by Cari Quinn
By the time Zeke unstrapped his Epiphone, Logan had actually been enjoying the soundcheck. They filed backstage to the small dressing room to change into their stage clothes and have a light snack.
Logan watched the clock crawl by for the next two hours as The Barn filled. There were two security people on each entrance and three working the bar. Izzy was keeping in contact with him via text and Marcus was hovering on each end of the stage.
Everything was under control.
Then why did he feel so goddamn twitchy?
Curtain went up at seven with Brooklyn Dawn playing a solo set for twenty minutes to warm up the crowd. Lindsey had the front of the house in the palm of her hand by the second song.
All the King’s Men’s road crew had them set up and ready for a duet with Nash. Logan and Nash played dueling pianos on each end of the stage. The first song was a Billy Joel, the second was Frank Turner. By the time Christian and Jamie had gotten the option to actually bring some guitars into the song, The Barn was alive with screams and cheers.
It felt good to be on the stage again. Even as he searched every face in the crowd, it was easy to lock himself into work mode. Finally during the back half of the concert, Logan moved to the front of the stage and leaned on the mic stand.
He caught the shadow of Skye’s shape as she waved to let him know Izzy was there waiting for her cue. His spine tightened and his gut churned. With the lights, he could barely see past the third row, and even then the crowd was more like a sea of faces blending into one another in screams and cheers.
Addicting. He’d always loved the stage.
Terrifying. The unknown faces could be hiding the one that lived in his nightmares.
He cleared his throat. “I wanted to thank everyone that came here last minute to see us play. It’s been a rough few months and the love I’m hearing from you guys is just what this grouchy old singer needed as a welcome home.”
A screeching response of love warmed something inside of him that he was very afraid had died in the fire.
“But we’re not here to give me the warm and fuzzies. It’s just an added bonus. We’re here because of the awful tragedy that happened at the bookstore, Between the Lines, here in Winchester Falls. We lost a dear friend and family member—Nichole Wolfe—to the fire and her husband, Adam was seriously injured from the blast. We all know what hospital costs are like these days. One hundred percent of what you donate tonight will go directly to the families.”
He walked to the edge of the stage and his breath stalled in his chest. Izzy stood on the sidelines, her hair twisted up to show off her elegant throat and fragile little diamond drops dangling from her ears. She wore a soft dress that glowed in the spotlights. A creamy white with little crystals all over the front of it.
It was a dress suitable to the twenties that made her skin tone glow and her topaz eyes burn with emotion. It was a white dress that promised forever.
He cleared his throat. “This beautiful woman is doing me the honor of marrying me right after the show. She’s been through a lot—we both have—and we wanted to make a fresh start here.”
“Logan!”
The instantaneous terror that lit her face made him turn. Christian, from his own band—his own family—swung his microphone stand.
Logan ducked and pushed Izzy out of the way, but not before the base of the stand sliced along his forehead and knocked him back into the amps and his upright piano. The thunderous notes from the piano fuzzed and screams from the crowd seemed to be at the far end of a tunnel.
A dark liquid obliterated one of his eyes and he tried to roll onto his knees. Another blow hit him dead in the shoulder and his arm went numb. As his cheek slammed into the stage, he heard Bella scream his name followed by another voice.
The voice of his nightmares.
Thirty-Nine
Bella crawled across the stage. The salty taste of something splattered her lips and the front of her dress. She looked down and screamed. So much red.
All over his face and dripping from his head.
Logan’s face.
Logan’s blood.
Logan’s blood all over her.
Sweet hazel eyes and a strong, angular face loomed over her. Only the sweet gaze she was used to had vanished into a bulging, red-faced anger. She crawled over Logan and covered him with her body.
Screams and broken chairs dented her consciousness as she looked out in the sea of people for help. Christian wrenched her arm up and dragged her off Logan.
Marcus tried to get to them from the far side of the stage. The lighting rig over Nash’s piano had swung down, a rigging tie dangling over the keys. He crawled over an amp, a piano and the large monitor tower that fed all the instruments into the speakers.
Fans crawled over the stage trying to get away, or get to Logan.
“Let me go,” she screamed.
Christian pulled both her arms back. “You selfish bitch.” He turned her toward the stage and a woman with a bleached pixie cut climbed the stairs. Rage and madness sharpened her features and her huge gray eyes were rimmed with red hot anger.
Aimee Collen’s hand swiped through the air and a small charge of electricity swiped Bella’s neck before she dropped, her body twitching in reaction.
“I took care of that fuck for you, finally!” Christian’s adoring face turned toward Aimee. “Just like you said.” He kicked at Bella’s shoulder to nudge her aside.
“Did you kill him?” Aimee fell to her knees beside Logan and she touched his face with shaking fingers. She turned back to Christian, fat tears streaming down her face. “Did you kill him?”
“Wasn’t that the plan? I know you wanted to be the one to do it, but this is better.”
“No. No, it’s not.” Her voice was panicked and hollowed out. She stood. “You stupid fool. It was always Logan. Always going to be Logan. He’s worth a thousand of you.”
Christian crumpled before her eyes. “No. You said you wanted your revenge. I was supposed to get you. You were mine now.”
Bella curled onto her side and slid across the floor slowly. She saw Marcus fighting his way across the stage as four hysterical men pushed back on him. Shouting and mania seemed to pepper the entire crowd. The security agents were trapped in the melee on the general admission floor.
She watched as Aimee paced the small part of the stage. Christian was sobbing at her feet. Aimee kept looking at Logan then to Christian.
Helpless, Isabella looked to Julian who was trying to break out of the back of the stage with Marcus. Zeke was slowly circling the Pro-Tools set up on the stage when Aimee caught him in her periphery.
Aimee screamed and jammed the Taser she held into his neck. His wasn’t just a swipe as Bella’s had been. Zeke went down like his entire body had lost its charge.
Bella stuffed her fist into her mouth so she wouldn’t scream again. So she wouldn’t attract Aimee’s attention. He had to be alive. Zeke’s neck was slumped against his chest as he’d fallen into one of the amps, but his chest was rising and falling.
She’d Tasered the hell out of him, but he was still breathing.
Bella kept inching toward Logan. Was his chest moving? Was he alive? Oh, God.
How could they have so many security people and no one was helping them?
Aimee dropped to Logan’s side again, her tear-stained face rubbing against his blood-streaked cheeks. She covered his body with racking sobs.
“Get off him.” Bella curled into herself and got onto her knees. “Get your psychotic paws off my husband.”
Aimee sprang off the floor and knocked Christian aside as she swung at Bella. Ready for that damn Taser this time, she grabbed for Aimee’s wrist.
Christian tried to pull her away from Aimee and the banshee shrieked out a no, and pulled a slim knife out of her jacket. Bella stumbled back, crab-walking to Logan. Aimee crowded into Christian and drove the knife into his side.
His huge hazel eyes went blank with shock. He looked down at the
ir hands covered in bright red blood.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” Bella chanted and covered Logan. “Please, baby. Please be alive.” She cupped his jaw, her fingertips slick with blood. At that point, she didn’t know if it was Christian’s, Logan’s or someone else’s. She pushed her fingertips into his neck and felt the familiar pulse. It was steady, but slight.
Panic pushed her into action. “Marcus?” She looked around the stage but it was quiet. Too quiet.
Aimee stepped away from Christian, staring down at him. “You killed him.” She swiped her blood-soaked hands against her pink shirt. “You killed him.”
Bella tried to push Logan away from the carnage, but he’d fallen into one of the towers and was wedged next to an amp. She wasn’t strong enough to move him. Her whole body felt like there was fire ants under her skin.
“You took him away from me. We were happy until you showed up.”
Bella curled over Logan, keeping her head down.
“You. I’m talking to you, Isabella.” Aimee’s voice went singsong. She caught the clipped knot of Bella’s hair and dragged her back.
Bella twisted under her arm like Sarah had showed her, but Aimee had obviously taken the same classes she had.
Aimee sliced down Bella’s forearm with the blade, going deeper as she got to her wrists. “Did you know that this is the right way to slit your wrists?” She tipped her head and looked into Bella’s eyes. “This opens the veins so you bleed.”
Bella didn’t look at the blood coming from her arm. She could feel the heavy pump of it as her arm went numb. She tried to look over the speakers and equipment.
She finally spotted Marcus peering around a trunk. She caught his eye and tried to read something there. He simply shook his head and nodded to her.
Was that supposed to mean she needed to play along?
Bella went down on one knee again as the room fuzzed and blood dripped over her white dress. Her knee bumped into something hard. She cautiously felt a mic on the floor. She curled it against her arm as she wobbled. Not all of it was playing. “Aimee, why?” Nausea hit her as she gritted it out.
“He’s mine. From the moment we stood in front of that chapel, I knew. The picture in front of the building. It was a sign. That I’d finally found someone that was finally worthy. That he wouldn’t leave me.”
“But he did. Because he doesn’t love you,” Bella said through gritted teeth.
Aimee charged her and Bella brought up her good arm. The heavy plastic of the microphone made a satisfying crunch against her jaw.
She screamed and raised her arm. Bella dropped to both knees. There was nothing else she could do. The stage was melting away.
Then a shot cracked the air.
Shock made Bella jerk back as dark red bloomed across Aimee’s chest. She spotted a bloodied Sarah hunched over Logan’s upright piano, her gun still smoking.
Sarah rushed over and kicked the knife away from Aimee. She checked her pulse and bowed her head. “Bella?”
Bella shook her head, tears crawling out of her throat with a sob. “I love your gun.”
Sarah knelt in front of her and pulled a utility knife out of her belt on her dress. “Jesus, you lost a lot of blood.”
“How’s Logan?”
Sarah bunched up the bottom of Bella’s dress and sliced through the silk then wrapped the strip of silk around her forearm. “You stay with me, Princess.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not a princess.” She tipped her head back and scooted toward Logan on her butt.
“Stubborn,” Sarah muttered and helped her over to Logan. She pressed two fingers to Logan’s neck. “Looks like you both will have matching gurneys on an ambulance.”
“Is he okay?”
“He hasn’t lost as much blood as you and he’s got a hard head.”
All Bella could think of was Adam. How a head injury had taken him away, too.
Sarah sighed and shook Logan’s shoulder. “Wakey time, rockstar.” He moaned and his startlingly green eyes peeked from his lashes.
He jumped at the sight of her blood, but winced as he tried to move. “Izzy.”
“I’m here.” She curled closer into his side, her eyes riveted to the still form on the floor just a few feet away. “I’m here.”
And she’s not.
Forty
Logan came in and out of consciousness. First he’d been on the stage and there’d been nothing but the slick rusty red of blood trailing across the floor. Dragging toward him.
He was pretty sure he lost five years when he saw the blood splatter on Izzy’s dress.
Then it had been nothing but black and a searing pain.
The jarring bounce of gravel under the gurney brought him around again. Whirling red, white, and blue lights reflected off the snow-dotted trees and wet pavement. Winter had touched down in Winchester Falls for the first time that season.
“Iz…”
He hated how weak his voice sounded.
When the ambulance bay opened and the stretcher locked into place, white-hot pain shot through his shoulder. He curled into himself and that only made it worse.
“Mr. King. Lie still.”
“Izzy. My fiancée.”
“Coming in right behind you. We’re taking you both.”
The flutter of rust-splattered white then Isabella climbing into the truck with the EMT’s assistance eased him and increased his panic. So much blood.
Too much.
So much like before.
She sat down on the bench beside him. “Shh, Logan. Sit back. Let them take care of you.”
His head felt muzzy and he couldn’t move his arm. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just have a brand new matching scar to add to my collection.”
“Your blood?” Was there an ax cleaved into his head? Holy fuck. He tried to focus on her, but her face kept blurring.
“Some of it is mine. She cut me on my arm, though.”
“Sit back, Miss. She should be on a stretcher,” the EMT muttered.
“Do you need…” Logan tried to reach for her.
“Mr. King, if you move again, I’m going to sedate you.”
He collapsed onto his back. She was here. She was fine. The bright lights on the ambulance faded and the blackness reached for him.
“Aimee.”
“Dead.”
His head jerked toward Izzy’s voice. “What?”
Her face was devoid of emotion, her eyes flat. “She’s dead.”
“Did you—” He couldn’t even form the question. A deep part of him wished it had been him. He didn’t want her to have to live with that. He couldn’t even figure out why his entire body hurt like he’d been in the middle of a brawl.
“Sarah.”
Logan relaxed. Sarah had taken care of Izzy when he couldn’t. He kept his gaze on hers. The ambulance rocked him into a fluid state where the sounds were wrapped in cotton and the lights felt too bright.
But he focused on her. Not on the blood, just that she was okay.
The EMT kept yelling at him to stay awake, but he finally drifted away, Izzy’s face the last thing he saw.
Forty-One
Bella paced the hospital room.
“Put your arm up,” Sarah ordered.
Bella sighed and folded her bandaged arm against her chest. The cut had been shallow, but the wound was wide and she’d lost a good deal of blood. The memory of Aimee’s face as she cut into her was fresh and Bella shook it clear.
Madness had been in her eyes. So much anger and rage. But the madness had been the part that stayed with her.
Where the hell was he?
“If you don’t sit down, I’m going to tie you to that chair.”
Bella swung around, ready to rip into her then stopped. Sarah’s face was a colorful swatch of bruises and cuts. The moment Christian had swung the microphone stand, he’d brought down half of the lights on the left side of the stage. The rigging had snapped when cords
had been pulled and everything had fallen against the equipment on stage. Add in crowd panic and The Barn had been bedlam.
So many hurt.
Again.
Because of them.
“Isabella?”
She turned at Marcus’s voice. “Logan?”
“They’re bringing him down in a few minutes. He has a concussion and a dislocated shoulder, but he’s fine. He’s going to be a hurting puppy for a few weeks, but he’ll survive.”
She blew out a breath. “Thank God.”
“Bellamina?”
She peered around Marcus to see Zeke in the doorway. Julian and Morgan stood behind him. All of them hollow-eyed and as broken as she knew Logan would be.
“Come in. Where’s Emerson?”
Zeke cleared his throat. “Still getting stitches.”
“Logan will be here in a few minutes. Sit down, guys.” She herded them onto the couch against the wall. “You all look like you went ten rounds with Tyson.”
“Nope, just a crazy lady’s Taser,” Zeke said glumly.
She smiled. “You tried to come to my rescue.”
“Dude, she took me down like a lioness takes out a lame gazelle.”
Bella came up to his side and kissed his cheek. “You’re still my hero.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, B. I don’t know how we didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.”
That Christian had betrayed them would follow them for a very long time. That they had no idea. And now so many things made sense. The worst one was that Christian had probably killed Nic. And that she would never forgive.
Ever.
“Hands off my woman, Z.”
She spun around as two large orderlies pushed Logan through the door. “Oh, thank God.” All she’d needed was to see him. Just to touch him. She rushed to the gurney and twisted her fingers into his good hand.
“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” he said on a half slur.
“No. No, I can’t,” Bella choked out. She took a deep breath and swallowed back the tears.
