Chapter 6 - Why Lena Hated Mason Reed
There are people you hate because they hurt you.
There are people you hate because they remind you of yourself.
Lena had spent twelve years pretending Mason Reed belonged to the first category.
In college, they had been impossible together.
She was the scholarship student who arrived twenty minutes early and rewrote every presentation twice. Mason was the professor’s favorite problem child, brilliant enough to improvise and arrogant enough to enjoy it.
Their first argument happened over a forecasting model.
Their second happened over coffee.
Their third lasted three years.
They became rivals because neither knew what to do with the fact that the other could see through them.
Mason knew Lena worked harder when she was scared.
Lena knew Mason joked when something mattered too much.
By graduation, they had accumulated an archive of private humiliations disguised as professional victories.
He took the Meridian fellowship.
She won the Harrington competition.
He landed a position at Reed Distribution.
She built a career in restaurant logistics.
Then came the night at Kelly’s Pub when he almost told her the truth.
Lena remembered it now because the hospital had become too quiet.
She had just accepted an offer from a company in Boston. Mason sat across from her with two beers between them.
“You’ll hate Boston,” he said.
“You’ve never lived there.”
“I hate it on principle.”
“You hate everything on principle.”
“Not everything.”
He had looked at her differently.
She noticed.
Then her phone rang.
Victor.
She had met him two weeks earlier.
He was charming, attentive, and uncomplicated.
He said exactly what he felt.
At least Lena thought he did.
She answered the call.
When she looked back, whatever Mason had been about to say was gone.
Years later, when Victor proposed, Mason called her.
“Don’t marry him.”
No congratulations.
No explanation.
Just that.
Lena had been furious.
“Who do you think you are?”
“Someone asking you to slow down.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know that I chose someone who isn’t you.”
Silence.
That was the first time Lena understood there might once have been something between them.
It also felt like manipulation.
He had waited until she was happy to reveal jealousy.
So she punished him for it.
She married Victor three months later.
Now, sitting beside two incubators, Lena wondered how much of her anger had been protection.
If Mason was right about Victor, what did that make her?
Foolish?
Naive?
Complicit in ignoring warning signs?
Mason found her in the family lounge with a legal pad balanced on her knees.
“You look dangerous.”
“I’m making a list.”
“Of my flaws?”
“Too long.”
He sat across from her.
“What’s the list?”
“Things Victor convinced me were normal.”
Mason’s face changed.
Lena read the first item.
“He handled all insurance because he said I was bad at forms.”
Second.
“He changed our alarm codes without telling me.”
Third.
“He started opening my mail.”
Fourth.
“He told me my grandmother’s trust was complicated and I should let him manage it.”
Fifth.
“When I questioned a transfer, he said pregnancy made me paranoid.”
Mason did not speak.
“Say it.”
“What?”
“I was stupid.”
“No.”
“You warned me.”
“I warned you badly.”
“That doesn’t make me less stupid.”
Mason leaned forward.
“Lena, being deceived by someone you trusted is not the same as volunteering to be deceived.”
She laughed without humor.
“That sounds like something printed on a therapist’s wall.”
“Probably because I stole it from a therapist.”
“You see a therapist?”
“Weekly.”
She blinked.
“Since when?”
“Three years.”
“Why?”
Mason shrugged.
“Turns out hating everyone is exhausting.”
She smiled despite herself.
Then he said, “You should go too.”
The smile vanished.
“I survived. I’m fine.”
“You scream when doors click.”
Lena stared at him.
He immediately softened.
“I’m not criticizing you.”
“You noticed.”
“I notice you.”
That was too intimate.
She stood.
“I need coffee.”
“You hate hospital coffee.”
“I need to walk.”
He understood.
“Okay.”
They walked the hallway in silence.
At the vending machines, Lena stopped.
“Victor used to tell me you were obsessed with me.”
Mason leaned against the wall.
“He wasn’t entirely wrong in 2013.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“He said you only criticized him because you couldn’t stand that he had me.”
“I did hate that.”
Lena looked at him.
Mason continued.
“But I also hated his books.”
“You were investigating him before we married?”
“No. After.”
“Why?”
“One of my vendors complained Carter Logistics was charging fees that didn’t exist in the contract. I looked.”
“And?”
“And the money led nowhere clean.”
“You should have told me.”
“I tried.”
“You sent me spreadsheets.”
“Yes.”
“That is not telling someone her husband may be committing fraud.”
“I know that now.”
Lena shook her head.
“This is why I hated you.”
“Because my communication style resembles an audit?”
“Because you always made me feel like I had failed a test I didn’t know I was taking.”
The words hurt him.
She saw it.
Good, a cruel part of her thought.
Then she hated herself for wanting him to hurt.
Mason nodded slowly.
“That’s fair.”
She crossed her arms.
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“No.”
“See? There you are.”
A laugh escaped her.
The tension broke.
Then Mason’s phone rang.
His company attorney.
He listened for thirty seconds.
“Send it to Detective Cole.”
He hung up.
“What?”
“One of our analysts found a transfer from Carter Logistics.”
Lena’s stomach tightened.
“To where?”
“A consulting company called Northline Advisory.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Northline doesn’t appear to have employees.”
“How much?”
“Six hundred eighty thousand over eighteen months.”
Lena stared.
Victor had told her their debt came from a failed expansion.
“What does Northline do?”
“On paper? Supply-chain strategy.”
“In reality?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Mason’s jaw tightened.
“But the registered agent is Charles Wynn’s brother-in-law.”
Victor’s attorney.
Lena felt the corridor shift.
“That’s not coincidence.”
“No.”
“Can your analyst trace it?”
“Not without crossing legal lines we’re not going to cross.”
She gave him a look.
“You, respecting legal lines?”
“I’m trying a new hobby.”
“Unconvincing.”
Detective Cole called before dinner.
Northline had already been on their radar.
Not because of Mason.
Because a contractor at Mercer Cold Storage had received a payment from the company two weeks before the attack.
The contractor’s name was Dean Rusk.
He maintained refrigeration systems.
He had also serviced the freezer’s emergency release.
Lena sat very still while Cole explained.
“We need to find him.”
“He did this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Victor paid him.”
“We don’t know that yet either.”
“You just said—”
“I said a company connected to Victor’s attorney’s family paid him.”
Lena hated careful language.
She also understood why it mattered.
That evening, Sophie opened her eyes while Lena held her.
Tiny dark eyes.
Lena whispered, “Your mother is learning patience.”
Mason, standing behind her, said, “That child has no idea how historic this is.”
Lena smiled.
“Go home.”
“I can stay.”
“I know.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“That’s why I’m telling you to go.”
He understood.
This time, leaving did not feel like abandonment.
It felt like trust.
An hour later, Tessa entered with a sealed envelope.
“What now?”
“Victor filed for access to the twins.”
Lena’s heart stopped.
“He tried to kill them.”
“He claims there is no proof.”
“What does he want?”
“Emergency visitation pending the criminal investigation.”
Lena stood so quickly the chair rolled backward.
“No.”
“We’ll oppose it.”
“No.”
Tessa waited.
Lena pressed both hands to the edge of the incubator.
For the first time since waking, fear became anger without confusion.
“He used my babies as numbers in an insurance calculation.”
Her voice was quiet.
“He does not get to come here and play father because a courtroom hasn’t caught up yet.”
Tessa nodded.
“Then we fight it.”
Lena looked at the two sleeping girls.
Victor had assumed cold would make her disappear.
Instead, it had burned away the last part of her willing to be managed.
May you like
“Good,” she said.
“Let’s fight.”
