Lyric

by Molly McAdams

  “Because we haven’t done anything toward that,” my cousin said dryly. “If she hasn’t told him yet, I doubt she’ll tell him about any other brilliant threats you plan.”

  I stared at my cousin for a few seconds, my mouth twisted in a cruel grin that he easily matched. “Thinking of putting a bullet in your head gets me through the day.”

  He barked out a laugh. “Funny. I’ve always had to pull the trigger for you.” He stood and leaned over the desk, his eyes taunting. “If the day ever comes when you take the throne, you’ll be the first boss who came to be with no blood on his hands.”

  My eyes narrowed into slits.

  “Are you listening?” He paused, his head listing like he was waiting for something. “The whispers and rumors are rolling in about you. I’ll be here to fuel them.”

  My hands fisted.

  “What is it you want us to do this time?” my assistant asked once my cousin left.

  It only took a moment for a plan to form. Excitement pulsed through me. My blood raced. “This one’s all mine.”

  Libby

  MY HEAVY EYELIDS PARTIALLY OPENED to my dark bedroom; confusion clouded my mind and sleep beckoned me.

  I opened them again, not sure when they had closed, and tried to figure out what had woken me. Before I could find my way out of that place between sleep and awake, my body relaxed when an arm curled around my waist and pulled me close.

  “You’re back,” I mumbled.

  His nose gently trailed along my neck before his lips followed the path.

  Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I felt tension pressing down on us. It was dark and heavy and . . . wrong.

  With the way we’d left things, and then hardly talking for three days, I wanted nothing more than to curl into his arms and never leave.

  I wanted to clear the suffocating air between us.

  But something in my gut twisted whenever I considered telling Maxon the truth. As if voicing the words would bring our relationship to an end.

  Because I knew he wouldn’t let this be taken care of the way it needed to be. He would try to protect me, which would solidify him as the target.

  I refused to let him face an execution for me.

  And the frustrating thing of all this was, he already knew about the Moretti family. I’d told him before I ever honestly thought the family was behind the pictures.

  Just like I’d told him about being a rebel without realizing what I was doing.

  But there was a second camera now. Conor knew about the Moretti family, and he was positive they were behind the Polaroid shitstorm. No one else made as much sense to him, and I was struggling to find reasons anyone else would bother.

  But why now? After all this time?

  And they’d been so close to me in each photo, yet I hadn’t seen anyone I didn’t know.

  They’d been in my apartment.

  My bedroom.

  Unless . . . unless someone was betraying my family. Betraying me.

  Then Maxon was easier to get to . . .

  Jesus.

  I placed my hand on his and was turned to face him.

  “I’m so tired,” I murmured groggily, unsure if my words were even audible, and moaned into his mouth when he kissed me.

  Rough. Demanding.

  Unyielding.

  I sucked in a stuttered breath when he moved, kissing and biting down my throat until he reached my breasts, his hand easily slipping between my thighs to tease me.

  “Oh God,” I moaned, my eyes fluttering open to reveal my headboard before they slammed shut again when he slid his hand into my underwear and eased a finger inside me. “No. No, Max—Maxon, stop.”

  I had lost my mind.

  I was both arching into his touch and twisting away from him.

  The half of me still in sleep’s embrace was begging to let him continue.

  The half of me toeing the line of consciousness was screaming that I needed to continue distancing myself.

  I needed to do whatever it took.

  Sacrifice our relationship.

  Break my heart.

  Shred my soul.

  I rolled to my back and dropped my hands over my face, fighting with myself and wanting to let him make me forget about the looming threat—just for a little while.

  My breaths were uneven when I finally managed to whisper, “Sleep. Please, just sleep.”

  He murmured something that sounded like an assent, then slowly—so slowly—removed his finger and rolled me onto my side so he could slip behind me again.

  “Maxon,” I murmured carefully when his mouth met my shoulder and he ground his erection against my butt, only covered by the thin material of my underwear. “Sleep.”

  “I am.” The words were so soft and low, and muffled by my skin, that I wasn’t sure I heard them at all.

  I tried to remember the kiss—tried to remember if I’d tasted liquor on his tongue—but my mind was too hazy and sleep was wrapping me tight, pulling me under.

  The last thing I remember was that tension, still covering us like a cocoon.

  Dark.

  Heavy.

  Wrong.

  Libby

  I WALKED INTO THE LIVING room after using the bathroom, my eyebrows pulled low and face set in frustration when I found the apartment empty.

  I don’t know why I even bothered checking Einstein’s room.

  Habit, I guess.

  With a quick glance in the kitchen to see there was no fresh coffee or food, I started walking back to my room—sure I had missed something—when a key sounded in the lock.

  I stopped, eyes wide and heart racing as I waited to see who was there.

  When the door propped open and Maxon’s voice sounded, relief and frustration rushed through me.

  “You know, just once it would be nice to wake up with you beside me.” The words were out before I could stop them.

  Before I could remember my imperative role.

  The door slowly fell open, revealing Maxon. Wide-eyed, phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, and a duffle bag in hand.

  His chest pitched with a frustrated laugh as he let the bag fall to the floor.

  “Nate, I just got back. I gotta go.”

  I went still.

  I couldn’t look away from the duffle bag. Maxon’s words were playing through my head repeatedly.

  “I just got back.”

  “I just got back.”

  “I just got back.”

  I shook my head roughly, trying to push the words from my mind.

  I was going to shatter.

  No, no, that couldn’t be right, because he’d been there the night before.

  He’d been there.

  I’d talked to him.

  I’d felt him.

  Oh God, no. No, no . . .

  Maxon lifted his hands to his sides and let them fall. “Welcome home, right?” His words were all sarcasm and venom.

  “Where were you?” I wheezed, my hysterics making me nearly hyperventilate.

  “Are you kidding?” He barked out a dull laugh. “Jesus, Libby, I had interviews in California. You knew this—we talked about—”

  “No. No.” I drove my hands into my hair, already wild from sleep. “Where were you just now? Where were you when I woke?”

  He looked confused and so, so lost. Before he responded, that confusion morphed to frustration. “Considering we haven’t talked, I can’t answer that. I don’t know when you woke up, Libby. I don’t know what you’ve been doing because you haven’t fucking talked to me.”

  I stumbled back, one of my hands falling to my souring stomach.

  A mouth on mine.

  A tongue coaxing my lips open, demanding a kiss that was rough and possessive.

  Teeth and lips on my skin and over a shirt.

  A finger teasing and pushing—Oh God. Oh God, oh God.

  “Oh God.”

  Maxon was saying something, but I wasn’t hearing a word.

  I wasn’t seeing
anything in that room.

  I was reliving last night over and over like a never-ending nightmare.

  I ran for my room, intent on looking for something I prayed wasn’t there, and rushed for my bathroom at the last second. I only made it to the sink by the time my stomach lurched, ridding my body of bile.

  “Libby . . .”

  A sob wrenched from my chest. I stumbled back to the wall and lowered myself to the floor.

  Maxon settled next to me, his face a mask of worry and confusion. “Libby, what—what the hell’s going on? Are you okay?”

  I nodded weakly.

  It was all I could do.

  I was the furthest thing from okay, but I couldn’t tell him the truth.

  Conor was right. Mom was right.

  Deep down I think I’d known all along. From the very first picture. But I’d wanted it to be anything else—anyone else.

  Any real threat could be twisted into a prank when that’s what you wish for it to be.

  After so many years of denying myself—denying us—I would’ve dismissed any threat to our relationship.

  Because that’s what this was.

  It wasn’t a simple claiming. It was an open threat to the man I loved.

  It was a dark blanket on the happiness I only found with him.

  It was mocking the future I wanted.

  I’d worried over what might happen to Maxon and me if I told him.

  Now, I knew that ending was inevitable. The one I’d agonized over.

  Until we put an end to the Morettis, I couldn’t see a way to continue living with Maxon without risking his life.

  We’d dealt with enemies before—faced assassins silent as the night.

  But the Moretti weren’t silent. They were fucking ghosts.

  “Talk to me,” Maxon pleaded. “Are you—” He shifted closer and curled his hand around my neck. “Libby, are you pregnant?”

  I jerked against the wall, my head snapped up and eyes widened. “What? No.”

  His face fell a fraction. “Don’t look so disturbed by the idea.”

  “I’m not. I just—” I didn’t know how to respond in any way that would make sense. My head had been so filled with thoughts of what the Moretti family would do to Maxon that it stunned and terrified me when thoughts shifted to what they would do if I had Maxon’s baby inside me. “It caught me off guard. Why would you even ask that?”

  “Caught you off guard. Are you . . . Jesus.” The tips of his fingers grazed his forehead before he flung his hand out toward the door. “And why wouldn’t I ask? I come home after being gone for days, and you’re yelling at me before I get inside. Next thing I know, you’re running in here to throw up.”

  “Because you should know it doesn’t work that way. You can’t move home and expect me to be miraculously pregnant and having morning sickness two weeks later.”

  His mouth formed a hard line. “Month.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been back almost a month.”

  My mind raced as I tried to put everything that had happened in that timeframe.

  It had felt like the longest days and weeks of my life—and yet, I couldn’t believe any time had passed at all.

  My chest wrenched when I focused on Maxon and saw the pain on his face, but when I reached for him, he stood.

  “Maxon—”

  “I’ll get you something to drink.”

  I dropped my head into my hands when he left and tried to mute the sob that betrayed me.

  But as his footfalls faded, the memory of why I’d come running in here in the first place came jarring back, and I scrambled to stand.

  I opened every drawer and cabinet in the bathroom before rushing into my bedroom and looking wildly around. When I didn’t immediately find what I was searching for, I ran for the dresser drawers, opening and shutting each drawer quickly when there was still nothing there.

  Just when I started for my closet, an image from the night before flashed through my mind, making my stomach roll and halting my feet.

  I turned, staring at my bed with revulsion and disdain . . . and the slightest bit of fool’s hope that it had all been a horrible nightmare.

  My legs felt like weights trying to walk toward the bed, and my arms wouldn’t move fast enough as I ripped back the comforter and sheet. When the pillows on Maxon’s side were on the floor, my fear started to ease.

  I rolled my eyes and huffed, frustrated my mind conjured a dream so vivid—and that it had created such a horrible start to the day. I grabbed my pillows to take the cases off them, but they slipped from my hands and I sank heavily to the mattress.

  I reached for the envelope and lifted it from the spot where my head had rested just an hour before. My hand was trembling so violently, it was as though my entire body feared touching it.

  But before I could open the lip, I heard Maxon coming down the hall. I hurried off the bed and back to my dresser, fumbling with a drawer to stash the envelope in there.

  When Maxon rounded the corner into my room, his brow was furrowed and his eyes were darting around my room.

  “What were you doing in here?”

  My chest heaved when I finally released the pent-up breath. I glanced around the room, then gestured to the bedding and pillows on the floor. “I need to wash the sheets.”

  One of his brows ticked up. “It sounded like you were hitting the wall.”

  “I was looking for extra sheets,” I said quickly, surprising myself with the lie that came so easily. “But they’re in the hall closet.”

  He started to nod but stopped. “I’ll, uh . . . I’ll get them.”

  “No, I’ve got it.”

  He stopped mid-turn, his whiskey eyes searching me. After a minute, he sent me a bemused look and reached out to hand me the water. “We left for the airport at four this morning. I’m gonna shower then crash.”

  I tapped my fingers on the glass, anxious to know what that envelope held. “All right. Well, I work tonight, so if I’m gone when you wake up, that’s where I am.”

  Maxon’s eyes widened, filling with shock and hurt as he slowly nodded. “Right . . .” A frustrated laugh burst from him, the action seeming to take all his strength and light and life. “Right. Fuck.”

  Oh God. Maxon . . . I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

  I hated this.

  I hated that I was causing him so much confusion and pain.

  He doesn’t deserve this.

  I dropped my stare to the floor, unable to watch a man—who had always walked so tall—walk away from me looking like he was crumpling.

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  I glanced up at his whispered words. He stood in the doorway separating the bedroom from the bathroom, his hands curled around the doorframe.

  He turned to face me, his pained eyes meeting and holding mine. “You know, I was asked about you in every interview. Everyone wanted to know who you were. Everyone wanted to know details about us.” His head shook slowly and his hands lifted before falling. “I only told them one thing.”

  I lifted my chin in defiance.

  Praying he couldn’t see the pain raging through my soul.

  Praying he didn’t notice the slight waver in my stance or tremble around my mouth.

  “I told them the only truth I could give them—that you are every lyric I’ve ever written.” He laughed sadly. “Not because of your name and who you are—because you can’t be in the spotlight. I didn’t tell them about you, because no one knows you the way I do, Libby. And I’ve spent half my life with your eyes begging me to chase you and one of your hands pressed to my chest, keeping me from catching you.”

  I wanted to say that wasn’t true.

  I wanted to defend every time I’d ever put any distance between us.

  But I couldn’t.

  “No one knows exactly how it feels to be pushed away by you. To be loved by you,” he whispered. “But fuck, I do. You’ve never loved or pushed as hard as you have durin
g the last month.”

  Fresh tears pricked the backs of my eyes, threatening to betray my façade.

  “Keeping me in the dark, pushing me away . . . it’s slowly ripping my heart out of my chest. You’ve given me the greatest gift laced with the cruelest pain, because I know . . . damn it, I know any day you’re about to take it away. So why would I tell them about you—tell them your name—when I know I’m about to lose you all over again?”

  My chest wrenched open and I stumbled forward when he turned from me.

  I pressed my hands over my mouth to hold in the words begging to be freed.

  “Please understand none of this would be happening if there were any other way.”

  “Please know I need to keep you safe.”

  He glanced over his shoulder and murmured, “I love you, Rebel.”

  My soul cried out when he left, sending me to my knees.

  My heart ached so fiercely I thought it would shatter, but all I managed was a soundless sob.

  Because his words weren’t a claim.

  They were a reminder. A plea.

  I love you. I love you. I love you.

  But I can’t let you die.

  Maxon

  I’D BARELY SLEPT.

  When I’d finished showering, the bed was still a wreck, and Libby was in the living room, sitting on the couch, staring at a spot on the floor.

  She hadn’t noticed me standing there watching her and hadn’t reacted when I called her name.

  I woke up an hour later to some guy changing the locks.

  I lost my goddamn mind.

  Yelling and threatening him until he shoved the order in my face.

  There, on the bottom, was Libby’s signature.

  Her credit card information.

  And a note quickly scrawled on there asking to leave the keys with her boyfriend.

  “Apparently I’m just her boyfriend now,” I said numbly and handed the clipboard back to him. “Sorry for earli—”

  The look he gave me brought me up short.

  Like he was uneasy.

  Like he was in a situation he didn’t want to be in.

  Like he was afraid of how I would react.

  He cleared his throat and dropped in front of the door. He eyed me quickly then looked past me. “I’ll, uh.” He cleared his throat again. “I’ll be done here in no time and y’all can sort it out.”