Mason_ Inked Reapers MC(1)(54)
“What about Mason? If he comes back and you're gone—”
“Mason is a grown man. He’ll understand. I have to get away from Jayson, and Mason shouldn’t have to give up his whole life just for me. I can’t have other people getting hurt because of me either.” With a new determination I pushed away from the table. My phone vibrated again, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to hear from him, I couldn’t. It was better to keep my distance. To do what needed to be done without worrying about him.
“He’s going to find you.” She followed me to the front door. “Mason will find you and he’s going to be pissed.”
“No, he won’t. Because you aren't going to tell anyone what I said. Besides. I didn't say I was leaving. I just said it was a possibility.” I tried to play it off, but she only sighed and pulled me into a hug. “Lucas will kick my ass if he finds out I didn't stop you.”
“You tried. Real hard.” I smiled at her.
“Wait here.” She ran back into the house. Drawers opened and closed, then she was jogging back to me. She pulled my hand out and slapped a wad of bills into it. I tried to shove back to her but she held tight. “No, take this. You aren’t going to get far at all without cash, and Jayson won't let you near any of his. You’ll pay me back.” She pulled me into another hug.
Sure I would. I’d pay her back for everything, so long as I lived long enough to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MASON
“Man, let it go. She’ll get in touch when she gets in touch.” Tick shoved my shoulder when I checked my phone again. Lucy hadn’t answered my last three text messages. We’d be home in a day and I wanted to be sure she was ready. Things were going to be happening quickly once we got back, and she needed to be prepared. How could I keep her safe if she wasn’t listening to me?
Maybe Jayson took her phone. Maybe he figured out it was me texting and not Susanne from the diner. There were a lot of maybes going on and no answers.
Julio wanted an answer from us, a promise to get the job done. He’d presented it to us as though we were actually being given a choice. As though if we said no, he’d just give us a pat on the back and send us on our way home. Right. Tick tried getting a hold of Marcus, but he wouldn’t take the call. That fucker. He put us right in the middle of his harebrained scheme and hadn't bothered to even give us a fucking choice.
“You realize, as soon as that bullet gets lodged in that fat fuck’s face, his boys are going to come hunting us. We need to be far away, somewhere we aren’t seen. If we just walk up to him and take care of it, we’re dead. And Massy will kill me if I get dead down here.”
“I wouldn’t be thrilled about it either.” I ran my hand through my hair, shoving it away from my face. “You think Marcus knows we want out and this is his way? I mean, he has to know he could be sacrificing us down here. Unless he’s got a deal with Bernardo. I mean, what if he’s playing them both? What if he sent us ’cause he thinks we’ll back out, or won’t get it done and Bernardo can swoop in get rid of Julio? In the meantime, Julio gets rid of us for failing.”
“You are giving Marcus too much credit in the thinking department.” Tick typed into his phone again.
“Why hasn’t he gotten back to either of us?” I held out my phone to him. I sent several messages as well, nothing.
“I don't know. But I do know if we don't handle this for Julio by tomorrow night, like he said, you and I aren’t getting back in that van and heading home. We’ll be in a few different garbage bags headed for some nasty swamp land.”
“If we do this, we’re dead. If we don’t, we’re dead.” I summed up our situation while I searched the room for a beer. A bucket of ice and a few bottles of local brew had been brought up after lunch.
“If we do it right, we’ll be home by breakfast on Monday.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tossed his phone to the side.
“Okay, how do we do it right?” I popped the cap off a beer and took a long swig. “You and I haven't exactly been executioners before. The only guy I fucking blew away was coming at me with a knife. It was do or die.”
“You make us sound like a bunch of pussies,” he argued.
“No. We are the guys who set up the runs, who make sure the fucktards running the shit don’t mess up. We’ve never had to pull our gun on anyone because they never gave us reason to. Marcus didn’t used to go around killing people,” I pointed out. Taking a life for the sake of taking a life held no appeal to me, but you fuck with me or my family—you won’t be seeing the sun rise again. That sat with me just fine.