Page 79 of Mase
My pulse rushes at the concern in their eyes, then my gaze latches on to Gia’s, and she looks away, but I don’t miss the tears shimmering in her eyes. I swallow hard. “Where is she?”
“I’m waiting on an exact location,” Owen tacks on. “She has secrets, Mase.” The confirmation of my thoughts has the sound of my heartbeat ringing out in my ears.
I drag a hand over my head. “I know that.” My chest feels like it’s closing in on me.
“I hacked her phone,” Owen confirms, and I nod. I knew he would; I wanted him to. When I first discovered Summer was pregnant, I was convinced she was lying to me. Why wouldn’t I when I’d almost become susceptible to women’s lies?
“She did theIndulgencejob to get money for college.” Again, I nod at his words. She told me as much, and I don’t blame her for not wanting to create a future on my father’s dime. Owen looks at me pointedly. “What she didn’t tell you is that she’s being blackmailed.”
I flinch, because what the fuck?
Raw anger surges through me. “By who?”
“Why would someone blackmail her?” Shaw scoffs, and I sneer in his direction.
“It appears she was being blackmailed because your father promised her hand in marriage to a business associate of his. He signed a lucrative contract. I’m guessing she’s paying him off.” Owen stares at me as fury ravishes through me.
“Who?”
“Gareth.”
That sleazy old bastard. The thought of him touching her has bile rising in my throat.
My poor girl was selling herself to get away from this life she desperately hated. She must have been terrified of her future. My stomach twists at the thought of the pain and anguish she must have endured. How utterly alone she would have felt.
The fact that my father set these wheels in motion doesn’t surprise me. He was fucked up and would do anything to profit at someone else’s expense. If he weren’t dead already, I’d happily torture the old bastard. But I’ll take that wrath and hatred out on his good friend Gareth. This isn’t the Mafia with arranged marriages in exchange for businessagreements, but they can sure as hell help us end people like him.
“There’s more.” Owen glances around the room. “Oscar looked into this Gareth guy. It appears he and your father were into some fucked-up shit.” The look on his face says it all as it twists in disgust. “They raped women, Mase. Then Gareth would dispose of them.”
My jaw drops open.
“He killed them?” Shaw asks.
“Yeah, and your father would encourage him to do it.” Owen eyes me, as if waiting for a reaction.
My heart falls to my feet, and I wonder what Summer was aware of—definitely more than me. Was her mother a victim? “I don’t know what Summer knew or saw,” I breathe out, and hurt coils around my heart. She’s in real fucking danger.
“I think it’s a high possibility they had something to do with Summer’s mother’s death, and probably why they had cameras throughout the mansion.” Owen’s face twists. “Oscar’s looking into the footage now.”
Holy shit.
That’s fucked up.
“There’s also not a complete trail on the phone,” Owen says.
I grit my teeth. “What does that even mean?”
“They deleted the messages?” Shaw asks.
Owen shakes his head. “There’re not a lot of messages of interest and not a single one of them from Gareth. I’m surmising there was a middleman, someone she knew and spoke with on a regular basis, but their name remains listed as unknown. I’m also struggling to track it.”
Slowly, pieces of the puzzle start slotting together. Someone must’ve known what was happening in the house.
Owen’s phone pings, and when he lifts his head, his eyes bore into mine.
“Hugh knows something!” I snipe out before he has achance to speak. Realization sits heavily in my stomach. The bastard has to know something; he quite literally knows everything.
“He does,” Owen confirms.
