16. Mason

Mason

“ H ope you like it lukewarm.”

Hannah comes back to the dining room table, setting a mug of sweet tea in front of me with Barbie on the side.

“The ice maker’s broken,” she grimaces, sliding into the seat beside me. “I plugged her phone in, so it should be on soon.”

It’s entirely too fucking close. My head’s still spinning from the way she tasted. The way she felt under my fingertips. I’ve waited two years for that fucking kiss, and yet, now that I’ve had it, I’m disturbed to find the hunger’s still there, glaring me in the face.

Maybe I need to fuck her. Get it out of both our systems so we can move on.

I know myself better than that, though, and I know her . As much as I’d want it to satiate the need for her, I know it would only fucking make it worse.

And that’s the biggest joke of all, isn’t it?

Fucking Hannah Gaines. Sister to my enemy. Daughter of the biggest crook in the state. Object of every single one of my fucking fantasies.

“This feels like an invasion of privacy,” Hannah says, pulling Melissa’s purse across the table in front of her. Gucci. Of course.

I fix her with a look and she blushes.

“Well, it is. A woman’s purse is sacred.”

“Should we go through yours first?”

“ No .”

I nod. “Then open the bag.”

“Fine,” she grumbles, unlatching the top and pulling the pamphlet for the Inner Sanctum out. “Sex club ticket. Check,” she says as if she’s mentally logging everything. “Chapstick—the nasty medicinal one, too—check.” She pauses, look at me when I cock a brow at her. “Fine, sorry.”

Lipstick, old makeup, a thong that Hannah quickly tosses to the side with the end of a pen, a wallet complete with every fucking credit card known to man.

“Could your sister be any more of a cliché?”

Hannah rolls her eyes.

“Right. I forgot. Mr. I hate the system and everything about it.”

I chuckle darkly. “You’re learning well. I’m glad you’re finally catching on.” She fixes me with a bored look that I would love to wipe off her face. “Credit cards will only lead to more debt. Why buy something if you can’t afford it?”

“Credit cards help some, and for others they can be damaging, yes,” Hannah concedes. “You have to know how to use them correctly. Knowing my sister, I don’t think she did.”

“Why didn’t Melissa go to college?”

“She did,” Hannah says. “She just flunked out a year in and after three tutors and a lot of special favors, Mom gave up on it.”

“Doesn’t seem like your mother. To give up on something.”

The last two years have proven that.

“What was she going for?”

Hannah snickers, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand. “I shouldn’t laugh. She was trying to get a degree in pop culture.”

“Like a paparazzi?”

“I don’t know,” she shakes her head. “Something like that. Can you imagine Missy, though, trying to chase down a celebrity in Beverly Hills?”

I actually chuckle at the image of a deranged, naked Melissa running wild through the streets of Hollywood with a camera instead of a knife.

It’s the little things in life.

“I’m not sure your sister would have stuck with any job, much less college. Everything she did or said was a fa?ade. Fake.”

“Not everything,” Hannah chides and I cock a brow. “Her boobs were real. That counts, doesn’t it?”

“And are yours?”

She nearly chokes on her drink.

“That is not a question you should be asking.” She’s flustered. “But if you must know. Yes. They are, but I don’t think it should matter. Breast implants can be a good thing.”

“They can also kill you.”

“So can butter,” she argues. “You’re being vulgar.”

“You’re blushing.”

She rolls her eyes, but the burn on her cheeks remains. She opens her mouth, but the sound of Melissa’s phone chiming from the other side of the room causes her to jump.

She’s awfully fucking jumpy now. Particularly when a phone rings. I thought it was just because her sister was missing, but now . . . I’m wondering if there’s more to the story.

She gets up quietly and pads over to the phone on the counter. I try not to think about the red polish shining on her toes or the tan on her smooth, bare legs, but I’m also not blind, either. So, I find myself wondering what those same legs looked like wrapped around my waist earlier.

“Okay, it’s on,” Hannah murmurs, letting out a shaky breath as she takes her seat.

“Okay. You just going to stare at it?”

It sits on the table in front of her, her eyes locked on it as text messages and notifications pour through.

“I . . .” she starts, but it falls flat. Instantly, she grabs the phone and attempts to unlock it.

Wrong.

“Shit.”

I cock a brow at her cursing because in the three years I’ve come to know little Hannah Gaines, she’s never been anything but prim and proper. “Use the facial recognition.”

She holds the phone up and it must be just alike enough to allow her in, because with a click, the phone opens.

“Seventy-five missed calls and one hundred and three texts,” Hannah grimaces. “Who would want to talk to someone that much?”

“Who would want to talk to your sister that much?”

She nods cynically. “I guess you’re not wrong.”

“That might be the first time you’ve agreed with me,” I point out.

“Well, don’t get used to it.”

She clicks on the calls first. Parker . Parker . Parker . Then, after his sentencing, Prison , Prison , Prison .

Something doesn’t sit right.

“When was the last time you spoke to your sister?”

Hannah shrugs. “A year ago. Maybe a little more. She wouldn’t return my calls or texts.”

“Looks like you found your reason.”

“There are a lot of calls to this number,” Hannah grumbles. “It’s not saved. Wait,” she jumps, eyes going wide. “There was a call this evening . . . but it was made from this phone.”

The air in the kitchen is suddenly thick in the shared silence between us.

Okay, now shit’s getting really fucking weird.

“What time?”

“Just after nine . . . Mason, we got there at nine.”

I scrub a hand over my face, willing this shit to start making sense. I’m almost thirty, and in all my life, I’ve never liked fucking puzzles. The mind games, the twists and clues you have to pick up on to put it all together. It’s bullshit.

“Someone was in the house,” Hannah whispers, looking around the room as if they might jump out from her pantry at any moment. “Do you think they tripped the alarm?”

“I think it’s entirely possible.”

She lets out a shaky breath, her face a shade paler.

“You sure you can handle this, little doe?”

Her eyes narrow and for a moment, I’m ready for her to snap at me, but the look fades, replaced by something deeper. A fear.

I fucking hate it.

“I have to,” she shrugs, eyes sad. “No one else is going to.”

“Have you ever thought about what you could find out?”

“Can’t really think about it if I don’t know what it’ll be.”

Jesus Christ. Ever the optimist.

“And if you stumble upon something you don’t want to know?”

“Then . . . I guess I’ll have to accept it.”

She stares at me for a moment, her pretty green eyes meeting my dark ones. I could get lost in those fucking eyes. My cock swells in my jeans, despite myself, and my fingers burn where I touched her soft skin earlier.

Out of all the places. That’s where I fucking got to taste her again.

The phone buzzes between us and Hannah jumps.

“A text,” she says cautiously. She clicks on the icon. “It’s unknown.”

“Of course it is,” I mutter under my breath.

“Thanks for sending those security guys away,” she reads aloud. “I would have hated for them to have looked in the closet.”

She freezes. Fuck, I freeze.

“They were there the entire time,” she breathes, tears welling in her eyes.

“Give me the phone.”

She pauses and I shoot her a look, daring her to argue. Begrudgingly, she places it in my hand, as if it’s a ticking time bomb.

“Whoever this is has been sending weird shit like this to her phone for awhile,” I murmur, scrolling through the list of deranged, cryptic messages. “Dating back to before she went missing.”

“Do you think they took her? Whoever they are?”

“I wouldn’t think they would kidnap her and then keep coming back to her house after.”

“But who else could it be?”

“Look, Hannah.” I set the phone down between us. “Parker had a lot of fucking enemies. Melissa would have, too, as his mistress. And I know you don’t want to believe it, but she also fucked over a lot of people. People who wouldn’t think twice if something bad happened to her.”

“So, you’re saying . . . it could be anyone.”

“I’m saying these could be two different scenarios. Is there anyone you know of?”

Instantly, it’s like a light bulb goes off behind her eyes. She jumps up, hurrying over to the counter and grabbing her own phone. She opens it and carefully sets it in between us, right next to Melissa’s.

Unknown.

Now shit’s getting serious.

Unknown: Roses are red, violets are blue. Your sister will be dead soon, how about you?

Unknown: There’s only one way this will end.

Unknown: Stare at the darkness too long and eventually, the dark will stare back.

Texts upon texts of psychotic babble that doesn’t make sense. Idle threats, disguised as nursery rhymes. A picture of the fucking finger found in Mom’s mailbox, even a text asking about me.

“What the fuck is this?”

Hannah has the audacity to look startled by the anger thick in my voice. Like a child scolded. “They started a few months ago. It’s what made me come here. Mom wasn’t doing anything but covering Missy’s disappearance up.”

“And you just forgot to mention them?”

Her lips clamp shut and her eyes well with tears, but I don’t care. I’ve been trying to keep her safe and yet, she’s hiding this shit from me.

“Hannah, this shit is serious. People are fucking crazy. What if they come after you in the middle of the night?”

“I know,” she bites. “But I’ve troubled you enough, I wasn’t about to unload all that baggage onto you, too.”

“And keeping it a secret is better?”

“I didn’t want you involved. I thought it would be better for you to stay out of it.”

“I’m already fucking in it, Hannah. I need to know this shit if I’m going to keep you safe.”

Fuck.

I shouldn’t have said that.

“I didn’t ask you to keep me safe,” she says softly, eyes narrowed on me as if I just told her I was a mass murderer.

I didn’t ask for this gnawing obsession, either, but here we are.

“Yeah, well, shouldn’t have been a question.”

She’s quiet for a moment, her gaze on Melissa’s phone in front of her. She opens her mouth to speak multiple times, but each time, she slams it shut while I continue to read through the texts on her phone.

“Spit it out, Hannah.”

She swallows a deep breath, her shoulders tight.

“Why didn’t you . . . tell me about the finger?”

It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? I kept it from her and whoever is behind this ratted me out.

“Because I knew you would take it to heart.”

I’m aware when she wipes a quiet tear off her cheek, even without looking at her. I fucking hate it.

“Pretty hard not to,” she says softly, her hand shaking when she reaches for her glass.

I sit her phone down on the table between us. I’ve seen enough. Now, I just need to find a way for Logan to track down whoever sent these messages.

“Everyone thinks I’m crazy,” she murmurs, drawing her knee up to her chest and resting her chin on it. “I think they’re crazy for not bothering to even look.”

I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this.

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

Her eyes flash to mine and the tears there piss me off.

Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this . . .

“If it were one of my sisters . . . I’d find them.”

She doesn’t say anything, but I can see that small flash of appreciation in her eyes. One that’ll get me in trouble if I’m not careful.

“I’d do whatever I had to.”

Slowly, she nods, wiping a tear that clings to her cheek on the back of her hand.

“Tomorrow we’re going to the Inner Sanctum.”

Her eyes widen to saucers.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. So find something that screams, I love sex clubs .”

I stand, chuckling internally. I’m not sure Hannah owns anything remotely sex-club-worthy.

Ironically, she’s still the sexiest fucking woman I’ve ever seen.

“It’s late. We have to work tomorrow. Go to bed.” I stride toward the door, mostly because if I stay when she’s soft and sweet, I’ll never fucking leave. Unfortunately, the sound of her chair on the sparkly pink floor stops me at the door.

“Thank you,” she says before I reach for the door handle. “For doing this. I know you’ve got a life to live and I know I’m taking a lot of your time.”

Silly fucking girl. My life’s revolved around hers for years.

She just doesn’t know it.

“Goodnight, little doe.”

I don’t stick around to hear her reply.