The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone

by D H Sidebottom

  I didn’t open my eyes until I heard the door click shut. Ava was sat on a chair, calm as fuck, looking up at me. Swallowing tightly, I cleared my throat and licked my lips. “Explain.”

  “Sit down.”

  I shook my head, locking down her stare with my own, both of us battling with each other to stay composed. “No. Explain.”

  She bit her lip and clicked her tongue, quirking her eyebrow slightly. “I will explain when you get your head out of your ass and calm—the—fuck—down.”

  She gasped when I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the chair, dragging her body flush to mine so she could feel my temper as well as see it. “Don’t push me, Ava. I’m not doing so well right now. Don’t play one of your childish fucking games with me. Why the fuck did you say again when you said Katie would kill? Oh and let’s not forget the ‘As a Fox’ part. You know damn fucking well I didn’t want this life for the kids!”

  And still she stood there, staring at me, serene and un-fucking-ruffled. “If there’s anything that I remember from my school days,” she spouted coolly, “is a quote from Saint Augustine.” I stared at her. She’d gone crazy. “Thou hast created us for thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in thee.”

  My eyes widened on her. “What?”

  Closing her eyes, she shook her head sadly. “I discovered many things from my time locked up with Rebecca, Mason.”

  What the fuck?

  “And the one that finally hit home for me,” she whispered almost sorrowfully, “is that you create in us what you want for you. You manipulated Rebecca until she was nothing but a shell of who she once was. All that controlled her was you, her need to make you happy. Her, almost primal, behaviour was nothing more than a woman’s natural instinct to fight for her man.”

  I stared at her, my heart slowing as her words hit me with the force of a hurricane. She cupped my face gently with her hand, a small soft smile tilting her lips as her love for me shone brightly in her stunning green depths. “Yet, through all the years I have been with you, I know for sure that you are unaware of your power over anyone. Hell, even I didn’t see it until a couple of years ago. Your natural character is made that way, Mason. It’s nothing you do specifically but you feed us, nurture us, almost form us into a piece of you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that how you ever expected the kids to lead a life separate from what we do is rainbows and bullshit. They are our children Mason, they have our genes, our blood, parts of our souls. They’re gonna follow us however much we block the path that leads them there.”

  I slumped into the chair finally, needing to support the hurt her disclosure had hit me with. “But I tried, Ava. I never wanted them to have to . . . do this shit!”

  “I know.” She smiled, slipping back onto the chair beside me. She was too far away, my soul needed her. Reaching across, I dragged her over the gap and settled her on my knee. She rested her head on my chest when I wrapped my arm around her.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She sighed and nuzzled further into me. “Katie rang me in a mess a couple of months ago.” She felt me stiffen but she carried on. “She’d come home from a party and found a guy strangling and raping her best friend.”

  “What the hell?”

  She nodded and sighed again. “She lost it, Mason. Picked up that bloody bookend I’d bought her for Christmas last year and set to work on him.”

  Vomit surged up my throat and I gagged. My poor little girl.

  “I calmed her down. Got someone out there . . .”

  “Who?” She tensed making me instantly wary. “Who, Ava. Who did you get to do the clean up?”

  She hesitated, making me close my eyes to brace myself when I knew her answer before she spoke it. “Steed.”

  We both winced when the sound of my teeth cracking was loud in the silence.

  “I didn’t know who else to call, Mason. I knew Greg and Sam would tell you.”

  She lowered her face to the floor when I pushed her off my knee and stood up. I was trying so hard to control it but it was racing through me at a speed that I couldn’t stop. My vision swayed when my fingers cracked into place, one by one, each of them curling and forming fists as my ribs creaked with the swell of hatred inside me.

  “Mason, please . . .”

  I spun round and laughed. It was either that or launch her through the window. “How long have you been talking to him?”

  She shook her head quickly. “I haven’t!”

  “Yet,” I whispered as I grabbed her chin and made her look at me. “Yet, you chose to phone him instead of telling me and letting me sort out my own daughter’s problems!”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  “No?” I scoffed. “Well it fucking looks like that to me. I told you to delete his number, baby. So care to tell me why . . . WHY you rang him?”

  “What the fuck was I supposed to do Mason?” she screamed, “My baby needed me and I couldn’t get to her. I had to listen to her screaming and breaking on the bloody phone. She needed me! Her mother! And where was I?” She pushed at me, her temper snapping as tears flowed down her face. “I was in bed with you and Kade and her fucking Aunty Grace. Yeah, pretty shit, huh? She’s bashing a rapist over the head repeatedly, his blood not only staining her body but her spirit, while I’m getting my oats sown.” She dropped her head and sobbed. “I didn’t know what to do, Mason. She was hurting. I knew it would hurt you if you found out. And I couldn’t . . .”

  “Hey!” I pulled her against me, holding on to her as she broke. “Shush.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .”

  Sitting us both down, I allowed her to get it out as I sat and rocked her, my heart breaking with hers as the reality of what Katie had done made me nauseas. Just as both Ava and I were putting our lives to rest, our children were stepping into the horror of what their parents had created. And as Ava had said, there was nothing we could do to stop it. It was and always had been their destiny, no matter how much we tried to create a sweet and unrealistic future for them.

  “Is Nikki okay?” I asked eventually when she calmed down, hoping to God Katie’s best friend had survived it.

  She nodded against me. “Yeah, Steed got some of his friends to sort her out. He took care of them both, Mason. I owe him a lot for what he did. He dropped everything . . .”

  “Yes, that’s the problem,” I huffed. “His pants included.”

  I couldn’t help but smile when she snorted then giggled. “I would never. . . . I was in a bad place when I went with Steed, Mason. But I would never . . .”

  “I know, baby. It was just a bit of a shock.”

  “She has nightmares,” she whispered, her voice breaking and making me squeeze my eyes together at the pain that tore through my chest.

  “Is she struggling?”

  She blew out a breath and sat up but remained on my knee. “Yes, but not because of the fact that she killed him.”

  I tipped my head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  She sucked in her lips then shrugged. “She . . . she’s struggling with the fact that . . .”

  “That?”

  “Well, she’s worried there’s something wrong with her because it doesn’t shock her as much as it should.”

  “I’m not with you, Ava?”

  “She got a thrill, Mason!”

  My brows shot into my hair as my mouth fell open. “She . . . Katie . . . enjoyed killing him?”

  Ava nodded slowly, gulping as her eyes pinned mine. “Oh yeah. And she’s scared to death because of what that means.”

  “Fucking—hell!” I choked out. “I had kind of thought George would go that way, but Katie . . .”

  “She’s already asked Kerrie for a job,” she disclosed, her face squeezing with her revelation.

  “What the fuck?”

  “If it’s how she’s built Mason then we need to love her for it.”

  “I just . . .
I don’t know whether to throttle some sense into her or be proud that my baby girl is so much like her mother.”

  She slapped me, her mouth a perfect ‘O’ in shock. “Me?” I quirked an eyebrow at her, challenging her denial. She shrugged and pursed her lips. “Okay, maybe a little like me.”

  Her sudden grin lit my heart and I laughed, shaking my head in disbelief at the knowledge that my daughter was to become an assassin. Rolling her head around her shoulders, she yawned, the action squeezing another tear from the corner of her eye.

  “Come on,” I said as I lifted her up. “Back to bed.”

  I carried her through the house and up the stairs, smiling at her soft snores before I’d even reached the top step.

  Katie’s door opened and she stepped into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind her so not to wake her knobhead boyfriend. “Dad?”

  I gulped. She was so pretty, her long red waves and sweet green eyes the epitome of her mother’s. “I just . . . I just don’t want you to have to suffer like your Mother did, Katie. I don’t want you to see some of the things she has, to witness so much . . . destruction and hatred.”

  She nodded. “I know. But you also have to see the good things she has too. You, me, George. Friend’s that would kill for her. A life that has been anything but boring. And what did she have before she met you, Dad?”

  I blinked and stepped closer to her, sliding my hand down the softness of her hair and sighing happily when she nuzzled into my touch like she always had since she was a baby. “But your mother has so many scars, both inside and outside that they have completely camouflaged who she is. I would give anything to take those scars away.”

  “But why?” She smiled at me. “They’re not scars, Dad. They’re inscriptions of everything she has accomplished. Each one another achievement that allowed her to keep breathing and keep loving.”

  I stared at her, unable to love her more than I did right then. “And her greatest inscription runs right across her lower stomach.”

  She grinned, nodding as she wiped away a tear. “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you more, baby.”

  She squeezed my hand as I kissed her forehead. “Goodnight.”

  I nodded and watched her retreat back to Fuckwad. Looking down, I stared at the small scar that ran across Ava’s eyebrow.

  And then I smiled.

  Chapter Four

  Ice Skates and Hot tubs

  Ava

  IF I HAD the courage to let go of his hands and slap the bastard, I would have done. “Mason!”

  He chuckled, his head shaking from side to side as he whizzed off in front and left me stood alone and scared shitless in the middle of the rink. Spinning in an elegant circle, he spun back to me and started to sway his hips, taunting me with a ‘come hither’ motion of his hand.

  Every damn year he did this. Showed off his skating skills while he abandoned me with my lack of talent in the center.

  “Mason!” I squealed, making him laugh harder when my feet started to slide outwards, my knees growing further and further apart as my crotch sunk lower and lower to the ice. “MASON!”

  I grinned, poking my tongue out at him when he suddenly stopped laughing. His face dropped, a deep scowl forming and his lip curling slightly when huge arms wrapped around my waist and someone pulled me upwards. “You okay, Darling?”

  I maneuvered round, inch by inch. My eyes hit a solid wall of muscle behind a mass of cream wool. Slowly I dragged them upwards into the face of an Angel. My mouth popped open. God had finally granted me the gift I had asked for every Christmas since I was twelve. Huge blue eyes, framed by long thick lashes stared down at me. Sculptured cheekbones covered in a dusting of light brown stubble caused me to swallow heavily. Thick lips, a tongue sliding across them generated a choked sound to escape from my mouth.

  “You should relax your body.”

  I nodded stiffly and stared some more.

  “It helps you balance.”

  I nodded a bit more.

  “Learn to walk in your skates first.”

  He stared at me when I grunted something but then laughed. “Are you always this talkative?”

  I nodded. “Always.”

  He grinned at me, his eyes twinkling. I think I may have come right then. “Bend your knees slightly.” He moved behind me. Fuck. I tried to suppress my whimper when he framed the entirety of my back with the whole of his front and leaned his face over my shoulder. “You should be able to see your toes.”

  He pushed my frame gently with his until my back was slightly arced, my eyes finding the toes of my skates. “Oh I can!” I exclaimed excitedly.

  I could feel his body shake behind me as he chuckled. “Right now push off slightly.”

  “Oooh nooo!”

  He laughed loudly this time as he guided us forward, his hands on my waist tightly. It was way too hot. Someone should turn the temperature down in those places. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

  I stuck my arms out by my side as he glided us both a little further. “That’s it. Now push back with your foot slightly angled.”

  I furrowed my brow and concentrated, determined to do this shit on my own and prove to Mason I could do it. So taking a deep breath I moved with him, my arms out by my sides as we both skated nearer the edge of the rink.

  “You’re doing it,” my guide whispered in my ear before I felt his hands leave me and my body sailed naturally forward.

  “Oh my God!” I yelled, my fist pumping the air as I flowed across the ice elegantly. “UP YOURS MR FOX!” I yelled without looking behind me.

  I grinned at Courtney as I drifted towards her stood outside the edge of the rink, her heavily pregnant self unable to actually join us on the rink. I frowned when I spotted the horror on her face. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open as her gaze fixed on something behind me.

  Making it safely to the edge I grabbed hold of the wall and turned to see what she was looking at. My expression joined that of my best friend when I witnessed my guide laid out on the floor on his back, blood trickling from his nose down the side of his face and pooling on the ice by his head. Mason was stood beside him, glaring down towards him before he turned to me. He tipped his head as though it was my fault and quirked an eyebrow, his shoulders shrugging casually.

  “What the hell, Mason?”

  He skated across to me, a smug smile on his face. “Oops, he slipped.”

  I glared at him, “I don’t think so! What the hell, he was only trying to help me when you abandoned me!”

  He shrugged again, lifting me up and throwing me over his shoulder. “No, he was feeling up my wife.”

  “His hands were on my waist, Mason. He was trying to help me stay upright. Which is more than can be said for you!”

  He gripped my chin after he sat me on a bench and squatted in front of me to change my shoes. “I saw the way you looked at him.” He narrowed his eyes. “Like it was bloody Christmas.”

  “It is Christmas!” I reminded him with an arrogant smile.

  His face scowled harder. “You want me to invite him into our bed, Ava?”

  “Oooh,” I inclined my head slightly, debating his question. “Do you think he would?”

  Mason stared at me but sighed and shook his head slowly. “Home.”

  “But . . .”

  “Home!”

  “Okayyy.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t hold my amusement back so I lifted my champagne glass to my mouth, taking a huge swallow and lowered my eyes from my husband’s horrified expression to watch the bubbles in the water around us pop and fizz.

  Liv nudged me with her knee under the water, stifling a giggle when a growl echoed around us. “I’ll give it roughly four minutes and twenty four seconds before Mason’s palm finds the top of Danny’s head and he’s under the water.”

  I coughed to camouflage my chuckle when Mason snapped his heated eyes to me. “What the fuck does he think he’s doing?”

  I shook my hea
d, biting my bottom lip as I struggled to hold on. “I . . . I’m sure he’s just scratching his balls, Mason,” I whispered.

  He was going to blow any second. He turned back to watch Danny’s hand moving beneath the surface of the water as Katie sat beside him with a huge smile on her face. “Get your hands up where I can see them!”

  Danny blinked, gawping at Mason like he’d gone crazy. Greg and Sam snorted then held their hands up in surrender when Mason rounded on them with a glare. Steam rose from the hot tub and out of Mason’s ears. We were all only just holding on to the hilarity of the situation.

  Danny slowly raised his hands up in the air. I’m sure he thought Mason had a gun pointed at him under the water, loaded and aimed ready to blow his bollocks off.

  Nate coughed and covered his mouth when all the blood drained from Danny’s face. “By the way,” he said trying to diffuse the situation. “I’ve decided to retire. I’m handing NSC over to Jay. Liv and me are gonna buy a house in Cornwall.”

  “Don’t fucking touch her!” Mason hissed, completely ignoring Nate. Danny’s eyes widened further as he stared at Mason then glanced to Katie. She rolled her eyes and sighed, pursing her lips at Mason.

  “Dad, simmer down, I can take care of myself.”

  He gave her a stiff nod, refusing to release Danny from his glower. “I know baby, but when I’m around it’s my job to take care of you.”

  She huffed out a long tired breath and looked at me. Shaking my head I waved her off with my hand. “Not worth my life, Katie.”

  She grumbled something then took hold of Danny’s hand and dragged him out of the water. “Come on, we’ll go upstairs where you’re safe to breathe.”

  Mason narrowed his eyes on her. “I’m sorry that I care about you Katie.”

  Oh—dear—God. They were as sulky as each other.

  “Care?” she huffed. “I bet you don’t ‘care’ like this with George. I bet whenever he gets laid you’re bloody cheering and buying him a pint.”