Page 23 of Worth It All

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Should I be?”

“Smart kid.”

He smiles. “I take after my mom.”

I like this kid.

Marco approaches me and leans in, talking quietly. “Hey, dude, I’m not cool with kidnapping a fucking kid. This is fucked.”

I nod, then pull my gun from my waistband and blow his fucking brains out. Charlie screams and bolts. With a sigh, I chase after him, knowing he can’t get away.

“You don’t have to fear me, son.”

He tugs relentlessly on the door but to no avail. It won’t open without the code.

“You just killed Marco!” he yells, tears streaming down his face.

“Yes, but does that really make you sad? He kidnapped you, after all.”

He wipes his tears, thinking of what I said. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

“But I did. Now, are you going to be a man about it or keep crying like a little bitch?”

“I’m not a bitch,” he mumbles, still sniffling.

“Didn’t think so. Come here. Let’s get to know each other.”

“Mason’s going to come for me.”

“I doubt that. He doesn’t know where you are. No one does.”

39

Mason

There’s no sense in telling Davina to calm down. She’s hysterical and I can’t say I blame her. Collin took Charlie right out of my damn clubhouse. No, he didn’t walk in and personally do it. It had to be Marco. There’s no other explanation.

“Davina, baby, I need you to listen to me.”

“We have to find him! We have to find him, Mason!”

“Listen to me. We planned for this.”

Her breath catches. “What does that mean?”

“Me and Charlie. We planned for something like this to happen. We planted an air tag in his shoes. Collin won’t see it. We’ll track him and he’ll lead us right to Collin.”

She frowns but that frown quickly turns into anger. “You used my son as bait?”

“That’s not what happened.”

“How could you do that? What? Collin wasn’t going for me being the bait so you decided to use Charlie instead?”

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