Page 12 of Mason

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Mason shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against Viktor’s desk at the KSI office. “Papa was trying not to go back to the doctor. The treatments are making him sicker than he already is, Vik. He looks awful. You know how stubborn he is when he makes up his mind. As soon as he thought I was getting married…”

“Fuck,” Viktor muttered and shoved a hand through his hair. “Have you talked to Jo?”

“No. I came straight here. What the hell am I gonna do? I can’t tell him I’m not getting married. He’ll go back to trying to get out of his treatments.”

“What are you talking about,brat?”

Mason looked up to see Kade stroll into Viktor’s office. He looked as tired as Mason felt.

“You look like shit, Kade.” Viktor threw his boots up on the desk.

“Arielle was projectile vomiting half the night. She caught some kind of stomach bug, and then Mateo woke up the other half the night doing the same thing. I ain’t slept in almost two days, so you can fuck off.”

Viktor winced. “Been there. Don’t want to go there again, so stay the fuck away from me.”

Kade’s steely gaze grew harder, but before he could say anything, Mason interrupted. “Chill. We got bigger problems.”

“What bigger problems?”

“Papa is trying to stop his treatments.”

“The fuck?” Kade rounded on Mason, fear replacing every other emotion on the man’s face.

“I was just over there. He doesn’t want to spend what time he has left so sick he can barely function.”

“He’ll die without those treatments.” Panic laced Kade’s words, the same panic Mason had felt earlier.

“Boy Wonder, here, thwarted him.”

“You did?” Kade sank down in a chair. “Then why do we have bigger problems?”

“Because he told Papa he and Jo were getting married, and the old man agreed to treatments so he’d be here for the wedding.”

Kade grinned. “Congrats,brat.”

Mason shook his head. “I never once said I was marrying Jo. That was all Mama andBabushka. They didn’t hear what I said and jumped on what they wanted to hear.”

“What, exactly, did you say?”

“I asked Papa if he wanted to be here to see me marry Jo and have kids of my own.”

“Well, it does sound like you asked…”

“I didn’t say I’d asked her. I only alluded to asking her sometime in the distant future. I was trying to come up with shit to stop him from quitting his damn treatments. Appealing to his strong sense of family and shit. How was I to know the women would latch onto the wordmarryand run with it?”

“You in the shithouse,brat.” Viktor slapped him on the back, and he stumbled forward with the force of it. Damn. He needed to get back to the gym, or his brothers would think they could push him over.

“How long have you and Jo been dating?”

“Officially?”

Kade rolled his eyes. “Boy…”

“She and fuckwad broke up when she was in the hospital back in September, so we were hanging out since then, but I didn’t officially declare my intentions until later.”

“She knew she belonged to you since the hospital, though?”

“Yeah. I think so, but who knows what’s in that pretty little head of hers? I didn’t want to push her after everything dickhead put her through.”