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“Peterson was a schizophrenic. He hid his condition with medication while under scrutiny at his job. If I’d known about it, I would have been more cautious, but instead I dismissed his sometimes erratic behavior as embarrassment because he wasn’t learning the code fast enough. Truth is, he stopped taking his meds. By the time I found him two months later?—”

My head snaps up. “You found him?”

Mason’s gaze connects with mine. The raw barbarity stops my breath, but it’s nothing like the sadistic smile that curves his mouth. “Yes, I found him.”

“On your own?”

“Yes.”

My throat has gone desert-dry, but I try to swallow anyway. “What did you do?”

His eyes are so dark they’re almost black. Every single moment of danger—latent or otherwise—which I’ve felt since meeting Mason fuses into that moment. That look. And although I know it’s not directed at me, my insides still congeal with fear.

“I made him pay,” is all he says before he surges to his feet with me still in his arms.

His phone starts to ring again, and he turns away from it.

“Mason.”

He strides through the room to the door before he sets me on my feet. “It’s noon. We have an appointment downstairs,” he replies, his voice a sharp blade, punctuating the air. He yanks open the door and pulls me after him.

“Wait!”

He slams to a stop and crowds me into the wall. “I can take it—those were your words to me. True or false?” His hot breath washes over my face as he bends his knees and looks into my eyes.

“True,” I exhale.

“Good. I’m going to hold you to that.”

Our trip down the elevator to the lower deck is conducted in a cracked silence, foaming with sex and despair, rage, and tortured sorrow. Mason doesn’t hide his erratic breathing. The sound fills the small enclosure, fills my every pore, until I’m breathing in synchrony with him. His head turns and his gaze meets mine.

“Mason,” I murmur.

Something shifts in his eyes, but it quickly disappears.

The doors part, and we’re confronted by Titus Morton. He has two scantily clad women hanging off each arm, and his black silk shirt is secured by a single button. His gaze swings from Mason to me and proceeds to crawl over my body.

The raw snarl from Mason’s throat snaps everyone’s attention to him.

“This is your last warning, Morton. You keep your fucking eyes to yourself when you see us coming?—”

“Or what?” the pudgy man stupidly challenges.

Mason lunges forward and wraps his hand around Titus’ neck. The girls dart out of the way to keep from being flattened by the seething mountain that is Mason Sinclair. “Or I’ll introduce you to scuba diving without a tank.”

Titus’ eyes bulge, then he throws out his hands in a quick gesture of surrender. “Hey, it’s cool, Sinclair. I just thought since we both fish in the same pool, you wouldn’t mind, you know… sharing?—”

He never sees the hand coming. But the agony of a possible broken nose, and the blood spurting onto his chest, certainly registers as Mason calmly steps back.

“What the fuck!” Titus screams, clutching his nose with both hands.

“We’ve never had, and never will have, anything in common. Keep out of my sight, or the next time we’re this close, you lose more than a little nasal cartilage.”

Mason calmly turns to me and holds out his hand. “Come.”

I slip mine into his without question, and we’re walking down the hall as if the past two minutes never happened. I’m a little ashamed that the raw exhibition of Mason’s jealousy has me all hot and wet, so I keep my head down, my body tucked close to Mason’s and drag my free hand up and down his arm.

“Kitten?”