Page 31 of Mason

My jaw locks back and forth before I answer. “A victim.”

Scar glances at Kanyan, and the look that passes between them tells me everything I need to know. There’ll be no recriminations for what happened here today—if these men understand anything, it’s the pain of a woman held hostage to the power of a man.

“Torch it,” Scar says.

Kanyan nods, already on the same page. “Call the Undertaker,” he tells me, and now we’re really all on the same page. The Cleaner will remove the body and the Undertaker will dispose of it.

The words settle between us. The weight of them. The finality.

I turn, looking back at the house through the window. Shelby stands in the living room, arms wrapped around herself, watching. She’s still trying to process all of this, still looking for the logic in something that has none.

She sees us talking in hushed voices, making plans for the remains of her life.

She needs to slip into survival mode, otherwise she won’t make it.

I head back inside. She tenses the moment I step through the door, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her dress.

She swallows. “What happens now?”

I watch her, weighing how much truth she can take right now.

My jaw tightens. “We clean it up.”

She blinks. Her lips part slightly, the words barely forming before they get stuck somewhere in her throat. “Clean it up.”

I nod. The cleaners are already on the way.

They’ll get rid of any trace that her ex was ever here. Like this is just a mess to be swept away.

Not the destruction of the thing that’s hurt her the most.

12

SHELBY

Idon’t understand what’s happening.

One minute, I’m shaking so hard I can barely stand, my breath coming in short, uneven gasps as I try to process the weight of what I’ve done. The next, Mason is on the phone, his voice calm, clipped, issuing commands to men I don’t know—people who have the power tofix this, whatever the hell that means.

I barely hear what he says. My pulse is still thundering in my ears. The copper scent of blood hangs thick in the air, burning the back of my throat. Every few seconds, my eyes flicker back to David’s lifeless body sprawled across my living room floor, his head at an unnatural angle, his mouth slightly parted, as if he’s still mid-sentence.

It feels like he’s stillwatchingme.

The realization turns my stomach, nausea threatening to choke me. I wrap my arms around myself, fingers digging into my skin as if I can somehow hold myself together.

Then the headlights appear.

Two black SUVs glide down my street, smooth and deliberate, their engines barely making a sound. The doors opensimultaneously, and two men step out, moving up my driveway with quiet purpose.

They aren’t like Mason.

Mason is sharp, controlled, his intensity crackling just beneath the surface like a live wire. These men? They move like wolves in the stillness of the night, silent and sure-footed, but there’s somethingoffabout them.

They carry two black doctor’s bags, like they just walked out of an emergency room instead of pulling up to a crime scene.

Despite the way they move, they are as unassuming as two men could possibly be.

Short. Rotund. Bespectacled.

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