Mason’s POV
I held Elle close, feeling the tension in her body gradually fade as she leaned into me. Her breath was shallow, and I could tell she was still shaken, but at least she wasn’t trembling as much anymore. I wasn’t going to leave her. Not tonight. Not with everything she had just told me about Josh. That name was a knife in my gut, twisting deeper the more I thought about it.
Josh.
I replayed the things she said over and over, trying to make sense of it. This wasn’t the Josh I knew—or at least the Josh I thought I knew. I’d seen him do bad things before, things that crossed the line, but this? Threatening Elle? Scaring her to the point she was breaking down in front of me? That was a new low, and it was unsettling, making me wonder what else I didn’t know about him.
As I tucke
