Dance With Me - By Hayden Braeburn Page 0,43
though he'd seen the damage. The shallow cut that ran the length of his sternum, the wide swathes of missing hair from his tape bondage, the multiple injection sites from various sedatives and tranquilizers. It may have only been less than a day, but it had to have been hell.
“She was going to rape me, Caleb,” Mason admitted quietly. “I found out today the final syringe was full of an injectable prostaglandin.” He glanced up to catch Caleb's wince. “If she had gotten me with that needle, if I hadn't broken through my bonds...” he trailed off.
Shit. Priscilla wasn't playing around when she'd grabbed Mason. Prostaglandins caused erections very quickly, whether or not a man was “in the mood” and sometimes resulted in priapism. “You did break your bonds,” Caleb reasoned. “You got away.”
“But if I hadn't...”
“You did,” Caleb stressed. “You found your way out.”
“What did she do to me while I was unconscious? What did I do when I was drugged and I don't remember?”
Caleb shook his head. “Does it matter?” When Mason opened his mouth to reply, he cut him off. “No, it doesn't matter. You were drugged, Mason. Drugged, with enough in your system that I could have removed your spleen, your gallbladder, a kidney, and a lung and you wouldn't have noticed until the next day,” he exaggerated to get his point across. “I saw your tox screens, I know you wouldn't have been able to do anything. Hell, I have no idea how you were able to fight your way free with that much shit in your system.”
Mason swallowed. “She left me alone for an hour—or at least she said it was an hour—before she came back with the last syringe.”
Silently, Caleb cursed the internet. Priscilla had done her research. She'd kept him sedated for hours, but before she shot him full of what was better than a little blue pill she gave him time to recover. Coupled with the adrenaline, he understood how Mason broke free of the duct tape he himself had removed from his brother's wrists. He shuddered. “She wanted you lucid,” he said.
“She wanted me hard.” He stood again, knocking the chair on the floor. “She wanted me to make her pregnant, and she was going to rape me to do it.”
Caleb gaped at his brother. He had known some of this, had surmised the rest, but he hadn't known about Priscilla's want of children through force. “What?”
“She had a whole life made up in her head. Our son would be named Christian and would be President. Our daughter would be named Catherine and would be Miss America. She was determined I loved her, and we would have these children and everything would be wonderful.” He stopped, his fists and jaw clenched tightly. “I refused. I told her I didn't love her, that I'd never loved her and she shot at me. She shot at me and I ran away.” He raked a hand through his already thoroughly disheveled locks. “I ran away, Cale.”
Good lord. He crossed the tiny room to right the chair and help Mason sit down once again. “If you hadn't run, you'd be dead right now.”
Mason braced his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head into his hands. “Why didn't I fight her? Why didn't I stop her?”
“You didn't know.” He lifted his brother's chin to look into eyes identical to his own. “It's not your fault. She is crazy, and she's going to pay for what she's done while you have one of the most beautiful women in Virginia waiting for you at home.”
Mason cracked a smile at the mention of Kat. “I do, don't I?”
“That you do. She loves you with everything she has, too. I know, I saw it when we were all worrying together.” He grinned, showing the dimple in his left cheek. “Hell, even Cassidy saw it.”
“Cass apologized yesterday.”
That stopped Caleb cold. Cassidy and apology didn't belong in the same sentence. “Say what now?”
“She told Kat she believed she wasn't a drug dealer.”
“Took her long enough.” He stood from his crouch, choosing to lean against his desk this time. “I know you feel like you should have done a lot of things differently, but it doesn't matter now. What matters is you're here, you're whole and you have a woman who loves you, who would walk through fire for you. What are you going to do about it?”
Mason stood. Now he knew why he'd come to see his brother. “I'm going