling my shirt over my head, my hands clenched around my jacket. “Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done? Wallace isn’t just some guy. He’s dangerous . He’s been after me for years, and now, thanks to you, he’s here. Right on my goddamn doorstep, with Viktor in tow. I’m dead, thanks to you.”

She flinched, tears streaming down her cheeks, but I was too far gone to care. All I could think about was how I’d let my guard down. How I’d let her in. And now, everything I’d worked to protect was crumbling around me. Because of her.

“We can do something about it,” she said. “We can contact someone. The sheriff, Tanner—”

“Do what?” I spat. “Don’t you dare make it sound like this was just something I could have cleaned up years ago and been done with it. I live my life like I do for a reason. I keep people away because that’s the only way this works.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on my boots.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” she tried. She’d swallowed her crying but her cheeks were still wet.

She shifted toward me but I jerked away and stood without tying my laces. I couldn’t handle her touch right now when I felt like the ground had just been ripped out from under me.

“It’s over,” I said, my voice cold and final. “I can’t trust you.”

“What?” She gasped. “I just told you everything!” She angrily wiped her tears away.

“Not until after we fucked,” I spat. “You just had to get in there one last time, didn’t you?”

She looked horrified at what I implied.

“I thought you were different from the rest of them. But you’re exactly the same, aren’t you?”

“That’s not fair!” she cried out.

I turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind me, and stomped across town and into the trees.

I didn’t look back.

Not when the one person I should have been able to trust had just destroyed everything.