Page 90 of The Ruthless and the Strong

“I had it handled,” I answered coolly. “She wasn’t without protection for the entirety of those two weeks. Even if I had told you, what would you have done?”

“I would have hunted down the fucking bastard and killed him.”

“That is exactly why I didn’t tell you. You can be hot-headed, especially when it comes to Olivia. I didn’t want your actions born from the heat of the moment to come back and ruin your life.”

He scoffed. “I would have been careful.”

“You think it’s easy?”

“What?”

“Taking a life.”

That cooled him. I could see his shoulders sagging a bit.

“You think I don’t think back to those nights?” I asked. “That I don’t sometimes see the blood on my hands, or how I tried to stay away from Lizzie and Hunter, because I’m afraid my actions will have consequences and I don’t want it to affect them?”

“I never thought it was easy.”

“And I never wanted any of it to touch you.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore,” Mason said. “I don’t need my big brother to always protect me.”

I smiled a little at that, but there was nothing humorous about it. “You’re probably right. You don’t need me to protect you anymore. But I would do it, all the same. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. I wish you had left this alone and gone about your life.”

He scoffed. “Like that’s possible. How did you do it?”

I let out a small sigh. “Do you really want to know?” When he didn’t say anything, I looked straight ahead in the bright sunlight at the busy streets, despite the early hour. “I came up to visit him in Wyoming a week after. He wasn’t home and had left his front door unlocked. I went inside. I found all the pictures he had taken of Olivia from his trips. I also found some ropes, a large hunting knife, and a bottle of chloroform, all placed next to her photos.”

When he didn’t say anything to that, I continued. “I went home after that, planned a fishing trip with Nicolas Rockwell, the one who owned the security firm, and then… I went back to Wyoming, and I forced him to slit his own wrists in the woods.”

Mason turned to me then, and even I could sense his disbelief behind those sunglasses. “How?”

“By explaining to him in detail what I would do to him if he forced my hand. I would have done it, too. It would have been harder to explain to the authorities that I had nothing to do with his death, but not impossible.” And I wouldn’t have just left his body there in the woods. I would have hidden it better. I shook away the dark thought and looked down my hands. Memories of his warm blood in my hands when he grabbed onto them after gasping out his breath haunted me.

“So this person, Nicolas Rockwell. He knows what you did?” Mason asked, taking me away from the memories.

I nodded, not saying any more.

Then Mason let out a shaky breath before he turned to me, taking his sunglasses off. I didn’t know why I was so surprised when I found his blue eyes rimmed red. My blue eyes. He had my blue eyes. Blue eyes we hadn’t gotten from either of our parents. He had always been more than just my family. For a short while, he had been my whole world. The little boy who had followed me around wherever I went. The little boy I had sworn I would always protect.

“Fuck. Thank you,” he breathed out.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him to me and I let my little brother bury his face in my neck while he tried to get his emotions under control.

Fifteen minutes later, we drove home, and the air felt lighter between us than it had in a long time, and the weight on my shoulders didn’t feel like it was dragging me down anymore.

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