Page 56 of Bears Not Included

“My grandparents are not in the Ursid Syndicate. They’d opted out because they didn’t believe in the violence or how they handled him would have been different. My mother managed to escape the trailer with me. I suffered some burns to my back, and because he was so drunk, he couldn’t come after us.

“My grandparents, with the help of family friends, put us on a plane to DC, and that’s where my mother met the man who raised me as his son, Steven Blackstone. I didn’t know he wasn’t my real father until six months ago,” Mason says, then pauses. By now, we’ve attracted the attention of quite a few people in the park, and considering Mason is driving a sports car, it was bound to happen.

“Somehow or another, he managed to find me. He wanted my forgiveness, but what he really wanted was money.” Mason turns to me and faces me full-on.

“I want you to know, Livia, that when I come inside you, it’ll be me 100% and nothing of that man there, do you understand?”

He delivers his words so fiercely that I feel them in my soul.

“Do you understand?” He demands, and I drown in his mesmerizing eyes, and my breath flutters at the perfect symmetry of his face.

“Yes,” I say, not even knowing what I’m saying yes to, my heart hammering in my chest now for reasons I’m also unfamiliar with.

Seemingly satisfied with my reply, Mason nods and then takes off while I review my whole day in a series of slides that blitz through my mind. I almost got murdered. Mason showed me who his real father was.

“You’re nothing like that,” I say out loud, when it should have been a private thought. And why would I think that? This man kidnapped me and married me against my will, and yet, I truly believe my words.

“You’re saying I’m nothing like an unkempt fucking sleazebag, dipsomaniac in soiled underwear, and ten years’ worth of unwashed hair?” Mason turns to me and grins.

“Exactly,” and I can’t help but smile back at him.

“Yeah, I definitely smell better too.”

“You do.”

“You think I smell nice?”

“Well, not anymore now that you mentioned it,” I say with a straight face, and Mason chuckles. It’s so surreal to me. Not even an hour ago, he slit a man’s throat to save my life. And then he showed me who his father was, just to let me know he’s nothing like that.

“I like the way you smell too, pretty girl. The way you taste. The way your pussy hugs my cock. The way you come for the three of us.”

A swift and overriding flush settles on my skin, inflaming my nerves. My breath falters, and a quiver starts between my legs. I shake my head and douse every physiological response in me.

Kayla told me she was picking up all the stuff I needed to escape tomorrow. It’s only a matter of time now.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Livia

It’s okay. I’m okay.

I’ve been telling myself that the entire morning while Veronica insists I take the day off from the diner. She knows what happened with Lucky Law and thinks I need time to process things.

I don’t.

But my mind has other thoughts. “Am I only going to see them when they babysit me at work?” It’s a strange question to ask, but I tell myself I need to know their whereabouts. If so, and if I see Deacon today, then it would have been three days since I’ve last seen Callen. Not that it matters. It doesn’t.

“Yes, until after the ritual, that is,” Veronica says. “Once that is done, you’ll be having dinner with them every night, and you’ll be moved to the third floor, which is just a bedroom that takes up the whole floor. You’ll be sharing that bedroom with your husbands.”

I can’t get to that point. Whatever the ritual entails, it can never happen.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in today?” Veronica mistakes the sudden paleness in my face for being overwrought after yesterday’s events. She doesn’t know I can’t be near them. I can’t share a room with them.

“You’ll have enough time to rest and regroup, darling.”

I shake my head. If I stop, every single thing that happened to me will come crashing down around me, and I’ll have a complete, irreparable nervous breakdown. I don’t have the time for that right now. So I’m showered, changed into my waitress uniform, and on my way to do my Sunday lunch shift at Jimmy’s.

But reality bombards me from all sides. I acted out of character again yesterday with Mason. I’m not like that—I continue making excuses for myself. The truth is, I was scared, and Mason made me feel safe, and the closer I got to him, the safer I felt until I needed him inside me, stoking that strange feeling all three of them are capable of evoking inside my body.

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