by Selena Kitt
“I’ve been through this before with him,” she said, sounding much calmer than I felt. “We’ll get through it again.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Terrified.”
I stopped at the front gate, reaching out to push the buzzer.
“Who is it?” Katie’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Sabrina and Katie,” I called.
The iron gate swung inward, and I inched the car forward. Their security system wasn’t as complex as ours, just an audio relay. Ours involved video cameras. Of course, ours hadn’t kept Catherine out. I’d read stories about fans scaling walls to try to break into a rock star’s house. If they wanted in, and they were crazy enough, nothing was going to keep them out.
“What is that noise?” I frowned as I pulled my Kia up next to the Rolls. I was relieved to see it. Clearly Jesse had already brought Celeste and Rob over.
“Sounds like Tyler.” Sarah got out of the car and I heard it more clearly—the guitar riff from Smoke on the Water. “That’s what he plays when he’s mad.”
The sound was so loud when Katie opened the front door, we had to actually yell to hear each other.
“Rob called Dr. Marcus!” Katie yelled as she led us up the stairs. “We’re going to have an intervention.”
“Who’s Dr. Marcus?” I yelled back.
“Substance abuse therapist,” Sarah yelled as we reached the top of the stairs. “He runs the Pacific Rehab.”
I nodded rather than responding verbally.
“Is he high?” Sarah asked loudly.
“He called the dealer.” Katie shook her head. “But he hasn’t shown up.”
The guitar stopped, and we stopped too, blinking at each other in surprise. Then our eyes widened when we heard a huge crash. Katie took off running down the hall and we followed. I stopped, nearly running into Sarah, who stood behind Katie in the doorway. The noise had stopped.
“Feel better, bruh?” I heard Rob ask.
“Fuck you,” Tyler snapped.
Sarah pushed her way into the room, past Katie who was frozen in the doorway. I looked over Katie’s shoulder to see Tyler standing in the middle of their bedroom, a Fender electric guitar, still plugged into an amp, hanging by a broken neck. The mirror over their dresser—brand new, I’d helped Katie pick it out—was shattered, the pieces scattered all over.
“Don’t walk over here, you’re barefoot,” Sarah warned Katie. She was carefully picking up the bigger pieces off the carpet.
My eyes met Rob’s. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching his brother, still wielding the guitar, blood dripping from his fist. The amp hummed loudly. Tyler was breathing hard, head down, eyes closed. My heart broke just looking at him, but I was more than a little scared, too.
“Ty?” Katie side-stepped the remnants of the mirror, going to stand by his side. He let her put an arm around him and take the guitar away. She was whispering in his ear as she led him to a chair in the corner.
“This is a disaster,” I whispered to Rob as I went over to sit on the bed beside him. I didn’t see Jesse or Celeste and wondered if Rob had driven the Rolls over himself.
“It’ll be okay,” Rob murmured, putting an arm around my waist and kissing my forehead. I had to remind myself that he’d lied to me because he was still trying to protect me. Whatever we had to say to each other could wait, for now. We had to deal with this first. “The hardest part is getting him to go to rehab. This is the hardest part.”
“I’m not going!” Tyler snapped as Sarah approached with a first-aid kit from the bathroom. “You can’t make me go!”
I blinked in surprise at the petulance in his voice. He sounded like a ten-year-old.
“We’re not going to let you kill yourself, Ty,” Rob said softly, watching as Sarah handed the kit over to Katie, who knelt and began to bandage his hand.
“We love you, Tyler,” Sarah assured him, arms crossed as she leaned against the wall.
“Holy hell.” Jesse gave a low whistle as he came into the room, seeing the guitar in pieces, the mirror broken. “Well, now I know what we heard.”
He was talking to Celeste, who came in behind him.
“You called?” Rob raised his eyebrows at Celeste and she nodded.
“I’m not going to rehab,” Tyler said flatly, wincing as Katie wrapped his bloody knuckles with gauze. I wondered if he’d punched the mirror.
“Would you prefer jail?” Celeste sat in the chair beside him. There was a lamp on a table between them. “Because if you don’t go to rehab, jail is where you’re headed, after the stunt you pulled last night.”
“I can only do so much,” Rob held out his hands, shrugging helplessly.
“You don’t need to do anything,” Tyler spat. “Quit trying to save me. I don’t need saving anymore.”
“I think you do.”
“You know what?” Tyler’s eyes blazed with fire. “Get the hell out of my house. Just… get out!”
“I invited them here, Ty,” Katie reminded him softly.
“You can get out too!” He turned to her with that same fire.
I knew he didn’t really mean it, but the hurt look in Katie’s eyes was almost palpable.
“I want you all out!” Tyler pointed at the door.
“We’re not going anywhere.” Katie’s eyes flashed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The intercom buzzed and we all jumped.
“Dr. Marcus,” Rob muttered, nodding at Katie.
She ran over to the intercom, pressing the button.
“Who is it?” she called.
“It’s Marcus,” the voice crackled through the speaker. “Hey, there’s a—”
“Come on in!” Katie called, hitting another button and clicking off the speaker.
She nearly ran down the stairs to the door.
“Fuck this.” Tyler stood, stalking toward the door.
“I can’t let you go, Ty.” Rob stood in the doorway, arms crossed. Jesse stood beside him. They were both bigger than Tyler, but Tyler looked like he couldn’t have cared less. He faced them, hands clenched into fists. The air crackled with electricity. I felt goose bumps rise on my arms and knew there was going to be a fight, even before Tyler threw the first punch. Both Jesse and Rob wrestled him to the carpet, Tyler thrashing and yelling as they tried to keep him down.
I’m fairly sure Jesse and Rob would have won, but we didn’t get the chance to find out.
“Move it!” a gruff voice said from the hallway.
Katie, eyes so wide and face so pale she could have been a ghost, stumbled into the room, pushed by someone behind her. She was followed by an older, bespectacled man in a white button-down shirt who tripped in behind her, looking even more scared than she did. Then I saw the reason they both looked so terrified—the huge, dark-haired man wielding a gun now filling the doorway. He was flanked on either side by two men also carrying guns. The one on the right, a tall white boy who clearly thought he was Eminem, was wearing more gold than Lil Wayne. He even had a gold grill on his teeth. The one on the left was dressed in an expensive suit, like the man in the middle, but the lackey was wearing a lemon-yellow shirt that was so bright it was almost fluorescent. Still, neither of these distracted from the imposing man in the middle.
I knew the man in the middle. Not personally, but I’d just seen his face in the papers. The sight of him made my mouth go dry and a small moan escaped my lips, but no one seemed to notice.
“What in the hell?” Tyler stood, opening his arms to Katie, who fell into them, her whole body shaking. I was shaking too, all of a sudden, my body instantly reacting to the sight of three big men carrying guns, one of which just happened to be Dante Marotta.
Rob stiffened beside me, but he didn’t move. I saw Jesse take a step forward, but one of the guys—the one flanking right—pointed a gun in his direction and that stopped him.
“Hello boys.” The tall, broad-shouldered man in the middle leveled his gaze on Rob, then Tyler, w
ho had pushed Katie protectively behind him. Rob had moved to block my view as well, doing the same. I had to peek over his shoulder to see what was happening, and I did, although I was afraid to.
“You dial that phone and I shoot you in the head.” Dante sneered at Celeste, gun swinging in her direction, and she gasped in surprise. “Phones. Now. Everyone put your phone on that dresser. Jesus, what happened in here?”
He was looking at all the broken glass, the ruined guitar.
“Move!” he snapped when no one did.
Celeste quickly tossed her phone onto the dresser and Jesse did the same. The tall, thin bespectacled man—I assumed he was Dr. Marcus—was the closest to the dresser and slid his phone onto the surface. I handed mine to Rob and he put ours, along with Sarah’s, Tyler’s and Katie’s—Tyler handed them over—on the dresser, still littered with broken glass. I felt my heart sink at the sight of them all sitting there, our only connection to help. I wondered if there was a way to call security here, like there was at our place. But Katie and Tyler hadn’t moved in that long ago—they probably didn’t have anything like that set up yet.
“What do you want?” Rob asked quietly, coming back so he could stand in front of me. I had to peek around him and I did, clutching the back of his t-shirt. “We have plenty of money. How much?”
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked, his eyes on Rob. They glittered black and the look in them made me shiver.
“Some asshole looking for money?” Rob guessed. There was more steel in his voice than I thought possible. I swallowed, praying for a way out of this.
“Do you remember me?” He turned those black eyes to Tyler. And I saw a slow, dawning horror of recognition pass over Tyler’s face.
“Dante?”
Rob’s spine straightened at Tyler’s question. So, he remembered him too. Maybe just as the guy who came around to visit their mother. I could see confusion on Sarah’s face, so she clearly didn’t remember. But none of them knew what I now knew. This man was their father, a secret held by their mother for years. Clearly, she had been protecting him, even from her prison cell. Or maybe she’d been protecting herself.
“What do you want?” Tyler asked the question this time. “What are you doing here?”
“You called me.” Dante gave him a cold, calculating smile. “Well, you called my associate. I thought I’d take the opportunity to come myself.”
The dealer. Tyler had called his dealer—who had called his supplier. Dante Marotta. Was he still so heavily involved then? Even as a state prosecutor? And then it occurred to me—it would be the perfect cover. My father always said, he could have broken any number of laws and no one would have known, because he was a cop. That made my whole body go cold, remembering what Leanne had told me. If she’d been telling the truth, this man had been in charge of a huge underage prostitution ring. And if he was still running it…
“I thought we’d take a ride, boys. Get reacquainted. You and your sister.” Dante smiled at his daughter. The man had the perfect politician’s smile, but he still reminded me of a shark. Too many teeth. “Didn’t know we’d be walking in on a party. That’s unfortunate. We’ll have to do a bit more cleanup than I hoped.”
“Over my dead body,” Rob growled.
“That was the idea, son.” Dante leveled both his eyes and his gun at Rob. “Did you think I was kidding when I told you I’d kill you all if you ever told anyone?”
“No, sir, we didn’t think you were kidding,” Tyler spoke up. “But we didn’t tell anyone.”
“Yes, I know.” Dante gave him a cold, quelling look. “That little blonde bitch leaked the story. I already took care of her.”
Catherine.
Arnie’s words from earlier that morning came back to me. I don’t know how you kill yourself in a place like that. Don’t they lock up all the dangerous things?
Catherine hadn’t killed herself. This man had killed her—or had her killed—and made it look like a suicide. Because cops could do that. My father had told us plenty of stories after his retirement about good men gone bad, corruption from the inside out, and people too afraid to tell the truth for fear of the repercussions.
“Shame to waste such a beauty.” Dante shrugged. “You, though…”
Dante took a step in Sarah’s direction and I felt Rob tense and grabbed onto the back of his shirt even harder, as if I could keep him from going after this man if he finally decided to.
“I could use you…” Dante lifted Sarah’s chin with the barrel of his gun, cocking his head as he studied her features. “You’re a little old, though.”
“Fuck you!” Sarah spat up at him. Her saliva didn’t make it to his face—clearly her intended target—but did splatter his tie.
“Is that any way to talk to your father?” Dante scowled, taking the handkerchief out of his suit coat pocket so he could wipe away the evidence.
His words hung there. The room was silent. Rob and Tyler exchanged glances, frowning.
“Leanne never told you?” Dante chuckled, tucking the soiled handkerchief back into his pocket. “Good girl. They’re always so obedient.”
“You’re not my father,” Rob said, his eyes sending bullets into the man standing in front of us. I was so afraid he would tackle him and get shot, get us all killed.
“It’s true. He is.” I spoke up, my throat thick with fear, but I had to. I had to tell the truth. Someone had to. But my voice didn’t want to work. “Leanne… I talked to your mother, Sarah, while you were in the shower. She told me, it’s true.”
Rob turned to look at me, his expression perplexed, bewildered, hurt. But when he met my eyes, he knew what I was saying was true. I saw the reality sink in, like an anchor to the bottom of the ocean. I thought it might actually bring him to his knees.
“Jesus Christ.” Rob turned to look at the man who had come to visit his mother at their home, a man they’d all been afraid of.
“So, I didn’t… Joe wasn’t… our father…” Tyler’s voice was choked, hoarse. He was realizing for the first time that he hadn’t shot his father after all. The man they’d believed was their father had simply been their mother’s easiest point of access to drugs.
“Afraid not. But he was your uncle. My brother,” Dante told him matter-of-factly. “It was his….proclivities, shall we say… that got me into the business in the first place.”
The business. The business of underage prostitution. And Catherine had been just one of their many victims. I glanced over at Sarah and knew, if they’d stayed in that house, she would have been another. The thought made me sick to my stomach.
“No one knows about you.” Rob spoke up, meeting Dante’s eyes. “You told us not to tell and we never did. We got the message.”
“I should hope so.” Dante smirked and the look on his face gave me goosebumps.
“You nearly burned her face off,” Tyler snapped. “She lost that eye. We got the fucking message, asshole.”
Oh my God. Leanne’s face, her horribly scarred face, that one blank eye.
“No one knows who you are,” Rob assured him. “No one knows what you did.”
But it wasn’t in the past. This man hadn’t changed—he was still the same person and he was still doing the same things he’d always done. Although, I thought he was probably doing them on a much larger scale now.
“Ah, but all it takes is one reporter who digs far enough, and all roads lead back to me, I’m afraid.” Dante shrugged helplessly, glancing at his lackeys. They were both quiet. “And it’s not just me. There are important people in the community I need to protect.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Tyler assured him again. “Why would we? We never have! We have people to protect too.”
“So, you believe we can come to some sort of arrangement?” Dante cocked his dark head, seemingly considering this, but I knew better. Everyone in this room knew he’d killed Catherine. He had no intention of letting any of us out of this alive.
“I’m sure we can w
ork something out,” Rob said.
“You mentioned money?” Dante’s eyes brightened at the prospect of cash. Typical. It made me want to wrestle that gun out of his hand and shoot him myself. He was going to take the money and kill us all anyway. My stomach clenched at the thought and my limbs tingled. We were going to die here, today.
“Tyler has a safe. How much do you want?” Rob asked him calmly.
I tugged at Rob’s shirt, shaking my head and frowning at him when he glanced back at me. How could he not realize what was going to happen? Why would he give this man any more than he was already going to take?
“How much do you have?” Dante asked, licking his greedy lips.
“Ty?” Rob cocked his head at his brother.
“Not sure.” Tyler shrugged. “We can look in the safe. It’s over there, in the floor.”
“It’s loaded for love, bruh,” Rob said, as Tyler went over to open the safe in the floor. It was hidden under a flap of carpet that blended in seamlessly.
“Okay, I’m gonna let him have it,” Tyler replied, turning the dial on the safe.
I met Katie’s wide, frightened eyes. She sank down into the chair, looking pale, and Sarah leaned against her, still on the floor where she’d been helping bandage Tyler’s hand. His relapse and checking out of the hospital AMA felt far away, a thousand years ago. I couldn’t puzzle out what Rob had said to Tyler. I understood the words—they were from one of the songs from their very first album, a song called Loaded for Love. They always closed the show with it.
The lyrics ran through my head.
I’m loaded for love, loaded for your love.
Gonna let you have it, I’m your new outlaw.
Gonna let you have it, baby, let you have it all.
And that’s when I realized what Rob was communicating, and what Tyler understood.
It was loaded. The safe was loaded.
“What have you got for me, son?”
“Just this.” Tyler turned.
The gun in the safe was loaded.
There was a flash and the gun went off, nearly deafening me.
It all happened so fast. I think Dante’s lackey thought he had shot Tyler, until a dark red stain bloomed on the back of Dante’s coat and he stumbled. I did it without even thinking, hoping to give Rob and Jesse, who were edging closer to the two men with guns, a distraction, a little extra time. I reached down and turned up the amp to ten. The resulting squeal and squelch was so loud in the little room, they probably heard it all the way to the street.