The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (209 page)

“Fucking calm down.”

“What the fuck, Mason. Ava’s got you fucking pussy whipped, you’re pissing soft . . .”

His head slammed against the wall as my fingers tightened around his throat, “Back—the—fuck—off . . . now!” I warned as I held him effortlessly against the wall.

He struggled beneath me but he didn’t have a hope in hell of releasing my hold on him. “You need to learn some fucking respect, Greg. Calm the fuck down or get the fuck out. Not in my fucking house. You hear me?”

“Fuck you!”

I dragged him from the office, the other men looking down at the floor as to not embarrass Greg further, as I slammed the door behind me and stepped out onto the upper hallway to give Greg some respectful privacy.

“I know you’re going through some shit Greg but, and this is a big but, you continue to shit on me in front of my men then I’ll bring you down so fucking hard you won’t know what shit hit you first, my anger or my outrage. This is my fucking house, my fucking business and my . . .
my
fucking wife you are disrespecting and I won’t have you forget that. You understand?”

He scoffed but murmured a yes and I released my hold as Ava walked through the front door and stared up the bannister with puzzlement as she saw us.

“Go to The Panther, fuck some whore then grab a bottle of Jack from behind the bar at The Loft and take it in the office and drink yourself to oblivion. When you come back tomorrow I expect a little more consideration. Okay?” I told him quietly.

His eyes scanned my face but then he nodded as he took himself down the stairs, tipping his chin in an acknowledgement to Ava as he passed, the front door slammed loudly behind him.

Ava’s eyes widened as she looked from the door to me then back to the door. As she turned back to me I couldn’t help but notice the fiery glint in her eyes.

Reading her anger, I held up a hand to her, “Let me finish with the guy’s then I’m all yours.”

She shook her head slowly, “No, now Mason.”

I frowned at the fury rolling off her but she needed to know her place when the guys were round, “I said later Ava, I won’t be long.”

I turned and entered back in the office. All four men now occupying the small space regarded me with slight weariness in their eyes. “Is he . . .”

The door opened with force, the handle banging off the wall and bouncing the door back at Ava. She stuck her foot out to stop it hitting her as she glared at me. “I said now, Mason. You wanna do this here or out there?”

“What the hell?”

What the hell was wrong with people today? Everyone was looking for a fucking fight, my wife now one of them.

Her eyes fired with faint fear when she felt my fury envelope her. I didn’t do this shit in front of the others, Ava knew this so she was either goading me into an argument or something had seriously fucked her up and she needed me. Judging from the vehemence seeping from every pore on her little body it was the former.

“I—said—wait!”

She threw a pile of photos on the desk and all eyes in the room swept to look.

“Fuck!”
I hissed as I snapped my eyes back up to hers.

“Oh yeah,
Fuck.
” She was furious, her eyes were glazed and bright but her fists were clenched and throbbing, her knuckles white and the skin covering them, tight.

“Ava . . .” Sam spoke up but Ava shook her head without casting him a glance.

“No Sam, whatever his excuse is, I need to hear it from him, not you.”

He nodded once then gestured for the others’ to follow him out. They did and soon the room contained just Ava and I, and her physical fury.

“Sit down.” I told her but she stood still, glaring and chewing on her tiny finger. I knew she was trying to rein in her temper, hell I even displayed the same look when my fury hit.

“No.” Her eyes darkened and glinted as her chest heaved heavily, “Why do you do this, Mason, why? Time after fucking time. I asked you . . . I asked if there were any other secrets, and you said no, then I receive these.”

“Sit down, Ava.”

“No!”

I closed my eyes, desperately trying to pull back but they shot open when she slapped a hand containing one of the photos against my chest.

“You care to enlighten me? To explain why you’re stood with a fucking whip in your hand whilst a woman is tied to a fucking wooden frame with another man in her arse? YOU WANNA EXPLAIN THAT?”

She turned and threw the picture back on the table and stood firm, her arms folded over her chest as her legs trembled with her anger.

I stalked over to her, pushing her back into the wall as I forced myself into her, and slapped a hand each side of her head. “Calm the fuck down, now!”

She scoffed before her teeth sank into her lower lip, the force of it plumping the surrounding flesh until I thought it would pop.

“Calm down? What the hell, Mason? How would you feel if you received photos of me with some fucker else?”

My brows lifted and by the flash in her eyes, she realised what she had just said but she stood her ground, her chest heaving severely with each anger fuelled inhalation.

I reached out and palmed her cheek but she twisted her face away, her eyes filling with hurt and pain. I gripped her harder, forcing her face to mine as I glared at her. “Will you let me explain? If you just calm the fuck down long enough to listen, then I will fucking tell you.”

“Why do you do this? Why do you always make me feel guilty for your . . . your fuck ups?” She swallowed heavily and I could see the tears pooling in her eyes, she blinked laboriously as she desperately fought them back.

My heart jerked; the sight of her hurt and upset clenched both my chest and my gut. “Baby, listen to me, please” I urged softly before she sighed and slumped against the wall behind her, needing it for both support and grounding.

“Fine” she stated bluntly but pulled her face back from my grasp and fuck, if that didn’t anger me as it simultaneously hurt me.

I waited until she crossed her arms again, her lips twisting into a bid to bite back her distress as she emotionally withdrew from me. I knew it was a survival instinct in her, her past causing a hard wall inside her to shield herself from physical and emotional pain.

I exhaled heavily as I picked up the picture she had thrust at me. “Look at it again,” I insisted as I held it out to her. She frowned severely, her small forehead crinkling in confusion but I remained still, holding it towards her in encouragement.

She timidly took it from me and scanned the picture. I could see the disgust in her expression, whether it was repulsion at me involved in this or the fact that I was hurting someone I wasn’t sure, but her face paled slightly as she peered up at me.

I nodded slowly as she took another look. This time her eyes widened and she pulled the photo closer to her face for a more detailed inspection.

“Holy shit, is this . . . ?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I held her up when her legs buckled. “Now you understand, Ava?”

“But . . . Just shit, Mason. I . . . Fuck!”

I led her over to the chair and lowered her slowly onto it, before pouring her a brandy from the bottle in the cupboard and passing it her.

She downed it in one, her eyes still held on the photo of the Police Commissioner, our very own Robert Delaney, fucking the Prime Minister’s right hand man whilst I whipped both of the bastards.

“Leverage Ava, you always get the shit on them anyway fucking way you can. You should know this by now.”

“But . . . but I thought it was a woman. Christ, he looks like a woman.”

“He likes to . . . dress as a woman. If you look closer this is taken in the Panther, about four months ago. I was there because it was the only way I could get the photos when Delaney paid William heftily to turn off the cameras because of what happened last time.”

She looked up at me, her face still full of bewilderment and scepticism, “But surely Robert wouldn’t let you in after everything that’s gone off?”

I smiled slyly, a small laugh lifting my chest, as I kneeled before her and took her little finger from her mouth before she gnawed the already tender skin off. “Baby, the man has access to my
social
house,
he knows each of my girls intimately, and he also thinks that he has me under his balls, even though I have his in a vice.”

I gave her a wicked smile and her breath caught, the glint in my eyes turning her on. My woman liked my naughty side, my raw need for vengeance made her hot and my physical fury made her fucking wet.

“William told him after what had happened with the guy he fucked and strangled, that the only way he was allowed access into the Panther again was with an escort, and the only escort available that night—was me.”

I smirked as her eyebrows lifted, “But did he not realise you were taking pictures?”

Her natural inquisitive side always heated me inside; she was like a sponge for information, soaking up any details she could get her hands on. This also made her a quick learner and I had found this out to my surprise when she had started working for me all those years ago. Her enthusiasm to learn made my dick throb and her quick uptake on things made my dick throb harder.

I could remember the first time I took her to the warehouse to teach her to shoot a gun properly. Her eagerness to learn how to accurately aim and her demand for me to teach her how to properly clean and reload correctly, had seen us fucking hard against the wall, her desire to know everything always finished with my cock buried deep somewhere in her delicious body, ramming into her hard and intensely as she fucked me back just as violently.

I shook my head at her question, “Nope, it was a micro camera that was fitted to my shirt.”

She nodded and studied the picture again yet she sighed as though something else was troubling her.

“What?”

She pursed her lips and cocked her head in thought, “If you were the only one in that room with them . . .” I nodded as she looked at me with narrow eyes, “Then who took these? Because if they were the same ones you took with the camera on your shirt then you wouldn’t be in the picture, just Robert and—whatever the hell his name is.”

Holy fuck! She was right. Where the fuck had my brain gone lately? Greg was right, alongside everything going on, what with Ava and the bastard after my club, I had gone soft.

I couldn’t hold back the growl as I snatched the photo from Ava and scrutinised it. “You said William didn’t have the cameras running, so these aren’t stills from them. Somebody else was in that room, Mason, or at least in the doorway. They took these to get shit on all three of you.”

“Fuck.”

I stood and paced the floor, my brain hammering to a burning fury. “How the fuck could I have missed this?” I roared as I slammed a fist into the wall.

“Hey, hey, you know how you missed it Mason, our lives for the past few weeks have been bloody gruelling. Beside it still doesn’t make sense. These photos were sent to Nate, not me.”

My brows hit my hairline, “What the fuck? That fucking twat!”

“Enough!” she barked vehemently, “Nate is my best friend and he only showed me because I found out he had kept your secret about Allure. He told me you were innocent as he gave them me, so don’t start on Nate, he did you a favour.”

I groaned and rubbed my tired face with my hands. Suddenly a few months of sleep seemed bloody heavenly. Ava wrapped her tiny arms around my waist, her fingers barely meeting at my back as she enveloped my wide frame. “I need in Allure tonight Mason, we need to get this thing rolling and finished.”

I eyed her hesitantly, still unsure of her working in that place, especially with all the beatings and—other things. I knew she could take care of herself but . . .

“You sure you wanna do this?” I asked her as I cradled the side of her head with a hand, her soft skin probing my heart with contentment. Her closeness and the love displayed in her eyes calmed me and ignited my veins with conflicting amounts of electricity and oxytocin.

She nodded firmly, “I need to do this but I also want to do this for your girls. Enough is enough Mason, this isn’t fair on them. They’re paying the price for something they haven’t done to upset some crazy fucked up nutter and I don’t want anyone else to innocently get caught up in this.”

“Jesus Christ, you always find ways to amaze me baby, even after eight years. After everything you’ve gone through, everything your past destroyed your soul and spirit with, you still manage to push past it and give everyone else a piece of that damn big heart of yours. I fucking love you, Ava, fucking never enough.”

She smiled softly as she reached up on her toes and slid her tongue over my bottom lip tenderly, “That’s because you made my heart big enough to share.”

I rolled my eyes at her, “One day you’re gonna realise that the love and tenderness you have, is all you baby, all yours that you made and grew all by yourself, not by anybody else—you.”

She scrunched her nose deliciously and my cock screamed in excitement. “Kiss me” I demanded as I slid my hand around her neck and pulled her into me.

“With pleasure” she breathed against my lips.

The desk took a good beating and I was silently impressed with the workmanship. Whoever built it, built it solidly. Ava and I can vouch for that.

Chapter 26

Ava

“OKAY GIRLS” MASON started, “This is Ava, my wife.” He addressed the ladies of Allure.

A round of shocked gasps floated around the room and a few scowls were directed at me. This helped; I now knew who wanted to fuck my husband and therefore who was going to be an arse to work with.

“She is taking over from Rebecca, but not only that, you will now answer to her instead of me. You do what she says and things work better for all of us. Anybody that has a problem can leave now.”

Nobody moved which was a good sign.

I scanned the girls, my eyes moving from one female to another, taking in their dress, their style of make-up and hair, and their expressions. Most held easy faces and body stances, especially two who caught my attention.

I smiled at the first woman, she looked to be late twenties, her blonde hair was pulled back into a bun so severe it strained the skin beside her eyes and her make-up was just as stern; dark, moody and intense. Her body was clad in full tight black leather, the tight material straining over her tiny bottom as her breasts heaved behind a body-hugging Basque. In her hand she held a large custom made gold and black quirt whip, her long fingers rubbing the ribbed handle as though she was nervous with my inspection.