Dax snickers under his breath as we enter the room, Ronin right behind us. In front of us is my brother, sitting at the head of a large table like he’s some sort of Godfather, a spread of food covering most of the space. A ridiculously dressed thug is sitting next to him and is immediately told to move by my brother.
Danny smiles at us, a man who looks so much like me, yet not like me at all. We have the same dark hair, same hazel eyes, but Danny’s are hollow and lifeless, indicative of someone who has seen and done things that most people won’t. He’s much thinner than me, a sign of too little exercise and too many drugs. His skin is pasty and there are dark circles under his eyes. The red rims around his nostrils are like a neon sign pointing to his drug of choice.
“Adam! Dax! If it isn’t the famous rock stars. Have a seat and grab a plate,” Danny says, acting like this is some kind of family reunion instead of a forced get together because of my brother’s supreme negligence.
I reluctantly sit, but refuse to eat anything. I don’t want Danny thinking that this is a friendly meeting. Plus, this place is repulsive. There’s probably rat crap in the teriyaki.
“Danny, we’re not here for food,” I say tersely. My body is so tense it feels as if the slightest movement will set me off, ready to explode in fury. I hate it, it reminds me of our dad.
“Oh come off it, Adam. Humor your brother.” Danny sniffs and wipes his nose, his eyes gleaming as he leans back in his chair like he’s a respected Mafioso. What a fucking joke, he’s a small time drug dealer in the East End, not the head of a notorious international crime syndicate.
“No!” I slam my fist down on the table, rattling flatware and dishes. “I want to know what you’ve been doing with the thousand quid a month I’ve been sending you, because it sure as hell isn’t being used to protect Ellie Palmer!”
“Thousand quid!” Dax says incredulously. I hold up a finger to silence him.
“I’m sure you’re mistaken…” Danny squirms uncomfortably under my sharp gaze. “My men…”
“Shut the fuck up! I’m not mistaken, Danny! That sodding bastard has gone for her twice, and succeeded in hurting her once! Why the fuck weren’t your chavs keeping him in line?” I lean forward in my chair, within striking distance of Danny, whose smirk is really starting to piss me off.
Right on cue, his idiot thug stands up and moves closer to me, which causes Ronin to move forward, shooting an intimidating glare at Danny’s thug.
“Hey!” my brother says, holding his hands up in a sign of peace. “Let’s keep this civilized, shall we?”
“It stopped being civilized the second Ellie was assaulted by that prick! What the fuck am I paying you for?”
“Well, I would think it was because you wanted to share some of your good fortune with your brother,” Danny says in his slimiest voice.
“Like I give a fuck about you,” I snarl. “I only care about Ellie, so if you can’t keep her safe, the money stops. Today.” I pound the table one more time to show him I’m serious.
My brother’s face goes white, then he quickly regains his composure. He doesn’t like looking a fool in front of anyone.
“Don’t threaten me, little brother. It won’t turn out well for you to be associated with someone like me. One call to the press and your reputation is shit.”
“Like I said, I don’t give a fuck about anything but Ellie.” I grit my teeth together in frustration. “So quit the fucking around and tell me what happened.”
Danny sighs tiredly and rolls his eyes, as if this is just so beneath him to discuss. “The idiot was in prison, armed robbery I think, or maybe assault. So we stopped worrying about him until his scheduled release date. I guess none of my men noticed when he was let out early.” He waves his hand carelessly, not concerned in the least that he failed at doing the one and only thing I’ve ever asked of him.
I bolt out of my seat, too furious to be calm anymore, and get right up in his face. “She could have died! He cut her and terrorized her and broke her bones and all you can say is no one noticed? I should beat the crap out of your worthless piece of shit arse!” I fist his shirt in my hands and yank him up out of his chair, his glassy eyes pop open in shock.
Danny’s chav leaps towards us with the intent to separate me from my brother, but Dax and Ronin hold him back easily. “Let them have it out, it’s a family thing,” Dax growls.
“The money’s done, Danny. It’s over. You won’t get another pound from me, ever.” I release his shirt and shove him back down into his chair. “Come on, let’s get out of this shithole.”
Dax and Ronin follow me out of the restaurant as I seethe silently. My hands are shaking with the urge to do violence to my brother. It took everything I have to not throw him to the ground and beat on him until he begged for mercy.
I will not become my father. I will not become my father.
We climb back into the car for the ride back to the hotel, and then off to the airport to whatever city our next show is in. None of this crap is important anymore. All I want to do is go to El and curl up under the covers with her and shut out the rest of the world. Fuck all the rest of this shit.
Dax claps me on the shoulder. “Sorry man, I had no idea about Ellie and Callum.”
“I know.” I watch the city I grew up in pass by, wondering where Ellie is in the tangle of buildings and eight million people. Soon enough, she’ll be with me all of the time and I won’t have to wonder.
I smile at the thought and close my eyes so I can daydream about our future.
28
Ellie
Work seems to drag on, as if each minute suddenly decided it could take twice as long as normal. I love my job, usually, but after my day with Adam yesterday, and my sleepless night thinking about James and Adam and my life in general, my attitude is crap.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I’m not supposed to check it while on shift, but I can’t resist. The thought that Adam might be texting me is too great a temptation. I duck into the break room and pull it out. Disappointment floods me when I see that it’s from James. Again.
I turn it off and tuck it into the pocket of my scrubs without responding. The James situation is just too overwhelming and too distracting for me to think about while I’m at work. Adam’s gone for another month, so that gives me some time to figure everything out with James. If I don’t do it soon though, I fear that the lack of sleep and the massive amounts of stress might break me before then.
“Ellie, your patient in room 504 needs you!”
The sound of my irritated coworker’s voice snaps me out of my selfish musing and I hurry down the hall to do my job.
By six o’clock, I’m exhausted. We had too many patients and not enough nurses. Nothing new for us, but with almost no sleep last night, I could probably fall asleep standing on the platform while I wait for the tube.
Luckily, I snag a seat on the train and immediately begin to check my phone, convincing myself that it’s just a distraction technique to keep me awake, not because I want to see if Adam has sent anything. When it powers up I notice that I’ve got missed four calls from James and he’s sent several texts, each one more agitated than the previous.
He knows it’s over. That it was over the second I left the car after the concert.
Crap. I can’t deal with this right now. I slump down in the seat and my phone vibrates again. Weary from my day and so irritated at James, I almost don’t look at it. Curiosity gets the best of me, however, and I open the text.
I bolt upright in my seat. It’s from Adam.
I open the attachment he’s sent and it’s a picture of him with the empty stage behind him, several crewmembers putting the set together for his show tonight.
My heart racing in my chest and butterflies attacking my belly, I quickly send a reply.
/> He replies immediately.
I smile wide and giggle idiotically at the phone, causing some of the passengers nearest to me to give me funny looks. I type out another text, hoping he gets the deeper meaning.
My phone buzzes again.
I relax and pull up the photo again, running my thumb over Adam’s handsome face. He looks as tired as I feel. I wonder if he stayed up all night thinking about us like I did. My stomach sinks as I realize that Adam probably stayed up worrying about whether or not I’ll choose him or James, since I never gave him a real answer.
I vow to resolve that when he calls tonight. I’ll tell him what he needs to hear. I can’t live without him, I know that. He inspires feelings in me that James never has and never will. I’ll have to make it clear to James that we’re over, and the thought makes me ill, almost enough to retch up my lunch. I literally owe him my life, but that doesn’t mean I have to give it to him as payment, right?
The Underground announces my stop and I shuffle out with the rest of the weary crowd. This time of year is always so depressing, it’s dark when I head to work, and it’s dark when I head home. It’s not as if we get a lot of sunny days in London, so autumn and winter are extra dreary because I’m hardly ever outside while the sun is up.
Groggy from lack of sleep followed by a twelve-hour shift, I practically sleepwalk to my flat. I twist the key in the lock and hear it disengage. A strong arm grips my waist but before I can struggle, an awful smelling rag comes down over my face and it’s the last thing I remember as everything fades away.
* * *
“Ow.” A sharp pain lances across my scalp. I attempt to reach up to feel for a lump or a cut and find that my hands are bound behind me.
Terror like nothing I’ve ever felt before races through my body, sending adrenaline flowing to every over stimulated nerve ending. I’m petrified to open my tightly shut eyelids, but even more afraid of the unknown, so I suck in a breath and slowly open my eyes.
When the legs of my sofa and the second-hand end table next to it come into focus, I relax a little. I’m on the floor of my own flat, that’s good. I had half expected to wake up in some dark, abandoned warehouse or something equally sinister.
The panic comes back full force when I spot a large set of boots crossing my tiny kitchen, hear the fridge open and click shut, and the sharp pop of a beer opening.
My entire body starts shaking, that familiar fight or flight sensation flooding my brain. “Get out! Get out!” it screams at me. I attempt to get to my feet thinking I can maybe run to the door and open it with my hands behind me, but find my legs are bound together at the knees. I let my head slump to the ground, defeated. Just like that horrible day in a deserted yard after school, I’m thoroughly and properly fucked.
Watching through the seven-centimeter gap under my sofa, the giant booted feet shuffle over to my two-person kitchen table and the wearer sits on one of my small wooden chairs. It creaks under the weight of him. Jesus, he must be enormous. The man starts speaking and it takes me a moment to realize that he’s on the phone and not talking to me.
“Course I got her… Nah, she’s sleeping it off. I’ll have my fun when she wakes,” he says, chugging my beer in between sentences.
The hair on my scalp prickles at the sound of his voice. I know that voice. It belongs to Callum Murray, a man who I’ve finally accepted, will never, ever, leave me alone.
“Danny, I said I’ll take care of it. You can just tell your fucking wanker of a brother to fuck off!”
Danny? Adam’s brother is named Danny. No, that can’t be who he’s talking about. Adam doesn’t associate with his brother, he’s a drug dealer. But how do I know that they don’t speak? I haven’t actually known Adam, or any of his associates for the past six years.
“Fine, I’ll snap a picture and text it to you so you can torture the poor rock star with it.” Callum laughs, he actually fucking laughs as he describes photographing a crime. “I’ll fuck her up right good before taking it so it’ll really tear the bastard up. Then I get the rest of my money… I’m glad you saw the benefit of working with me.”
Chills wrack my body as I lie on the hard floor.
Oh my god! Adam’s brother hired Callum to attack me and use pictures of it to hurt Adam? But why? Tears start to streak down my face and I thrash uselessly against the zip ties that bind my arms and legs. I can’t let them hurt Adam this way. I won’t cause him pain like that again.
Callum must hear me moving, because he quickly finishes his call. “Gotta go, mate. Fun’s about to begin. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
Heavy footsteps circle the sofa and stop next to my head. A thick panic drops into my gut and blooms. Callum crouches down and grabs the hair on the back of my head, yanking my face up towards his.
“Oh, I’m so going to enjoy this,” he whispers, his disgusting breath making me recoil in disgust.
He slaps me hard across my cheek, then slams my head against the floor. “That’s for being such an uppity cunt all those years ago,” he says calmly. After the stars clear from my vision, I look up and see a familiar gleam in his evil, dark eyes and it sends a shiver down my spine.
I run my tongue over my teeth and taste blood from the blow to my face. Knowing I’ve got no chance of getting out of here, and therefore, nothing to lose, I launch a mouthful of bloody spit right into Callum’s face, covering him and his shirt with a spray of red.
“Oh you have no idea what you’ve just done,” he says darkly. He lifts the leg of his jeans and pulls a huge knife out of his boot and shows it to me, dangling it in front of my face while my eyes bulge in terror. He flips it over and uses it to tear into my scrubs, slicing them open from neck to waist as I’m frozen in place.
When his meaty hand snakes in and gropes my breast, I thrash around and scream madly.
“Shut your bloody mouth or I’ll cut you like I did last time,” he hisses, holding the knife at my throat. I think about the scar on my wrist and how painful it was when he cut me. It’s even more so since it healed because the scar serves as a constant reminder of that awful day.
I immediately quiet, unwilling to let him cut me again. His dark eyes glint with something sinister, not the dead look I remember. He’s alive now, torturing me like this. Getting his kicks out of hurting me and watching the fear show on my face.
“That’s better,” he says as I stop resisting him. He uses the knife to slice off my hospital pants and the binding around my knees and tosses them aside. Then he puts the knife down next to his foot so he can use one hand to hold my shoulders down and the other to spread my legs apart. I close my eyes, unable to watch the horror that’s about to happen.
I can’t help the whimpering that comes from my throat. Callum leans down and whispers in my ear, “Your little boyfriend is going to go mental when he sees what I’ve done to you.” He jabs his hot tongue in my ear and I turn my face away from him in disgust. He laughs as he grips my hair again and smashes my head down on the hard floor again and again, each blow sending white-hot pain straight through my fragile skull.
His disgusting laugh must have drowned out the sound of my locks disengaging and the door opening, because suddenly Callum’s weight is gone and I vaguely recognize James’ voice. It’s nearing a pitch that can only be described as lethal.
“You fucking bastard! I’ll kill you!” I hear the loud thuds of James’ fists and feet landing on Callum. I try to call out to James, to let him know that I’m here and I need help, but my nothing on my body is working properly.
When I hear the murky sound of handcuffs snapping shut through the swirling haze in my brain, I’m finally able to relax. The adrenaline rush that kept me going has tapered off and left me convulsing violently on the floor as the light in the room starts to dim.
I want to stay, to tell James everything will be alright, but the foggy vortex sucks me right in.
29
Adam
The private jet sets up for landing in Berlin, Germany, and I watch as the massive airport comes closer and closer until the tires smoothly touch the tarmac.
“Can you please, please stop with the leg?” Hawke pushes his hand down on my knee and holds it still. “I’m begging you.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was moving it.” God, my nerves must be bad if Dax and Hawke have both noticed.
“Well, you have, for the entire trip. You’re lucky it’s a short flight or I would have killed you by now,” he grins.
I roll my eyes and cast a glance at Hawke. He’s dressed in his usual hipster-geek clothes, faded comic book T-shirt, unzipped hoodie, jeans that are practically falling apart they’re so old, and his black Chucks on his feet. Girls love Hawke, especially the young ones. His whole tattooed, black-framed glasses look drives them mad. I don’t get it, but I guess I don’t have to.
“You’re doing it again.” He points at my bouncing knee.
“Fuck off, Hawke. I’m just feeling cooped up, alright? I want to get the fuck off this plane and over to the hotel!”
Thankfully, Hawke doesn’t press me, but I’m can feel his eyes on the side of my head. I stare out the window so I won’t see him and get mad. Dax would have forced me to talk about my attitude, but he’s sitting across the aisle with his assistant Zane, discussing whatever the fuck they discuss all the time. I’ve repeatedly refused to have an assistant, even though everyone has begged me to get one. Our manager, Ross, has threatened to hire one for me whether I like it or not, but I told him I’d just send them home so he hasn’t. Yet.
The Complete Rockstar Series Page 18