Page 53 of Mason

“Well,” she says, her voice laced with defiance, “you can turn around, get in your car, and go ask him whatever you want. I have nothing to say to you.”

And fuck me, I could kiss her for that.

I smirk internally, high-fiving her in my head, because this? This is the Shelby I knew was buried somewhere beneath the fear and trauma.

This is the woman David never managed to break.

Saxon tilts his head, watches us carefully, measures every reaction.

“I can’t do that,” he says evenly.

And here it comes.

Shelby beats me to it.

“And why not?” she snaps, challenging him without hesitation.

I force myself to stay still, to keep my hands loose at my sides, to not react—because stepping in now will only make things worse.

And then the proverbial other shoe drops.

“Because David Eddy is missing,” Saxon says, his voice calm, measured, like he’s waiting for a response.

A deliberate pause.

A beat of silence.

Then—

“And we’ve pinged his phone to this location.”

The words hang there, thick, suffocating.

Shelby doesn’t move.

Doesn’t breathe.

My pulse remains steady, my expression blank, but my mind is already racing, calculating, covering ground at a million miles an hour.

Because now?

Now, we have a real fucking problem.

The tension in the air is thick enough to choke on.

Saxon stands there, waiting—watching, his gaze a scalpel peeling back the layers, searching for the weak spot, the unraveling thread that will let him dig beneath the surface to find the rot.

But Shelby doesn’t waver.

She steps forward, slow and deliberate, and drives a single finger into his chest.

Not gently. Hard. Sharp. A dagger disguised as an index finger.

Her voice is low, venomous, laced with something dark and furious.

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” she hisses. “You know he’s been stalking me for years.”

The words slash through the silence, leaving something wounded and festering in their wake.

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