Page 44 of Sweetheart

He just hadn’t been expecting to be ambushed. With his pants down!

“Mason!” Levi reached for him. “Run! I smell metal and gunpowder and—”

Levi broke off as a shot rang out. Then he was falling. Mason caught Levi as he slumped. Blood coated Levi’s front, the tree, and Mason’s face.

“No!” Mason wailed.

That was when the monster of his nightmares stepped into view.

“Hurry,” his father barked. “Grab them both. Others are coming.”

Mason let go of Levi as he tried to bring his weapon up.

A sharp pain exploded in the back of his head before everything went dark. The last thing he saw was the hole in Levi’s throat.

* * * * *

Mason

He woke slowly, already knowing that something was terribly wrong. His head pounded, his wrists ached, and he could smell blood. Blinking open his eyes, Mason found himself hanging from his wrists in a damp cramped room.

Moving his head nearly made his vision whiten with pain but Mason forced himself to look at the man hanging beside him. Tears filled his eyes. Levi.

They’d hung Levi’s lifeless body beside him.

Both of them were hanging from an exposed beam in the ceiling of some place that Mason couldn’t even imagine where they were being held. His father had found him. Worse, his father had killed who Mason was certain was his mate.

They’d never had the talk that Mason had been planning on.

Levi hadn’t known that Mason had been prepared to accept him as a mate. They would have had an entire lifetime together. Now all that Mason had were a few stolen moments to look back on before he died. And he had no doubt that he was going to die. He’d taken a chance escaping from his father but now it was time to pay the price.

He hoped Jason got away. Not seeing his brother there gave Mason a small bit of relief. Mason shouldn’t have called his brother to him so now all he could do was pray that no one else was entangled in this mess.

Not knowing how long ago he’d been taken, Mason could only wait until his father showed his face.

Luckily, Mason knew how his father worked. Even though Mason couldn’t see much in the small, cramped room, it didn’t mean his father wasn’t watching. His father had always watched his prey. It was part of the rules he’d tried to beat into Mason and Jason.

All he could do was hang around and wait. Literally. His wrists and shoulders ached but that didn’t compare to the pain in his head. What the fuck had they hit him with?

Closing his eyes, Mason pulled on every memory he had of Levi. The talks they had on that stupid app. The first time that he’d seen Levi standing in the doorway of the big house with sweat dripping down his chest. The last private moment that they’d shared before Levi was taken from him.

Grief threatened to overwhelm him, but Mason wouldn’t give in to that feeling. He might not make it to tomorrow, but he was going to make sure that he fought his father and made the other man regret coming after him. Mason had a few tricks up his sleeve. He wouldn’t just die quietly.

He had no idea how long he waited until the door opened, letting in the first wave of fresh air in hours.

Mason lifted his head to glare at the older man that walked up in front of him.

Mason looked just like his father.

It was hard to look into the coldness of his father’s eyes. “Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

His father Clint sneered. “Always so disrespectful. I should have killed you and your worthless twin when you were still in your mother’s stomach.”

It wasn’t the first time that Mason had heard those words from his father. He laughed. “But you didn’t.”

Clint turned to where Levi hung. “I thought this one would be harder to kill.” He pushed Levi’s shoulder, making Levi’s body swing.

Son of a bitch! “Don’t touch him!”

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