Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series

by Kathryn C. Kelly

  When I sit, I grab her hand and pull her down next to me.

  “It is,” I agree, fascinated by the graceful curve of her neck, the perfect symmetry of her face.

  Without invitation, she opens the picnic basket, taking out the bottle of wine, the potato chips, and two plastic cups. After arranging the items on the blanket, she looks in the basket again.

  “Where’s the food?”

  I hand her one of the cups and pour wine into it. “Chips are food.”

  She tastes the wine, then shakes her head. “I can’t believe you just packed chips.”

  I set the bottle of wine back in the picnic basket then sip from my cup, wishing I would’ve brought scotch. “What were you expecting? Truffles? Foie gras?”

  “Foie what?”

  “Never mind. It’s embargoed, anyway.”

  She doesn’t respond, and we drink in silence, enjoying nature’s beauty and each other’s presence.

  After draining her glass, she lays back on the blanket and draws her knees up, staring at the night sky.

  “See that star?” She points at a bright sparkle. “That’s Venus.”

  “I’m not into stars.”

  “Shocking.”

  I pour more wine for myself. “I beg your pardon.”

  “You’re not into stars. You’re not into family. You’re not into trust. You’re not into commitment. You’re not into happiness. You’re not into ordinary food. See the pattern? The question is what are you into?”

  “You’re presumptuous to say what I’m not into. Especially happiness. It’s just been elusive.”

  “You think? I wonder why.”

  “Me, too.”

  She turns her face to me and smirks. “I’ll be happy to point out the reasons.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “You aren’t happy because you go out of your way to be unhappy. You live to make people miserable.”

  None of what she’s saying is inaccurate. Neither is her tone nasty. However…“Did you hear me give permission for you to go ahead with your back-seat psychology?”

  “Did you hear me ask?” She sits up. “C’mon, man. What do you want? Seriously.”

  I tell myself it’s Sloane’s death and, yet, guilt eats away at me sometimes. As much as my resentment does. Having a family would make me happy. Kids. A wife. All the things Dietrech and Sloane denied me.

  “Is it Dietrech?” Raine questions when I stay silent. “Will she make you happy?”

  “What? Fuck, no! Where the hell would you get that goddamn idea?”

  “You talk to her every morning when you think I’m asleep.”

  Is that a tinge of jealousy I hear? Let me put her mind at ease this fucking minute. “It would be pretty awkward to talk to her with you staring at me.”

  She purses her mouth. “Are you sure that’s it? Since she started taking care of your mother, you’ve been in such a good mood? I want to say it’s because of…”

  Her voice trails off and she flushes.

  Me. I’m sure she cut herself off before that word slipped out.

  “Raine, sweetheart, my good mood has nothing to do with Dietrech.” I trap her face between my hands and stare into her eyes, glowing golden because of the bright glare from the camp lights. “My good mood is because of you.”

  She lowers her lashes and a tiny grin settles on her mouth. She lifts her gaze to me again.

  “Your pussy keeps me preoccupied,” I add.

  Disappointment slides across her face, but she covers it with a breezy smile.

  “Told you it was good and juicy,” she remarks.

  Releasing her face, I scowl at her. “We’re not discussing a piece of steak.”

  She sighs. “I know.”

  “Don’t bring up your former profession so cavalierly. That’s what you were, not who you are.”

  “Former?” she echoes in surprise.

  I stiffen at the implication. “Do you intend to go back to hooking when our time together ends?”

  She makes a face at me. “Considering you haven’t given me a red cent, I suppose so.”

  The answer darkens my mood. “You know I intend to pay you,” I snap.

  She gulps her wine again. “Uh-huh. Okay. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  I glare at her. In return, she gives me an angelic smile. I took our conversation in this direction to get her off the subject of Dietrech, but I think I prefer it to this one. Finishing my wine, I pour myself another one, then fill hers up, too.

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” she asks.

  “I’m a pretty smart motherfucker, so what is it you think has gone over my head when not much does?”

  “I’m not leaving until you tell me to,” she admits softly. “I’m safe. I’m not hungry. I have a warm place to sleep. And I really like you. But I need money. If I want to go somewhere, I’ll need to call a cab or that Uber thing you called.”

  “You’re implying I’m keeping money from you to, in essence, hold you hostage?” I question in outrage, refusing to admit to the truthfulness of her words.

  “Aren’t you?” she presses. “There’s absolutely no other reason for you not to give me the money you promised me. And I mean hand it to me like you have sense and I have dignity. I’ve thought long and hard about this. The person you’ve shown me? The sweet, kind, witty guy? He wouldn’t keep money from me. He’d want me to have money. But the asshole in you that you show to the world? He’d withhold money from me because he doesn’t want me to leave and come up with all sorts of douche-y excuses.”

  Embarrassment flames my face. No woman, not even Dietrech, has ever called me out on any of my actions. “Really? Is that your take, doll?” I sneer. “Do tell why I’d want to keep you at my side?”

  Her cheeks flush, and my blood turns to ice.

  “Don’t tell me you want me to believe you’re in love with me?”

  “Did I say that?” she responds with an undertone of sadness.

  “I don’t want you to love me because I’ll never love you. Even if I wasn’t leaving in a few months, I could never see myself with you.” That’s a lie, but what does she want me to say?

  I don’t trust love. I don’t know how to love, and I’m damn sure not loveable. If I was, Dietrech would’ve continued to love me. My father would’ve liked me.

  “You know, motherfucker, you’re making it really hard not to kick the fuck out of you?” Raine growls into the tense silence. “What if I am in love with you, jackass? You have fuck-all to say about it. Furthermore, I wouldn’t want to be with a motherfucker like you. I’d prefer to love you from afar, love the dream of you, then to put up with your rude, mean, low-down, fuckeduppedness. Understand?”

  “Shut up,” I order., grabbing her wrists and pulling her close to me, until we’re nose-to-nose.

  She knees my stomach, earning her release. “Or what, fuckhead?” she snarls, jumping to her feet.

  I draw in a deep breath to shrug off the pain her hit gave me. “Keep your fucking hands to yourself. You have a bad goddamn habit of hitting me, like you’re a spoiled child.”

  She gives me the finger, then changes her mind, and gives me the fucking fist. I stand and grab her forearms, lifting her off her feet and shaking her.

  The little bitch bites my chin. Immediately, I drop her. When I do, she barrels into me and knocks me on my ass, landing on top of me. Before she does any more damage, I wrap her in my arms and turn us, pinning her body to the ground with my own and holding her hands above her head.

  “Fuck, Raine. Stop!”

  “Get the fuck off me, pig-jerk-motherfucker.”

  Her eyes blaze and her struggles underneath me affect my cock. She feels my erection, too, because she stills.

  “If you even think to stick your dick in me, I’ll cut it off tonight while you’re sleeping.”

  Ouch. Point taken. Her words immediately deflate my erection. My lips form a biting reply. I can’t do it. I don’t even know what to say.
The peace, the happiness, I’d felt with her, is priceless. I’ll never forget her. If I could, I’d take her with me.

  That would be unfair, however. We’d be on the run. We’d have my inheritance to live off, yet I can’t see her enjoying that. She needs stability. I can’t give her lasting commitment—I don’t even want to—but I can leave her with enough money where she’ll never have to worry again.

  “To call an Uber, you need plastic. Besides, Sean is looking for you. Why would you want the freedom to leave the mansion?”

  My subject change, in a calm voice, isn’t the smoothest transition, and earns me a dirty glower.

  “You don’t love me,” I say on a sigh. “How can you? You don’t know me.” For instance, she doesn’t know I’m capable of arranging my own brother’s murder. “You love what I’m doing for you. That’s it.”

  “Kiln, I’m not going to waste my breath defending my feelings or trying to convince you of them. If you don’t believe me, that’s on you.”

  “Why should I? You’ve never told me.”

  She pauses, then narrows her eyes. “If I ever thought of admitting my feelings out loud before tonight, there’s no fucking way I’m ever doing it now. I’m not stroking your miserable ego, asshole. After you’ve told me you can’t see us together, you expect me to…to be a goddamn glutton for punishment? Fuck no!”

  “Can we drop this subject?” I ask tightly.

  “Gladly,” she spits.

  “I’m going to let you go. Okay? No more hits.”

  My response is a dirtier glare.

  Slowly, I release her and lift myself body away from hers. Resting back on my haunches, I raise my hands. “Can we go back to our truce?”

  She sits up, and nods, swiping up her wine glass and draining it. She draws her knees up and rests her head on them. For a moment, she’s still, silent, lost to me. Then, she raises her head and sets her wine glass down.

  “Sean is probably over me flying the coop,” she says quietly, her tone giving no indication of our argument or her supposed love for me.

  Can’t she understand why I don’t believe her feelings?

  “I didn’t steal anything from him,” she adds. “If Sean wanted to find me, he would have. He knows I’m with you. Everyone knows you work for Sloane Mason.”

  And his primary residence is easy enough to find, in spite of the secured entrance.

  “Sean has ears to the ground everywhere,” she continues.

  “You can’t be sure of his intentions.”

  “In other words, you’re keeping me on this property for my own safety?”

  “Yes,” I tell her, thinking of the time Sloane kept Georgiana at Dad’s mansion, when she didn’t want to be there. Like Raine, she really had no place else to go.

  Fuck! Am I really following in Sloane’s footsteps? I can’t fucking believe that. The two situations are entirely different. Their similarities are entirely coincidental. I’m not like Sloane in any way.

  “Let’s drop the subject of Sean,” she tells me. “I don’t want to discuss him, like you’d prefer not to bring up Dietrech.”

  “Right.”

  So what now? The argument has thrown me completely off-kilter. How do we get back to the easiness we had when we first arrived?

  “How’s Jaeger?” she asks, surprising me.

  It’s such a simple switch, but so easy. I smile. “Fine. He’s been in Houston. He’ll return tomorrow.”

  “That’s good.” Silence and then, “You two seem really close.”

  I shrug. “What makes you think I don’t want to discuss Dietrech?” After all, I never said those exact words.

  She rolls her eyes. “When we were talking about her, you changed the subject so fast, it’s obvious.”

  Once again, she rubs me the wrong way. I don’t appreciate her reading me as she does. She thinks she knows all about me, based on a few guesses. Time to clip her fucking wings.

  “What do you want me to say about my ex?” I snap.

  “Nothing, Kiln. Nothing at all. Whisper to her all fucking day, for all I care.”

  A picture is forming in my head. “You’re angry because I hold conversation with Dietrech about my mother?” I ask incredulously. “You’re jealous?”

  “Oh my God, you’re so fucking naïve.” She hiccups and pounds her chest.

  “Naïve?” I echo dryly. “That’s a new one.”

  “You are!” she insists. “This is a woman you’ve professed to despise. A woman you hold blameless in fucking over you—although you mistrust women because of her—and yet you’re laughing and joking with her in the morning.”

  She’s been listening. And she accuses me of fucked-up behavior? “I don’t explain myself to you or anyone else.” I ignore her frown to nip this shit in the bud. “We can spend our evening angry and arguing, or we can put this to rest and move on. Your choice.”

  Mutiny enters her eyes, but she grounds her jaw together. “It isn’t my business,” she finally grumbles.

  I couldn’t agree more. Whether she believes it or not, I want to appease Dietrech so she’ll give my mother the best care. Raine has revealed a lot about her personality this evening. One thing sticks out.

  “You’re rather sensitive to have lived on the streets.”

  “Maybe,” she agrees. “I always had my brother to lean on. He shielded me from constant bad stuff. Besides, I’m not on the streets now.”

  Who’s being naïve, now? Even if her brother wasn’t getting sick revenge, he still put her in danger.

  “Your brother? If you had him to rely on, then you had nothing. He isn’t a fucking brother you need. He allowed you to fuck for money, instead of getting his ass out there to work.”

  Her change is immediate. She goes from halfway calm to murderous in a second.

  “My brother’s dead,” she yells. “If he was alive, he’s exactly the brother I’d need. I love him. He watched over me. He took my stepfather’s abuse to save me from being raped.”

  I snort. “So he took it up the ass? Motherfucker might have liked it. Consider his debt paid forward. Who knows? That might be the reason he made you sell your pussy. Revenge.”

  She gasps, stares at me and then launches herself on me. My wine goes flying and I land on my back with jarring intensity. She punches my healing cheek. Her fists are small, but my mother scratched the fuck out of me. I don’t need the additional abuse. Before she damages me more, I grab her wrists like I did a bit ago, ignoring the throbbing in my jaw.

  Ignoring my pain, I flip her over and pin her down. She’s squirming and screaming, raining curses on my head.

  “Fuck you. My brother wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t have used our need to seek revenge on me for something he selflessly did on my behalf. We both agreed I should whore myself. I was twenty-one, asshole-motherfucker-douche face. He couldn’t force me into anything.”

  My temper rises at her blind stupidity. She’s ruining our evening by defending an asshole better off dead. Our earlier conversation already had her riled up. Now, the little heathen has found another way to release her fury.

  She’s truly enraged about her brother, but she was less-than-happy about me talking to Dietrech every morning.

  “Really?” I say nastily. “Let me see? Did he really ask you, Raine? I’ll bet he didn’t. He used your hero worship of him and implied it would be a big relief to his troubled mind, if you fucked for money.” There’s no other way Raine would’ve agreed to become a prostitute. She doesn’t want to be one, even now. Most women don’t, but they are lured into the life by some jackass they trust. In this case, Raine’s own brother.

  “Get off me!” she screams, attempting to turn us over.

  No fucking way am I allowing her to straddle me. She’d knock my ass out. Understanding she won’t upend me, she growls.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand family loyalty. You have none! You hate your brother, yet you take his money, live in his house, and do what the hell you want to. Not ev
en your pinky has the allegiance and dedication Montana had to me. You’d stab your own mother in the back, if it meant saving your ass.”

  I shake her. “You think? Until Dietrech took over, I faithfully visited my mother. I ate lunch and dinner with her. I buy her whatever the fuck she wants. I keep her in a luxury condo. I have my ex-wife on my payroll because of my mother! I intend to murder Sloane on my mother’s behalf! Don’t fucking tell me I have no loyalty.”

  She stills, and stares at me in horror. My words catch up to me, and I release my grip on her, roll over, then stand, unable to believe what I’ve revealed.

  Slowly, she sits up. The world around me creeps at a snail’s pace as I replay my words over and over in my head.

  She hops to her feet and dusts herself up. Stunned silence pollutes the space between us.

  “Take me back to the house,” she says in a steely voice.

  “What? No comeback for that one, doll?”

  “Do you want me to have one? If you want to kill your own brother, who am I to stop you? He’s an international superstar. If you aren’t hunted down and arrested, you’ll be hunted down and savagely killed by his fans. You’ll finally be out of your misery. Your cause of death will be stupid assholery and mean motherfuckery.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Do you see me laughing? By the way, don’t pull your poor mother into this. We both know you want Sloane dead. You’ve already admitted how much you dislike him.”

  “Sloane is taking my rightful inheritance.” I slam my fist against my chest. “Mine. He has enough money. Land. Contracts. Business deals. Love! He doesn’t need to be our father’s sole heir.”

  “Being someone’s heir is out of his control. Seems to me it’s your father’s choice.”

  “I’m sick of competing against that asshole. I thought we’d repaired our relationship, but…How fucking dare my father still leave Sloane everything and take the rap for murder on his behalf? You’re wrong, too. My mother is the one who asked me to kill Sloane. For as long as I’ve known her, she’s suffered. Sloane’s death would ease her misery.”

  “Go ahead and believe that. You’re as fucking crazy as she is.”

  Calling my mom crazy crosses a goddamn line. “Back off from my mother.”