by Selena Kitt
“Oh my God.” I was horrified. “Did you… overhear them?”
“I saw them,” he said flatly. “Firsthand. Up close and personal.”
“What?” I couldn’t fathom. “…what?”
“I was being groomed to take over the family business. My father made me watch.”
I couldn’t respond to that. There weren’t words.
“My mother wasn’t the only one.” Rob’s voice hardened. “My father had a whole stable of neighborhood girls at his disposal who would trade sex for crack. He liked them young.”
“Oh no.” I pressed my cheek against his chest, closing my eyes against it.
“My father spent a lot of time with those… girls.” There was hatred in his voice. Pure hatred. “My mother, she hated him. But she tolerated him, because she was addicted, and he had what she needed. My father’s supplier was this big, scary looking Italian. He was rumored to have mafia connections. We were all afraid of him. But not my mother. I think… I kind of think she was in love with him. If my mother could have been said to love anyone. She certainly didn’t act like she loved her children very much.”
“How awful for you,” I whispered. It was so much information at once, after having known nothing for so long about Rob’s childhood, I felt as if I’d time traveled from the Sahara Desert to Niagara Falls. I was drowning. I couldn’t even imagine how they’d all felt.
“We didn’t know any better.” He shrugged. “Me. Tyler. Sarah. We just knew it was our life.”
“All three of you?”
“Sarah was innocent,” he replied softly. “So young. She didn’t know anything except that our mom slept a lot. And Tyler and I were in charge of most of her meals.”
“Oh, poor Sarah…” Just six years old, living in the midst of that. I looked at him, saw the faraway look in his eyes, and knew he was remembering.
“Tyler knew more than I wanted him to.” Rob’s jaw worked as he talked. “But I tried to keep it between me and my father.”
“He was really… grooming you to take over?” Of course, I knew things like it happened in the world. My father was a Detroit police officer—he saw things I’m sure were far worse. And I’d overheard him telling my mother some things that turned my stomach. But they’d always tried to keep it from me, to keep me insulated from it, and had mostly been successful.
“He thought he was teaching me.” Rob gave a sad little laugh. “He was teaching me all right. Everything he did, I vowed not to do… and then I went and turned out to be just like him.”
“No, Rob.” I lifted my head to meet his eyes. “You’re nothing like that.”
“I… I killed him, didn’t I?” He looked grim. “He’d threatened to kill my mother a thousand times. But that night… that night he almost did.”
“You don’t have to tell me…” I whispered. I was almost afraid to hear it now.
“No, I do.” He looked up at the ceiling, determined. “I owe you that much, don’t I?”
I shook my head, denying it, but he went on.
“They were fighting about… something. I don’t remember what. They were throwing things. He was hitting her. She was screaming. Then he got out his gun.”
I shivered. I had wanted to hear this, had wanted him to share with me, but this was too much.
“So, we tackled him,” Rob told me.
“You and Tyler?” I opened my eyes in surprised.
He nodded. “And… I grabbed the gun… but it went off.”
“And you shot him?” I whispered. He nodded again. Just once. “So, it was an accident?”
“Yeah. An accident,” he agreed. “My mother… she was… hysterical. She was on the floor, holding my dad’s head in her lap… what was… left… of it. She kept saying, ‘You shot him! You little bastard! You shot him!’”
“Oh no…” I covered my mouth with my hand.
“She said… she said she hated me.” He swallowed. “She said she was going to make sure I went to jail for the rest of my life and I’d never see her or Tyler or Sarah again.”
“Oh no, no, no…” I shook my head, holding him even closer.
“She said…” He cleared his throat. “A lot of things. And that’s what she told the police.”
“But… Tyler saw what really happened.”
“He was ten years old,” he reminded me. “In the end, it didn’t matter. There were drugs everywhere. My mother was arrested. We were taken away and separated. For our own good, they said. The cops really didn’t care about my father. It was one less drug dealer in the world.”
“So, your father was dead, and your mother went to jail.” I tried to wrap my head around being twelve years old, alone, responsible for one parent’s death and abandoned by the other.
“She’s out now,” he said flatly.
“I know. Katie told me Sarah let her move in.”
“Sarah…” Rob sighed. “She doesn’t remember. She just knows it’s her mother. I can’t blame her for wanting a mother.”
“Have you talked to her?” I lifted my head to look at him. “Your mother?”
“No.” His dark eyes glittered. “And I won’t. There’s no point.”
“What about Tyler?” I frowned. “Do you think if your mother went to the hospital—?”
“No.” Rob’s jaw tightened. “It would make it worse. It was that damned article. It brought it all back. He couldn’t handle it.”
“I can hardly blame him. Such awful memories.” I touched his cheek, stroking gently. He hadn’t shaved in days. “How are you?”
“Me? I’m fine.” He shrugged. Then he turned his gaze to me, smiling softly. “As long as you don’t leave me again, I’ll be just fine.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I assured him, feeling a sharp twinge in my heart knowing I’d left him in the first place, that I couldn’t stay in the face of this. “I know now why you kept it from me. I’m just sad thinking you really believed I wouldn’t understand.”
“No…” He pulled me close, murmuring his words into my neck. “It’s not that. It was never about you. I trust you, Sabrina. You have to know that. I was just… protecting…”
“I know.” I smiled, closing my eyes. Of course, he was, Rob was always protecting someone. Celeste was right—he would tear out his own heart to protect someone he loved. “Tyler and Sarah. I know. You’ve lived your whole life trying to protect them, haven’t you?”
“Once I turned eighteen, I did everything I could to find them.” There was steel in his voice. How determined he must have been, even then. “And once I found them, I wasn’t going to let them go again.”
“What you’ve done, how you’ve managed to get as far as you have,” I said. “You have such amazing talent.”
“Well, Arnie was happy to exploit it.” He gave a short laugh. “But he got us where we are. And we’ve made him a hella lot of money in return.”
“Tyler told me how you met Arnie.” I smiled, remembering. Rob playing guitar on a street corner—I couldn’t imagine. If he did that now, he’d be mobbed. “Is it true you taught Tyler how to play guitar?”
“I think I was ten when I started teaching him. He was about eight,” he told me. “And he could play better than me by the time he was ten. I guess neither of us ever stopped.”
“Thank God,” I murmured. “I can’t imagine Trouble without him. And it sounds like you were pretty determined to get him into the band.”
“I won that one.” He smiled, that dark, determined look back in his eyes. “And I’ll win this one too. You won’t be going out on any more tours without me.”
“Promise?” I laced my fingers with his.
“Sabrina, I love you.” He whispered the words against the shell of my ear, like he was telling me a delicious secret.
“And I love you,” I whispered back.
“I was so afraid I’d lost you, too.” He sounded so sad, it hurt my heart. I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles. It was no wonder he’d been so afraid
of losing me—of losing everyone. He’d lost his mother, his father, his siblings. It must have seemed, to a twelve-year-old boy, that the whole world had abandoned him.
I felt selfish now. I’d been so devastated when I found out he lied to me, so sure it was something I would carry with me forever, that I couldn’t possibly get past it. But now it seemed like a distant memory. The murder had been an accident, and Rob had been protecting his siblings—how could I not understand that? And tonight, he had made himself vulnerable, had laid himself bare before me.
“Thank you for trusting me.” I pressed my palm flat against his hand, matching my fingers up to his. Mine was far smaller, the tips of my fingers not quite reaching his top knuckle. His fingers were long—he had piano player’s hands—and calloused from years of playing guitar.
“I trust you more than anyone in the world, Sabrina.” He slid his hand down my arm, over my shoulder, burying it in my hair. “Please know that.”
“I do know.” I looked at him, feeling tears stinging my eyes. “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry I thought for one minute that you had betrayed me somehow. I know your heart was in the right place. I know.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead he kissed me, his lips trembling under mine, putting everything into the kiss he couldn’t say. Our words didn’t mean anything, only the feelings, his for me and mine for him. Empires could rise and fall, the universe could explode into infinity, and nothing could change how I felt for him.
“Beautiful girl,” he murmured when we parted, kissing my cheek, my ear, the top of my head. “God, I missed you. So, tell me, how’s Katie doing?”
“Always thinking of others.” I kissed his nose and laughed. “She’s exhausted. Heartbroken. But they’ll put the pieces back together again. I know they will. We did. More than once.”
He smiled, wrapping his arms around me tight and pulling me close, snugging my head under his chin.
“Tyler’s never been sober this long, you know,” he told me.
“Katie’s really done wonders for him.”
“She’s his Sabrina.” I heard the smile in his voice. “I’ll arrange rehab for him in the morning.”
“I have to go see Arnie.” I made a face. I wasn’t looking forward to that meeting. Jimmy had called him for me already to head him off at the pass, but he wanted to meet with me anyway. He’d sent me a text message. “He’s going to be pissed that I bailed.”
“How did Voss take it?” Rob chuckled.
“Like the gentleman he is.”
“They’ll find someone else.” He breathed me in. “God, I feel like I haven’t talked to you in years. How was it? Touring?”
“Amazing.” That was the truth—at least, the performing part. “But I kept wishing you were there.”
“That’s funny, I kept wishing you were here.”
I didn’t think it was funny, not really, and I didn’t believe he did either.
But we laughed anyway.
Chapter Nine
I thought Arnie would start our meeting by wringing my neck, but instead he gave me a giant hug.
“Fucking PR nightmare, that’s what this is,” he grumbled, going around his desk to his chair, waving at me to have a seat.
“Do you really think it’s going to hurt Trouble?” I sat across from him, perched on the edge of the chair. I was still nervous about what he was going to say to me about bailing on Jimmy Voss, no matter how the meeting had started.
“We’ll see.” Arnie shook his mostly bald head. “So far, they’ve been like Teflon. Let’s hope this goes the same way. I mean, they didn’t lose hordes of fans last year when you entered the picture, did they?”
“True.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “So then why was the label so worried about me joining the band?”
“They’re fucking paranoid, what can I say?” He shrugged helplessly. “Hey, did you see this?”
He slapped a piece of paper on the desk, a printout from the internet. I scanned the article, frowning, looking at the list, and then realized what it was just as he said it.
“Number one pirated song on the Internet. It’s going viral.”
“That’s me!” I gasped, seeing my name under the number one spot. “What show was it from?”
“One of Jimmy’s, obviously,” he replied wryly.
“So, you’re not going to kill me?” I asked hopefully.
“Nah.” He grinned. “I think your career’s off to a great start—if we can weather this storm.”
“Feels like more of a hurricane.” I sat back, feeling both relieved and overwhelmed at the same time.
“You may be right, considering this morning’s news.”
“What do you mean?” I sat up straight again, prepared for the worst. Had something happened to Tyler? I hadn’t checked my texts for five whole minutes.
“You didn’t hear?” He slapped something else on the table—a newspaper. I recognized Catherine’s picture immediately. The headline knocked the wind out of me entirely.
“Catherine? Dead?” I whispered, scanning the article. “Was it a suicide?”
“Apparent.” He gave a little nod. “Although I don’t know how you kill yourself in a place like that. Don’t they lock up all the dangerous things?”
“Oh my God.” I put my head in my hands. “This is awful.”
I couldn’t believe it. Catherine was dead? And it was all my fault. Somehow going there and visiting her had triggered something. Maybe she’d really been getting better, and I’d brought it all back? It had been a month since I’d been to see her, but I imagined it building up inside of her like a pressure cooker and finally exploding, ending in her revelation to the press and then her suicide. What an idiot I’d been, bribing the therapist for my own selfish reasons. I’d set off a disastrous domino effect, and just like dominos falling, I couldn’t take any of it back.
“How’s Tyler?”
“He’s out of the woods.” I sighed, looking up at Arnie. “At least, that’s what they said last night.”
“Do they know when they’re releasing him?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Katie was going over to the hospital when I left, and Rob and Celeste were on the phone with rehab centers.”
“Good. Best place for him right now,” Arnie assured me, sounding confident. He acted like this was common—and I supposed it was. “We’ll get this album out there and get him clean before the concert. Lather, rinse, repeat. And the tabloids will move on to someone else.”
“I hope so.” I glanced down at the paper with Catherine’s face on the front. I still couldn’t quite believe it. It wasn’t real. Did Rob know? “Listen, I have to go. Sarah needs a ride to the hospital and I’m picking her up.”
“We’ll send flowers.” Arnie stood as I got up. “I’ve got Dusty on it. I’m sure she can handle calling 1-800-FLOWERS.”
“Thanks for everything, Arnie.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “Rob and Tyler both really appreciate everything you’ve done for them.”
“Well they’ve done a lot for me, so…” He came around the desk to open the door for me, and he actually blushed when I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before I left.
I texted Sarah before I put on my seatbelt.
On my way.
I was driving my little Kia. Rob had them tow it all the way from Detroit because I wasn’t willing to let it go to the junkyard, even though he offered to buy me any car I wanted. He had eight of them! But there were too many memories in this little car to let it go. L.A. traffic was terrible, as usual, and it took me forty minutes to travel ten miles to Sarah’s new apartment.
It was the typical L.A. apartment box, six stories, a fat, ugly rectangle. I knew, if Rob saw the broken, boarded glass in the transom of the door, the sketchy push-button security system I didn’t have to even use because the building door handle was askew, and the door clearly not locked, he would be appalled. I went up the stairs to the second floor, finding Sarah’s apartment number
—two seventeen.
She’d stayed with us all night, at Rob’s request, but had asked Jesse to take her back to her place early before anyone got up. Then she’d texted me for a ride because her car was still at Tyler’s. Sarah had been the one who found Tyler overdosed, lying naked on his bathroom floor, and if she hadn’t made that unscheduled visit, he would probably be dead. Katie had been at an appointment with their interior decorator and she said Tyler had been sleeping when she left. None of them had seen the article yet.
I knocked on her door, slinging my purse over my shoulder as I waited, listening to the sounds of a television turned up loud, turned to a Spanish station, coming from down the hall behind another closed apartment door. I heard chains being drawn, then a bolt, then a female face appeared in a crack in the door.
“Hello?” It wasn’t Sarah or Anne, her goth-looking roommate. I could tell that much, even though the apartment was dark. Then I remembered—Rob’s mother had been released from jail and Sarah had offered her the couch until she could find a place of her own.
“Hi, I’m Sabrina.” No response. “I’m here to pick up Sarah.”
“She’s in the shower.” The woman hesitated, and I wondered if she was going to make me stay out in the hallway, but then she took a step back, waving me in.
I couldn’t help it—I was incredibly curious about this woman. We stood in the foyer for a moment in awkward silence as the door swung shut behind me, sizing each other up. She was tall, and Sarah looked just like her—blue-black hair, dark, piercing eyes. They all had those dark eyes, even Tyler, who was the odd man out with his dirty blonde head of hair.
She was petite, much shorter than Sarah. I’d expected her to be tall. She looked at me with those dark eyes, her gaze sweeping over my outfit, taking in my styled hair, my manicure. I felt suddenly overdressed, seeing her standing there in a dark green terrycloth robe and bare feet. It wasn’t exactly the way you wanted to meet your mother-in-law—even if she was estranged from your husband, and no one actually knew he was your husband.
“You must be… Sarah’s mother?” I realized I didn’t even know the woman’s name.
“Leanne.” She gave a short nod, turning and heading into the apartment. All of the blinds were closed, which is why it was so dark. The couch bed was pulled out, the sheets and blankets still disheveled. I followed her into a dinette/kitchen area where a cigarette was burning in an ashtray. She sat at one of the kitchen chairs, picking up the cigarette and knocking an ash off before bringing it to her lips and taking a long drag.