RUTHLESS: The Complete Rockstar Romance Series Boxed Set

by Vivian Lux

  Rory's eyelids fluttered. "I did hit him," she mumbled. Then she raised her eyes to mine. "But he was being mean to Alisa, Daddy! And Alisa's too nice, she doesn't know how to fight like I do. So they pick on her, because she's always reading or drawing, and they say she's a retard and that's not a nice word. So someone needed to hit him and if she wasn't going to do it then I had to!"

  Pride welled up in my chest, squeezing my heart. "You were sticking up for Alisa?" I said softly. Rory's little friend had lost her father earlier this year after a swift and brutal battle with pancreatic cancer. Alisa's mom was at her wits' end with grief and medical bills and barely had time to acknowledge her fragile, sensitive daughter. If ever there was someone who needed a protector, it was little Alisa.

  And my daughter knew that. I couldn't be more proud. "You were protecting your friend?"

  Rory nodded, fiercely. "I told Caleb first though, Daddy. So it'd be a fair fight. You don't sucker punch a guy, right?"

  "That's right, little lady."

  "So I told him. I said if he didn't leave Alisa alone, that I was going to knock him into next Tuesday." I stifled a laugh to hear my own words in my daughter's mouth.

  "And I take it he didn't stop?"

  The corner of her mouth lifted into a little sly grin. "Nope. So I waited until we were away from school and I knocked him into next Tuesday."

  I snatched my daughter up into my arms and squeezed her tightly. "I'm proud of you for sticking up for your friend," I told her. "And I'm also really glad you told me the truth."

  "I thought you'd get mad."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because, when you told Mama to tell you the truth, and she did, you guys stopped loving each other."

  Heavy regret settled across my shoulders like a weight. "I wasn't mad at her for telling me the truth, Roar," I said. Maybe that was the truth, or maybe I was lying both to my daughter and myself. "I was mad because of what she told me." She told me she was tired of fighting for something that was never there, Rory. How can I make you understand what that did to me?

  "But she told you the truth!" Rory protested. "You shouldn't have gotten mad at her about that. You should have let her talk to you."

  "You're probably right," I said. I looked at my daughter sidelong. "How come you're better at being a grown-up than I am?" I asked her.

  "Because you're silly, Daddy," she announced. "And I'm not a grown-up, I'm a lioness."

  I hugged her tightly. "Yes you are. A lioness who needs to get ready for school. The bus is gonna be here in twenty minutes, Roar."

  "I said I didn't want to go!"

  "I know, and you told me your story, and I get it. But what do you think Caleb Hutchins would do to Alisa today if you aren't there?"

  Rory's face scrunched back up again. "Oh," she said. And she went and grabbed her backpack off the floor.

  Like father like daughter, I thought to myself as I watched her climb onto the bus twenty minutes later. Her hair was falling into her face still, since I could not for the life of me figure out how to braid it, but she looked ready to take on the day. And ready to kick the ass of anyone who got in her way.

  I grinned. Rory had the right fucking idea.

  Chapter Nine

  Piper

  Keir yanked his headphones from his ears and slapped the mic away. "Okay," he said, breathing sharply through his nose. He clenched his fists and then relaxed again. "Let's try that again from the top, okay?"

  "I thought it sounded fine," Rane interjected.

  Keir turned fast to face his brother. "If that's your definition of fine, then I think you need to get your head examined."

  I leaned back on my bench and closed my eyes. It had been going like this all morning. We'd been working on the same song Rane brought us in the beginning of recording for five days now and we were all starting to go a little bit insane. That one moment of magic in the first day of recording was all that we managed to salvage. Alan in the booth looked strung out on something. Keir's voice was hoarse from shouting at his brother and Low looked so tired, slumped against his kit, snatching moments of shuteye in between takes. My technically brilliant brother kept messing up, losing the beat as if his thoughts were a million miles away and I knew that they must be.

  "How about we take five?" I called.

  All four of them looked at me like I suddenly sprouted a second head, which was their usual reaction when I spoke up. I wasn't known for my chatty demeanor. But they always listened when I did speak. "That's not a bad idea," Rane piped up. "You," he said, shoving his brother in the shoulder. "Go take a walk. You're driving us all nuts."

  Keir looked like he was ready to slug his brother for a second, but instead whirled around and stalked out of the studio. The four of us looked at each other and shrugged. "Guess were taking five then, huh?" Low asked.

  I grabbed my purse and headed out into the sunshine. The dark soundproofing of the studio had me feeling claustrophobic, and I emerged into the afternoon sun feeling like I was floating in a sort of dream state.

  Around the corner from the back entrance was a set of metal stairs leading to the roof. I'd been staring at that staircase since we started recording, wondering how easy it would be to climb.

  Musing, I sat down on the sun-warmed step and stared at it for a moment. I could picture the view from up there. We were up on a slight hill and though I couldn't see the ocean from down here, I was fairly certain I could from up there. The roof was flat, and a small barrier about knee-high ran along the edge.

  I blinked and shook my head. There was no time today, and no need either. But I filed it away in my head for later. If I needed it. If something needed to be tested.

  I pulled my phone from my purse. There was a voicemail blinking and I hit play.

  "Hi there Piper," a familiar voice said. I sat up a little straighter. "This is Cash, um, True. I'm uh, calling from Truman's garage."

  My fingers started tapping on my knee of their own accord. It had been days since he dropped me off in his truck, days since he'd grazed my forearm with the very tips of his fingers, but the place he touched still tingled.

  And now the rest of me did too. "I'm sorry about the delay in getting back to you. We had to order your tires special, sorry we didn't have any in stock but we don't get too many of your model in around here," he chuckled self-deprecatingly. "So, ah, yeah, sorry about the delay, but the work's all done now." He cleared his throat and his voice dropped a little, like he didn't want anyone else to overhear. Like it was a secret just between the two of us and without meaning to, I felt myself leaning forward to hear him better. "Of course you can come by the garage if you want, pick it up yourself. But, uh, I'd be happy to come to you." He gave a low chuckle that did something strange to the hairs on the back of my neck. "It would be no trouble, and ah, I'd like to see you again." I heard some voices in the background of the shop and his voice grew louder and less...intimate. "Anyway, it's up to you. Give me a call and let me know your plans. Looking forward to hearing from you soon."

  The message beeped, indicating that he'd run out of time. I smiled and looked down to see that my fingers were tapping out scales on my knees. Excitement thrilled down my spine in waves, radiating out into my limbs.

  Here was another test.

  He knew where I lived, and the danger of inviting him to come back, putting myself in the position of being alone with a man I'd only just met was more appealing then I'd ever admit. But even better would be to go to the garage myself, see him again on my own terms. As my fingers worked through their scales, I closed my eyes, remembering the feeling of power I had with him standing next to me, behind me. Knowing that he had my back and was there to protect me. If only I asked it.

  For some reason, I knew that he would do whatever I asked.

  And more importantly, he wouldn't do anything until I asked.

  I smiled.

  Everything around here, with my band, seemed to be falling apart. But with him I felt completely in cont
rol. Control was so fucking elusive for me that even the illusion was thrilling.

  The metal door leading back into the studio clanged open. "There you are!" my brother called.

  I turned to see him standing there, the sharp brightness of sunshine accentuating dark bags under his eyes. "Break's over, Pep," he said.

  I stood up. "Hey, are you all right?" I asked him. "You look like hell."

  He gave me a wry, tired smile. "I've been up a lot. These past couple nights I haven't gotten much sleep."

  "Zoe? She feeling really sick?"

  "I don't know why they call it morning sickness when it's around the whole fucking clock," he complained. "But yeah, it's been Zoe." He looked at me pointedly. "And other things too."

  I stood up straighter, a burst of defensiveness exploding in my chest. "Fuck off. For real. I went for a drive. I needed to think."

  He regarded me coolly, his gaze level, and then pointedly turned his head to where my rental car was sitting in the lot. "Yes, so I've been meaning to ask you about that. What the hell happened to your car?"

  I pressed my lips together. "It's in the shop," I said matter-of-factly.

  He looked back at me. "Yeah? What happened to it?"

  "Flat tire."

  "Why didn't you call me? I could've helped you with that. I know how to change a goddamn tire, Pepper."

  I waved my hand at him. "You got enough on your plate right now with Zoe. I'm not about to bother you with that stupid shit anymore, Lowell."

  He took an involuntary step backward. "I don't think it's stupid shit, Pep. You know I don't think that."

  My shoulders slumped. "I know. But please, I'm telling you, I've got this under control. I'm picking it up today. No problems there."

  He looked at me, and the moment seemed to stretch out into infinity, and I felt like he could see right past my bluster and into the true heart of things. I felt like he could read my thoughts, the excitement I felt about sneaking off like that, about putting myself into situations and then getting myself out of them unscathed. He could see my triumph over being invincible and he didn't like what he saw.

  But he didn't say anything. Instead he just looked over his shoulder. "Hey, I think we really need to get back," he said.

  I followed him back into the studio to see that Keir was pacing in tight circles like a caged wildcat. "Yeah, so the walk helped," he announced the second we were all back at our places in the booth. "This album, this concept, is not working for me. It needs something more and it's pissing me off.

  Rane leaned against the wall and fiddled with his guitar. "You're pissing me off," he said casually.

  Lowell looked over to me, checking in, but he didn't need to. Yeah, the Wilder brothers fought a lot, a whole bunch of brotherly pissing matches and glorified dick measuring contests. Their fights would blow up like a bad storm on the horizon and then blow over just as quickly. Before I could figure out what the fuck was going on, they'd be back to back-slapping and giving each other amiable shit. It used to bother me, back when we first formed.

  Fights in the Stowe house meant days of silence. Fights in the Stowe house meant that my mother would wake us in the middle of the night and whisk us off to our pursed-lipped grandparents. Fights in the Stowe house meant my father was leaving us and it was all my fault.

  I wasn't used to fights that didn't leave lasting, irrevocable hurt. So it freaked me the fuck out to watch the Wilder boys sparring. For years.

  But I was better now. I'd been with these guys long enough to know that one fight wasn't going to be the end of everything. Though I still had a hard time keeping my heart rate down when they started yelling.

  Assholes.

  "You don't give a shit!" It was a familiar refrain. Keir stood nose to nose with Rane, his fists clenched. "You just want to roll over and take the easy way out! You don't want to fix this! You haven't fucking changed at all!"

  "Fix what?" Rane bellowed. "There's nothing to fix! It sounds fine!"

  "Yeah that's just fucking it. Fine isn't fucking good enough. You want to have a career past thirty? Stop saying fine is good enough!" Keir punctuated his rant with a sharp shove against Rane's chest. Smooth as silk, Balzac took a practiced step behind them and deftly cleared a thicket of wires before one of them toppled over and split his idiotic head open.

  "You want to live past thirty?" Rane laughed incredulously as he shoved his brother back.

  "Yo!" Balzac thundered.

  The two hotheads stopped at stared at him. I turned to stare too. Balzac usually let these things peter out of their own accord, but instead he looked at the watch on his thick wrist. "I'm fucking done at five. I've got a date and I'm not missing out because you two dipshits keep us late with your arguments. What's the fucking problem, Keir?"

  "It doesn't sound right," Keir mumbled petulantly. Rane socked him in the upper arm.

  "So how do we fix it?" Balzac prompted.

  Keir pursed his lips and went quiet. The rest of us fell silent too. Low tapped out an anxious rhythm on his knee and I practiced scales in my head. It wouldn't do to rush him, we all knew that. Even his brother sank back on his heels and folded his arms across his chest.

  "It's the vocals," Keir said slowly, sounding like he was voicing his thoughts as he had them. "It's me. I'm too..." he rolled his hands, trying to grasp the word. "Growly," he finally finished.

  Rane snickered. "Growly?"

  "Yeah," Keir continued, ignoring how his brother was making fun of him. "We need something in the higher register."

  "Like a female voice?" Balzac interjected.

  Keir's face lit up. "Yeah!" he practically shouted. "A fucking guest vocalist! Someone with balls."

  "Thought you said that it needed a female voice," Rane joked.

  "Fuck off." Keir waved his hand dismissively. "Balzac's right, this should be a fucking duet. We need someone who can fill in the spaces up here," he waved above his head, "while I do my thing down here," he lowered his hand to waist level.

  "I have an idea," I piped up.

  Every head snapped to stare at me and I resisted the urge to look away.

  "Yeah, Pep?" Lowell asked. There it was, that expression of brotherly encouragement, the one I loved and hated in equal measure.

  I shifted on my stool. "I like Jane Doe."

  There was a pause.

  "Jane Doe?" I prompted. "From Wrecked?"

  "Oh, the New York crew?" Low started nodding. "Yeah, their shit's pretty cutting edge, actually."

  "Isn't she a fucking diva from hell?" Balzac wondered.

  Rane nodded. "I heard she is a complete terror to work with."

  Keir held up his hand. "Yeah, but her voice would be fucking perfect." He looked at me and started nodding. "She's got that five-alarm siren shriek. Sounds like a banshee and a war cry at the same time. I like her shit." He clapped his hands together. "Let's fucking call her." Then he looked at me. "You want to do the honors, Pepper?"

  I shrank back. The idea of being the voice of the band, of calling someone out of the blue terrified me. But then again, I was about to go show up out of the blue at True's garage.

  Wasn't that sort of one and the same?

  I nodded. Low looked at me, his eyes wide with shock and more than a little bit of pride. "Okay," I said. "Sure. I can do that."

  Chapter Ten

  True

  Break time meant I had exactly fifteen minutes to myself, away from the bang and clang of the garage floor. I waltzed right into Con's office and grabbed the phone. I'd been meaning to do something, ever since the night I met Piper Stowe, and today after watching my little girl face down her fears and go to school to kick some ass, I figured I was out of excuses. Today was the perfect day to do it.

  "Halligan's!" Pat shouted over the whine of a vacuum.

  "Pat, it's True. Cash Truman."

  "What's going on man?"

  I took a deep breath. "You just opening up?"

  "Yup. The Morphy brothers are already waiting outside
. I can't let them down, now can I?"

  I grinned. "Nah, you gotta do your civic duty and get this town drunk."

  "That why you're callin'? To find out if we're open?"

  "No. Well, yeah. I mean, kinda."

  "True, man, I like you and all, but I don't have time to fucking chit chat. I can give you my nana's number if you like. She's ninety-fucking seven, deaf as a post and loves to talk about gardening. You guys would get along great."

  "Yeah, okay. I get the point. I was callin' to find out if you ever," I paused and clenched my fist. This was the first step. Climbing up out of the rut. "If maybe you'd think about having a live music night. Let the town come in and play, sort of an open mic or whatever."

  I closed my eyes and waited for him to scoff.

  But it never came.

  "Pat, yo, did you hear me man?"

  "What? Oh, yeah. Sure man, that sounds cool. Totally down with it. You wanna make up some flyers for me? I'm a complete idiot when it comes to computers."

  "You'll do it?"

  "Yeah sure, why the fuck not?"

  "When?"

  "When's good for you?"

  I could get a guitar over at the pawn shop this afternoon. "How about tomorrow?"

  "Sure, sounds great. Hey, I'll talk later, those assholes are starting to pound on the door now."

  "Holy shit man, okay. Okay." I hung up the phone and stared off into the air. "Holy shit," I repeated. I was about to play in front of people for the first time in seven years.

  I lifted my fist in triumph.

  "You acting out the scene in Rocky? The fuck you doin' man?"

  I dropped my fist to see Con there in the doorway, looking at me like he was two seconds away from having me committed. "Nah," I said, ducking my head. "I was just happy about something." I shot him a grin. "You see, happiness is defined by Webster's dictionary as the state of..."

  "Cut the crap," my brother growled, stalking to his chair to sit down, throwing in a wicked shoulder check while he was there.

  I caught my balance against his desk and took a deep breath. "Trying to knock me over? That's like a tender, loving embrace when it comes to assholes like you. Guess you're not pissed off at me anymore?"