I blink away the tears from my eyes and push away thoughts of everything Mason related. Maybe a girls’ night will help ease the hollow ache I can’t seem to fill with any amount of distraction.
Day in, day out, a piece of me remains missing and nothing I do brings me comfort. Mason left my building with both my heart and his. I loved him. I loved him and I didn’t realize it until that moment. The second I lost sight of him, my heart broke and anger snuck through the cracks. I became mad at myself for letting him walk away. Why didn’t I try harder to explain? No words, no explanation would have been good enough, because this is bigger than us. Our choices affect a little girl, one who was nearly shot because I was too afraid to share a piece of my past with the man I was supposed to trust and love. She has to come first, I know this, so I can’t blame him for putting his guard up against a woman who could rain hell down on them. I never thought the ghosts of my past would come back to haunt me the way they had. In my work, I’d been careful, always covering my tracks. I was sometimes blonde, sometimes a redhead, never the same. There was no need for a surname. People knew who I was. My reputation spoke for me. But I walked around naively in a world where justice doesn’t always prevail. I had no logical reason, no decent excuse. I should have known better. It was as simple as that, but I’d been blinded. Now I have to move on with my life without the distraction that led me to love.
Mason
I move past the horrified bystanders and lift the yellow caution tape so I can get down the alley to my squad. It’s just like every other dodgy back alley in NYC. Dirty, dark, littered with rubbish, and God knows what else. Except tonight voices are whispering, lights are shining bright, and the small place is over populated by law enforcement. Crime Scene Unit are marking the scene and taking photos. Elias is talking to a witness, probably the poor young dude who apparently walked out the back of the restaurant to take out the trash and got an eye full of a dead prostitute who’d lost half her head.
Cassidy and Roamyn are standing over the young woman who is the reason we’ve been called in on our weekend off.
“Sorry I’m late, Cora wasn’t picking up so I had to wait a while to get her.”
Roam glances down the alley. “All good. We’re done here anyway.”
“You guys head back. I’ll get Elias and we’ll be right behind you,” Cassidy says on her way over to him.
I wait for the coffee machine to fill my cup, and lean back against the counter. Roamyn shuffles papers on his desk to make it look like he’s doing work. Elias’s pissed off voice is loud enough for all of us to hear the one sided conversation he’s having on the phone. I glance over toward Cassidy. Her long blonde hair falls over her face as she types quickly on the laptop in front of her. That is until her phone blasts on the desk beside her. The coffee machine beeps and I turn around to retrieve my cup.
“Hey, what’s up? Sure, sound’s great. Lindsey up for it?”
My ears perk at Cassidy mentioning Lindsey.
“All right, well I should be finished in five anyway so I’ll be there soon. I’ll bring the greasy takeout food.” She chuckles. “Okay, bye.”
My feet have moved on their own accord and as Cassidy glimpses up at me from behind the dark-rimmed glasses framing her face, she glances beside me and then back to me again. Roam coughs from beside me awkwardly and it occurs to me that we must look like fucking creeps.
“You two do realize you’re hovering, right?” Cassidy asks, closing the screen of her laptop.
I stand taller but relax my shoulders. “You’re seeing Lindsey? My Lindsey?”
“Umm, yes. Except she’s not really your Lindsey anymore, boss.” Cassidy cringes at her words and my face splits into a grimace because it’s true. She isn’t mine, not anymore. I lower my eyes to hide the hurt. Did I ever really have her? I’ve asked myself a thousand times, and the answer was always the same, always blackening another piece of my soul at the realization I did have her. I didn’t have all of her, but I was getting in behind the guards, fighting my way to her heart. I could see it in her eyes when she beamed at me with hope and confusion all at the same time. I could hear it in her voice when she’d laugh hysterically over something that probably wasn’t very funny. I felt it every time she kissed me with more passion than the one before.
“Cassidy,” Roamyn prods.
“Okay, okay. She’s your Lindsey, Mase.” She puts her hands up in surrender as she pushes back her chair and heads in the direction of the locker room.
Roam and I glance at each other, the skin around his eyes bunch in a pained stare. The emotional stress we’ve been hiding is brought to the surface with just a mention of the women driving us to distraction. I follow Cassidy to the locker room with Roamyn in tow. I just want to know how she is.
Pain cuts in the back of my throat. “How is she?”
Cassidy sighs, shutting her locker door, looking our way. “Why don’t you just ask her yourself, Mason? She misses you too, you know. She tries to keep it together, but she just looks so lost in her head all the time. I’ve been checking in on her occasionally for Ali’s sake as well. She just goes to work and goes home again. That’s pretty much it.” She shrugs and the sadness in her tone does nothing to alleviate the beating my heart suffers every damn day I’m away from Lindsey. I walked away from her. I refused to hear her out and every day since, I’ve regretted not waiting to listen to her. What would she have said? Would I feel any differently? My body temperature rises and heat flushes my skin. My muscles stiffen with soreness at reliving the pain over again. I’m torturing myself with what-ifs.
My throat thickens. I cough, trying to swallow past the pain and regain composure.
“Right. Well, you girls have fun tonight.”
Cassidy reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Do yourself and all of us a favor, call her. I know a little girl who also misses Lindsey and would love to see her again, too.”
Charlotte.
“Yeah, maybe.” I force a smile, and glance around for answers, for clues. I don’t know what the fuck for. My heart’s tearing into two with what’s right and what’s wrong, I just hope I can figure it out before she moves on.
Lindsey
Water drops onto my forehead as I towel dry my wet hair on the way out of my en suite. “Ali, did you—”
My blood flows like ice in my veins. My body stiffens unbelievably still as my eyes water with the tears I’m holding back. A lump rises in my throat and, my heart smacks against my ribs as I watch the silent waterfall run down my sister’s face. A hand covers her mouth. Can she breathe? A gun kisses her temple. Her hair sticks to her flushed red face. Her cheeks puff beneath the hand I long to smack away. With her chest rising and falling faster than my own, Ali’s eyes lock on mine. They’re so wide, so scared, and so full of regret. This is it. This is our goodbye. It’s all we will get so I say the only thing worth my last breath.
“I love you.”
The darkness devours me, destroying my strength, absorbing my pain, until all I have left is the bones of my love. The one thing they can’t take from me.
Mason
“Mason. Roamyn. Get out here!”
Roam and I turn to each other, the tone in Elias’s voice hitting us with the force of a bullet and the pain of the blow.
We run, fast.
Elias stands by his desk, phone still in his hand. Anguish in his eyes.