Hurt bleeding from that green gaze.
That energy tethering us shivered with sparks of unrelenting pain.
I started to go for her when Richard was suddenly in my face, forcing me to look at him as he yanked at his hair. “What the fuck was that?” he hissed, his voice lowered.
“I think it was clear enough.”
“Yeah, it sounds like you just fucked us.”
I laughed a low sound. “What I just did was save you.”
In the background, my stepfather was still fighting. Thinking he had control of this. Control I’d taken from him.
Dropping his attention to the ground, Richard gave his head a harsh shake. When he looked back at me, fear blazed in his eyes. “Who is in those pictures?”
My teeth gritted. “Not you.”
Didn’t know if he was guilty or not.
But I hadn’t come for him.
“This is bullshit. I want my attorney . . . now.” My stepfather was shouting his demands while the officers pushed forward in a frenzy of activity. It jostled me back, out of the way, and a furor hit the room as the police officers tried to wrangle him through the crowd that was growing. People catching on to the fact that a shakedown was taking place in the middle of a celebrity fest.
Could only imagine what was going to be plastered across the tabloids tomorrow.
My bastard stepfather would be taken to the county jail where he would be extradited to Los Angeles. Originally, this was supposed to go down at his home. So my sister could witness it.
Since he’d demanded to come here for the signing, things had to be shifted last minute.
Pete and Detective Casile had come through like they promised.
He writhed, trying to break free, like he thought maybe he wasn’t going to have to make this walk of shame through the guests of this party.
Another blow to his crumbling regime.
Through the chaos, my eyes raced to find the one.
Searching for the one thing left that mattered.
My sight landed on Melanie, who glared at me with outright disgust.
A roll of disappointment.
I jerked my eyes away, attention jumping across the faces as their manager was being led away by an officer, although without any cuffs.
Right then, I knew one more seedy fucker was being shackled and hauled away. Another group of officers sent to apprehend him during the meeting to ensure he’d be caught unaware.
His world shattered the way he’d shattered mine.
Hatred burned in my blood with the thought of the prick. At the reaction evoked in Emily when she’d seen him here.
Fear and shock and questions rolling from her.
I hated that she’d been subject to it.
I finally caught sight of her just as she raced out the door ahead of the mayhem.
Running.
And I knew exactly who she was running from.
Twenty-Seven
Emily
Oh God.
Oh God.
What just happened?
Rushing down the hall ahead of the chaos going down behind me, I struggled to make my feet carry me under the weight of the realization of what Royce had done.
He’d used me.
Used me to take over his stepfather’s company.
A stepping-stone.
The memory of his warning tumbled through my mind.
“I’m afraid you’re going to hate me when you find out who I really am.”
I’d thought it was impossible.
Tears blurred my eyes, and I nearly bent in two, gasping for a breath as my mind reeled and my heart threatened to crack.
How could he do this?
My heels echoed in a panicked rhythm on the marble floor, and I hurried toward the end of the hall, coming up short when I saw the people swarming the entire place.
Packed wall to wall.
Bodies thick.
My eyes darted everywhere, landing on a small stairway to my left. I took it, stumbling up the steps as the chaos continued to grow from below.
When I made it to the landing, I fumbled down the hall to the left, ducking into the first empty room that I could find.
Desperate for seclusion.
For a way to clear the torment beating a path through my spirit and mind.
I slammed the door shut behind me, and I leaned against it as I struggled to remain standing, hugging my arms over my chest and trying to keep myself from splintering apart.
It was dim inside the sitting room, a couple lamps glowing their warmth that gave me no comfort. Walls decorated with large hand-painted family portraits, a big sectional leather sofa in the middle facing a large television on the far end, a few wing-backed chairs situated around the space.
Ragged pants heaved from my lungs, and I stumbled forward so I could sink down onto the couch.
Unable to remain upright when I felt the foundation getting ripped out from under me.
Everything I’d told Royce . . . everything I’d confided? Had every second of it been a ploy?
I dropped my head, trying to piece it together when the door creaked and the hairs at the nape of my neck lifted.
A sizzle of dread.
A prickle of alarm.
The door clicked shut again. Though this time, the lock rang out.
My legs wobbled when I forced myself to stand, when I forced myself to find the courage to turn around and face the evil I could feel filling the room like a sinister cloud.
“Get out,” I rasped around the emotion that was already trying to bring me to my knees.
Cory Douglas laughed from where he stood at the door.
His blond hair appeared as crazed as the look in his eye. He shot me a condescending tsk, clucking his tongue as he drifted farther into the room. “Always so unwelcoming, Emily Ramsey. And here I’d heard it said that southern girls are the friendliest.”
A shiver tumbled down my spine. Spread across my flesh. Pricking like barbed wire that snagged.
Little wounds that bled like the scar that he’d left on my body.
“Everyone’s comin’ for you.”
It was probably the wrong thing to say, but I couldn’t help but find some kind of justice in it.
I might have hated that Royce had used me to enact it.
It didn’t matter.
I understood why.
A shudder ripped through me as I remembered the vengeance that had flashed in Royce’s eyes when he’d told me someone had hurt his sister. The same agonized look he’d worn tonight when we’d come face-to-face with Cory and his wife.
Without a doubt, I wasn’t the only person Cory Douglas had hurt.
From just inside the room, Cory cracked a menacing smile. “Seems so, doesn’t it? Which is why I had to find you before it was too late.”
A lump of fear lodged itself at the base of my throat. I tried to swallow around it. “It’s already too late.”
Cory moved in closer. The atmosphere went cold with the wickedness. “Nah . . . not quite.”
He craned his head to the side, his own vengeance shining in his eyes. “You know . . . it’s almost a little sad, isn’t it? The way Royce is always trying to take what is mine?”
Disgust shivered across my flesh, and I took a fumbling step back farther into the room when he took one closer. “It was his fault to begin with, you know. First it was our band. Our band that was just getting ready to make it, on the cusp of greatness, and that bastard tried to take it from me.”
Confusion twisted my brow. Mind spinning.
Cory must have seen it because he let go of a condescending laugh. “You didn’t know that? Royce Reilly used to go by Royce Reed. Lead singer of A Riot of Roses. He always viewed me as a threat. Knew I was better than him. More talented. He tried to kick me out the minute before we got famous. Had to let him know who was really in control. Could anyone blame me?”
He was edging forward the entire time he was spewing the appalling words, and I was inching the opposite dir
ection, out around the couch, trying to keep him as far away and as much furniture between us as possible. All the while trying not to crumble with the blatant admission he was making.
Cory dragged his fingers over his mouth. Maybe he couldn’t stand the taste of his own depravity. “He learned real fast that he didn’t have a say. I was far more valuable than him or any of the pathetic complaints that he had. Had to teach him a lesson, you know?”
Cory’s voice shifted, drifting into this cold, distant malice. “Took his sister. Bitch deserved it, anyway.”
Disgust prickled across my skin, the words a horrified tumble from my mouth, “Like you did me? Like you did that girl in the picture with my brother? Like you did with your wife? She was Royce’s, wasn’t she? His girlfriend?” I was backing up as I made the accusation. Sickness clawed through my being as I added it all up.
As it all came to a boil.
Cory was a sociopath.
A psychopath.
And Royce had used me to take him down.
Cory grinned. “Actually, she was his wife.”
His statement hit me like a punch to the gut, the words inscribed on Royce’s chest impaling me like a knife.
Love is the heart’s greatest deceit.
Oh God, his heart belonged to his wife.
Anna. Anna. Anna.
“Asshole came after me when he found out about his sister,” he continued. “He should have known he would be the one to go down. Fucker went to prison for three years for assault after he nearly killed me when I was simply paying back a debt.”
He cocked his head. “See how that works, Emmy Love? An eye for an eye. You take something from me, and I take it back. Just like your brother tried to take Leah from me. Just like Royce tried to take my band from me. And now . . . now he’s trying to take you from me. Well, I can hardly stand for that to happen since I haven’t even had you yet.”
God, he didn’t even care that he was married. That his wife was somewhere in this house. Sickness rolled. He’d marked her. I could only imagine he viewed her as another possession.
Fear sliced through me. A dull, bitter blade dragging through my center. Cutting me open wide. Nothing there but more heartbreak and loss.
Trembling wracked my body, and I backed closer to the wall, trying to inch my way around the room toward the door. I was getting out of there before the monster snapped.
No one was touching me again. No one was going to hurt me again.
He kept coming closer, evil oozing from his pores and gushing into the room. “Get on your knees.”
“I don’t belong to you.” It was a rasp of defiance.
Shouts echoed from somewhere downstairs, a commotion growing louder.
“They’re comin’,” I warned, trying to remain firm. To stay strong.
He laughed. “You really think I’m going down for this? You and Royce need to learn that I don’t pay for anything. I take what I want. The world is mine, Emmy Love. Isn’t that what they say? Cory Douglas is the king of the music scene?”
My mind flashed to the king etched on the back of Royce’s hand. The pawns written on the knuckles of his fingers.
I had to wonder which was which.
Who was playing who.
Nausea curled in my stomach, and vomit crawled up my throat.
He slipped forward, closer and closer until he was two feet away. Until the only thing I could taste was his foul presence.
“Stay away from me. I’m warnin’ you.”
Cory cocked an insolent grin. “Or what, Emmy? What exactly do you think you’re going to do?”
Exactly what I should have done all along.
Fight.
Twenty-Eight
Royce
A flurry of activity buzzed around me, people scrambling through the room. Right as I was going after Emily, one of the officers had dragged me into a corner, asking me a bunch of questions. The whole time, I was searching over his shoulder, a hundred pounds pressing on my chest as I looked for her in the crowd.
Nerves racing.
This feeling taking me over.
Something different than coming to a boiling point with my stepfather.
Something sinister.
“We appreciate your cooperation.”
I almost laughed.
I’d been plotting this for years. I was all too happy to cooperate.
“Anything I can do. If you need me, you can get in touch with me through Detective Casile.”
The second I said it, I dipped away, making my way through the bodies blocking the way to get out of the room.
Word had spread quickly that police officers were on the premises. A ton of people had scattered, not wanting their names in the press, while others were eager to get a front-row seat.
This was supposed to go down quick.
In and out.
And I hadn’t seen Detective Casile in five minutes.
This already should have wrapped.
I pushed out into the hall, that feeling amping when I saw him walking toward me, frustration on his face. “Did you get him?” I demanded as soon as he was in earshot.
He gave a harsh shake of his head.
Dread spiraled.
Fuck.
Cory should have already been hauled away in chains. A fucking millstone around his neck.
“No. The team we sent to apprehend him was unable to locate him. Are you sure he was here?”
“Positive.”
A low-sounding alarm started to thrum in the back of my mind, growing louder by the second. I sucked it down, tried to ignore the fear that dripped, a slow filter that trickled trepidation into my bloodstream.
“Fuck . . . he might have caught wind and slipped out while we were arresting Fitzgerald.”
My head shook. “No, he’s here.”
I could feel it.
“Spread out. We need to get him. Now.”
Shoving away, I rushed out into the main part of the house. Here, the house was packed. A throng that had missed the memo that cops were on the scene. Bodies pulsed and throbbed to the rhythm of the DJ that had set up outside by the pool. The accordion glass walls at the back of the massive house had been drawn back to create one huge free-flowing space.
My attention darted around the faces. Over the outright famous and semi-celebrities. Others that had snagged VIP tickets, so much awe in their eyes that I was pretty sure they thought they were floating on actual clouds.
But the two faces I was desperate to see were nowhere to be found.
I started to shove through the crowd, growing more frantic by the second.
My chest tightened.
Emily.
Fuck.
Emily.
I had to get to her.
Heart rate ratcheting up a few thousand notches, a fear unlike anything I’d ever felt crashed over me.
Wave after wave.
Surging higher and growing darker.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a hand landed on my forearm. My attention jerked that way.
Acid pooled in my mouth.
Nadia.
Hatred and disgust billowed free, and my spirit seized in a clutch of pain. In old memories and old hopes and a lifetime of injury. She looked at me with those dark eyes that I thought I’d known. Looked at me like she still knew me. Like we still meant something to the other and she hadn’t been a part of my demise.
“What do you want, Nadia? Aren’t you terrified of me? Scared I might come unglued? Pose a threat?” I couldn’t keep the venom from my tone, the hurt that bled and blistered. “You have a restraining order against me, remember?”
Regret passed through her eyes. “Royce.” My name was a petition.
I ignored it.
Shocked by the fact that I didn’t want to wrap her up. Hold her. My goal. My destination. Yeah, I wanted her safe. But the end game had shifted. The love I’d had for her a pale, pathetic comparison to what I felt for Emily.
“Where is he?” I gritte
d out.
Worry moved through her expression. “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve been looking for him for the last twenty minutes. He was acting strange.”
Like that fucker acted like a normal human being?
Was real?
Whole?
My mouth twisted in a sneer. “Where the fuck is he, Nadia? I’m not fucking around. If you’re covering for him—”
“I . . . I told you I don’t know.” The words trembled from the woman’s lips—this woman I’d once committed everything to.
Her face pinched. “I’m scared, Royce. I . . . I made a huge mistake.”
Anger blistered, but I shoved it down. “You don’t need to worry. He won’t hurt you again.”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.
I couldn’t take the time to listen to her apology.
I tossed my attention across the roiling crowd. Knew how to pinpoint the action. The hotspots.
Sunder was out on the left side of the patio, surrounded by a horde of people who were vying to get a touch. To brush up against greatness.
Reuben Carmichael and his entourage were just inside.
Cory wasn’t in the midst of either of them, and I knew well enough that he was powerful enough to create his own. That where he was, something wild would be going down.
Nothing.
On a silent roar, I roughed a hand over my face to break up the sickness I could feel taking over.
Panic racing.
Terror clotting the flow of blood through my body.
I pushed back through the crowd. When I broke free at the edge, I pointed at Detective Casile, who was giving some sort of instruction to one of the officers in a secluded area of the hall. “Spread out. He’s somewhere here. His wife confirmed it.”
Had the sinking feeling that he wasn’t alone.
Without slowing, I burst through the doors of the kitchen. Blinding lights shone from the huge chandeliers dangling over the massive island, this room completely lit.
My eyes hunted through the faces.
Only one in mind.
Emily.
Soulshine.
Knew immediately that she wouldn’t have sought refuge in the riot. Unless she was onstage, she was always on the sidelines. Slinking through the shadows. Feasting on the beauty of others, of music and hearts and hope, quietly adding her own into the mix.
Catch Me When I Fall Page 30