Dusk (Dangerous Web #1) - Aleatha Romig Page 0,30

the dealmaking business.

If he was, I’d keep my word.

“I have one additional request,” I whispered to the Supreme Being. “Please get us home.”

With my arm again around my friend, I finally drifted off to sleep.

Lorna

The tower – nine years ago

I looked around Mason’s apartment with a heavy heart. It seemed impossible that after spending most of our lives together, there were still too many things we’d left unsaid. For the last week, since I’d learned of my brother’s death, I’d cried more tears than I knew were possible. I’d spent long nights and endless days, grieving and also going through his things as more tears streamed down my cheeks.

Probably the most difficult was the trip to the coroner. I don’t know if I could have made it alone. I do know. I wouldn’t have made it. I wouldn’t have stayed upright without the support of his friends. Reid was there, holding my hand. Patrick was there, a steady shoulder to take my tears. Even Mr. Sparrow was there, silently emanating his remorse and growing need for vengeance.

Mason’s body was unidentifiable.

The man I’d known since my first breath was no longer who I remembered.

The story I’d heard about the explosion that took my brother made him out to be the hero he’d always been to me. He walked into a building near the docks because the Sparrows had received a call about a shipment.

Before this incident, I didn’t really know what the Sparrows did or what their quest involved.

This was different. Reid decided I deserved more. He told me the details he’d learned from Sparrow. The call said there was a shipment of young girls. Yes, human beings. I wasn’t naive enough to live as a single woman and not understand or comprehend the dangers of human trafficking. I’d heard rumors and taken precautions. As I aged, I wondered about my sister’s fate.

Had she at one time been a young girl in a shipment?

Mason didn’t enter the building to move the girls along the franchise line. He went in that building to rescue them. From Reid’s recollection, Sparrow wanted to do it himself. It was Mason who refused to let him. The only man to tell Sparrow no, he’d used that power. He’d saved the kingpin of Chicago and solidified the Sparrow takeover.

In the process, the building exploded.

Reid said that Sparrow ran in.

He didn’t need to tell me that detail. I saw the burns on his hands and the scorched flesh on his cheeks. I saw the eyebrows and eyelashes that were just now beginning to grow back. His visible wounds were superficial: his heart and mindset were where the true battle injuries occurred.

From what I’d heard, I wasn’t prepared for the body we were shown in the morgue.

The burns weren’t like Sparrow’s. Mason’s were extensive.

In the mass destruction, I found solace in the knowledge that he passed quickly.

I couldn’t comprehend the pain that would be involved in surviving.

The personal possessions I was given sealed his identity. They were undeniably Mason’s.

Sparrow left the next decision to me.

What was I to do with the boy turned man who had always been my rock, my lifelong confidant, and my sibling?

Through Reid, I was told no expense would be spared. I was also informed about the explosion, the coup, and the trafficking. I couldn’t be responsible for putting my brother’s best friends on display. There would be no celebration of life, no military salute, no funeral, and no burial with a headstone. While my brother deserved all of those, the war in Chicago was still in motion. I chose instead to have my brother cremated.

The urn was small, but it was something.

It was more than I had of Missy.

Nothing was said about my place in this world now that I was without Mason.

And while Reid had been loving and supportive, we were never alone. Mason was always there, glaring at us as he had the night he died, the last night Reid and I made love, and the night I learned what Sparrow meant when he said to not go anywhere.

The elevators won’t work.

The celebration of life wasn’t necessary. Besides the men in this tower, there was only one other person I felt the need to inform of my brother’s demise.

It wasn’t our mother.

Hell, I wasn’t sure she hadn’t preceded her son in death. If she hadn’t, I had no way of contacting her.

There was one person, someone whom Mason had loved a long time ago. I hadn’t thought of her in years until