♡
Ava looked up at me when I walked into the house. I could see the fret on her face, the frown lines prominent and the worry lines around her eyes glaringly obvious. It was then I actually looked at her properly for the first time in an age. My wife was pale, gaunt even. Her cheeks were blemished with tiny thread veins and the skin under her eyes held a deep darkening, an exhaustion I hadn’t seen before. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
She stared at me for a long time, fighting with her own words before she blinked and wet her lips with her tongue. “Courtney’s missing.”
Taking the chair opposite her at the table, I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Greg said she didn’t come home last night.”
My gut clenched, remembering her phone call. Surely she wouldn’t be cheating on Greg. The fact that she’d done it before didn’t sit well, but they had been solid for the previous few years, so why now?
“She received that call in the Panther last night,” I mused, more to myself than Ava.
She nodded. “Yeah, she said she would be back but no one’s seen her since then. I’m worried, Mason. This isn’t like her. Especially leaving Mason so long.”
I had to agree with her. Courtney was a good mother, one of the best. Harry, her and Greg’s eldest, had turned into a good lad, he was studying hard at university to become a doctor, and he had morals as well as compassion for the life his parents had. Even if she was screwing around behind Greg’s back she would never leave Little Mason.
“Is Sam looking into her call log?”
“I’ve put Lucas on it, he’s more specialised with that kind of thing, he will bring us a quicker result.”
Nodding, I gave her a tight smile and reached for her hand. “She’ll be okay, don’t worry.”
“I have a funny feeling, Mason.”
“You’re just worried, that’s all.”
Lowering her eyes, she nodded slightly as her little finger found its way into her mouth. Tipping her face back with my finger, I narrowed my eyes on her. “What else?”
Her jaw trembled slightly and I saw the lie in her face as soon as it left her. “Nothing.”
She gulped, noticing my face darken. “Ava…”
“Nothing,” she brushed me off quickly. Lying to me meant that once again we were growing apart.
“Are you mad with me about Katie?”
Sucking air through her teeth, she regarded me with a sorrowful expression. “As much as I understand your anger, you have to give her some slack. What happened, happened between me and Steed. She didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“No,” I bit out, “But he did.”
“And you’re alienating our daughter because of a grudge that is years old. It was my fuck up, please don’t blame her.”
Her jaw tightened when I held it firmly between my fingers. “You think I will ever forget what he did to you? He tore you to bits, Ava!”
“Because I asked him to, Mason. He wouldn’t hurt Katie just because it’s a kink he enjoys. Steed isn’t like that.”
Rage filled me and I bit into my lip to hold it back. “So now you’re sticking up for him. Is there something I’m missing here?”
“Jesus Christ!” she scoffed, her head shaking from side to side. “Is that was this is all about? Your jealousy?”
“I’m not jealous, Ava. I’m angry. Angry that she lied, angry that that bastard has once again got his claws into what is mine. Don’t you see what he’s doing?”
“What he’s doing?” she repeated. “He’s falling in love with Katie, that’s what he’s doing. She’s already fallen. It’s you who can’t see what is happening.”
Why couldn’t she see it? Why were they all so smitten with that cunt? He was a user, a manipulator who veiled his true form from everyone. Everyone but me.
“Am I interrupting?”
Ava jumped up, a huge smile on her face when Grace walked into the kitchen. “It’s about time! Where the hell have you been?”
Grace laughed, rolling her eyes at Ava’s chastisement. “It’s called work, Ava.” Grabbing a water from the fridge, her eyes skimmed between me and Ava. “Okay, what did I miss?”
“Just Mason being his usual stubborn self,” Ava huffed, glaring at me once more.
Grace nodded knowingly. What the hell? “So, how’s George?” she asked as she slipped into a chair.
The way Ava tensed made me apprehensive. “He’s doing okay.” She was such a shit liar. I made a mental note to go and pay my son a visit. It didn’t take a genius to guess what the problem was. I hated that my past had come back to haunt one of my kids. It made me wonder if my addiction had been carried in my genes, and George was the unlucky one.
Grace, not noticing Ava’s sudden tension, nodded. “Well, where’s my husband?”
My phone rang. I left the women to talk as I picked it up and answered Harry’s call, hoping that there was some news about his mother as I connected.
“Mason?”
As soon as I heard his voice a chill ran through my body, freezing the marrow in my bones. My eyes shot to Ava as the bile in my gut churned. Although she continued with her conversation, I left my eyes glued to her, praying that she didn’t look at me when I couldn’t shift my gaze away. I couldn’t do this to her again. Not again.
“Mason…”
My silence was all he needed to go on.
“They found Mum,” he whispered.
Closing my eyes when terrified tears beckoned, I gritted my teeth together and forced back the vomit.
“She’s dead, Mason. She’s dead.”
Eleven
Ava
As soon as I felt Mason slip into bed behind me his arms were wrapping around me and he pulled me back against him. “Don’t shut me out, baby.”
The light in the room was muted, just a soft lamp that Kade had switched on for me in the corner to push away the shadows beating back the darkness, yet I could still make out the contours of the furniture that decorated our bedroom. It was all familiar, comforting. However, it didn’t stop the uncontrollable sadness from engulfing me.
Staring, but unseeing, I left my gaze on the dresser. “You don’t want to be in here with me,” I whispered in reply, the soreness in my throat from crying making me swallow so I could speak clearly. “It will suffocate you.”
He sighed, the sound of his own grief making the coldness that had seeped in even chillier. Leaning over me, he tenderly took my chin in his fingers and made me turn to face him. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. It’s not your fault, Ava.”
I scoffed, but didn’t answer him. Because it was my fault. My best friend had gone. She had warned me. She had told me what I wasn’t seeing and I’d brushed her off, ignored her worries.
Pain burrowed into my chest, a painful tightening making me gasp. I’d never felt so lost in my whole life, so untethered to reality. Courtney had been my best friend for over twenty years. She had been the only person who had made me see the light in the dark. She had been the only person to never ask anything from me. Taken so brutally that I couldn’t bear the images that were forcing their way inside me. Her beauty, her laughter, her radiant smile, and her love, they were all gone. I would never in this life witness them again. And that hurt. That hurt like fuck.
“Baby…” The pain in Mason’s voice made me suddenly cling to him. I needed him to take this agony away, tear it out of me and destroy it. It was fracturing me. I’d been through so much in life, yet this, this cruel soul-crunching pain was insufferable, and I couldn’t breathe.
“Shh,” he soothed as the tears came thick and fast.
“I don’t know what to do,” I sobbed. “She was the only person that could ground me in this life.” Mason hugged me tighter to him, his hands softly stroking through my hair. “I can’t do this without her, Mason. I can’t do it!” I cried into his chest. “I can’t do it again without her.”
“You can’t do what?” he asked, softly. “I’ll alwa
ys be here, Ava. Always. We can do anything together; you know we can.”
“Not that. Not this.”
“Baby, you’re not making sense.”
I knew I wasn’t but I couldn’t seem to string a sentence together. The grief was so overwhelming that my brain couldn’t function properly. Nausea lay heavy, threatening to erupt with what was swimming through my mind. I hated what I knew was true, but I couldn’t allow myself to accept it. Because if it was true, if what my instincts were telling me to be the truth, then we would all perish in the aftermath. I knew what the payment for Courtney’s death would be, and I wasn’t sure I could survive it.
“Ava!” Mason spoke sternly, pulling me from the darkness in my head. “Talk to me. Your grief will drown you if you don’t share it.”
“She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve to die that way. He hurt her, he hurt her so much.”
I felt Mason stiffen and he narrowed his eyes. “He?”
A shiver raced through me. “Someone.” Suddenly everything felt hopeless, the darkness inside me opening up and eating me from the inside out. I grabbed Mason’s face, my hands clawing at his hair in desperation. “I won’t do it again. I can’t do it again.” My heart tore in two as I shook him angrily, the rage inside me building to breaking point. “Not without Courtney. Not without her.”
“Ava!” Mason growled. “Do what? What are you talking about?”
Time seemed to stop, my heart slowing to match the stillness that seeped into the air around us. Finding Mason’s eyes in the dim light, I held them with my own. “The cancer’s back.”
For a moment I didn’t think he had heard me. He was so still that I wondered if he was still waiting for me to answer his question.
Taking his hand, I lifted it to my neck and pressed his fingers to the two small lumps.
“I can’t go through it again, Mason. Not without Courtney.”
I jolted when Mason pulled his hand away like my skin had burned him. His head shook manically, his wild eyes secured to mine as terror poured from him. “No.” He scrambled from the bed and I reached for him, but his head shook harder. He stared at me with utter revulsion. His breathing had become unsteady, his strong chest heaving with every breath he took. “No, Ava. You can’t tell me that. Not right now. I can’t… I can’t… Not now!”
“Mason…”
He fisted his hands and screamed into the dark room. His desolation shattered what little hope I had in me. Truth be, I didn’t want to survive this. I didn’t want to carry on. Life had taken so much. Yet now it had taken the most precious things from me, and I didn’t want to be here without them both.
The future held nothing for me. Yes, I had Mason, and his love would forever hold me up, but when he found out I knew I would lose him. Katie had gone, Courtney had gone, and the cancer was back. And there were so many more losses to come. When it all came out Mason would finally turn his back on me and walk away. And that was something I knew I could never survive.
Mason stormed from the room. I had expected it. The dim room appeared even darker without him, the shadows hungry for vengeance. The loneliness in my belly became a churning despair, and this time I couldn’t hold back the vomit when it surged up my throat.
Racing to the bathroom I puked up all the heartache and the devastation. My mind broke and I slumped onto the floor, curling up into a ball as I rocked myself and wept.
I was poisonous, a curse on my friends. Katie had lost her life because of my choices, and now Courtney had suffered the exact same fate. I should have listened to her, I should have accepted what she had told me. But I hadn’t. And now she was dead.
Crawling back into the bedroom, I pulled my phone off the nightstand and rang Nate.
♡
He was always there for me. No matter what. Nate would always be there to hold me, to comfort me, and to take as much of it from me as he physically could.
Liv had ushered me in after Nate had driven through the blizzard to fetch me, and then she had made her excuses and left him and me – and a bottle of vodka – to talk.
I wasn’t sure what the outcome of my admission would be, but I knew he was the only one I could trust. He would only ever be the one I could confide in now Courtney was gone. His loyalty was to me, not Mason. He was my best friend, and whatever he thought of me after I told him, I knew his advice would be sound, and confidential.
He looked older than I remembered, his once blonde curls now dashed with more grey. The laughter lines around his eyes had spread, and his striking blue eyes, for the first time, had clouded. He was as tired as me. I wondered if I was doing the right thing, weighing on him like this. However, I knew the truth would slowly kill me if I didn’t share it. And, naturally, Nate was the only one I trusted to share it with. I depended on him a little too much at times but I knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He sat silent by the side of me, patiently waiting until I was ready. For over an hour we just sat, staring at the fire, watching the flames dance as we thought of our friend, and drank. His hand held mine, his fingers tightly entwined with my own as he carried me over the pit of my inner despair. Occasionally, calmly and wordlessly, he pressed his lips to the top of my head, sighed and simply ran the tip of his nose over my hair, reminding me he was there, and that he loved me.
But when the grief bore down too heavy, I downed my drink and closed my eyes.
“I know who killed her.”
Twelve
Katie
The sun shone so bright that I had to look through the darkness of my sunglasses to focus. I was amazed by the turnout. Masses of mourners stood around the cemetery, their eyes downcast as the coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. Aunt Courtney had been well-loved, her happy, carefree attitude to life granting her many friends.
Mum stood cold and detached by the side of the deep hole. I was worried about her. She was thin, her cheekbones prominent on her pretty face. Dad stood beside her with his arm around her waist supporting her. Not once had he turned his eyes my way, and that hurt.
Choosing Steed hadn’t been hard, I loved him. But that didn’t mean I didn’t miss my family. I longed to feel Mum’s arms around me. I knew she hadn’t brushed me aside and she’d been too busy with grief to visit me. Yet all I longed for was my dad’s love. No one could hug me like he did, no one ever looked at me with so much love like he did. I missed him.
However, I wouldn’t leave Steed. My heart had never been so full. He adored me, he knew me inside and out and he still worshipped me, even through all the dark chasms inside me.
George hadn’t turned up, not that that surprised me. He was falling deeper and deeper, and I was struggling with what to do. I’d visited him last night but he was so out of it on heroin that I knew he hadn’t even been aware of my presence. I was going to have to talk to Mum about rehabilitation. But right now she needed to mourn for her friend.
“Hey, honey.” Kade smiled at me, slipping his hand in mine and giving it a small squeeze when he came to join my lonely party of one by the edge of the congregation. “How you doing?”
My eyes moved to Uncle Greg, the desolation on his pale face pulling at my heart. “I’m doing okay.”
“And the love life?”
I smiled then. “Wonderful.”
He dropped his hand from mine and slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Good, you deserve it.”
“How’s Dad?” I asked quietly, my eyes moving from Greg to Dad once again.
Kade sighed. “We need to talk.”
I frowned, turning to look at him “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head slightly, “Not here. Meet me in The Fox around four?” The Fox was my pub, bought and established with my own two hands. It was something I could call my own after taking over the family business, all my father’s clubs inherited with it. I’d wanted something of my own so I’d bought the traditional backstreet pub a couple of years ago. It had thrived, the criminal world using it as a base for their i
nformal meetings. And it always gave me an ‘in’ with all the gossip going around.
“Yeah.”
He nodded, the sombre look in his eyes making my stomach churn, then walked away.
My eyes moved back to Mum when she approached the side of the grave. She also wore sunglasses, hiding her eyes but I knew that there would be no life left in them if she did unveil them.
She stood silently staring into the hole, her mouth moving with some unheard words. My heart went out to her. She had lost so much in life, but every time she came out stronger. And now there was no one stronger than my mother.
Kissing her fingers, she blew a kiss to Aunt Court, closed her eyes for a moment, then turned and walked away.
♡
His wild eyes blazed with anger as I stood before him. My body was tense, ready.
“Fuck -you!” he spat. His features were full of an undiluted hatred, the sight of it shocking me. My brother had finally lost it, his habit, and his unreserved loathing of my father, at long last swallowing the George I used to know and leaving only the bitter and resentful part of him.
My heart broke as I stood and looked at him. My memories took me back to a time when he had loved me, loved us all. But now there was nothing left, just a carcass full of heroin, and crack.
Luckily, I’d brought Morecambe and Wise, two of my faithful blades. They weren’t as well-used as Thelma and Louise, but when George pounced for me, I flipped him over in one easy move and pressed Wise to his cheek as I straddled his bucking body. “Don’t go there, brother.”
“I’m not your brother,” he hissed, his eyes dilated and manic. “I don’t have a family.”
“What the fuck happened to you? Where is this coming from?”
He laughed, loudly and crazily. “Oh, I’ve always been here, dear sister. But the coward in me wouldn’t ever let me out.”
Decay (Heart of Stone Book 13) Page 8