Page 107 of Mason

Pain is everywhere.

In my ribs, where I took a hard knock against the van’s wall.

In my temple, where my head hit the floor of the van too many times to count.

In my mouth, where the sharp metallic taste of blood coats my tongue after I bit it out of desperation.

But I stay silent.

I let them argue, my ears straining past the pounding in my skull.

Maybe this is the crack I need.

Maybe this is how I survive.

“What does it matter?”

The new arrival—the contact they’re handing me off to—murmurs, his voice too even, too calm.

It’s the kind of calm that makes my skin crawl.

The kind of calm that means danger.

“You had a job to do. It doesn’t matter who she belongs to.”

The driver lets out a sharp breath, but it’s his partner, the one who was always the jumpier of the two, that really starts to crumble.

“Fuck, man,” he spits, running a shaky hand through his greasy hair. “Itdoesmatter. This was supposed to be a clean job. We grab her. We hand her over. No one was supposed to know our faces.”

“No one will.”

The contact steps closer, and I get a good look at him. Dead eyes. Hollow and bottomless.

The kind of man who’s seen too much, done too much, and feels nothing about it anymore.

I’ve seen that look before.

In David.

“That’s not the fucking point.”

The driver takes a step back, shaking his head. “Mason Ironside isn’t a man you mess with, man. He’s going to eviscerate us when he finds us.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried about Ironside,” the contact cuts in, bored.

Something shifts in the air.

The jumpier one looks at the driver, an unspoken tension crackling between them.

Doubt.

They don’t want to do this.

Not anymore.

Mason’s name changed everything.

I bite the inside of my cheek, forcing myself to stay still. My wrists ache, my fingers numb from how tightly the ropes are bound.

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