Decay
A Heart of Stone Novel
By
D H Sidebottom
Decay
By
D H Sidebottom
Copyright © 2016
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual places, incidents and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 D H Sidebottom. Please do not copy, alter or redistribute this book.
Please secure author’s permission before sharing any extracts of this book.
Dedication
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Epilogue
Afternote
Dedication
As always, to my Best Friend, and Mason Fox’s devoted second wife,
Vickie Leaf
This one’s for you
xxx
Prologue
Mason
I leaned against the doorframe watching my perfect wife swim, her beautiful body moving fluidly through the depths of the water. Although forty five, she had the body of someone twenty years younger – without the breasts of course.
My heart lay heavy in my chest as the phone call I had taken not fifteen minutes ago echoed through my head.
‘Dad. Shit’s gone down.’
Ava pushed off the pool wall, turning elegantly and took the length of the pool with ease, her powerful muscles gliding her through the soft flow of the water.
‘Dad. Shit’s gone down.’
My soul refused to allow me to move towards her - that would mean that I would have to hurt her. Over the twenty two years I had been with Ava I had struggled with many things, fought so many wars, taken so much grief, but not once had I been overcome with this new emotion that flooded me – cowardice.
She was so beautiful that even now, after I had beheld every side of her; her anger, her grief, her rage, her frailty, my heart still skipped a beat every time my eyes arrived on hers.
Palming the edge of the pool she lifted herself out and approached me slowly, the faint frown on her face notifying me that she knew me as well as I did her.
“Mason?”
I gulped. She took the towel from me hesitantly, her body stiff as she narrowed her eyes on me.
“Hey, baby,” I whispered, unable to lift my voice any higher.
“What is it?”
Taking the towel from her, I placed it around her shoulders and wrapped her up as if it would protect her from what I had to tell her.
My mouth was so dry, my body aching as much as my heart. I pulled her against my body – ready to catch her when her legs gave way. Closing my eyes, I tried to swallow back the nausea when I saw the beginning of tears in hers.
“Mason,” she urged quietly, “Tell me.”
Lifting her little body into my arms, her hands instinctively came around my neck and she snuggled against me, the touch of her skin against mine both giving me courage and hurting every bone inside me.
I carried her into the house, her eyes never once leaving mine as she both encouraged me to tell her and pleaded with me not to.
Waiting until I settled us both onto the sofa, she slipped her fingers through mine and nodded, her chest heaving with the deep inhalations she took to brace herself against the sorrow I was about to deliver.
“Katie rang.”
She tensed in my arms. She knew, I didn’t know how she knew, but she did. A funny choked whine came from her and the sound of it fractured my damn fucking soul.
“I’m so sorry, baby.”
“Mason!” She spat my name out as though it was my fault. “No, don’t you say it!” Her eyes screwed closed and her head shook from side to side. “NO!”
Her punch to my chest winded me but I took it. I took the force of her grief as she broke. Her cries of despair brought my own devastation but she finally relented and allowed me to pull her body against mine when she gave in to it and consented to the truth. But she didn’t know the truth and that was where the cowardice physically made me gag.
How the fuck did I tell her? How the fuck would she ever get over this? She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t ever get over it. I was a selfish man; I had always been so damn fucking selfish. I loved life, and things – everything, every-god-damn-thing – were about to change, and not for the better. My wife’s life was about to end because she would never recover from this, just as I wouldn’t.
“I have to get to him,” she breathed out, her voice camouflaged in the crook of my neck.
Closing my eyes, I forced the words out, praying that I could keep the vomit back. “I’ve booked flights but… That’s going to be a problem.”
Once again she tensed, hearing the horror and pain in my voice. Her eyes lifted to my own when she reared back to look at me. Her face was pale but every inch of her beauty seemed to vibrate before me. She licked at her lips, attempting to dampen them when the moisture in her body evaporated with fear.
Then she started to pant. “Why is that a problem?” Her eyes were accusing, her wrath just on the precipice. I secured her gaze as I prepared for the fight.
“Because he’s been arrested for murdering Debora.” I closed my eyes as I choked out the final piece of the horror, “And Becca.”
I managed to catch her when she fainted. Only just.
Ava
It was funny, staring at a man I hated so much but begged with my eyes for him to help me. I wanted to stab him, but at the same time I wanted to lick his damn feet so long as he would help me.
He stared back, the repulsion and hatred evident on every crease and line of his face. I hadn’t seen him for nearly twenty years and as I laid my life before him, promising him an exchange, I could almost hear time tick by slowly – my future and that of my son’s teetering on the edge of fate. His fate.
He scoffed, his red rimmed eyes showing his own grief, a grief that mirrored my own. “You’re twenty years too late, Ava.”
My heart sank even though I had expected him to say the very same thing. But I wasn’t averse to begging. “Robert, please. I will give you every single name that stains my hands, Dean Stewart included. I still have every single piece of evidence against you. It’s yours, just say the word.”
His lip curled with abhorrence, his teeth bared like an animal. “You expect me to just sweep aside the fact that your son slaughtered my granddaughter and great grandchild? What kind of fucking woman are you?”
His words slapped me in the face but I swallowed back my retort and fell to my knees. “Robert, please. George didn’t do it, he wouldn’t. He loved Debora with all his soul. And even you must know that he wouldn’t murder his own child.”
“Nothing surprises me where your family is concerned, Mrs Fox. I wouldn’t put it past any of you to kill your own for selfishness.”
“He didn’t do this! I know George, he is opposed to everything to do with the family. He is the gentlest man I have ever known. He wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t.”
He blinked at me and sighed heavily, compassion at my despair sliding over his stern face for the first time since I had walked into his office. It confused me, Robert Delaney showing any kind of empathy. “I know she was your granddaughter too, Ava. And Debora to
ld me how much you all accepted her and loved her, but even you must see that George’s habit has become too much.”
“Yes, he was high,” I defended. “But that’s just the thing, he was so high that he can’t remember anything. You have to at least just look into the evidence, please, for Debora’s sake. She loved George like your daughter loved my husband.” He flinched at that but swallowed back his own response. “Please, sir, please. I’m begging you. Like I said, I will give you everything on the death of Dean, my own involvement. I’m offering you something you’ve wanted for so long. Me.”
Robert ran his tongue around his lips, my offer making his blood heat with opportunity. He was as bent as they came. I knew he could get George free and I knew the offer of myself was too much for him to brush aside.
“You still have the recordings and photographs of me?”
I nodded urgently, hope stealing my breath. “I do. They’re yours if you look into what really happened. I’m yours. I’m willing to put myself in prison for the rest of my life just to prove my son’s innocence. That’s how confident I am that he didn’t do it. He’s hurting, Robert. His wife and child have been brutally murdered. And he’s locked up. I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified this will finish him.”
He spun around in his chair and stared out of the window for a moment. “I manage to prove his innocence and you’re still mine, even if George didn’t do this?”
“I am,” I answered quickly.
Turning back to me, he regarded me. “So you’re willing to give yourself to me just for me to look into the case. You are still going to own up to murder even if George is guilty?”
I swallowed back the fear and nodded again. “Yes. Whatever the outcome, I will walk into that prison with my hands in the air. I just beg you to be honest with whatever comes to light.”
He nodded slowly. “It looks like you have a deal, Mrs Fox.”
Every bone in my body liquefied and a burst of relief flew from me.
“I suggest you say your goodbyes.”
My heart clamped hold of my breath when I thought of Mason, of leaving him behind. I knew he would visit and that was what was terrifying me, subjecting him to that. To a life of monthly visits in a place where he would never be able to touch me. Yet George was my son. Some bastard had broken into his house and taken the very things he held precious, his family. I knew Mason would do exactly the same thing for his children. Yet I knew he would never understand why I had done this.
But I needed to free my son. I needed to clear his name more than I’d needed anything in my life.
♡
I couldn’t breathe under his anger. His fingers were around my throat, his body trapping me between him and the wall as his wrath rendered me still. It wasn’t painful but enough to subdue me. His eyes were blazing under his emotions of grief, rage, fear, and horror, each one portrayed with a devastating intensity.
Mason’s firm body held me hostage as he tried to rein in his temper. “Why?” His head shook back and forth. “WHY, AVA?”
I couldn’t speak, Mason’s heartache taking my breath as well as my sanity.
Finally, he dropped me and slammed his arms around me, pulling me against him when my sobs came out in choked apologies. “Please understand,” I begged him as I clawed at him, my fingers capturing the softness of his t-shirt as I fought for something physical to tether me to reality. “Please, Mason.”
He squeezed his eyes closed, his jaw hard under the grit of his teeth. “I do understand, but that doesn’t mean it makes it right, Ava! You should trust me to sort this!”
“How the hell are you going to sort this?”
His face distorted with fury and I watched the clench of his fists. “But you going to prison to save our son is NOT RIGHT!” he bellowed. “He needs to do time for this, Ava. How the fuck can you stand by him…”
The slap of my palm across his cheek rang out as heavy as my gasp. My eyes were wide on him, my heart crumbling in my chest with the echo of Mason’s words. For the longest moment I couldn’t open my mouth, the shock of his declaration gluing my tongue to the roof of my mouth. “What did you just say?” I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me when all that came out was a raspy whisper of astonishment. “W-What….”
He clenched his teeth together and looked away. It was obvious he hadn’t meant to let slip his accusation. But he did. He had. And every single one of his words broke piece after piece of my heart.
Tears blurred my vision and I took a step back, repugnance making the vomit in my belly force its way up my throat. “How can you?” I spat. “How can you have so little faith in your own flesh and blood?”
“AVA!” he yelled, finally losing his control. “He fucking slaughtered your granddaughter with his bare hands. He raped and mutilated his own wife! How can you defend him?”
My head shook as tears fled down my face. “He didn’t Mason, he wouldn’t. Even you know that he wouldn’t!”
His body sagged and his hands reached for me but I moved back again. “Don’t touch me!”
“Ava, please…”
“No! No. Just go!”
He snorted and glared at me. “This shit again?”
How could he stand there and believe that George would do this? How could he believe our gentle son would be capable of this?
“He was high on heroin, Ava. I know what that stuff does to you. I’m not saying he meant to…”
“GET OUT!” I screamed, horror curling around my heart.
“No!”
“No?” I scoffed. “No?”
“I’m not doing this again, baby. Every time we argue you tell me to go. I have an opinion too, and just because I don’t agree with yours...”
“You shouldn’t have to agree!” I raged, “You should know!”
I needed to get away before I tore his head off. Katie gawped at me when I pushed past her in my need to run.
“Mum?”
Ignoring both hers and Mason’s shouts, I climbed in the car and drove, just drove. Anywhere so long as it was away from a man that was too blind to see what his fucked up life had done to his children.
Mason
Katie stared at me like I had grown another head. The disappointment on her face matched that of her mother’s.
“Please don’t tell me what just happened there.” Her voice was deathly quiet, her horror as potent as Ava’s.
“She needs to accept it, Katie.”
She closed her eyes, sighed and shook her head sadly. “You think he did it.”
Why wouldn’t people accept the reality of shit? Life wasn’t easy and this time Ava, nor me, could sort this shit out. It was too far into hell to find a silver lining. There were no clouds where George was. There were no more hopes that this life was bearable, because it wasn’t. It was life, as fucking hard as it was.
“I know what he’s like, Katie.”
She laughed, her head tipping back and the tips of her lustrous long red hair sweeping the tops of her thighs. Tears filled her eyes, yet they weren’t of grief, but of humour. “You know what he’s like?”
I narrowed my eyes on her when she stepped towards me. “And tell me, Dad, tell me what you think Georgie is capable of? Murdering his wife? Slaughtering his child?”
When I stared at her but didn’t reply she leaned into me. Her breath on my ear caused a panic to my chest and I braced myself for her next words.
“You seem to have your children the wrong way round, Daddy.” Ice raced through my veins, cooling my blood as sweat dampened my forehead and palms. “Spilled blood doesn’t excite George. Carnage doesn’t make his heart beat faster, and a deep need to kill doesn’t make his soul sing.” She leaned back, her eyes fixed hard on mine. “That’s your daughter.”
My mouth dried, the reflection of my own needs staring back at me with a chilling truth.
A cruel smile tilted the edges of Katie’s lips, slaughter and murder pouring from her. “And your daughter is going to show you just how adventurous and cre
ative she can be with Debora and Becca’s real murderer.”
“Katie!”
She halted, her hand on the door handle as she turned back to me.
“Don’t do this. You will never come back from it.”
She chuckled, her teeth clamping the tip of her tongue lightly. “Too late.” And with a wink she walked away.
Katie
“Harder, fuck me harder!”
I gasped when Kris yanked on my hair, forcing my head back against his face so he could whisper demands straight into my ear. “Come on, my little bitch, show me how hard you like it!”
His cock stretched me wide, his cruel drives inside me allowing me to release all the pent up frustration. I reached behind me, grabbing hold of his hair as I rode him hard and fast. “Come on, you fuck! Give it me.”
“That’s it, Katie. I knew you were in there somewhere.”
His hand wrapped around the front of my throat and squeezed until my climax burst from me in raspy cries, the pain of his hold forcing every nerve ending in my body into the stars.
He growled, deep and savagely as his fingers left my throat and curled around my hips, his grip punishing as he slammed home, releasing his own orgasm into the condom. His ejaculation brought my name from his lips and I cringed, knowing it meant the end of something good.
He sighed when I instantly rolled over and slipped from the bed. Propping himself up on one elbow he watched me, his already shrinking dick allowing him to slip the condom off easily. “You know just once you could give me a bit more of you, Kay.”
I quirked an eyebrow at his stupid shortening of my name as though that made us closer, and pulled my t-shirt over my head. “Any piece of me would leave a bitter taste in your mouth, Kris. Be happy with what little I allow you.”
“I was thinking,” he said, ignoring me and making my gut sink, “The new Blue Butterfly film premieres this weekend, I was wondering if you wanted to go.”
Decay (Heart of Stone Book 13) Page 1
