Page 178 of Mason

The first newsalert hits before we’re even halfway to the rendezvous point.

I glance down at my phone as Jayson weaves through traffic like the city's just another battlefield. Headlights blur past us. Sirens wail in the distance. The whole city feels like it's pulsing under the surface—restless, electric, a beast stirring in its sleep.

On my screen, the headlines scream in bold.

The newsfeeds are spinning fast—wild theories, misinformation, shaky footage of fire tearing through the prison like it was built from gasoline. The cops are scrambling. The media’s foaming at the mouth. The public’s already moved on to the next horror story.

And Ghost?

Ghost is free.

Alive.

Breathing.

Moving toward a new life we’re about to build for him.

Jayson glances at me. “You think they’ll buy it?”

“They already have,” I say. “They’ve got a body. Burned just enough. Right tattoos, wrong heartbeat. He died the way they wanted him to. End of story.”

Jayson grins. “Until he writes a new one.”

Exactly.

Ahead of us, the night stretches wide and dark. The city lights thin out as we push past the edge of the city, toward the old marina where Scar’s men cleared out a holding house just for this.

Brando’s already en route, somewhere behind us in a matte-black SUV that blends into the night like a phantom. Kanyan took a separate route—he doesn’t like convoys, doesn’t like patterns. Scar’s coming too, but he'll be the last to arrive. That’s his way—let everyone else play their hand, then slide in with the ace.

I tap open a message from Kanyan.

IN POSITION. ETA 10. DOORS CLEARED.

Good.

Everything’s in motion.

And me? I can’t stop thinking about what’s next.

Ghost didn’t just escape—he did us a favor when he took down that monster, Altin Kadri. The authorities are still scrambling, trying to piece together what happened to the Albanian kingpin. Let them wonder. All they’ll ever get is the official story: an allergic reaction. It’s clean, it’s simple… and it’s just believable enough to bury the truth.

He didn’t just do us a favor.

He erased a problem.

We owe him. Not just for Altin. But for what Ghostis.

Useful.

Efficient.

Detached.

A tool with no allegiance but purpose—and now that purpose belongs to us.

We’re not just freeing a man. We’re reforging a weapon.

The next step? Getting him a new face.

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