Nah. I was the one who was fucked.
“She okay?”
I blew out a slow sigh. “Toughest little thing ever. Think she would have pretended it didn’t hurt a bit until it healed wrong if Violet would have let her get away with it.”
“Spitfire.”
“Yup.”
“Cute as fuck.”
“Yup.”
“You’re toast, man. You know that, right? Are you about ready to stop lyin’ to yourself and the rest of us? You could start with me. Not gonna bite. Well, I might. Should’ve kicked your ass from here to Kentucky when you walked away from her in the first place.”
Reluctantly, I shifted my attention to him, for the first time broaching a subject I’d refused.
Unable to keep it in.
Pressure building until I had to let off a little of the steam.
“Didn’t have a choice.”
A scowl knitted his brow. “Didn’t have a choice? Sorry to break it to you, brother, but life is nothin’ but a fucking string of choices. Seems to me you made the wrong one.”
“And making the choice to stay would have only hurt her more than I already did.”
Shattered her.
What I’d done had been a showing of mercy. For her and myself. Euthanizing who we’d been to keep from subjecting us to a long, excruciating death.
Didn’t matter.
This bullshit turned out to be excruciating, anyway. Living without her a cold, bitter hell.
He scoffed. “Is this that whole ‘being on the road is too much’ bullshit? Letting her off the hook to give her a better life? Making that choice for her? Because believe me, y’all don’t look better off to me.”
A heavy breath pilfered free of my aching lungs. “No.”
“You just didn’t love her, anymore? You gonna keep claiming that? Because believe me, we have plenty of horseshit back at our parents’ places. Could do without it being fed from you.”
Frustrated, I stabbed my fingers through my hair. “Think the answer to that is plenty apparent, yeah?”
He roughed a hand over his face, and his eyes grew wide in disbelief. “So, what…it was the kid?”
Disgust poured through his words. “That’s what it came down to? You were too much of a pussy to handle it?”
I flinched at the accusation that was so off base it would be hysterical if it wasn’t so devastating.
A face I barely knew but would recognize anywhere flashed through my mind.
Dark, trusting eyes.
Carefree grin.
The memory of her sweet smile was demolished by the rush of realization. Every mistake that had been made. Every war. Everything I’d been fighting for and everything that had been lost.
Would be wise for me to accept there was nothing left to reclaim. Nothing to give but penance. Atonement for what had been inflicted.
That and to watch over them until it came to fruition.
Until the last nail was driven in my heart and Violet realized the vile secret I kept.
“Loving that kid wouldn’t have been the issue. Deserving to do it was.”
A frown took over Rhys’ face as he whipped around a corner, ramming on the brakes and downshifting as we fast approached our turn. “The fuck are you talking about, man?”
I rubbed a palm over my mouth, trying to break up the torment that was rising fast. A flashflood. All the pain and grief and regret I’d kept chained breaking free of the dam and swelling fast.
“I fucked up, Rhys. Fucked up bad.”
He took the left, tires skidding on the pavement before he hit the dirt drive. Dust billowed behind like a ghost hunting us through the night, and he cut me a look through the slivers of moonlight that poured down through the darkness. Could feel the instant aggression that curled through his muscles.
“And what kind of trouble is that? You need someone to take up your back? Just say the word. Where and when. You know that, man.”
Without a doubt, Rhys would go down for me in a blaze of burning glory.
“It was a long time ago. Doesn’t matter anymore.”
More lies.
But this was not something I was willing for him to get into. It’d already squandered enough of the people I cared about. Destroyed and decayed and trampled.
A fucking field of casualties.
It’d left a bloodied trail of destruction in its wake, and here I was, getting ready to go another round.
But this was the finale, and someone was getting knocked the fuck out.
He slowed as we got closer to our houses at the top of the hill. Agitation lined his thick, brawny muscles, dude ready for a fight. He jerked his attention toward me. Hurt slashed through his expression. “You been keepin’ me in the dark, dude? What is this fresh shit? I’m your best friend. And here I thought this whole time that whirlwind you got swept into with Violet had just fizzled out, and all these years later, I’m hearin’ you got your stupid ass mixed up in some kind of mess?”
A hard gush of air left me. “I make the mistakes. I’m the one who has to suffer for them.”
“Alone?” he challenged.
“When getting you involved could only make it worse, yes.”
He came to a stop at the fork in the road. Car idling. Dude was clenching his fists on the steering wheel like he was going to go Hulk on me. Uncontrolled chaos. He always kept it bridled, but I knew him well enough to know it was there.
“Bullshit. Your trouble is mine. Consequences don’t matter, bro. We’ve been in this together from the beginning. Not sure when you decided to shut me out.”
When it could have destroyed your life.
“You couldn’t have fixed it, man. There was nothing you could do. And getting you involved would only make it worse. Kept you out of it because I care about you too much.”
Too bad I’d done such a fucking terrible job of keeping it from the rest of the people I loved.
My sister’s face flashed behind my eyes.
Guilt constricted.
So tight I thought I might pass out.
He turned to look at me. “So, what then, if it’s in the past, tell me what it was. Tell me what was so goddamn awful you had to let your girl go.”
I saw it for what it was. Knowledge running wild in his blue eyes. He’d already come to the conclusion before I could cut him off at the pass.
Dude might look like a jacked-up dolt. No brain cells left because his head was too full of arrogance and conceit.
Rhys Manning was nothing but obnoxious ego and secreted wisdom and fucking warm-hearted care.
Thing was, only people who got to witness those last two were the ones closest to him. Guy too terrified to let anyone else behind that brash demeanor that was just as real as the rest of them, but one he still used as a façade.
Walls too fortified to be toppled.
Guessed it was true that he and I had always had a ton in common.
And I knew right then he knew. That he could see right through me.
To the fear. To the ferocity. To the determination that singed and scorched and etched retribution on my soul.
There’d be nothing left of it when I was done.
“What are you in, man?” he finally asked, the dread in his tone warbling through the silence that bottled the cab.
I unlatched the door. “Nothing has changed, Rhys. Just…forget it. Thanks for the ride,” I said to shut him down as I hurried to climb out, needing to get my head clear of this.
Clicking the door shut, I started toward the sleeping house. Didn’t get three steps away before the window rolled down and he shouted after me, “One question.”
I paused, shifted to look at him from over my shoulder, and lifted my chin to give him the go.
No doubt, I was going to regret it.
Rhys’ expression was hard, as hard as the indictment lined in the demand. “Royce know?”
Disquiet curled down my spine, stomach coiling with a vile sickness that clawed and claimed.
>
Knew I shouldn’t, but I gave him a tight nod, the bit of honesty that I could offer. “Yeah.”
“Fuck,” he hissed. Fear blanched his face. Ghost white. Dread painted him a ghastly gray.
Guessed that was all I had to say.
He turned away, looked out the windshield, and blew out from his nose before he was speaking toward the window, refusing to grace me with a glance, his jaw working like mad. “Tell me this isn’t about those girls. Tell me you weren’t fuckin’ under Karl Fitzgerald’s thumb. Know you were pushin’ for us to sign with them. Before everything about Emily came out. Before Royce revealed the truth about Karl Fitzgerald. Tell me you didn’t stoop that low.”
Their faces flickered through my mind.
The agony.
What they’d gone through.
The ones that had gone missing.
In a flash, I was back at his car, my hands planted on the windowsill. I leaned down so I could jut my head inside.
Voice grit. “That bastard stole everything from me. Stole from the ones I love. Hurt and cheated and lied. Ruined innumerable lives. You really think I’d stoop that low, man? Force a girl? Only stoopin’ I’m doing is getting on my knees to pray the motherfucker ends up dead.”
Him and the rest of them.
Nodding, Rhys slanted his attention back at me. “Wouldn’t have believed it…but fuck, man, what happened to Em…”
He scrubbed a meaty palm over his face.
Shaken by what had come out.
Fitzgerald had had the intention of cutting the rest of us from the band once we’d signed so Emily would be the only one under his control.
All of us knew the very real reality of what could have become of her.
And I’d let it happen, fighting one battle and not realizing a whole different war was brewing right under my nose.
Royce had ripped his tarnished throne out from under him.
Stolen his crown and crumbled his empire.
It was a start, but I intended on setting that entire world on fire.
“Saw some things…in LA. Years ago.” I let the confession bleed out. Let it ring with implication.
Worry streaked through his expression. “Royce using you? To testify?”
“No, man,” I said solemnly. “I’m using Royce.”
Rhys flinched.
Getting it.
That this went so much deeper than he knew.
The very reason I had to keep him out of it.
I angled in closer, vehemence curling through my muscles. “You’re just a dude who got scammed by a greedy businessman, Rhys. You know nothing more. And you maintain that until we get to trial. Keep your nose out of it. You got me?”
He shook his head. “You’re in trouble? Means I fuckin’ am, too.”
He didn’t say anything else, just peeled out in the gravel as he lurched forward. I watched as he took the short distance to come to a stop in front of his mother’s house.
Blowing out the strain, I turned and trudged back toward ours.
Night pressed down, as heavy as the exhaustion that weighed my bones. Every window in the house was blackened, only the light next to the door scattering a dim glow across the porch.
The air was cool, a light breeze ushering in the fall that consumed the last days of summer. Bugs hummed a low buzz from their perch in the swishing branches of the trees.
The stillness profound.
The hole inside me gaped wider than it ever had.
So close. So fucking close and she was still out of reach.
Girl on my tongue and dancing in my soul.
I tipped my head toward the sky to the spiral of stars that wrote the heavens in song.
Endless, ethereal beauty.
My fingers itched with the need to play.
With the need to create magic.
To sing this girl in a sonnet.
Weave her in poetry.
A horse whinnied from the stables, drawing my attention that direction. Far to the back of the property, a single light blazed from the smaller house my younger brother Lincoln had built a handful of years ago.
But the stables and workshop were still there.
Standing like a tribute.
A memorial.
Unable to resist the lure, I moved that way and crept through the shadows to a place that to me would forever be scripted in the delicate curve of her name. I eased open the sliding door, enough to slip inside, only to freeze when I heard the snapping of a stick coming from the other side of the stables.
A horse whinnied again, and I could hear Linc’s dog, Cal, start barking from within his house.
Every hair on my body stood on end.
A shiver of awareness.
A slick of dread.
I eased back a step and peered into the lapping darkness. Through the shift of shadows that played and danced through the wispy tendrils of the night.
Another crunch.
Quieter this time.
Controlled.
Measured.
My heart rate spiked, and my breaths turned shallow as I slipped back out, keeping my footsteps as light as possible as I edged that way.
Caught somewhere between alarm and the bare determination to protect my family.
Another crunch echoed to my left, and my attention jerked that way to see a shadow suddenly bolt toward a grove of trees behind the stables.
Didn’t think it through. Didn’t consider.
I shot after him.
Pants of aggression puffed from my lungs, violence stretching every muscle thin.
Consuming.
Overwhelming.
I could feel the panic ripple from the bastard who tried to outrun me. The darkened silhouette dove into a thicket of trees, winding into their massive trunks and beneath the camouflage of their leaves that cast the ground in a murky obscurity.
I sprinted after him, feet thudding on the damp ground as I darted around the stables. Cal barked like mad, enough that it caused a light to flick on somewhere in Lincoln’s house.
Fuck.
Last thing I wanted was my younger brother coming out here.
Couldn’t allow him to get involved.
Couldn’t put him in danger.
Problem was, I had no idea what I was up against. Didn’t know who would dare come here. Who was wishing for death so badly that they would risk stepping foot in Dalton, though I’d lay down bets it was whatever prick had been snooping around Royce and Emily’s engagement party.
Royce a clear target.
But my gut told me this went deeper.
I was determined to find out.
I made it around the stables and plunged into the disorienting haze of shadows. My eyes scanned, searching for movement.
For a sign of the fucker who was going down.
My hands desperate for retribution and knowing it wasn’t time.
That I was supposed to be biding the days and the only thing I wanted was to end this now.
Violet’s touch echoed from my flesh. Her words and her pain. Wanted it for her, even when she would fuckin’ hate me in the end.
A creak rode on the air from somewhere in the distance, and I angled through the trees, ducking below branches and dodging undergrowth as I searched through the brush.
I thought I saw something off to my right, and I turned, running faster.
Asshole was gonna die.
I had no care—no focus—nothing but putting a hand on this asshole and bringing him to his end.
I jumped over a fallen log and darted around another tree.
I didn’t even have the chance to process the rock coming for my head before it made impact.
No time to prepare myself for the gutting pain that fractured through my brain like a million tiny cracks.
It left me nothing but a pile of rubble.
Dropped me to the ground.
Facedown.
Barely coherent.
I came in and out of lucidity, no sound in the ai
r but the piercing scream in my ears. Ricocheting agony through my head.
I gasped and writhed, trying to remain conscious. To fight.
I attempted to climb onto my hands and knees, but a rush of dizziness had me slumping back down into a pile of decaying, rotting leaves.
Darkness surged.
A morbid abyss threatening to suck me under.
Footsteps crunched as they neared, and I could feel the vileness in the air. Something wicked, the voice sounding distant though I knew he was whispering near my ear. “Where the fuck are they, you fuckin’ thief?”
A riot of barking suddenly took hold of the atmosphere, and another set of footsteps echoed through the night.
“Richard?” Linc shouted. “That you?”
The scumbag leaned in closer, oozing his depravity all over me. “Gonna end you, bitch. Gonna end you and all your friends.”
Then he was gone.
A harsh gust of air jutted from my lungs, and I fully collapsed and faded into the darkness.
Sixteen
Richard
I glanced back at the restaurant where the girls were still huddled in a group, at the way my wife bit her lip and sent me one of those sweet, seductive looks that would forever have me on my knees.
I was half inclined to go back for her, take her back to our hotel and love her right, but the hand landing on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze drew me back.
“Car is here, man, let’s roll.” Shawn angled his head. Our drummer urged me to follow. Rhys had bailed on this trip since his mother was sick. Dude was nothing but a mama’s boy. But it was cool. He’d already said he was game. Ready to sign. He didn’t need to be wined and dined and shown the life that was getting ready to befall them. He’d known they were headed for it the whole time.
“Later, baby,” I mouthed the promise to my girl who gave me a wave as she and the rest of the girls gathered to head out to go dancing to celebrate Lily’s birthday.
Hollywood style since the band had had to be here for the weekend, anyway.
Funny how some things just worked out.
Nerves rattled through me, this unchained excitement that burned through my senses. Anxious and eager when I slipped into the back of the black sedan and Shawn climbed down beside me. This was it. All the blood, sweat, and tears coming to fruition. Culminating in what we’d been working toward all along.
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