Page 99 of Mason

It hits my sweet spot.

I let out a slow breath, forcing my face to stay blank, to act like I don’t feel the thick, growing tension in the air.

Let them crumble.

Let them turn against each other.

It’s the best fucking chance I have.

“He’s going to kill us,” the driver mutters, his hands gripping the steering wheel like he’s about to fucking faint.Great, if they don’t kill me, a car accident will.

The passenger is still staring at the phone, his chest rising and falling too fast.

Then—

He turns to look at me with wild eyes.

“How close are you to him?” His voice is curt and angry, his grip tight and violent. “How fucking important are you to Mason Ironside?”

I don’t answer.

Because I don’t know.

Because it doesn’t matter.

I can see it in his wild eyes—the decision is already made.

They’re dead men walking.

And they know it.

The glass partitionseparating me from my kidnappers is thin, smudged, probably bulletproof—but not soundproof. And right now, they’re losing their goddamn minds.

“We shouldn’t have fucking taken her, man!”

The driver’s voice is raw, laced with that panic that only creeps into a man’s throat when he realizes he’s already dead and his body just hasn’t caught up yet.

The one in the passenger seat twists around, his bloodshot eyes barely visible in the dim glow of the passing streetlights. He looks at me like I’m a live grenade.

Good. Be afraid of me. Be very afraid of what’s coming.

“We can give her back,” the driver snaps, his hands white-knuckled on the wheel. He takes another reckless turn, and my body slams into the wall again, my cheek scraping against metal. “If Mason Ironside is involved in this, I want no part of it, man.”

Mason Ironside.

I know his name. I know his power, the way he moves through life like nothing can touch him.

But I realize, in this moment, I never really knew who the fuck he was.

I know he has money—insane money. The kind that lets a man make a phone call and have a car delivered within the hour. The kind that means he doesn’t think twice about slipping a hundred-dollar bill to a waitress for nothing more than greeting him at the front desk.

I know he has contacts. The kind of people whose calls he takes at all hours, stepping away with a cigarette hanging from his lips and a look in his eyes that is always just a little too dark.

I know he is an important man.

It’s obvious in the way people regard him, in the way conversations stop when he enters a room. The way men half his age listen when he talks, eager to hold on to any wisdom he is willing to impart.

But I never reallyasked.

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