The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

Meanwhile, I tried to meld into the shadows against the side of the building so they wouldn’t notice me.

“Why didn’t you invite your little cousin along?” Alec asked after a moment of silence. “I told you you should.”

Mercer lifted her face to look at him before she narrowed her eyes. “What? You think she’s pretty or something?”

Worthington’s grin was slow. Then he shrugged. “She’s not bad. I wouldn’t turn down a threesome, if you two offered.”

“Pig,” Eve muttered, jabbing him in the stomach with her long fingernail. Then she pointed it at his face. “That’s a hard no, by the way. She’s off-limits.”

Worthington just laughed and lifted his hands. “What? Hey, you know I’m just teasing. I wouldn’t touch your cousin. I mean, not as long as you give me another one of your amazing blowjobs on the way home, anyway.”

I pulled my face into a grimace. God, why was I stuck here listening to this shit?

Expecting Eva to call him to task for such a sentiment, I was surprised when she merely turned her face away from him again and stared up at the few stars that could be seen in the sky from here. I swear, something almost sad crossed her expression. I didn’t want to feel any kind of sympathy for her, so I looked away as well, wishing Tex would hurry his ass up so they could go already.

“Where’d she come from, anyway?” Alec asked. “How long’s she going to be staying with you guys?”

At first, Eva was quiet. I didn’t think she was going to answer, until she said, “Illinois. She’s from a place called Ellamore, Illinois.”

“No shit?” Alec answered, pulling back, his face full of surprise. “My dad’s family is from Ellamore.”

Eva turned to him, blinking as if confused. “What? Really?”

“Yeah. My dad’s two sisters, Cynthia and Marilyn, still live there, plus three of my cousins. Max is okay, I guess, but the other two are worthless. They left home a couple years back, and who knows what happened to them. Garrett turned out gay, probably has some STD, and Felicity got caught fucking some lowlife who ended up in jail for rape. I bet she’s a crack whore and living on the streets by

now, if she hasn’t already overdosed.”

Ignoring his disrespectful estimations, Eva shook her head slowly. “You really have relatives living in Ellamore? Ellamore, Illinois?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Strange, huh?” He bumped his shoulder playfully into hers. “And you say we have nothing in common.”

She turned away again and sounded almost wistful when she said, “We don’t.”

Again, I thought I saw a flicker of something different from Eva. Something more. It was almost as if she’d just let her guard down, but then my phone beeped from my pocket with an incoming message and she jolted, her attention veering straight to where I was waiting in the shadows.

“Eww, are you spying on us?” she charged with a repulsed grimace as she stiffened her spine and squared her shoulders defensively. “God, you sicko. Can you get any creepier?”

I opened my mouth to tell her this was where I was supposed to be, where I worked.

But her boyfriend merely burst out laughing, thinking it was funny. “Wow, Lowe,” he teased, cracking a grin. “If I knew you liked to watch, I would’ve put on a better show.” He reached for the backside of Eva’s little red dress and grabbed a handful of her ass.

She gave him no response whatsoever, except to step away from him, moving toward his car when Tex pulled it under the overhang.

A good employee would’ve hurried out there to open her passenger side door for her. I remained leaning against the brick wall of the club and pulled my phone from my pocket. After Eva let herself into the car, we shared a glare through the front windshield of the Maserati before I lowered my attention to the message I’d just received.

Unknown: 318 Willowbrook Terrace. 11:30. NW Back Entrance.

My stomach instantly burned with dread. But goddammit. A new client request. I wanted to ignore the message. Hell, I wanted to decline it in the nastiest way possible.

You want to be fucked? Well, go fuck yourself.

But I’d made shit for tips tonight, and with school started, we would need extra lunch money for Sarah, and then more cash for the new evening sitter—for Reese—plus Sarah’s medicine had to be refilled in the next week or so. And I refused to dip into the stash I had tucked away unless absolutely necessary. I called that my fantasy escape money, because one day in my dream world, I was going to grab my mom and sister and escape this life with that money. Turning down easy cash would just be plain stupid.

Swallowing the acid that rose up my throat, I typed my reply.

Mason: Code?

Despite how desperate I was, I’d cracked down a lot on security lately and accepted new clients on a referral basis only, meaning they needed to know the secret password to get an audience with me.