“Hey, listen!” Brock said, picking himself up. “We need you, Mason. But we can’t have you like this.”
I looked at Brock. I had such rage built up that I almost took it out on him, charging at him and slamming him down. Only knowing he was on the same team prevented that, and even then, just barely. If my fists didn’t hit someone tonight, it was going to be a very rough next day for anyone within ten feet of me.
“Such fucking bullshit,” I growled. “Fuck!”
“I know, it’s fucking bullshit,” Brock said. “But we’re only going to find him if you stay focused and even-keeled. We can’t have you running around Rambo-style. That’ll get Rachel hurt again.”
Only when I heard those last five words did I find myself calmed down. I didn’t give a fuck if I didn’t help the Black Reapers, at least not in a state of rage. But if my actions led to Rachel getting hurt…
“What’s going on with you two, anyway?” Connor said. “And why did he say steal your girl again?”
I pursed my lips, wanting to dismiss Connor’s question and tell him it wasn’t important. Unfortunately, the one guy that wouldn’t let it fucking go when it came to Rachel was in the room. I had to speak honestly.
To both questions, which was going to really suck.
“Rachel and I, I guess you could fucking say, we’ve been seeing each other some. We went on a date a few days ago that, well, we went on a date.”
“You fuck her?” Connor said accusingly.
“Hey, watch it,” Brock said.
But I shook my head.
“No. I’m not going to push her to do something she’s not ready for. I care about her too, you know. I’m not just treating her as someone to hook up with and leave behind. She’s…she’s my Katie.”
Connor still kept his scowl, but there was something in his body language that softened. I may not have won him over, but I had at least convinced him I wasn’t going to hurt her. Which, I supposed, was something of a win right now.
“We’ve got a lot of shit to figure out and talk about, but we feel something real. And, so, awkward as it may be, I care about her. And I’m not going to let fucking Eduardo do anything to her.”
“And the bit about steal your girl again?”
It was hard to know which one would be more painful.
“Back before we were even the Bernard Boys, before any of this was a fucking twinkle in the eye, Eduardo and I were friends,” I said, grimacing at the very fucking thought. “I always found him arrogant and cocky, but we grew up near each other and were both the rebellious, antisocial type. Obviously, I turned out better than him, but back in our youth, we didn’t know any better.”
“And he stole your girl?”
I nodded.
“Now, granted, steal my girl was like when I was early teen years, so not serious. But I remember it being so fucking infuriating because of the lies and deceptions. So for the next several years, I just treated it as him being an ass. But when he took Rachel that one night…”
“It became a fight to the death,” Brock said.
And that was exactly what it was.
As much as this was a battle of Black Reapers versus Bandits, in some ways, it felt like a fucking battle between Mason Jett and Eduardo. Take out him stealing my girl, and none of this probably ever happened—or at least, it was unlikely to. It had been over two decades or so, and I still fucking hated his guts.
Enough to kill him, at that.
But now I had to deal with the fact that for the first time ever, these guys knew Eduardo and I had been friends. I didn’t fucking care it had happened in our youth. Shit like this had an awful way of lingering. I mentally prepared myself for the tongue lashing and shunning. And when I looked at Connor, he seemed right on the verge of it all.
“You really do care about Rachel, don’t you?”
It wasn’t Connor who had spoken.
It was Brock.
“Fuck yes, I do,” I said. “I’d fucking die for her right now if I had to. For the shit that she has gone through? She deserves to have someone fight for her. I’ll be that person.”
