Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
“Shut up,” Mason wrangled out in a menacing warning.
It was enough to silence Sabrina. Her face went blank. She blinked a few times before she tipped her head back and laughed. She laughed and laughed and no one could say anything to stop her.
What she just acknowledged was—I didn’t have the words.
She took away a person’s life.
“How?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was animalistic. Wounded.
Her laughter dried up abruptly. She gave me a slow blink, assessing me calmly before a pitying grin took over her face. “How did we get him to take his own life, you mean?”
I flinched, hearing it put into words again.
She migrated to me, one step. “I never thought he’d do it, not that quickly. We hoped. It’d been in the works, but then we heard the news that the great Mason Kade was retiring and his family was moving back to Fallen Crest. It was all lining up. The time was perfect. James was sixty-eight. Guess how many members from The Network killed themselves from the email you leaked?”
What?
She leaned into me, breathing on me as she whispered, “Sixty-eight. Sixty-eight people took their lives because of something you did. That’s your destruction. One email got sixty-eight people killed. It was only fitting if we sent James the same type of email, right? Guess how many emails we needed to send him?” The ends of her mouth curved up in an impish grin. Her eyes were sparkling. She was loving this. “We sent him sixty-eight emails. Though, I don’t know if he opened them all, but we felt it was symbolic. Sixty-eight people died. James was sixty-eight. Sixty-eight emails, all laying out how someone that terrified Mason’s daddy was coming to hurt his family. Course, we made it about the company, but Park helped me with the wording. There was an undercurrent threat that Kai Bennett was coming to take his family away.” She cast a look over her shoulder to him, her tone turning coy. Almost seductive. “It worked. We couldn’t believe it.”
My mind was spinning. Sixty-eight people killed themselves because of the email we leaked? That… Was that on me? The information on there had been their secrets, but it was leaked to the other members. We only wanted to have them turn on Park, which they did. We were told they did. Clearly they hadn’t stopped there.
I tore from the room, going to the bathroom across the hallway.
I killed those people. Their lives were on me.
I landed on my knees in front of the toilet and I spewed.
I couldn’t stop.
It kept coming up.
Self-disgust.
Self-loathing.
Self-hate.
I killed all of those people.
I was the reason James was dead.
This was all about me.
51
MASON
Sam fled the room, shoving open the door.
“Go.”
Beltraine was speaking to me. He nodded in the direction my wife just went before giving a bob toward Sabrina’s direction. “We got her. She’s not going anywhere. Go take care of your woman.”
She was in the bathroom across the hallway, puking.
“Babe.” I sank down next to her, pulling her hair back and ran a hand over her shoulders.
What did I say in this situation? Her sister was a psychopath. If it was true, then people died because of something we did. I knew Sam would carry that, no matter what I said.
I sighed.
I wished Logan was here.
“Those people are dead because of me.” She stopped vomiting. She hiccupped, tears falling from her eyes.
“No,” I growled. Bending forward, I hauled her up and moved her so she was on my lap, sitting sideways. She could completely rest against me. As she did, a shudder went through her body and I smoothed a hand over her hair, down her arm, her back, and I repeated. I’d repeat that forever if it made her feel better.
“People died,” she whispered, burrowing into my chest.
“No. Fuck that. No.”
She tensed. “Mason.”
“No,” I snapped.
She looked up, surprised.
I looked down, met her gaze and I hated that look in her eyes. That her sister, of all fucking people, put that defeated and self-loathing look there. Fuck Sabrina. Fuck Garrett. He let his daughter become open and vulnerable to fucking Park Sebastian.
He was in prison. We helped put him there.
Why the fuck was he able to resurrect himself to fuck with us again?
“All those assholes in The Network did shit that put them on that blackmail list. We leaked it, yes, but we didn’t do whatever their secrets were. We didn’t put ourselves in the position to become blackmailed by The Network in the first place. I don’t care. I know you do and I want to be sensitive, but I don’t give a fuck. They were trying to ruin our lives. They were trying to pull us in and they would’ve controlled us for the rest of our fucking lives. We fought back. That’s what we did. We leaked their own shit to themselves and we did it from a piece of shit rapist. He tried to rape you. He tried to end my football career. He tried to get Logan expelled from college. Jesus Christ. Are you really feeling bad that other people did what they did for whatever reason? You don’t know if it’s true and you don’t know the circumstances. None of it. Maybe it was shame? Or maybe someone else in The Network was going after them too? Who the fuck knows. That’s not on you, that’s all I know.”