Page 50 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Three days after his death, I anonymously sent in the videos to the police anyway.

My only regret about this whole thing was having brought Mason along with me in the first place and letting him witness all of that. I learned my lesson.

“I saw you,” he said suddenly, taking me out of the dark thoughts.

My heart raced. “What?”

“I saw you. On Lizzie’s wedding day.”

“Oh.” For a second, I had thought he meant he saw me with Lorenzo. But that wouldn’t have been possible.

“Yeah, oh. I always wondered why you never dated anyone seriously. I thought it was because of Olivia. And, no, I’m not blaming her. I’m happy you were there for her, especially when I hadn’t been. Especially with all that I had done.”

I looked away. Mason and Olivia’s history was a complicated one. Their relationship had started while he was keeping secrets from her. I shrugged. “It’s all in the past now.”

“Is it?” I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. His and Olivia’s history with each other, or mine and Lizzie’s.

“I thought it would be a good thing now that she’s back home.”

“You don’t think that anymore?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. But you’ve been off since. So perhaps she’s not so good for you.”

I let out a dry and humorless laugh. “It’s the other way around, brother.”

“Why?”

When I didn’t answer him, he placed his glass down on the floor, and looked out at the gym. “Because of what you’ve done?”

When I didn’t say anything, he let out a small sigh. “I don’t think you’re a bad man for that.”

When I stayed silent, he continued. “You did what you had to do to protect me. To protect all those boys he had hurt, and all those boys he would have continued to hurt. But sometimes, I wish you hadn’t done it.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “Because no matter how much you want to deny it, that night changed you.”

“Maybe it didn’t change me. Maybe it just made me become more of the man I always would have been, no matter what.”

“Really? You really think that? Is that why you stayed away from Lizzie?”

I looked at him then. “What do you mean?”

“When did you realize it? And don’t say it happened at her wedding.”

“When did I realize what?” I asked, even though I knew what he was asking.

“When did you realize you had feelings for her?”

I looked down at my hands clenched around the glass. Mason looked at, too, and I forced myself to loosen my grip on it.

“Judging by your silence,” he said, “it was longer than you liked or even wanted to admit to anyone, let alone yourself.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t act stupid, Max. It doesn’t suit you.”

I place my glass down, and searched around in my gym bag for something, anything, to keep me from having this conversation. I didn’t want to get in the when or the how of when it happened. It didn’t matter.

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