Chapter One Hundred and Twenty
Kirk’s cell was not what Mason had expected. He had a single bed cot with a decent mattress, sheets and two pillows. The toilet and shower were closed off in a corner and he had a desk and chair bolted down to the floor.
The air wasn’t stale or musty and Mason stood in front of the steel bars. He heard a toilet flush and then Kirk appeared. Kirk looked up and stopped in his tracks when he saw Mason. Connor brought Mason a chair and then disappeared down the hall.
“Is Andrea okay?”
Mason regarded Kirk through narrowed eyes as he sat down on the provided chair. “She’s alive.”
Kirk nodded his head before looking down. “Mason, I need you to know that I didn’t touch her.”
“But you took her.”
Kirk’s head lowered even more. “I didn’t know, Mason. I swear, I didn’t know what they were going to do to her.”
“Who’s they exactly?”
“Marcus, Lewis, Petey.”
Mason looked into Kirk’s eyes and for some odd reason believed what he was saying. “Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. You were told to take Andrea and deliver her to Marcus, right?”
“Yes. She was on her way to a motel. They’re tracking your movements, every single one of them. I was following her, grabbed her in the lot and took her to Marcus’s house.”
“Why did Marcus want her?”
Regret flashed in Kirk’s eyes. “He’s suspected for years that Grace was his. The timing was just too suspect. He wanted Andrea so the paternity suit would be easier, she refused to cooperate with him. She really pissed him off when she told him that you were Grace’s father, no matter the DNA. Marcus flew into a rage and he beat her senseless that first night.”
“Why are you doing their dirty work? Aren’t you supposed to be an Elite too?”
“I’m not like them, Mason. This whole war between us soured for me the night they took Marella. I couldn’t stomach it. Why would you want to do this to someone else? I never understood their hatred for Kelley, for you, for Lee.”
“It’s because we know what they do behind closed doors, because at every turn we’re there to ruin it, that’s why they hate us.”
Kirk shook his head again. “You have to be careful. They’re planning a hit on Lee. He’s a big threat to them. They believe you framed Hanson with JenCorp and got Lee to cover your tracks with his lawyer tricks.”
“Their hit on Lee failed. He survived, so did Marella, their baby didn’t.”
Mason looked at the gathering tears in Kirk’s eyes and for a moment his heart softened. “I’m sorry, Mason. Marella was pregnant?”
“So they went after Andrea and Grace to get to me. They shot Lee and Marella. What do they have planned for Kelley?”
“They’ve got an inside man, they had him watching Kelley’s new wife. At some point they’ll task him with kidnapping her and she’ll go through what Andrea went through.”
“Their inside man is in a cell down the hall. He was Milana’s personal security.”
Kirk smiled then, throwing Mason off for a second. “That’s good. They’ll be scrambling around.”
“So is this where you ask for your release for the information you’ve shared?”
Kirk shook his head again. “No. If you let me go they’ll kill me. I’m sure they’ve figured out by now that I was the one to take Andrea.”
Mason looked perplexed and turned his head as the steel door opened again and Kelley appeared, walking towards them with determination. Kirk stood up from his cot and actually took a step backwards, as if Kelley’s presence scared him.
“Kelley …”
“You’re right, they will kill you. Connor can create a scene where you look dead. We’ll send them the picture of course and you can continue to feed us information.”
“We have a mainframe, everything’s stored there. They’ll change my login of course but if they think I’m dead then they won’t realize it’s me logging in under Petey’s name. They won’t be able to figure out how you know their next move.”
“Wait a minute … are you going to keep Kirk here in the basement?” Mason looked at them and Kelley shrugged.
“It’s not so bad down here, the food’s pretty good.”
Mason leaned forward on the chair, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “How does this happen? How did they become like this?”
“There’s an initiation process. When they turn seventeen, they’re taken to a room, initiated into the brotherhood’s club. They all seemed to change after that one night, they became more ruthless, less caring.”
Kelley crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the steel bars. “What happened with your initiation?”
“I couldn’t have sex with Norah. They tape it and everything else you do, that’s how they keep you in the circle. It’s like a drug induced haze and when you come to your senses they have you raping a girl on tape. Then they blackmail you with it to do what they want you to do. Our dads, our brothers, uncles, they’re all in on it.”
Mason looked up then, disgust evident on his face. “It’s sick.”
“You couldn’t have sex with Norah …”
Mason turned to look at Kelley. “He said that already.”
Kelley was looking right at Kirk and Kirk shifted uncomfortably. “Because you’re gay.”
Kirk’s eyes found the floor and Mason turned to look at him. “You’re gay?”
“He’s gay. There’s no room for gay men in the circle and that’s why he’s their lackey. He was born to be in the circle but he physically can’t be in the circle.”
Kirk finally looked up but he didn’t see the same disgust in their eyes that he had seen in his own friends’ eyes. It gave him hope, hope that he could somehow make things right with Kelley, Mason and Lee.
“I can help you. I know how they think and I can access their mainframe but first I have to die.”
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