The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (282 page)

“Then go get him.”

“I can’t, it’s too late.”

“No,” she whispered back, her voice gentle but full of authority. “It’s never too late. It
was
never too late. It’s time to begin again.”

“He . . . he found me with someone else.” I told her and winced, readying myself for her anger.

“And you found him with Rebecca . . .”

“How do you know about that?” I gasped.

“It doesn’t matter how I know, what I’m saying is, you found him with Rebecca, yet you still want him. You’re sat there, readying yourself for getting him back. I can guarantee, even if you slept with the devil himself, my dad will want you back just as hard.”

“I’m not so sure, Katie.”

“Well I am.” She said urgently, “Don’t let the doubts ruin this. Don’t let the what ifs destroy your chance at happiness, mom. You deserve this, you deserve to be happy, and you deserve my dad a lot more than you think you do.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay?”

“Yes, okay.”

Her sob clenched my heart making me realise just how much I had put everyone through because of my denial. “Go, go.”

“I’m going,” I laughed as I stood up and pulled on my pumps. “I’m going.”

“I love you!” she shouted before she disconnected our call.

I was still laughing as I pulled open the front door, but that ceased pretty quick when I found who was stood on my doorstep.

“Rebecca?”

She stood rigid and tense, her whole body giving off waves of animosity. Her pupils were wide and animated, her nose constantly twitched as she sniffed frequently but it was the glare in her expression that made me strengthen my stance, my fists squeezing tight in readiness as the rage bubbled in preparation.

“Just tell me one thing?” She asked as she cocked her head sinisterly, her eyes refusing me any break away from her. “What do you have that I don’t?”

I stared at her in confusion but confusion soon turned to horror when I watched the two men slide from their car on the edge of the road and race up my path, one knocking Rebecca unconscious instantly as another grinned at me manically before he winked and struck the side of my temple.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Terror

Mason

I CRINGED AS my car wheels squealed when I pulled up outside the cottage. It was late and I knew Ava’s neighbours were far from happy at late night noise, yet right at that very moment I didn’t care. Noise or no noise, I was there to get my wife, to haul her over my shoulder and lock her down in my apartment until she saw sense, until she realised how much I loved her . . . and how much she loved me.

She was mine. She had always been mine, it was about time she knew it too.

I pulled my keys from my pocket as I walked up her path, singling out the little tool that would get me through her front door but as I lifted it to the lock, the door swung open.

You know when you’re on a train when you are little, and you enter a tunnel, how the dark walls seem to race past you and all you can focus on is to keep breathing until you emerge out of the other side? Well that’s exactly the sensation that overtook me when I stared down Ava’s hallway.

I looked down and stared at her bag, the contents spewed out over the floor as it tipped to one side. Her phone, keys and medication telling me that she didn’t leave on her own accord.

Racing back to my car, I pulled my laptop from the boot and fired it up as I plonked my arse in the passenger seat, then logged onto Ava’s exterior camera.

* * *

“Benjamin Olson and John Danby, both known associates of Frank Halliday.” Kade said when the computer software found a match to the images from Ava’s cameras.

“Fuck!” I closed my eyes and shivered. “Etta.”

“Maybe,” Sam intersected. “Or maybe Frank. Just cos’ he’s in the nick doesn’t make him obsolete to external dealings. He’s quite capable of still running his family from the inside Mason.”

“Shit, but why now? It’s been two years.”

“Because it’s the first time Etta has been within touching distance of you and Ava since you shipped her off to Italy?” Greg offered with a quirked brow. His face was pale, his worry over Ava nearly as crippling to him as it was me.

“She’s just a kid, it’s too . . . too detailed for her.” I shook my head. None of it made sense.

“Oh come on, Mase.” Greg scoffed. “And how old were you when you first let the darkness consume you?”

I huffed at him but shook my head, “My past and Etta’s are far from similar, Greg. I chose this path at such a young age to fight my father. She’s a girl with issues, hardly the same.”

“But if her issues are potent enough, then who knows what the girl could be capable of.” Sam interrupted.

I turned to Kade who was furiously rattling the keys on two portable keyboards, his eyes scanning the screen in front of him with a deep concentration. “You’ve spent the last two years with her, any input for me?”

He blinked at me then shrugged. “No but to be honest, it just doesn’t seem like her.” He pursed his lips in thought as his gaze fixed to the wall. “I mean, yeah the girl had a bit of trouble adapting at first, but when she gave birth to Jamie, she was suddenly different. He was . . .
is
all that matters to her.”

“Ahh fuck!” I rubbed at my forehead. “George.”

It hit me with the force of a sledgehammer as I snatched my keys from the desk and shot out of the front door. “Traipse through every single surveillance cam the city has. Find her!” I shouted before the door slammed shut.

* * *

“That’s twice now!” George yelled at me as he pushed me out of his bedroom and pulled on his shorts, leaving Debora to stare at me wide eyed from beneath the duvet. “Why the fuck can’t you knock?”

“Etta?” I barked at him leaving him to blink at me in bewilderment. “You’re taking Jamie aren’t you?”

“What?” he spluttered as he took my arm and led me into his bathroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. “For god’s sake dad, keep your voice down.”

“I knew it.” I shook my head at him sadly, “Why?”

“Why?” He stared at me in shock, his eyes wide at my bafflement over his actions. “Because he’s my son, that’s why.”

“But what about Etta? She loves him and you’re trying to snatch him from under her.”

“For fuck’s sake, dad. You can honestly tell me with a family like hers that she can be a good parent, a good role model?”

My jaw dropped and I fought with myself over whether to string the fucker up and smack some sense into him, or praise him for caring enough to want to look after his blood.

“George.” I rolled my lips, wondering how to voice what I needed to say for him to see sense. “Are you telling me that your mother was never a good mom?”

“Eh?” He stared at me in surprise. “Of course mum’s been a good parent.”

I nodded slowly, “Yet she came off the streets. She killed and stole to survive. She’s since killed and stole. And she married into my family, but I’ll tell you something, I have never witnessed a woman with as much love as your mother has for you and Katie. Just because she has a rough background doesn’t make her a bad mother.”

“I know that.”

“Yet you chose to believe it of Etta. You think that because of what her parents were that doesn’t give her the right to be a mum.” I prodded his chest, my anger now surging at his foolishness. “In which case that doesn’t give you the right to be a dad, because your mother and I are far from innocent in this fucked up world.”

He squared up to me, his face tight and angry as he for the first time rid himself of the hatred he had for me. “Wrong,
dad.
You are the guilty one in this fucked up world, you just dragged my mother along with you, destroyed her innocence along with everything else in your path.”

I laughed at him, shaking my head in humour at his blindness. “You have no idea, George. About me, your mother, her life or even mine, so before you point the finger, you really ought to see things as they fucking are!”

“And what’s that?” he spat as he pushed at me. “If the truth is so different from how I see it, then tell me. Fucking TELL ME!”

I was battling with my wrath. I couldn’t ever let it loose on George but right at that moment he needed to see how life was, like it or hate it, it was still life and it still held many secrets and truths that obliterated our fantasies and hopes.

“Come on,” he prodded further. “Tell me what can possibly turn the tables on your guilt. You took my mother, and you turned her into a monster.”

“YES!” I roared at him as I slammed him against the door. “But your fucking mother tore out my heart and spat on it.” I let rip, giving a few home truths he needed to hear. “She took my love and trampled it into the fucking floor when she slept with my brother-in-law just hours after I’d asked her to marry me. She took my love and she fucking laughed at it whilst she fucked another man.”

I closed my eyes as shock covered my son’s face, his breathing silent as he daren’t breathe in case my words penetrated and made them real. “Yes,” I whispered harshly. “Yes I made her a monster, but she made me into something far worse.”

I pushed him out of the way but turned back to him before I left. He didn’t look at me, just kept his gaze trained on the floor.

“She turned me into a man with a broken soul who had nothing left to lose in life. But even then, even though she moulded me into something that the devil himself would love to become, even then I still love her. I still can’t breathe without her, I still can’t live without her in my life.”

He finally looked at me, his eyes sad and full of an ache. “And still I know I will die if I ever lost her. I will give up my right to breathe just to see a smile on her beautiful face. I will forfeit my own right to smile if it grants her another hour with me, another second in my arms, because despite what you think, George, love is a powerful thing but sometimes, it’s just that little bit too unhealthy.”

I left him staring after me as I went in search of my wife, a monster I had created but an angel I would follow into hell with.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Frustration

Ava

THE SLOW DRIP of water that echoed around me opposed the frantic pace my heart was hammering at, its laborious rhythm trying to soothe the velocity raging inside my chest.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I knew what I would find, the damp smell streaming up my nostrils and the subdued light filtering through my eyes told me everything I needed to about my current prison.

My ears were on high alert, listening and seeking for sounds that would help me at least attempt to formulate some sort of plan whilst my nose endeavoured to search for any unusual smells that could give me an idea of where we were being held.

Rebecca’s moans and weeping didn’t help my situation and I desperately tried to block her out of my concentration but she, as usual, was prominent and irritating.

“Rebecca!” I grated out as I turned in her direction and finally opened my eyes, “Will you shut the hell up!”

She stared at me, her eyes wide and wet, mascara trails streaking her face as her endless tears painted her face like some freak. That made sense. She was a bloody freak.

Her body was trembling as she sat with her back slumped against a metal pillar, her bound hands were above her head secured to the post and her knees were drawn up to her chest defensively.

“W. .what’s going o. .on?” She hiccupped as she sobbed out each word.

I rolled my eyes and slid my gaze slowly around the room. “I have no idea, that’s what I’m trying to work out and your incessant whinging is not helping me concentrate.”

“Fuck you.”

I tutted and sighed as I mentally went through each specific point of Mason’s training. One exit door, no obstacles in the path from my position to the door. One small window, maybe wide enough for a body to slip through, although it was high up, almost adjacent to the ceiling. There were possible available weapons, one pipe that directed the water to the single tap in the corner of the room and a few chains, one which hung above Rebecca’s head. I smirked at that possibility.

Daylight shone through the window which told me it didn’t lead onto a street or alleyway and blue sky was visible, telling me we probably hadn’t been out for too long, night hadn’t descended yet.

I could smell a hint of oil and metal, a trace of manure and quite a heavy load of fresh grass, leaving me to consider the area to be slightly rural but somewhere where maybe cars or something mechanical was involved. Maybe a farm or an old working garage.

The room was bare except for the support structures Rebecca and I were secured to. A few chains hung from the ceiling in random spots and of course, the dripping tap in the corner of the room. The door was metal, causing me slight bother when I knew I’d never be able to penetrate it but the small window in it would alert me when we had visitors.

“Can you move?” I asked Rebecca eventually.

“Are you fucking stupid? Does it look like I can move?”

I grit my teeth together and prayed for some sanity. I would never survive an hour with her, never mind how long we were actually going to be detained for. “I meant have you any leverage on your post?”

“What?” she curled her lip and looked at me as though I was asking her to tap dance naked with One Direction.

“Is—your—post—weak—enough—to—yank?”

Good Grief!

I licked at my dry lips, giving my mouth something to do other that spit hatred at her. She finally pulled at the structure but it remained firm. “Shit.”

I looked around, searching frantically for something, anything to help us get out but nothing offered that option. We were there for the duration. Rebecca and I were together for the duration. I wanted to wrap that chain around my neck and do myself in. Fuck the cancer, Rebecca would finally pop me off.

“Is there anyone that would want to hurt you?” I asked her, the list of available answers already forming in my head.

ME

ME

ME

ME

ME

ME

“Whatever you might think, Ava. I don’t have enemies.”

I screwed my lips tightly together and nodded firmly, “No,” I replied seriously. “Of course you don’t.”