Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  “What are you doing here, boy?” Mother snaps. “I thought we agreed Georgiana would stay here until tonight and we’d get her back to Rand’s under the cover of darkness.”

  “I was brought in through the garage.” He stalks to Georgie and tips her chin up, not offering anything more to Mother. “Why are you crying?” He thumbs her eye and croons to her, “Oh, baby, look at your eye.”

  “What’s wrong with her eye?” I ask, just noticing the bruising.

  Everyone ignores me.

  “Answer me, Georgie,” he says.

  She doesn’t. He turns a glare to Abby, who’s suddenly refusing to look in Sloane’s direction. He inserts himself between her and Georgie’s chair. “Get the fuck out of my sight and go to the fucking car, Abby.” His tone is rough and barbaric, even a little cruel.

  My nipples harden and my pussy moistens.

  Abby shoves her chair back and jumps to her feet. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that, asshole,” she yells. “I’ve already apologized, so fuck you.” Grabbing her bag, she rushes away, almost colliding with Kiln, who bends to whisper something to her and point down the hallway in the direction that leads to the kitchen and the attached garage.

  Sloane returns to Georgie and bends down to claim Bryn. Georgie shoves his hands away.

  “Keep still.”

  “Fuck off,” Georgie spits back, growling when Kiln grabs her arms and stops her from attacking Sloane. He holds her down, while Sloane unfastens Bryn, ignoring Georgie’s curses.

  I throw Mother a smug look, hoping she sees clearly why Georgie isn’t worth the time of day.

  “Take her,” Sloane orders, holding Bryn out to Kiln.

  The handover isn’t easy. Georgie attacks Sloane, but the moment his hands are free he subdues her, ignoring her ear-splitting scream when Kiln walks away with her misbegotten little issue.

  Sloane’s mouth close to her ear sickens me with jealousy. I consider the china cabinet where the silver is kept, and the sharpest steak knives. One stab to Georgie’s heart would get her out of the way.

  Mother shifts in her seat, snapping me out of my murderous contemplation. Unlike her rebuke of me, she’s allowing Georgie her tantrum, watching the scene as it plays out with avid interest.

  Sloane waits until Georgie wears herself out, before he sits down in the chair Abby vacated and settles Georgie onto his lap.

  “We’re leaving in a minute,” he tells her, “but I needed to talk to you without the distraction of the baby.”

  Red-faced, watery-eyed, and snotty-nosed, Georgie’s a mess, and almost looks as old as me.

  “Okay,” she says hoarsely.

  “Why’d you fucking leave the house?”

  “I want Bryn.”

  He glowers at the top of her head. “There’s more to life than our daughter.”

  “I hate you,” she says miserably.

  “Doubtful,” I sneer.

  She shoots me an angry gaze and I lift a brow, daring her to speak.

  “I thought not,” I tell her sarcastically. “You can’t play in the big leagues, Georgiana.”

  “Just because you fucked Sloane, sucked his dick and let him eat you, doesn’t mean you’re in the big leagues, Mom. It means you’re as much of a whore as I am. For your information, I think it’s beyond fucking disgusting to hear about your sex life. Have some pride. Or would you prefer if I describe how I sucked Crowell’s dick? We can trade fucking notes on dick sucking skills.”

  Interesting she didn’t offer to tell me about sucking Sloane off. Of course, Crowell is the one I supposedly threw her in the room over. She’s naïve enough to believe that, so she thinks she’s hurting me. Still, I can’t allow her insolence to pass. I jump to my feet. “You’re an ungrateful bitch.”

  Sloane slackens his hold on Georgie, so she stands. “And you’re a poor excuse for a mother. Where in the universe did I fuck up to be given to you?”

  “You’ll be sorry,” I swear to her. “I’m the mother. Not one person will look favorably on your attitude to me, simply because I gave you life.”

  Kiln returns, stopping in the doorway and sighing. “We have to get moving, Sloane.”

  “Georgiana,” Mother says stiffly, rising regally. “We will meet to discuss your living arrangements as soon as time permits. Cassandra has so gracefully agreed to allow you to move back home with her and your father, once Mr. Mason is gone.”

  Horror twists Georgie’s face. “Why can’t I come back here?”

  “Because Cassandra wants you home and I want her happy.”

  “You can’t. Grandma, you saw—”

  “What I saw was a child, you, giving a mother, my daughter, a rough time over a man who replaced the both of you the moment he had the chance.”

  My heart sinks at the truth of Mother’s words.

  Glancing between Georgie and Sloane, Mother offers a small smile. “We’ll continue this discussion at a later date. I’ll give you every option then.”

  “Go to the car, Georgie. I won’t be long. Kiln will lead you to the garage.”

  At Sloane’s words, Kiln is next to Georgie in a heartbeat, placing his hand at the back of her neck and smirking at Sloane’s growl but releasing her.

  “You know I can demand my granddaughter stay here, Mr. Mason,” Mother says, the moment Georgie and Kiln are gone. “You can’t do much if you’re back in jail.”

  “My father and I don’t see eye-to-eye on much, but he’ll sit at my side and tell the world about Cassandra and Parnell’s fuck partners.” Sloane’s gaze lasers me. “How would the women you acquaint yourself with feel about that, Cassandra?”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I whisper, dejected over our hostile reunion. He’s treating me as if I don’t matter to him at all.

  “I would dare anything. The media is everywhere. There’s a frenzy just beyond Helen’s gate. I shouldn’t be anywhere in the vicinity of Georgie. It’s a risk even coming and going through the garage as I did. But I’ll do that and more for her, the one person I didn’t want to find out about our affair.” He nods to Mother. “Thank her for letting the secret out. I have no one else to hide my affair with you from, or the reason it began. Such behavior is expected from me. But you?” He gives me an ugly smile. “You want to play, Cassandra? Helen? Let’s fucking do it.”

  “You’ll end up in jail,” I point out.

  “A place I’m acquainted with,” he shoots back. “Your pristine reputation is everything to you. You want the world knowing your husband didn’t want you, so to pass off his affair with my aunt, he brought whoever he could find to your bed?”

  He’s serious. He’ll actually have his bond revoked and humiliate me in retaliation if it means saving Georgie.

  “Enough!” Mother doesn’t raise her voice often. When she does, I know her patience is gone. “I dare say, I underestimated the depth of your feelings.”

  I’m not sure if she’s referring to his feelings for me or for Georgie.

  He nods. “That makes two of us, Helen.”

  “You have a hearing in a few days, Mr. Mason.”

  Sloane narrows his eyes. “Georgie has never referred to me as Mr. Mason.” His tone is lethal, but the statement only adds to my confusion.

  “Preferable to some of the more colorful names she calls you,” Mother returns without missing a beat

  Amusement dances on his face. “It is,” he says dryly.

  “Now that we’re in agreement, I still miss whatever point you’re making.”

  “The interview,” he grits. “She calls me Mr. Mason.”

  “You’re insinuating I’m responsible?” she asks, her nostrils flaring, as affronted as me.

  Sloane isn’t backing down. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m flatly telling you I now believe you had something to do with it.”

  “My, my, boy, you do have gall.”

  A gauntlet is thrown and picked up, but I don’t know who stands on either side.

  “She stays with me for the time
being, Helen.”

  “Of course,” Mother agrees with a serene nod.

  Without responding, he turns to leave, but I need him to offer me one word. A look. Anything. “Sloane!”

  He continues walking as if I don’t exist.

  Chapter Eleven

  “It isn’t her. Not most of it anyway.”

  Maitland, Quint, Adam, Kiln, and Jaeger all have various expressions on their faces at my decree about Georgie’s audio. Over the past three days, I’ve spent hours listening to the interview. I’ve ordered Jaeger to find an expert, but he’s brushing me off.

  Once I got the full story of why Georgie was out with Abby, I chewed my aunt out. How dare she put Georgie in such danger? What the fuck didn’t she understand about the public’s desire to rip Georgie to pieces?

  Abby accused me of contributing to the problem because of Dad’s interview. Sometimes, I really wish she was less than forthcoming with her fucking opinions. Somehow, the riot act I read her ended with my ass being reamed by her.

  In the midst of this showdown, Maitland and the rest of the guys walked in. Kiln informed me that Georgie was safe and secure with Bryn in the suite.

  “Oh, yeah, fucker, Cassandra went into great detail about my sex life with Parnell, and her fucking you. Georgie should cut your dick off.”

  “Hello, Abby,” Dad said with amusement as he’d walked in with the attorneys.

  “Fuck off, Rand,” she’d growled and stalked away.

  Once I finished the impromptu meeting with the lawyers, I headed to the music room, surprised to find the guys in there.

  “Do you want to do a session with us?” Adam had asked with hesitation.

  Surprisingly, I did. Not that I wanted to pick up my guitar and sing, but that I wanted to do it with them. I’d gone in the room to add a tune to the words I’d said to Georgie.

  I’d joined them and they’d invited me to the sex party they were throwing at a hotel room. The party Abby mentioned to me days ago.

  Currently, we’re on the way to the hired entertainment.

  We intend to fuck the night away. My abstinence is pathetic. I can’t drum up desire for any girl but Georgie. Tonight, I’ll fuck one or two women.

  “Who gives a fuck if it’s Georgiana or not, Sloane?” Jaeger’s voice bursts into my uninspiring idea, responding to the comment I made at least a minute ago. My dick doesn’t even twitch at the prospect of a good sucking or wet pussy to sink into, as deprived as I’ve been for almost three weeks.

  “Whether one line or all twenty fucking minutes is her fault, she’s still involved.”

  “Fuck you,” I growl. “She has my daughter. The more I think about it, the more livid I become at having to stand in front of the fucking world and announce Bryn belongs to another man.”

  “Don’t,” Jaeger shoots back. “Spend the rest of your fucking life in jail and kiss your asshole goodbye.”

  Kiln snickers.

  “Isn’t there any way around that?” Adam asks before Kiln and I fucking fight.

  The guys attribute the return of my ‘magic’ that I exhibited in the music room to Georgie. They believe wholeheartedly that I’m fucked. If I confess to the affair and claim Bryn, I’m very, very, very fucked.

  If I feed the media the false DNA reports, I’m very, very fucked.

  And if I do nothing, no statement, just stay silent, I’m plain fucked.

  What does that all mean for me?

  Any way I go, I’m fucked. That’s what the fuck it means. Though they haven’t pressed me into returning to the band, they’ve invited me to go to LA as originally planned. The announcement of my resignation from Phoenix Rising hasn’t been released, and they’re hanging around until my next hearing.

  My phone beeps, and I bang my head on the back of the seat. I consider pitching my mobile out the damn window. Abby has been sending me photos of Bryn and Georgie. All. Fucking. DAY!

  I want to fuck something up, preferably my interfering, romantic-at-heart aunt.

  “Let me see?” Maitland urges, holding out his hand.

  Groaning, I don’t even lift my head, merely thrusting the phone to him. At his grunt, I raise up and frown at his beet red hue. He shoves the phone back at me. Before I take it, Quint grabs it, grinning.

  “She’s nursing and—” His mouth snaps shut.

  Adam doesn’t want to be left out, so he peeps at it then clears his throat. Claiming the phone, he holds it out to me. The screen has gone dark, so I tap it to see why these three are reacting as they are. The moment the photo appears, my pulse speeds up.

  Georgie. A naked Georgie. Her breasts are as ripe as peaches and just as mouthwatering with her darkened nipples. Her bald pussy removes the focus from her remaining baby weight, but nothing detracts from her breathtaking face.

  I run my thumb over the phone, craving to touch her. But she’s as out of reach to me now as she was when I met her as a strung-out sixteen-year-old. The thought that she might be even more unobtainable strengthens my determination to fuck tonight.

  At the hotel, we exit the limo, and a flash bursts in the night, gleaming against the black paint on the car. Fuck my life, but the Paps scoped us out.

  Just as they were outside of Helen’s house, clamoring to get a shot of Georgie after a real crazy bitch attacked her. Suddenly, I’m not interested in going to a sex party.

  “You fucks get upstairs and get in some pussy,” I tell them, at loose ends, arguing with myself to go with them. Whenever I get in this mood, only drugs or women soothe me. Pussy is better than drugs, but pussy gives me pleasure and drugs lead to nothing but pain.

  Do I want fucking pain? To me, it’s what I deserve. Isn’t Georgie in pain? Her mother verbally abuses her and her grandmother threatens to return her to her parents. How many times has she begged me to stay with her? Two? Three? I’ve walked away the same number of times.

  I’m a bad rocker motherfucker with trust issues, and daddy issues, and mommy issues, and sister issues. Poor fucking me.

  The cameras flash again and I flip them off.

  “Do you need company?” Maitland asks, worry clear in his voice as the others leave. He leans next to me against the limo.

  I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off.

  “She needs you,” he says with meaning. Not giving me a chance to respond, he walks off. Hands in pockets, he throws a couple of glances over his shoulder toward me, before he disappears inside the hotel.

  “One photo, Sloane,” one of the photographers calls.

  “Fuck off,” I snarl and return to the car.

  Once it’s moving again, I scroll through my phone, searching for the needed number. One hit won’t hurt me. Fuck, I need enough to snort away my guilt as the hour, where I publicly humiliate Georgie and renounce our daughter, inches steadily closer.

  My fingers descend to press send, but my phone rings, and Abby’s name pops up. I don’t hesitate to answer.

  “Sloane?”

  Georgie’s soft, hesitant voice is my own personal lullaby. I need air to breathe. I need water to survive. I need Georgie to live. It’s as complex and as simple as that. For me, she’s my joy and my sunshine.

  “Yes?”

  “Come home.” She blows out a breath. “I-I mean here to the house.”

  She sounds so fragile, not at all the spunky girl I met. She was addicted, yes, but she was feisty.

  “I-I won’t bother you.”

  That’s the problem. I want her with me. “I have an appointment.”

  For a moment, she’s silent, before she says, “Don’t do what you’re about to do.”

  “What are you talking about?” Though, I already know.

  “Drugs, Sloane. Don’t do this to yourself.”

  Fuck, Maitland. That motherfucker.

  “Georgie, don’t ask me…you don’t know what I’m about to do.”

  “I do.” She hesitates. “Go back to your party.”

  I laugh at her firm order. “You do realize there are wome
n there for me to fuck?”

  “Yes.” Fuck, she sounds so sad. “I’d prefer you sleep with other women than do drugs.”

  “Georgie…” my voice trails off. What does she do to me? What has she done to me from the moment I first met her?

  “Phoenicians rise. You have. Don’t thrust yourself back into the flames. This time they may consume you completely.”

  Like she has?

  Irritation surges through me and I speak before she says anything else. “Is Abby still there?”

  “Yes. I never got the chance to thank you for having her help me out. I really like her. She’s very nice.”

  Georgie thinks anyone who pays attention to her is nice. “Put her on the phone.”

  “Okay.”

  One fucking word, filled with the disappointment I don’t ever want to cause her.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind, Sloane?” Abby hisses, the moment she comes on.

  “Fuck off,” I tell her crossly, not in the mood to hear her lecturing bullshit.

  “What do you want, jackass?”

  Fuck, I get off my high horses and give in to the inevitable. “Have you and Georgie eaten yet?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh,” I gloat at her surprise. She didn’t expect that question. “You’re such a bitch.”

  “I’ve learned all I know from you, love,” she retorts. “As to your question, Georgie was just laying Bryn down and I was going to call down for food.”

  “No more nude photos of her.”

  “Having a baby is kind of a messy affair, even days later. I won’t have any little monsters dropping out of my puss anytime soon. If ever.”

  “How does your puss and delivering babies relate to Georgie’s naked pictures?”

  “Things that your small, male brain will never understand.”

  “Male bashing, huh? You’re such a paragon, auntie.”

  “And you’re such a man-whore, nephew. Georgie changed clothes. While she was naked, I suggested she send you a photo. So you got the photo.”

  My aunt may be worse for Georgie than Crowell. She doesn’t use drugs, but she engages in just about everything else. Men, especially.