Atonement (Heart of Stone) (16 page)

“This is getting out of hand, Mase. Some bastard needs to
learn to play with their own dick instead of yanking on ours. I am so ready to
deliver a message to some cunt; in fact I’m ready to fucking gut the prick.”

I scowled at Greg; he was furious, his face red and tight
as his eyes glazed over with his wrath and his teeth clenched tensely.

Girls were leaving left, right and centre and at this
rate it would be me, Sam and Greg offering up our bodies to the clients.

“Fucking calm down.”

“What the fuck, Mason. Ava’s got you fucking pussy whipped,
you’re pissing soft…”

His head slammed against the wall as my fingers tightened
around his throat, “Back – the – fuck – off… now!” I warned as I held him effortlessly
against the wall.

He struggled beneath me but he didn’t have a hope in hell
of releasing my hold on him. “You need to learn some fucking respect, Greg.
Calm the fuck down or get the fuck out. Not in my fucking house. You hear me?”

“Fuck you!”

I dragged him from the office, the other men looking down
at the floor as to not embarrass Greg further, as I slammed the door behind me and
stepped out onto the upper hallway to give Greg some respectful privacy.

“I know you’re going through some shit Greg but, and this
is a big but, you continue to shit on me in front of my men then I’ll bring you
down so fucking hard you won’t know what shit hit you first, my anger or my
outrage. This is my fucking house, my fucking business and my…
my
fucking wife you are disrespecting and I won’t have you forget that. You
understand?”

He scoffed but murmured a yes and I released my hold as
Ava walked through the front door and stared up the bannister with puzzlement
as she saw us.

“Go to The Panther, fuck some whore then grab a bottle of
Jack from behind the bar at The Loft and take it in the office and drink yourself
to oblivion. When you come back tomorrow I expect a little more consideration.
Okay?” I told him quietly.

His eyes scanned my face but then he nodded as he took
himself down the stairs, tipping his chin in an acknowledgement to Ava as he
passed, the front door slammed loudly behind him.

Ava’s eyes widened as she looked from the door to me then
back to the door. As she turned back to me I couldn’t help but notice the fiery
glint in her eyes.

Reading her anger, I held up a hand to her, “Let me
finish with the guy’s then I’m all yours.”

She shook her head slowly, “No, now Mason.”

I frowned at the fury rolling off her but she needed to
know her place when the guys were round, “I said later Ava, I won’t be long.”

I turned and entered back in the office. All four men now
occupying the small space regarded me with slight weariness in their eyes. “Is
he…”

The door opened with force, the handle banging off the
wall and bouncing the door back at Ava. She stuck her foot out to stop it
hitting her as she glared at me. “I said now, Mason. You wanna do this here or
out there?”

“What the hell?”

What the hell was wrong with people today? Everyone was
looking for a fucking fight, my wife now one of them.

Her eyes fired with faint fear when she felt my fury
envelope her. I didn’t do this shit in front of the others, Ava knew this so
she was either goading me into an argument or something had seriously fucked
her up and she needed me. Judging from the vehemence seeping from every pore on
her little body it was the former.

“I – said – wait!”

She threw a pile of photos on the desk and all eyes in
the room swept to look.

“Fuck!”
I hissed as I snapped my eyes back up to
hers.

“Oh yeah,
Fuck
.” She was furious, her eyes were
glazed and bright but her fists were clenched and throbbing, her knuckles white
and the skin covering them, tight.

“Ava…” Sam spoke up but Ava shook her head without
casting him a glance.

“No Sam, whatever his excuse is, I need to hear it from
him, not you.”

He nodded once then gestured for the others’ to follow
him out. They did and soon the room contained just Ava and I, and her physical
fury.

“Sit down.” I told her but she stood still, glaring and
chewing on her tiny finger. I knew she was trying to rein in her temper, hell I
even displayed the same look when my fury hit.

“No.” Her eyes darkened and glinted as her chest heaved
heavily, “Why do you do this, Mason, why? Time after fucking time. I asked you…
I asked if there were any other secrets, and you said no, then I receive
these.”

“Sit down, Ava.”

“No!”

I closed my eyes, desperately trying to pull back but
they shot open when she slapped a hand containing one of the photos against my
chest.

“You care to enlighten me? To explain why you’re stood
with a fucking whip in your hand whilst a woman is tied to a fucking wooden
frame with another man in her arse? YOU WANNA EXPLAIN THAT?”

She turned and threw the picture back on the table and
stood firm, her arms folded over her chest as her legs trembled with her anger.

I stalked over to her, pushing her back into the wall as
I forced myself into her, and slapped a hand each side of her head. “Calm the
fuck down, now!”

She scoffed before her teeth sank into her lower lip, the
force of it plumping the surrounding flesh until I thought it would pop.

“Calm down? What the hell, Mason? How would you feel if
you received photos of me with some fucker else?”

My brows lifted and by the flash in her eyes, she
realised what she had just said but she stood her ground, her chest heaving
severely with each anger fuelled inhalation.

I reached out and palmed her cheek but she twisted her
face away, her eyes filling with hurt and pain. I gripped her harder, forcing
her face to mine as I glared at her. “Will you let me explain? If you just calm
the fuck down long enough to listen, then I will fucking tell you.”

“Why do you do this? Why do you always make me feel
guilty for your… your fuck ups?” She swallowed heavily and I could see the
tears pooling in her eyes, she blinked laboriously as she desperately fought
them back.

My heart jerked; the sight of her hurt and upset clenched
both my chest and my gut. “Baby, listen to me, please” I urged softly before
she sighed and slumped against the wall behind her, needing it for both support
and grounding.

“Fine” she stated bluntly but pulled her face back from
my grasp and fuck, if that didn’t anger me as it simultaneously hurt me.

I waited until she crossed her arms again, her lips
twisting into a bid to bite back her distress as she emotionally withdrew from
me. I knew it was a survival instinct in her, her past causing a hard wall
inside her to shield herself from physical and emotional pain.

I exhaled heavily as I picked up the picture she had
thrust at me. “Look at it again,” I insisted as I held it out to her. She
frowned severely, her small forehead crinkling in confusion but I remained
still, holding it towards her in encouragement.

She timidly took it from me and scanned the picture. I
could see the disgust in her expression, whether it was repulsion at me involved
in this or the fact that I was hurting someone I wasn’t sure, but her face
paled slightly as she peered up at me.

I nodded slowly as she took another look. This time her
eyes widened and she pulled the photo closer to her face for a more detailed
inspection.

“Holy shit, is this…?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I held her up when her legs
buckled. “Now you understand, Ava?”

“But… Just shit, Mason. I… Fuck!”

I led her over to the chair and lowered her slowly onto
it, before pouring her a brandy from the bottle in the cupboard and passing it
her.

She downed it in one, her eyes still held on the photo of
the Police Commissioner, our very own Robert Delaney, fucking the Prime
Minister’s right hand man whilst I whipped both of the bastards.

“Leverage Ava, you always get the shit on them anyway
fucking way you can. You should know this by now.”

“But…but I thought it was a woman. Christ, he looks like
a woman.”

“He likes to… dress as a woman. If you look closer this
is taken in the Panther, about four months ago. I was there because it was the
only way I could get the photos when Delaney paid William heftily to turn off
the cameras because of what happened last time.”

She looked up at me, her face still full of bewilderment
and scepticism, “But surely Robert wouldn’t let you in after everything that’s
gone off?”

I smiled slyly, a small laugh lifting my chest, as I
kneeled before her and took her little finger from her mouth before she gnawed
the already tender skin off. “Baby, the man has access to my
social
house
,
he knows each of my girls intimately, and he also thinks that he has me under
his balls, even though I have his in a vice.”

I gave her a wicked smile and her breath caught, the
glint in my eyes turning her on. My woman liked my naughty side, my raw need
for vengeance made her hot and my physical fury made her fucking wet.

“William told him after what had happened with the guy he
fucked and strangled, that the only way he was allowed access into the Panther
again was with an escort, and the only escort available that night – was me.”

I smirked as her eyebrows lifted, “But did he not realise
you were taking pictures?”

Her natural inquisitive side always heated me inside; she
was like a sponge for information, soaking up any details she could get her
hands on. This also made her a quick learner and I had found this out to my
surprise when she had started working for me all those years ago. Her enthusiasm
to learn made my dick throb and her quick uptake on things made my dick throb
harder.

I could remember the first time I took her to the warehouse
to teach her to shoot a gun properly. Her eagerness to learn how to accurately
aim and her demand for me to teach her how to properly clean and reload
correctly, had seen us fucking hard against the wall, her desire to know
everything always finished with my cock buried deep somewhere in her delicious
body, ramming into her hard and intensely as she fucked me back just as violently.

I shook my head at her question, “Nope, it was a micro
camera that was fitted to my shirt.”

She nodded and studied the picture again yet she sighed
as though something else was troubling her.

“What?”

She pursed her lips and cocked her head in thought, “If
you were the only one in that room with them…” I nodded as she looked at me
with narrow eyes, “Then who took these? Because if they were the same ones you
took with the camera on your shirt then you wouldn’t be in the picture, just
Robert and – whatever the hell his name is.”

Holy fuck! She was right. Where the fuck had my brain
gone lately? Greg was right, alongside everything going on, what with Ava and
the bastard after my club, I had gone soft.

I couldn’t hold back the growl as I snatched the photo
from Ava and scrutinised it. “You said William didn’t have the cameras running,
so these aren’t stills from them. Somebody else was in that room, Mason, or at
least in the doorway. They took these to get shit on all three of you.”

“Fuck.”

I stood and paced the floor, my brain hammering to a
burning fury. “How the fuck could I have missed this?” I roared as I slammed a
fist into the wall.

“Hey, hey, you know how you missed it Mason, our lives
for the past few weeks have been bloody gruelling. Beside it still doesn’t make
sense. These photos were sent to Nate, not me.”

My brows hit my hairline, “What the fuck? That fucking
twat!”

“Enough!” she barked vehemently, “Nate is my best friend
and he only showed me because I found out he had kept your secret about Allure.
He told me you were innocent as he gave them me, so don’t start on Nate, he did
you a favour.”

I groaned and rubbed my tired face with my hands.
Suddenly a few months of sleep seemed bloody heavenly. Ava wrapped her tiny
arms around my waist, her fingers barely meeting at my back as she enveloped my
wide frame. “I need in Allure tonight Mason, we need to get this thing rolling
and finished.”

I eyed her hesitantly, still unsure of her working in
that place, especially with all the beatings and – other things. I knew she
could take care of herself but…

“You sure you wanna do this?” I asked her as I cradled
the side of her head with a hand, her soft skin probing my heart with
contentment. Her closeness and the love displayed in her eyes calmed me and
ignited my veins with conflicting amounts of electricity and oxytocin.

She nodded firmly, “I need to do this but I also want to
do this for your girls. Enough is enough Mason, this isn’t fair on them.
They’re paying the price for something they haven’t done to upset some crazy
fucked up nutter and I don’t want anyone else to innocently get caught up in
this.”

“Jesus Christ, you always find ways to amaze me baby,
even after eight years. After everything you’ve gone through, everything your
past destroyed your soul and spirit with, you still manage to push past it and
give everyone else a piece of that damn big heart of yours. I fucking love you,
Ava, fucking never enough.”

She smiled softly as she reached up on her toes and slid
her tongue over my bottom lip tenderly, “That’s because you made my heart big
enough to share.”

I rolled my eyes at her, “One day you’re gonna realise
that the love and tenderness you have, is all you baby, all yours that you made
and grew all by yourself, not by anybody else – you.”

She scrunched her nose deliciously and my cock screamed
in excitement. “Kiss me” I demanded as I slid my hand around her neck and pulled
her into me.