Maybe because you are kissing him back, idiot.
Damn it. I am. I start to pull away, but Mason holds me steady.
From the corner of my eye, I see Jack gritting his teeth, fists clenched, and Kane staring at the floor, shaking his head.
“It seems we are out of time,” Mason whispers against my mouth. He grabs my hand and places it over his crotch. My pulse spikes when my hand touches something hard in his pants. Because unless he has two dicks, and one of them is metal, what I’m touching is a freaking gun.
My mouth rips from his, still on fire.
“Breathe a word of this and I’ll become your worst nightmare, princess,” Mason mutters quietly, warning clear in his eyes.
A meaningful smile curls my lips.
“I highly doubt that, Mason Grant.”
5
MASON
Bang!
The glass thrown at my head hits the painting behind me, splitting the fragile canvas and knocking it off its hooks on the wall. Slivers of the wreckage spray the table underneath, glittering in the amber light from the fireplace in my father’s office, at Grant Manor.
I don’t move.
I don’t wince.
If it were aimed at me, I would be bleeding right now. But it wasn’t. Like me, my father is a tad dramatic.
“You pillock!” Reginald Grant—a tall, large man with a face chiseled from an aged mountain—bellows. “What part of ‘She is off limits’ did not go through that thick head of yours?Youdon’t decide how we deal with outside threats—The Council does. We have a truce.”
“Who cares? You’re telling me she isn’t here as some kind of a warning shot?” I bark.
“Not a warning, she’s bait,” he spits. “And you’re the fucking idiot who took it. You crossed the line, Mason. The orders apply to you, too.”
“Debatable,” I mutter.
Tom chuckles behind my father. Thomas Pike—Hugo’s dad and my father’s right-hand man—is tall, thin with bleached-blond hair and an unrivalled cunning that runs in the family.
Of course, Hugo went MIA the moment we received the call. For a guy who wants to conquer the world, he’s pathetically scared of his old man. If you ask me, he has it easy. I like Tom. Things would be easier if he were at the helm. Easier. Faster. Effective. But Fort Council is run by family names, and Grants have always been at the rudder.
My father fixes me with a scowl, eyes full of contempt, then turns to Kane Berkeley—the fucker who grassed me up. Kane sits on the armchair by the window, like the grim reaper, his dark aura dripping from every strand of the beehive on his head. Kane is the son my father wanted. Sadly, he isn’t. As much as he hates it, my father is stuck with me, and I with him.
“This one’s got a fist for a brain.” My father motions toward me. “What’s your fucking excuse?”
“I was promised intel.” Kane lifts a lazy arm, shooting a look at me. “He didn’t say how he was planning on getting it.”
“Did we get anything?” Tom chimes in.
“Luka’s looking into it.” I shrug.
Tom and my father exchange a wary glance, instantly falling into a silent conversation. Kane, Hugo, and I grew up with this shit, the meaningful glances and covert whispers, only meant for ears they deem worthy, as if their thoughts spoken out loud will light Fort on fire. Futile attempts to keep us out of the thick of our unsavory operations. Tough grind. We are at the heart of it, anyway.
“Will you relax? It’s just a girl, and she left unscratched.”
“She’s not any fucking girl,” my father snaps with a hint of… desperation?
The fuck?
