by Quinn, Cari
I shrugged out of my jacket. I glanced around the large meet and greet room looking for an extra exit. I dragged my shirt off and she stared. I had to give it to her, she didn’t gasp and look away like most women. Hell, most men looked away. Not that I ever took my shirt off around anyone.
Other than my girl.
I didn’t say anything, and neither did she. I pulled the borrowed shirt on, then scraped my hair back with the palm of my hand and tugged the knit hat over my distinctive black hair. Not as obvious as Oz’s yard-length hair, but people were clearly looking for me.
She pushed me toward a closet.
“Would you stop manhandling me?”
“Oh, you’d know it if I did that.” She nodded to the door. “Open it.” She looked over her shoulder. When I didn’t move fast enough, she elbowed me out of the way. “Follow me, Irish.”
She shoved a rack of hangers aside. “I’m not playing seven minutes in heaven for fuck’s sake.” She punched the side of the back wall and the door popped back and slid to the side. “These old places have hidden tunnels. Some for fuckery or just plain fucking.” She glided her arm out into the hallway. “And some for escape routes when bands like One Direction needed to escape.”
“You’re a fecking genius.” I didn’t even look over my shoulder. I headed for the light at the end of the damn tunnel. It spit us out in a kitchen.
“Left.”
I followed her directions and zipped by a station of deep fryers.
“My bike is near the trucks.”
“Okay, head right at the end of the kitchen.”
“How do you remember this?”
“I’m addicted to safe room games. If there’s a way out, or in for that matter, I’ll figure it out.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that statement, but for now I was just happy I didn’t have to lose more time. I backed up when I saw a security guard at the exit where the roadies were congregating.
“Know any more tricks there, Houdini?”
She peeked over my shoulder. “Crap.” She pulled a hair tie off her wrist and gathered her hair up on the top of her head. Rearranged her T-shirt and tied a knot under her breasts. “Just a sec.” She went from badass to co-ed in the space of a second.
She tucked her hands in her back pockets and pushed out her version of breasts. The girl wasn’t exactly blessed in that department, but she had miles of leg and the cop wasn’t exactly immune to her.
She waggled her fingers at me as she turned the cop to show him something. I didn’t wait, I booked it to the exit and slipped through the doors, catching the door with my boot so it wouldn’t slam.
I dug my keys out of my pocket and swung my leg over my Harley. Suddenly a solid body slammed into me.
“Get the hell out of here, DuCaine.”
“Hell no. You knew I was coming. I still don’t trust you or the fact that your friend probably has my best friend on this whole fucking planet. Drive.” She wrapped her arms around my waist.
I passed back my helmet and she surprisingly took it and put it on. I followed the trashed pavement path around the back of the arena, very glad I thought to bring my motorcycle tonight. Originally it had just been so I had an excuse to have Lindsey hold onto me for a little longer.
And the idea of us trying to escape after the show had also been a factor.
This had not been in the plans.
But knowing New York City like I did gave me the advantage. Jamie had obviously been on a bike before, because she leaned into the curves letting me have maximum speed. I spotted a cop car and headed down an alley, crossing a few blocks so I could get back on the straight away.
I headed for Central Park, zig-zagging through traffic.
My pocket buzzed and I handed the phone back to Jamie. “What does it say?”
“It’s a video,” she called out over the swishing wind. “Oh my fucking God, I’m going to kill him.”
I pulled into an alley and twisted around. “Let me see.”
I’d been heading for his studio at Trident. He lived in there for the most part. He took workaholic to another level. He had a small studio that had limited access. It was the only place I could think of. For a man who was supposed to be my best friend, I didn’t know much about him lately.
Shame threatened to crawl up into my brain, but I pushed it back ruthlessly. No matter what we’d become to one another—this wasn’t okay.
Ever.
In the limited light of the street lamp above us, I could see the wash of angry tears in her eyes. Part of me didn’t want to see the video. If he hurt her…
I took the phone. It was another compilation of us. This time it was in the street outside one of the arenas in Connecticut, then another in her brownstone, and yet one more in the hotel. Jesus, had he been following us all this time?
Then the last was her hair. I knew it anywhere. I dreamed about it when she curled into me in sleep. The angel-bright blond curls that spread across my navy sheets, tickling my ruined flesh. The same hair I fisted to get her closer to me, hold her tighter.
Now it was on the floor.
On the ground?
No, they were tiles.
Her hand so still beside it.
Then Kyle’s face, filled the screen. Only it wasn’t the Kyle I knew. It was distorted with makeup. Even his dark eyes were now blue.
“Jesus.”
“Tick tock, brother.” Then the screen went black.
I wanted to hurl the phone away from me. To make it not be true. I didn’t want to be right. My fingers clenched around it and Jamie belted me in the shoulder.
“No. Find us something to use in there. You know him. Twisted fuck that he is, but you know him.”
“I don’t. Not anymore. The Kyle I knew would never do this.”
But I clicked the video again. Forced myself to watch it.
To look for any clues.
When it got to the end, I braced myself. Her fingers were so fucking still.
I rewound and looked again. Ignoring that it was her hand, her hair. To the tile. Tile I’d laid myself.
“Jesus.”
“What?”
I kicked on the engine. “I know where she is. I think.”
“Do we dial 911? Not that I think a bunch of cops storming the castle is a good idea. Not if he’s as fucking psycho as it seems.”
“Even if we could call the cops, it wouldn’t matter. My place doesn’t exist.”
“What?”
I didn’t take the time to explain. I just kicked the engine alive again and headed for the warehouse district.
He was on my rooftop.
Forty
“Wakey, wakey. You’ve been out for far too long, love.”
The voice was familiar and wrong and the same time.
I blinked against the lights above me. Not lights. Stars. In New York City? That wasn’t…
“Hey.”
Pain bloomed in my side. I rolled to my side, curling in on myself. The fog lifting with what had to be his boot to my damn ribs. Fuck.
“There you are. Sorry about that, duchess. I couldn’t watch you play sleeping beauty anymore.” He crouched down beside me and pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Though you are beautiful. I can see why he’s drawn to you.”
I batted his hand out of my face. “Who—God, Kyle?”
The night came roaring back. His scent—it was Alex’s, but not. Like he was wearing his cologne, but it wasn’t mixing with his skin chemistry the same way. It was cloying. Like he’d fucking dipped himself in it.
The overhead fairy lights of the pergola blurred in and out, warring with the endless black sky of Alex’s greenhouse rooftop. The stars felt so damn far away.
He grabbed me by my arm and hauled me to my feet, pushing me onto one of the couches. “There we go, princess. Oh, sorry, duchess, right? Somehow more than princess because you’re music royalty and,” he bowed, “Brooklyn royalty as well.” He smiled at me, his face so very wrong.
“What’s go
ing on? Where’s Alex?”
“We don’t need him, do we?”
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. Terror denting the fringes of my numbness. “Did you do something to him?”
He shrugged. “Nothing much. I simply needed a little time to get you here so we could talk.”
“Why?”
“I’m taking what’s mine.”
“What?”
I tried to stand up, but my feet didn’t work right.
He pushed me back down. “You don’t have your coordination back. Probably won’t for a little bit. I think I gave you a little too much of my little cocktail. You’re deceptively tiny even with all those legs and tits. But the rest of you. Well, you’re quite thin.” He shrugged. “Tits and pussy are all that really matters to us anyway.”
I shrank into the couch. Us?
“Re-fucking-lax. I don’t force women. Besides, you may not find me such a monster when you find out just what kind of man you’re involved with—”
“In love with.”
“Oh, well, this should be extra enlightening then.”
“We don’t have secrets.”
“Oh, he’s told you all the things, has he?”
I touched the side of my head where everything seemed to throb the most. “About the accident?”
“Ah, but did he tell you all of it? Just how gleefully he ruined me and mine?”
“It was an accident. A terrible mistake.”
“Did he tell you that he tried to kill me?” Kyle tilted his head. “High as my ma’s favorite clothing line off the roof. Truth be told, he was probably even higher. Hitting airplane level by the time he spun us out on that rain-soaked road.”
I swallowed back the urge to bolt. The way he was pacing in front of me made everything jangle inside me. And yet it all felt a little padded. A little distant. But there was no denying Kyle wasn’t quite right. Maybe hadn’t been for a good long time.
Even the first time I met him, he’d been…off.
He stopped pacing and snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Keep up, duchess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Oh, right. Only Nash calls you that, right?” He smiled that oddly blank smile. It was as if his face didn’t really move.
I reached my hand out and he reeled back. “No. You stay there, duchess. You can’t be trusted.”
“What’s wrong with your face?”
His hand came up to his cheek. “What do you mean? I fixed it. Isn’t it more pleasing now?” He patted the edges of…was that skin? Makeup? He rushed over to a large black bag. “Look at what you made me do. I had to haul your pretty ass up those steps and I ruined my makeup!”
I covered my mouth with a trembling hand. “It’s fine.”
“No.” His voice was a roar. “No, it’s not fine. It’s ruined.” He scraped his fingers through the almost plastic looking skin. Adhesive came free with it revealing his scarred cheek and spotty shadow of a beard.
I scrabbled back on the seat, trying to curl my feet into a ball, but they didn’t work right. My heel kept slipping back down.
“Now don’t get all frightened, duchess. It’s just a few scars. You’re used to them right. Nash’s face is maybe a little prettier, but you still touch him with all the reverence in the world.” He tried to pat it back in place, but it kept flapping down. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
He ripped it off and I turned my face away.
“No, you look. See what he made me. I tried to make it better for you. Hoping maybe you’d see me. Listen to me.”
I turned back to him. “That’s not what scares me. Your scars aren’t all that you are.”
“Easy for you to say.” He reached behind him and pulled out small but wicked looking knife. “If I slid this down your pretty cheek would you be so quick to say scars don’t matter?”
I shut my eyes against the fabricated blue of his normally dark eyes. The madness creeping so close. “Please don’t.”
“See, not so fun playing beauty and the beast when you’re the beast, now is it?” He laughed and the sound grated through me, leaving behind a sheen of cold sweat.
“Kyle, we didn’t do anything to you.”
“Are you kidding me? You took him away from me.”
I shrank back into the couch cushions. “No.”
“We were doing just fine with our lives. We understood each other. We were mates closer than anyone else. Then you.”
I gripped the arm of the couch. I had to keep my voice steady, even. I wanted to scream at him, to defend, but that wouldn’t help me. “Why can’t we be both? Just because I love Alex doesn’t mean I got rid of my friends. My band.”
“Doesn’t it? I don’t see you with that Amazonian woman anymore. Always with Nash. Every moment with Nash. Your face is practically Velcroed to his lips or his cock.”
“No.” How could he know any of that?
“Oh, I’ve heard you. I know it’s true. Quite the symphony between you two. You like when he’s the monster.” He tilted his head, his unreal eyes shining. “I can hear it, you know. How you beg for it. Like a bitch in heat. You two are always on each other. You’d think the world was about to end. Are you clairvoyant, duchess?”
“Fuck you.” I lifted my chin. I wouldn’t be cowed by him. How the fuck did he know about any of that? “That’s not your business.”
He rushed forward, the knife an extension of his forefinger. “Everything about him is my business. I saved his life. It’s mine.”
I shrunk back, but didn’t break eye contact. “That’s not how it works.”
“I crawled out of that wreck and saved us. He would have died if I didn’t get him free. Dragged him out, I did.” He spun away, the knife flipping in and around his hand in a blur. “Did he tell you that part?”
“Yes.” Not exactly, but he’d told me what mattered.
“Oh, is that right?”
I swallowed thickly, my mouth so incredibly dry. “He told me how you both got in the car that night. That both of you shouldn’t have. That he convinced you to anyway.”
“No. It wasn’t like that. I thought he was good. I thought he was fine. I watched him all night. Not drinking. He was too busy playing. Too busy with the bar full of people dying for him and his piano. So many people. So many women. He was the ultimate lure to all those women fawning over him.”
And Kyle watched.
God, even then he was watching.
“You were with him, right?”
“What?” He stopped. “Yes, yes, of course. I was always with him. We were mates. We are mates. The best of mates.”
“Were you up there with him. Singing?”
He laughed. “I don’t sing. But I played sometimes. When I felt like it.” He shrugged, his knife swaying back and forth rhythmically between his forefinger and thumb. “Sometimes.”
“Why did you leave?”
“It’s Ireland, love. The bars actually close unlike this place. Where you can party for hours, even days, and never stop. But we were laughing that night. High on the night.”
“Were you both laughing?”
“Yes. Of course we were. Why are you trying to mix me up? You weren’t there. You wish you were. Wish you were with him always.” He shook his head. “But you’re not. I am. Just me. I look out for him.”
He was unraveling and I didn’t know what to do.
Was I making it worse?
I pressed my lips together.
He stopped pacing and advanced on me, placed one knee between my legs as he traced the edge of the knife along my cheek. His eyes watched the track before meeting mine again. “Did you have a point?”
“No.” My voice was barely a whisper. “I’m just listening to you.”
He tipped his head. “Right.” He stood and returned to pacing as he toyed with his knife. “I was telling you the truth of that night.”
“You were having fun together,” I said, urging him on. Keep him talking and maybe I had a prayer
of getting out of here.
“Yes. All night.”
“You were on stage with him.”
“No. I told you I wasn’t.” He whirled on me. “I watched from the bar. With a Guinness. He was a sight to behold, you know. The piano was his greatest love. Maybe even more than you. We’d go to London and make some scratch with the band. Drink until we were poor and catch the cheap ferry back. We knew people. His da was a fisherman and his friends didn’t mind us hitching a ride some days.”
“Alex doesn’t talk about his music too much.”
“Alex.” His tone was biting. “No one calls him Alex. No one is allowed. Just you. You get to do everything.”
I winced. So many landmines. “Tell me more about Ireland. About you.”
I was trying to bide my time. I didn’t know what time it was, or if anyone knew I was gone. I didn’t even really remember what happened after the end of the show.
“It doesn’t matter. We were the best of mates. We did everything together. Found women, bedded women, even worked together in the summers on his da’s boat sometimes.”
I ignored the idea that Nash shared women with him.
I didn’t believe it simply because Alex didn’t know how to share. But then again, I couldn’t quite tell what was fantasy and what was real for Kyle. Maybe he didn’t really know either at this point.
He crouched in front of me, flipping the knife between his fingers. “His da actually gave me this knife, you know. Taught me how to keep it super sharp to cut the lines and the nets sometimes. Snick.” He laughed and sliced off the buckle of my boot. “Sharp, see?”
“That’s enough.”
My head swiveled at the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
Kyle stood, hauling me up with him. My legs wouldn’t hold me and I stumbled into him. He curled his arm around me, the knife catching on my costume. “Careful, there. It’s not time for that yet, duchess.”
I scratched at his arm, but he held me tighter, letting me feel the knife at my ribs.
Alex crossed the tile to the pergola we were under, murder in his eyes.
“Careful, mate.”
Alex stopped.
“It took you long enough. I didn’t think you’d ever arrive. Though you’ve never been all that smart. I thought I was going to have to send you another video with an arrow to your house, man.”