“Mason, listen to me! I lied to you.”
His hand, which had grabbed my arm to push me away, froze. His grip loosened, less from relaxing and more from going limp at the shock of it.
“You lied to me?”
“I’ve never been hunted or stalked by a Bandit. I stay far away from them. He’s not the father.”
Mason gulped.
“Then…who?”
I hadn’t even said his name, but Mason’s eyes seemed to register that he already knew. Maybe he’d played up this façade of it being a Bandit as much as I had, knowing that confronting the truth was too harsh, too ugly. But now we both had to do it.
“Hannah,” Mason said, and for the first time that I could ever remember, his voice was shaky. “Tell me. I need to know.”
I bowed my head, looked up into his eyes, and just told myself to say it.
“Garrett.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. I couldn’t look at my brother. My brother couldn’t look at anything.
“Hannah,” he said very softly but with a hint of rage buried just beneath the surface. “Do not fuck with me like that.”
You already know. You’re just trying to still be in denial.
“Do not fucking tell me that if it is not true.”
I sighed.
“It is true, Mason,” I said. “I…I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Mason leaned forward on the handlebars, burying his forehead between them. I thought for a moment he might cry, but I’d never seen my brother cry and I didn’t think I would now. He was just so frustrated—perhaps trying to contain his inner rage—that this was all that he could do.
“Why did you lie to me?” he said.
Why did you not press me when you knew it was a lie?
“I just…I know what the club means to you, what those boys mean to you, Mason,” I said, and now my voice was becoming shaky, and unlike Mason, I would cry if it came to that. “They are your brothers. I couldn’t, I didn’t want to see that torn apart. I knew if it came out…”
“Why did you sleep with him?”
“I…”
I didn’t have a good answer.
“Don’t answer that,” Mason said. “I…fuck. Fuck!”
He slammed his fists on the bike. I took one step back but didn’t move otherwise. The outrageous anger Mason had shown earlier was replaced by something much scarier—a simmering, boiling anger that hadn’t broached the surface yet, but that only meant it was festering and continuing to gather steam and power.
“God fucking damnit!” Mason said.
Finally, he looked at me. I had never seen so much pain, so much betrayal, in his eyes. I knew why—everyone knew I was considered the little angel of Mason’s, the last family he had. I was, in a sense, untouchable. For Garrett to have made a move on me was not just stupid; it was indefensible. And now he was coming to grips with that betrayal.
“This is your last chance to tell me the truth,” Mason said. “Whatever you say to me is what I’m going to believe, regardless of what you say after. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep living a lie. So take a moment to think about exactly what you want to say, Hannah. Because no matter what you say after, it’s what I’m going by.”
I bowed my head and immediately knew this was the only way. Mason would hate Garrett, but if there was anyone he could forgive, it was one of the original Bernard Boys, one of the Black Reapers officers. Not that I thought he would, but just that there was a better chance of that happening than him forgiving a Bandit.
I nevertheless took a few moments to run through the options. I could have made up someone, but despite what Mason said, I knew he’d see through the bullshit immediately. I could say it was Jason, but then Mason would ask why I’d lied using the worst possible example of Garrett. I could…
