Kat continues, “That’s what I’ve heard. Nothing is set in stone yet.”

My heart races erratically.

“It’s not… I can’t.” I struggle to speak, to breathe even. “Kat, you have to help him. You have to help me.” It’s my chance to confess. To tell her everything. I throw my head back and I rock with the need to let it all out.

“It’s okay, he didn’t do it.”

“I know he didn’t. They can’t keep him. They can’t charge him with anything,” I say, pleading with her as if I know how this all works. But I have no idea.

“Kat,” I say as my voice cracks again and the words are right there, threatening to come out.

He’s taking the fall for me, because he loves me.

And I’m letting him. God, it hurts. It’s so wrong. I bury my face between my knees, hating my reality.

He said he loves me; he’s taking the fall for me. I didn’t even have the balls to tell him how I feel in return. He said I love you, and I said nothing. He must know. He has to. What we have is real and tangible. But I need to tell him.

“Is he going to get off?” I ask her and wait with bated breath. The other line is filled with the sound of her breathing deeply and I find myself hunching forward, my lungs squeezing with the need to breathe.

“Jules, they have some evidence.”

Her words make my blood run cold. Evidence?

“He didn’t do it,” I say and the words leave me without my consent. I know they’re from me, I know I said it, but I’m somewhere else. Not here, safe in a luxurious hotel penthouse while Mason sits in jail for a crime I committed.

“I know he didn’t,” she says and I’m not sure if she speaks with certainty for my benefit or if she really believes he didn’t. She continues, “But for them to be holding him this long, it means they have something on him, Jules. Evan says they have something. There’s something going on.”

I swallow thickly, not responding as Kat repeats my name over and over again. The flashes of what happened haunt me. The blood, the heat, the kick of the gun in my hands.

“What can I do?” My voice is eerily calm as I stare straight ahead, although I see nothing but his father’s lifeless eyes.

“There’s nothing we can do, Jules,” Kat says and I shake my head even though she can’t see.

I could tell them everything.

“I’m coming over to the hotel,” Kat says just as I say, “I’m going to the station.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” she says as if it’s absurd. “Don’t you dare move.

“Trust me, Jules. Mason’s going to get out of this. It’s just a matter of time before we find out why he’s still in holding.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling desperate to do something.

“I can’t just stay here,” I tell her with the desperation apparent in my voice. “I have to do something.”

“Not yet,” she says. “Don’t worry, he’s going to be okay. I promise you. You need to stay where you are. Evan is going to keep his ear to the ground. I’ll tell you everything as we know it. Right now, they could charge him with obstruction but they aren’t… we’re waiting to see what they have. Just wait.”

My teeth pinch the inside of my cheek as I debate on waiting. It’s what Mason told me to do too. I’m so tired of waiting. Waiting to feel again, waiting for the truth, waiting for vengeance, waiting for the guilt to leave.

“I can’t—” I start to say but my voice cracks, and I close my eyes. I swallow before firming my resolve to tell Kat, but she cuts me off.

“Just wait one more day. They can’t hold him more than that.”

The guilt seeps into my veins as I nod my head once as I end the call. One day. One more day.

I learned to live without Jace. And I was better off for it. I was happily living a lie. A false life that was devoid of real meaning.

I don’t know that I can live without Mason, and I don’t want to find out.

If I confess, we’re apart.

If he takes the fall, we’re apart.

I have to wait. I have no patience for fate. I don’t know what’s to come, but I won’t let him do this.

As I walk to the large window watching the snow fall from the sky, I listen to the ticking of the clock, waiting to strike.

Mason

“I don’t have anything else to say,” I tell the detective who’s questioning me, the one who refuses to leave. The commissioner is across the room, waiting, eyeing me and probably wondering what his best move to make is. Now that my father’s gone, the balance of power has shifted, so it’s just a question as to where it’s gone and how I play into this game.

Cracking my knuckles one by one, I watch as the skin tightens and turns white before settling into a bright red as I flex my hand.

I don’t want anything to do with this shit. I never did, and I never will.

My eyes lift as Commissioner Haynes strides across the room, pulling out his chair slowly and letting the steel drag across the floor.

He leans back, crossing his arms and looking at me as if he’s sizing me up. I’m sure this is an act, a game, something that he’s done before. I merely look back to my hands. The ones I wrapped around my father’s throat right before he died.

It’s an odd sense of calm that washes over me at the thought. It shouldn’t comfort me. It’s not right to be grateful for another’s death. I carried the weight and burden of Anderson’s death for months. It was only after meeting Jules and knowing I could make her happy that made it all disappear. Maybe if I told her that, it would make it better, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want her to know how selfish I was.

I wish I could take it back. I wish I’d murdered my father instead. The rage was meant for him, it always was. I was too much of a coward to do it.

“We have the residue from your shirt, Thatcher.” The commissioner finally speaks. I don’t look up, I merely pick under my nails, ignoring him and the heat that makes every inch of my skin tingle. He leans across the table, moving closer to me with his hands clasped as he says matter-of-factly, “We know you didn’t shoot him, but you’re covering for someone. You wiped that gun clean.”

Stupid. I grit my teeth, realizing just how stupid I was for doing that shit. I was so desperate to save her, I wasn’t thinking. My heart pounds over and over again. But I don’t show them a damn thing. I won’t give them anything they can use against her.

It doesn’t escape me that she could tell them everything. She could speak the truth and knowing my Jules, my sweetheart, I can see her doing it.

I could see her admitting it all, every last detail of the past year that’s brought us to this moment. I’d still love her. I’d love her for it.

“I requested my lawyer,” I remind them as I lift my head to look him in the eyes.

He clenches his jaw and the cop on my right shifts his stance, gaining my attention. He’s pissed. He’s young and naïve and thought he was going to break me. He thought that little bit of evidence would do something to scare me into talking.