Page 166 of Mason

Like I just took a match to the only good thing we ever had…

And watched it burn to the ground.

43

MASON

I’ve always been a weapon.

Clean. Purposeful. Built for a single function: to destroy. It’s what I do best.

Give me a name, a location, and a reason—and I’ll end it. Efficient. No hesitation. No conscience. Just steel and fire.

But now?

Now I’m something worse.

I’m unused and underutilized. I’m aimless.

Like a loaded gun rusting in a drawer—forgotten, dangerous, and waiting to go off in the wrong hands.

Shelby’s absence doesn’t just ache. It devours.

A hollowing that started in my chest and is now rotting through every inch of me. I try to tell myself I’m fine. That I’m working. That I’m functioning.

But I haven’t slept in five days.

I haven’t eaten in longer than I care to count.

Whiskey coats my throat so often it tastes like water now—no burn, no bite. Just something to drown in. Expensive or cheap, it all does the same thing: numbs the edge of the grief that never dulls, the rage I have nowhere to bury.

Because the man who hurt her?

He’s already dead.

And I made sure he earned every second of it.

I carved fear into him with the patience of a man who knew there would be no satisfaction at the end. Every crack of bone, every rasp of breath was forher.

For the broken sound of her voice when she told me she didn’t feel safe in her own skin. For the way she flinched when I touched her. For the bruises he left on her body and the ones I couldn’t see beneath. For her scars.

Scars she may carry a lifetime.

He begged. I didn’t care.

I didn’t grant him mercy until the last defiant spark in his eyes turned to terror. Not until heunderstood.

And still... it wasn’t enough.

Because she left me. She packed her bag and she left.

And now I’m left behind—breathing, bleeding, rotting. A man with nothing but fists and silence.

I throw myself into work because it’s the only thing I still know how to do. I memorize numbers, routes, shipments. I handle security checks I used to delegate without blinking. I’m everywhere, and still, I’mnowhere.

The men keep their distance. They know better.

One of the new kids fumbled a handoff last week. I slammed him against the warehouse wall so hard he couldn’t breathe. His head bounced off the concrete, and his legs buckled.

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