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“Please don’t tell me Savannah was one of the party favors.”
His jaw ticks and he doesn’t say it, but I can tell from the stiffness in his shoulders that’s exactly what happened.
Though my stomach feels queasy, I reach for the bottle of wine. Turns out, I need the whole damned thing.
“The Brethren, more importantly, the children of anyone associated with the Brethren, are who your mother is trafficking.”
“And . . . I suppose my sister fits in here somewhere, as well,” I murmur slowly and he nods.
“Hannah . . .” he starts, letting out a deep sigh. Like he doesn’t want to say whatever’s on his mind. “I’m sure your sister was good. Once. But once Parker got to her . . .”
“Was she a party favor, as you called it? Or something else?”
“She was a member.”
My chest cracks at the thought.
“And that’s why my mother gave her up.”
Neither of us has spoken it out loud, yet, but it’s evident my mother is solely responsible for my sister’s disappearance. As well as countless others.
I feel like I’m drowning.
“I don’t want to tell you this, little doe, but I need to. Prince told me this morning,” Mason murmurs gruffly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “They found a body washed up on the beach down in Huntington last night. It was unrecognizable, but . . . it was a woman.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat, staring at a bead of wine that slips down the inside of my glass.
“And . . . was it missing a finger?”
“It was.”
Silence is loud. Especially when there’s a ringing voice in the back of your head telling you it’s finally over. This part of your search is done and there’s nothing left for you to do.
“I expected tears, not silence,” Mason says, as though the absence of my tears disturbs him. “What’s going on in your head, little doe?”
I grimace, scrubbing a hand over my face. I’m suddenly very, very tired.
“I . . . I don’t know what’s going on in my head. I feel like we’re dodging bullets left and right with no end in sight. I want to be relieved the mystery with Missy is over, but I don’t want tobe relieved because . . .” I suck in a deep, shivering breath. “That makes me a bad person.”
Mason’s gaze is caustic, glinting in the light overhead. “You’re the best fucking person I know, Hannah, and I don’t say that lightly.”
I stare at him for a long moment, studying his face for any sign that he himself doesn’t believe it. Nothing. Not even a glimmer of doubt, but . . .
“I wish I could believe that.”
“What are you afraid of, little doe?”
I suck in a deep breath, my chest aching. A heavy heart, my mother would say.
“I’m wondering when it will all end. How it will end. What happened to Melissa . . . What’s going to happen between us if we make it out of this alive.”
Now that I’ve said it out loud, I wish I could take it back. How stupid is it that despite everything we’ve been through together, coming off as clingy and lovestruck makes me want to cry in shame? Perhaps it’s the way women have been conditioned to always let the men come to them. Maybe I’m just emotional after tonight.
“I don’t get attached,” Mason says after a long moment. He stares at his fingers on the empty beer bottle in his hand as if it’ll tell him the secrets of life if he stares hard enough. “To anyone besides my family.”
Oh . . .
I nod, ashamed at the warmth that pools behind my eyes.
