Page 28 of Man of Lies (Vendetta Kings #2)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

MASON

The sky had cracked open twenty minutes ago, unleashing one of those punishing southern downpours that hit like judgment—loud, sudden, and mean. Heat still rolled off the pavement in waves, but now it tangled with steam and the sharp, greasy stink of oil bleeding up from the asphalt—days of buildup turned slick and deadly the second the rain hit.

Visibility had gone to hell, but I kept the throttle steady and my eyes forward, chasing the storm like I had a score to settle.

My calls to Dom went straight to voicemail, so the next call I made was to Colton. If anyone had a lead on the shitshow going down in the parish tonight, it was him. He picked up on the third ring, muttering something under his breath to someone in the background. Ben’s voice came through low and muffled, a quiet rumble that didn’t quite reach words—just enough to remind me it wasn’t a private line.

When I’d pumped him for information, all he’d given me was a heavy, exhausted breath. “I’ve been circling the Dead End for a month, trying to pin down who’s moving what. Gator Hollis is the common thread. He’s been running product for Dominic —small-scale, likely local distribution. But the other side of it?” His tone was filled with disgust. “Girls. And that pipeline’s not Beaufort’s.”

I’d gripped the throttle hard enough for my knuckles to peak white. “You sure?”

“No. That’s the problem. Whoever’s behind it knows how to keep their name off paper and their hands off the scene. No texts. No calls. Gator runs his mouth just enough to confirm what he’s doing, but not who’s pulling the strings.”

I’d asked him if he had any names, even soft leads.

“Couple,” he’d said. “But nothing I’d bet your life on.”

I cursed. If I wanted answers, I would need to get them straight from Gator’s mouth.

The address Colton gave me belonged to a shotgun house on the edge of the parish, not far from Eden itself. But it might as well have been a different world. The house came into view through sheets of water, sagging under its own weight and barely holding off the storm. Rain hammered the tin-roofed porch like a war drum, drowning out everything except the low snarl of my engine and the distant roll of thunder bleeding through the sky. The stench of mildew and something rotting hit me before I’d even cut the throttle.

I stepped down into ankle-deep mud, gravel giving way beneath my boots as I moved toward the warped screen door. This was Gator’s kingdom—half junkyard, half grave—and every inch of it reeked of bad decision.

I saw no working vehicles out front—just the overgrown yard and a rusted-out pickup missing two wheels. But Gator’s place had a gravel loop that dipped around back, and it wouldn’t be the first time someone tucked a car behind the tree line to avoid attention.

The porch steps groaned under my weight, half-rotted and slick with algae. I tested each one like it might give way beneath me, rainwater sloshing in the treads of my boots. There were no lights inside, not even the glow of a TV or a lamp left burning to fake company. Just that relentless percussion of rain and the eerie stillness of a house that should’ve been humming with some sign of life.

Something was wrong.

I paused near the top step, the back of my neck prickling. Not from the cold—the rain was warm, practically steaming off my skin—but from how the world had gone too quiet. No radio. No voices. No movement inside. Just the creak of the porch swing drifting in the wind and a half-smoked cigarette guttering in an ashtray by the door, still curling smoke like somebody had just been there and gotten up fast. The screen door hung open an inch too wide, caught on the frame like it hadn’t been pulled shut.

None of it screamed danger on its own. But it felt wrong.

Crazily, I wished Silas were here. This was his world, not mine. My world was paperwork, courthouses, clean sheets, and early runs through magnolia-lined streets. Silas’s world was darker: roadhouse fights, backdoor deals, and rusted-out safehouses. He’d know how to read this. He wouldn’t hesitate or second-guess the silence.

Me? I didn’t even own a gun.

I pushed the door open cautiously, but the hinges groaned loud enough to act as a warning shot.

Then I saw it.

The barrel of a gun was leveled at my face.

I froze. Everything in me just…stopped. My breath. My thoughts. Even the rain seemed to hush. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think past the fact that the last thing I saw might be the black void of that muzzle…and the last words I spoke to Silas were to hurt him.

When a bullet didn’t instantly enter my brain, it managed to kick in, and my eyes finally slid past the barrel. Past the finger on the trigger, steady as stone. Up an expensively tailored sleeve. Over the sharp line of a shoulder I knew like my own. And finally, into the ice-cold stare of my brother.

Dominic didn’t flinch, and he didn’t lower the gun.

Behind him, Gator Hollis lay sprawled on the floor, one leg bent at a wrong angle, eyes wide open and glassy. Blood pooled beneath his head like it had been leaking for a while.

I didn’t know what I found more disturbing—the gun in Dominic’s hand, or the dead, emotionless expression on his face.

“Why?” It sounded like a stranger speaking. My voice echoed strangely in my head, hollow with shock. “Why’d you do it?”

Dominic didn’t answer.

The door creaked shut behind me as I stepped further into the house, leaving us in the gloom of stormy afternoon light leaking through the dirty windows. Dominic’s gun followed me the whole way, unwavering, like he hadn’t yet ruled out the possibility of needing it.

The living room air was thick with mildew and the copper tang of blood starting to settle into the floorboards.

“You could’ve turned him in,” I said. “We could’ve flipped him and gotten so many names. So much leverage. Now it’s just…gone.”

Still nothing from Dominic.

He looked down at Gator’s body, the slack jaw and blood-matted hair of a once handsome face. The faded tattoo on the side of the man’s neck had already started to wrinkle into the first signs of death. Then, without a word, he nudged the body with the toe of one gleaming leather boot. Not cruelly. Not even curiously. Just…testing.

Then he looked up again with eyes so cold I felt like I should check for frostbite.

“I didn’t do this,” he said.

That was it. No explanation. No shift in expression. Just a flat line of a voice, as calm and composed as if I’d asked him when the rain would clear.

“Bullshit!” I jabbed a finger hard into the center of his chest. Felt the give of muscle beneath the fabric, the steady rhythm of a heart that didn’t seem rattled by the corpse cooling behind him. Rage was building in my chest like a storm surge. “I’m your lawyer. You’ve never lied to me before. Don’t you dare fucking start now.”

He didn’t blink. Dominic never reacted like a normal man. Anger rolled off him like water. Disgust barely registered. He’d been trained too young to keep himself sealed tight, and what was left was this—clean lines, calm decisions, and weaponized silence.

Instead of answering, he lowered the gun in his left hand and lifted his right. It took me a second to realize he was holding something, and even longer to recognize what I was looking at.

A watch.

Not obvious, not something a stranger would clock—but unmistakable if you knew what you were looking at. The platinum band was scuffed from years of wear, the clasp still stiff like it had never been adjusted. Along the inner rim, just beneath the face, I could still make out the faint engraving—worn down now, almost invisible, but not gone. Boone had given each of us one when we turned sixteen. Not because we wanted them. Because he wanted us to understand time. Legacy. The burden of both.

And Dominic was still wearing his.

My stomach dropped—slow and cold, like falling through deep water.

I took the watch from his hand and stared in disbelief. The metal was warm from Dominic’s hand, and the platinum band caught the light, dulled by grime and something darker seeping into the links. The engraving was still there—faint, almost worn smooth—but I didn’t need to read it to know what it said.

Time tells the truth.

Boone had etched the phrase into every watch he gave us, like some moral failsafe. We were boys then, too young to understand what it meant.

Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Because the truth was that one of us had stood in this room…and left Gator Hollis bleeding on the floor.

I turned the watch over in my palm, and my eyes flicked back up to Dominic’s, searching for some hint that would explain any of this.

“Whose is it?” I demanded harshly. “And don’t tell me you don’t know, Dom.”

For a moment, he didn’t answer; he just held my gaze with that same inscrutable calm that had always driven me crazy. Then something shifted in his eyes—something I’d never seen before. A flicker of uncertainty.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, so reluctant it was like the words had been dragged out of him against his will.

“I found him like this. The door was open. He was already gone, and this—” he glanced at the watch in my hand— “was on the floor beside the body.”

His tone was low, but I noticed the slightest tremor running through it. For once, Dominic Beaufort, the brother who never flinched or faltered, didn’t have the answer.

That scared me more than the gun had.

I wanted to press him, but something in his eyes stopped me. Instead, I pocketed the watch, feeling its weight against my chest like an anchor.

“Why are you even here, Dom?” I asked, trying to get a read on that look in his eyes. “What’s your play?”

He glanced at Gator’s body, then back at me, and the flicker of vulnerability disappeared like it had never existed. Only that familiar steel remained.

Dominic’s jaw ticked. “I was after the mastermind. Thought I had a location, a clean shot at cutting the head off this thing. But he’s already in the wind. Everything's scrubbed clean. Phone's dead. Accounts gone. Any trail I had disappeared overnight.”

He didn’t say how close he’d gotten, but I could guess. Close enough to make someone nervous.

“So you came here instead,” I said.

“Gator was the only one left who might’ve known where the girls were. And if I couldn’t hit the top, I was going to make damn sure the rest of the chain collapsed underneath them.”

I studied him for a moment. “So, tell me who it is. If you’re serious about ending this, let me help.”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because he’s connected in this parish. He’s protected by more than just the cops. If I don’t play this the right way, he disappears for good, and a shit storm comes down on our family. We’re neck deep in it already, and that watch you’ve got in your pocket means we’ve just handed our enemies a loaded weapon. You’re the attorney for the whole goddamn family. I need you clean, Mason. You want to help? Keep your hands out of this.”

I stared at him incredulously. “So that’s it? You’re just going to leave?”

“I don’t have time to explain it to you,” he said, already turning. “And you don’t have time to stop me.”

The front door creaked open behind him, a gust of humid air rushing in like the house itself was exhaling rot.

I glanced over my shoulder at Gator’s body, lying twisted on the floor, mouth open, eyes fixed on the ceiling like he was looking for what hit him. His blood had soaked into the wood, dark and sticky, congealing at the edges as it started to dry.

It wasn’t the sight or smell that turned my stomach; it was the emptiness of leaving another human like that, no matter who he was or what he’d done.

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and turned away, one hand jammed in my pocket to make sure the watch was still there.

Rain slapped me the second I stepped outside. It pounded against the tin roof, rolled down the back of my neck, and soaked straight through the cotton of my shirt. Mud sucked at my boots as I stepped off the porch and into the yard, chasing the dark blur of Dominic’s retreating figure.

I caught up to him as he reached the far edge of the house, where his Jaguar sat half-hidden behind a curtain of hanging moss, engine idling like it had been waiting for this moment.

“Dominic!” I shouted, my voice barely carrying over the rain. “You don’t get to do this alone!”

He didn’t even turn around. Like I wasn’t standing ten feet behind him, soaked to the bone and ready to throw fists if that’s what it took to keep him from disappearing again. He was already in the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut with a muffled, expensive thud. The windows were tinted. Opaque. Like the rest of him. All I saw was the ghost of his silhouette as the engine revved and the car peeled off down the narrow drive, tires throwing up muddy spray like a middle finger aimed straight at me.

“Goddamn it, Dominic!” I broke into a run, boots sliding in the muck as I tore back toward the front of the house. The Ducati sat where I left it, red paint streaked with rain and mud, water dripping from the tank, pooling dark beneath the frame.

I kicked it into gear and throttled hard, tires spitting mud as I spun onto the road.

Rain lashed my face like a hundred tiny needles. I could still feel the press of the watch in my pocket, hear the hollow creak of that rotted floorboard behind me, and see Gator’s lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

No. Hell no.

Wherever Dominic was going, I was right behind him.