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MASON BROTHERS, BOOK 1
ONE
Evie
It started with a phone call at one o’clock in the morning.
I’d put my pillow over my head to block out my roommate’s music, and I pulled my head out when I heard the ringtone, my hair falling over my eyes as I reached for my phone. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
A strange man’s voice on the other end said, “Evie Bates?”
“Yes?” I croaked, half into my pillow in my dark bedroom.
“Is your boyfriend a guy named Josh Brantwell?”
“Yes.” I sat bolt upright, shoving my hair back. “Oh my God, is he okay?”
“Not for long.”
The man’s voice was rough, as if he’d been shouting over a bar band all night, and I could hear the faint sounds of street noise in the background. I had never heard that voice before, and for a second I got a strange chill down my spine, like a premonition of doom.
“What?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
There was a pause. Then the man’s voice came again, dark and cold. “Look, Evie Bates, I realize this is probably bad news, but I’m about to go beat your boyfriend to a pulp.”
For a second, the words didn’t compute. “Who is this?” I nearly shouted, standing up in the dark in my old pajama top.
“It’s going to be bloody. I just thought I should warn you first.”
“Is this a joke?” It didn’t sound like a joke. It sounded like someone was about to beat up Josh. Was he being mugged? No, muggers didn’t phone their victims’ girlfriends first. And Josh couldn’t get mugged unless he was out on the street somewhere, when I knew exactly where he was. He was—
“No joke,” the strange man said. “My girlfriend is at Josh Brantwell’s place right now. And I’m about to go mess him up.”
That stopped me. It made no sense. “There’s no girl at Josh’s place,” I said stupidly. “He’s there alone.”
“You sure about that?” the man said. “Because I followed my girlfriend tonight. And she came here.” He rhymed off an address that made my stomach drop to the floor. “Resident is one Josh Brantwell.”
“What is she doing there?” I said.
“Fucking him, I presume,” the man said bluntly. “I’m pretty pissed off about it, I have to say. I’m about to go in there and give him a beating. But I looked him up first, and I saw that he has a girlfriend. So hey, Evie Bates, your asshole of a boyfriend is cheating on you. I thought you should know.”
“I—” I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. Josh? “I—”
“Well?” the man said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” the man said. “I thought so. Bring bandages, a towel, maybe a mop.” Then he hung up.
For a second I stared at the wall of my bedroom, my mouth open.
Then I grabbed my clothes.
* * *
There wasno way Josh was cheating on me. Simply no way. There had to be a mistake somewhere.
We’d been dating for four months. I met him at the bank where we were both tellers. He was dark-haired, clean-cut, good-looking, and when he asked me out I said yes. Of course I did. Josh was the Yeti of boyfriends: straight, single, sober, no baggage. I was twenty-five, and I wassupposedto have a boyfriend like that. It was flattering that he’d picked me, when the other single women at work were circling him like sharks. I hadn’t asked a lot of questions—I’d just gone on the date.
