CLASS ACT (A BRITISH ROCKSTAR BAD BOY ROMANCE)

by Julia Gardener

  “Well, I’d do just that if some didn’t have me traveling all over Los Angeles County,” I sighed. “Just tell me who the fuck sent me that message!”

  “Language, Mr. Lawrence.”

  I turned to look at the fiery redhead who spoke the words. She stood in the lobby with a somber expression. There was a large binder under her arm.

  “Megan?” I gasped, staring at my old friend. “What are you doing here? We’re not supposed to meet for another couple of days.”

  “Something important came up,” she said, pulling out papers from her purse. “Someone has been withholding funds meant for the orphans.”

  “What the fuck?” I said, taking the sheet of papers. Even if I didn’t have dyslexia, it would have still looked like gibberish to me. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

  Ryan, being young and a tech head, was able to decipher it. “The Cayman Islands? Someone is storing Heath’s money in the Cayman Islands. The hell?”

  “Yes, someone is misappropriating funds meant for the Howard Lane Foundation,” Megan said. “Millions of dollars are missing. I’ve tracked the money to tax havens and other less than reputable places.”

  “Jesus,” Dave murmured. “This sounds serious as hell.”

  I looked at my old friend. “Megan, are you sure about this?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t want to bring this up until I covered all the bases. Without a doubt, someone is intercepting the funds and then wiring them to the Howard Lane Foundation after a period of time. Recently, the funds have stopped coming at all.”

  “Why all of these smoke and mirrors?” Tyler asked, mirroring my own questions. “If you have access to that much money, then why not steal it? Why keep it for a few weeks and then deposit in its original destination anyway?”

  “A lot of reasons,” Ryan replied. The drummer may have been young but we was the bright one of the bunch. “Depending on how long you hold the money, you can get interest off of it. You can invest in something with a quick turnaround or short sell stocks and use the residuals to pay off the original amount later. Not to mention it’ll attract a lot less attention than if large sums were stolen at the same time.”

  Megan nodded. “In a scenario like this, you can smash and grab a few million dollars. Or you can hold on like some parasite and get way more money over the long term.”

  “God, what a nightmare,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “Who the hell is doing this?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Megan said, mirroring my sigh. “I can confirm that’s it’s not someone in the Howard Lane Foundation. This mess is happening well before it reaches the Foundation.”

  “Who else knows about this?” I asked, glancing at my band mates. “Other than us four stooges?”

  “Charlotte knows,” Megan revealed before shooting me an apologetic look. I glared back at her. Charlotte didn’t need to be wrapped in this mess. “Don’t look at me like that, Heath. She already knew about the late funds.”

  “Add the head of security to the mix,” Tyler said, pointing to Mr. Han. The man walked towards us with purpose. “At least our lifestyle is full of excitement!”

  “Mr. Lawrence,” Mr. Han began. “There has been a breach in the Santa Monica property.”

  Megan’s raised an eyebrow. “That orphanage that’s still under construction?”

  “I could’ve sworn I locked it when I left,” I growled in frustration. This day had gone from bad to worse. “I even made sure to input the password to the alarm.”

  The head of security was stone-faced. “The alarm went off ten minutes ago.”

  “Huh, I left half an hour ago,” I replied, stroking my chin. It couldn’t have been me. Or even Charlotte for that matter since she didn’t have the keys. “Are you sure it’s not some teenagers breaking a window and trespassing?”

  Suddenly, a look of horror appeared on Megan’s face. “Heath, where is Charlotte?”

  “I left her behind in Santa Monica,” I recounted. “I didn’t want to leave her but I got some weird text about how the CEO of Sterling Records wanted to meet with me. Why are you asking?”

  “Who else would have access to your money?” she whispered. “Who else has access to your accounts? Who knows about that orphanage and had access to it? Who sent you that message?”

  My heart skipped a beat as the revelation struck me. I couldn’t believe I had been so blind. Worse, Charlotte was caught up in this.

  “Jared.”

  “Jared, what the hell is going on?” I begged, staring down the barrel of the gun. “Why are you threatening me?”

  The manager led me down the halls of the unfinished orphanage. What had once felt warm and inviting was now cold and lifeless. “Shut the hell up, bitch. This is all your fault!”

  Gathering my wits, I knew I was dealing with an unstable person. I had to defuse the situation if I wanted to get out of here alive. “What have I done wrong, Jared? I did everything-”

  “Quiet!” he barked, pressing the gun against my forehead. The metal was cool and all the more threatening for it. “I’m going to lose millions because of you!”

  I put the pieces together. “You’re the one who kept the funds-”

  “That was supposed to be my money!” he roared, leading me deeper into the abandoned building. “That illiterate prick didn’t deserve a cent of it.”

  “So you stole his money?” I spat back. “You’ve been stealing from him all this time?”

  “I borrowed it,” Jared said plainly. “I paid it back after short selling stocks. Heath didn’t deserve the money. He was some orphan who got lucky and no one had the stones to call him out on it. I was the one who held his career together!”

  “That wasn’t your money, it was meant for the orphans,” I said with venom in my voice. There was special rung of hell reserved for men like him. “What did you do with it after cashing in your stocks? Spend it all on booze and whoring?”

  “Don’t judge me!”

  He punctuated the statement with a hard slap to my face.

  I had to hold my anger back. I needed him to think I was weak. It was the only way I could learn more. “Okay, I’m sorry, Jared. Just tell me what I’ve done wrong.”

  “You fucked up my plan,” he growled. “Heath was supposed to fail at school. He was supposed to flunk and show management that he was a loose cannon who couldn’t be tamed. I’d be able to leave that hack and get a sizeable severance package. It was all in his new contract that I wrote.”

  My eyes widened in shock. All this time, I thought he was trying to help Heath succeed. “You wrote his contract?”

  Jared gave a sinister smile. “I wrote and negotiated all of his contracts. He thought it was upper management giving him the short end of the stick.”

  “All these years,” I whispered. “You were manipulating him for all these years…”

  He had given up on Heath when I hadn’t.

  “Yes, that Neanderthal was none the wiser,” he revealed with pride. “I’ve been taking tens of thousands from him over the years. He thinks it’s the record label screwing him over when it’s just me!”

  It would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so horrifying. “What did you do with the money meant for orphans?”

  He sighed, momentarily lowering his gun. I could attack and surprise him but it was too risky for now. Besides, I was scared as hell. “Working with millions is a lot different than having a few thousand missing here and there. I… borrowed the Howard Lane Foundation’s funding and put it into my account. Then, I’d use it to short sell stocks with insider knowledge I had. I would pay it back to the Foundation after making a tidy profit.”

  “So you stole from these kids and their future.”

  He glared at me. “It was to pay for investments and side projects. My future! Things that would ensure I had something to look forward to after years of dealing with a prima-donna!”

  It explained why the Asian funds were missing instead of just bein
g late. He must have lost them entirely on some harebrained scheme. “And these investments, some of them didn’t pan out right?”

  “I needed that severance package to cover my immediate debts,” he stated, raising his weapon again. “Borrowing from loan sharks is a tricky business. It would’ve all gone to plan if that idiot didn’t start acting less of an idiot.”

  “That’s what went wrong,” I replied, a bit too smugly for a victim held at gunpoint. “Heath started to actually do well in his studies. Your little scheme would fall apart if Heath passed his test and the whole charade had to go on and on. You’d be exposed and your little escape plan would fall apart. For all these years, you thought Heath was some lost cause and he proved you wrong!”

  “Quiet!” Jared yelled, startling me. “Sure, I lost the money but that’s Heath’s problem now. You’ll help me make back the money I’ve lost.”

  I felt a shiver run up and down my spine. “What are you talking about?”

  He gave me an uncomfortable grin. “That rock star’s fallen for you. He’ll pay a king’s ransom to have you back alive. You may have caused me this headache but you’ll be the one to fix it as well!”

  If it was any comfort, I knew he wouldn’t kill me without ransoming me for money. Yet, I knew this wouldn’t end well. There were too many holes in his plan and so many things could go wrong.

  Regardless, I had to stay strong. I had to live. I had to get out of here.

  We reached what looked to be a boiler-room. The pipes and large canisters gave it a mazelike appearance. Jared took out a pair of handcuffs and bound my hand to a pipe. “There we go. Now, I just have to ransom you.”

  “Jared, this isn’t going to work-”

  He slapped me.

  The man’s eyes were wild and full of pure hatred. He was nothing like the mild-mannered manager I had met before. He rattled my handcuff as if I was some wild animal on a leash. “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Heath’s going to-”

  “You’re just another slut to him,” he interrupted. “You think he’s really in love with you? That man has fucked a hundred woman and forgotten about them the next day. He’ll grow tired of you, eventually. Hopefully, it happens after he pays up for you.”

  I watched as he pulled out his phone. “What are you going to do Jared?”

  “I’m going to milk that bastard for everything’s he’s worth,” he answered triumphantly, raising the gun in his other hand. “He’s going to pay. One way or another.”

  Heath was my last shot at getting out of this alive. Yet, his life was in just as much danger as mine. Jared was mentally unhinged and bared a grudge. It wouldn’t shock me if became violent towards Heath. This exchange could go badly in a multitude of ways.

  He could save my life… at the cost of his own.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Tyler yelled, grabbing me by my shoulder. “Hold up!”

  I shrugged his hand off me. The entire band would have to jump me if they wanted me to stop. “To Santa Monica! I left Charlotte there and she’s not picking up her phone!”

  “Maybe her battery died,” Dave said, trying to calm me down. “Some weird shit is going down today but let’s not rush to conclusions.”

  “You heard Mr. Han,” I argued, glancing at my head of security. The man was the only one in the room who was relaxed. I guessed he was used to these types of scenarios. “He said someone broke into the building in Santa Monica. Like an idiot, I left Charlotte alone there. She could be in danger!”

  We were making a scene in the hotel lobby but I didn’t give a fuck. Megan grabbed me by the hand and stared into my eyes. Howard’s old girlfriend always had a knack for calming me down. “Heath, let’s think this through before we do anything drastic. Or stupid. Or both.”

  “This is Charlotte’s life on the line-”

  “Wait guys,” Ryan interrupted, silencing everyone. “What is that noise?”

  It was the ringtone to my phone.

  “It’s my phone,” I glanced down at who it was from. My heart thundered when I read the name. “Fuck, it's Jared.”

  Tyler raised an eyebrow. “He should be in this hotel right now. Why is he calling us when he’s in the same damn building?”

  “Because he isn’t,” I answered before accepting the call. “This is Heath.”

  Jared’s familiar voice was strangely icy as he spoke. “You want her back then give me ten million dollars within one hour.”

  The man knew the jig was up.

  “Where is she?” I demanded, my rage apparent in my tone. I put it on speakerphone so everyone could hear. “Where are you keeping Charlotte?”

  A strange metallic hiss went off in the background before Jared spoke. “Give me the ten million dollars. Have it wired to this routing number.”

  A text message popped up. It was a string of numbers. I guessed it was some secret account in the Cayman Islands or another tax haven.

  “In case you haven’t already noticed, my bank accounts are empty,” I spat back. I had checked earlier to see a little over a thousand pounds in my savings account. Jared had left the bare minimum in it as not go below the minimum threshold and alert me. On the other hand, my checking accounts were drained dry. “How do you expect a broke rock star to pay your ransom?”

  “Then take that money from your stupid fucking charity,” he growled. “I don’t care where it comes from as long as I get it. Just know that she dies if you try anything funny or have the police involved!”

  Now, we were negotiating. “How can I trust you to uphold your end of the deal?”

  “I’ll drop her off at an undisclosed location,” Jared replied. “She’ll be safe so long as you give me the money. You have my word.”

  “The word of a man who stole from an orphanage,” I growled. “How can I even begin to trust you?”

  “I can send her back in pieces if you like,” he threatened. I didn’t think this pencil pushing manager had it in him to be a murderer. However, I wasn’t going to push the issue with Charlotte’s life on the line. “Get me the money in one hour or else. Don’t even call the police if you want her alive.”

  The others shared looks of concern with me. “I need to know she is safe before I agree to this.”

  There was a brief pause.

  “Heath, it’s me,” Charlotte said, pure terror in her words. “Jared is-”

  Her voice was interrupted by her kidnapper. “One hour or she’s dead.”

  He ended the call.

  My blood ran cold.

  We looked at each other in horror.

  “That son of a bitch was behind it all along!” Tyler growled. “I can’t believe I trusted that crazy bastard.”

  “He seems unhinged,” Ryan agreed. “Who knows if he’ll keep up his side of the bargain?”

  I shook my head. “We can’t just leave Charlotte out to dry.”

  Dave sighed. “What hell are we supposed to do? We’re musicians, not a SWAT team!”

  “We should call the cops,” answered Tyler. “They’ll know-”