Page 96 of Pucked Around and Found Out

Not because I didn't see it. But because some part of me, some stubborn, desperate, idiotic part of me, didn't want to.

“You weren't hiding from Steven.” My voice comes out, barely above a whisper. “You weren't his heir waiting to take over. You were already running it. You've been running it. How long?”

Masen holds my gaze for a long moment.

The betrayal I feel is so gut wrenching I can’t even describe it.

Kellan and Cas had no idea, they thought he was innocent like I did, until the night of the crash. I always believed my father was trying to mold my brother into a perfect NHL player and make the world fall in love with him. Turns out, Steven was trying to put his son in the spotlight so no one would ever expect the golden boy from Somerset to be dirty.

He exhales slowly through his nose and the performance finally, fully drops.

What replaces it is worse.

Because what replaces it is just him. Stripped of the cruelty and the swagger and the smug performance. Just my brother, sitting in a chair with blood drying on his chin, looking at me the way he hasn't since we were children.

Like I'm actually worth looking at.

“Since I was seventeen,” he says.

The number hits me like a physical blow. Seventeen. He was seventeen years old.

“Steven built the network,” he continues, his voice flat and factual in the way it gets when he's decided to tell the truth and can't afford to feel it while he does. “He was meticulous about it. Compartmentalized everything. No one person knew more than their piece. But he needed someone who could see the whole board, someone he trusted to hold it all together without being visible.” He pauses. “He chose me. Spent two years teaching me everything before he ever let me touch any of it.”

“You were seventeen,” I say again, because I can't seem to move past it.

“I was seventeen and I was good at it.” There's no pride in his voice. There's nothing in his voice. “It was never about the cartel, Tor. I didn't want the power or the money or any of that shit. I wanted him to see me.” His jaw tightens. “Turns out that's your weakness too.”

The cruelty of it lands exactly where he intends it to.

Because he's right. He is absolutely right and we both know it. Two children raised by the same absent, demanding, corrupt man, both of us contorting ourselves into whatever shape we thought would make him look our way. Masen chose to become his weapon. I chose to become invisible.

We were both wrong.

“Did you know?” I ask. I have to. Even though part of me is terrified of the answer, I have to know. “When they took me. When they put me in Walter House. Did you know what he was going to do before it happened?”

The silence stretches long enough to tell me everything before he opens his mouth.

“I knew the night before.” His voice is quieter now. “He told me it was damage control. That the evidence was going to bury the family name and the accident gave him a window to—” He stops. Starts again. “I told him not to. For what it's worth, I told him it wasn't necessary, that we could manage the fallout another way.”

“But you didn't stop him.”

He doesn't answer.

He doesn't need to.

“You didn't stop him,” I say again, and this time it isn't an accusation. It's just the truth, laid out between us on the floor like something neither of us can step around. “You were running the cartel and you let him lock your sister away for a year for a crime you committed and you—” My voice breaks on the last word. Just once, just for a second, before I find it again. “You let me rot in here, Masen.”

“I know.” Two words. Hollow and absolute.

“Why?”

He looks at me for a long time. “Because I was a coward,” he says. “Because I had spent so many years building something for him that walking away from his decision would have meant admitting that everything I'd done, everything I'd become, was for a man who was never worth it. Don’t forget it was supposed to be me and your boyfriend that died that night.” His throat works. “It was easier to tell myself you'd be okay. That it was temporary. That he'd pull you out before—” He cuts himself off.

“Before what?” I press.

He shakes his head.

I let it go. Not because I forgive it. I don't. I may never forgive it. But because I can feel the clock ticking and I can hear Halo moving through the building and I know we are running out of time for the conversation I actually need to have.