Deacon sat back in his chair. “We do need better equipment.”
“Also, this is something lovingly called a three-sixty deal.”
“What’s that?”
“It means they want a cut of your touring. And for a band, that’s where you actually make your money. Album sales are crap.” Ellis pulled out more papers.
Deacon’s brain fuzzed as the lawyer went on about video costs, making money on digital playbacks on the radio and internet radio formats, even monetization of ads on their YouTube channel. All the little things that would be split in the record label’s favor.
Considering they were laying out the hundreds of thousands of dollars, he wasn’t surprised. He just wished he wasn’t the only one sitting there listening to this. And even more, he was worried that Jazz was listening to the same information and probably freaking out as much as he was.
His foot started bouncing as Ellis laid out more figures and loopholes.
“Okay, your eyes are glazing over. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Deacon blinked and tapped on the page with his pen. He’d been scrawling notes and figures of his own, but none of it made sense right now. “Would you sign the contract?”
“If I was really hungry, I would.”
Deacon gripped the pen harder. “We are.”
“But, if you’re smart, you won’t. And I’ll tell you why. No matter what you decide, there’s one thing that I don’t like about this contract at all.”
His stomach knotted and Harper’s hand found his again, stopping his bouncing leg. He squeezed back and cleared his throat. “Besides the fact that they want everything?”
“Hell, that’s the way of business. And after your first album, you’re right, you’ll be able to negotiate better. But I don’t like this.” Ellis drew out two pages. “They want your single. If you sign with them, they retain the rights to “The Becoming” and will pay you a royalty, but if you leave after this contract ends, they retain the rights. Again, they’ll pay you royalties, but they retain the licensing and copyrights.”
Deacon stood, his chair skittering over the carpet as he pushed back. “They can’t do that. That’s our song. We wrote that before they signed us.”
“Yes, but they put it on the soundtrack and your EP.”
“Does that mean we lose the rights to the song now? Regardless?”
“I’d have to look at your other contract to be sure.”
Ellis’s calm voice made every hair on his body stand on end. Deacon drew in a deep breath, forcing himself to focus. He was pretty sure he heard a but in the older man’s voice. Following instinct, he stopped pacing and sat back down. “But?”
The lawyer smiled slightly. “You’re smart, and that will go a long way in this business. If they’re putting it so deep into this contract, it makes me think it wasn’t in the first one. That’s only a guess, though.”
The original contract had been a licensing one to use the song. At least for the soundtrack. Deacon cleared his throat. “The soundtrack gives us a royalty to use the song, but they don’t own it.”
“That’s good.” Ellis sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Most soundtracks pay for the songs and cut the artists out of everything.”
Deacon cracked his thumb knuckle. “It was our only song. I wouldn’t let the band sign over the rights.”
“It’s a good thing Oblivion has you in their corner.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that will be the first thing they say when I take this information back to them today.” Deacon tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling.
“That’s the highlights of the contract, unless you have more questions?”
He had a million questions, but none of them could match the one glaring problem with the contract. A lack of control was to be expected, but the idea that they could take their work regardless of them staying with the label was something he couldn’t push under the header of—we’ll get a better contract later.
“Oh, Mr. McCoy—”
“Deacon, please.”
Ellis drew two more papers out of the folder. “There was one last thing. I don’t know if it’s an oversight, or if there’s a different band dynamic than I’m aware of.” The lawyer paused, tapping on the paper.
Deacon looked down at the huge block of text. It was dense with legalese and percentages, but one thing finally came into focus. He read it once, then twice, and finally a third time. He had to be reading it wrong.
The room fuzzed at the edges and his vision blurred.
“Usually with a band, things are split evenly, but two members seem to have a slightly larger take.”
Disbelief chased a searing pain that radiated from his chest to his fingers like lightning. Surely there had to be little black marks on the page. His fingertips were white from the pressure and his arm shook.
Right there, in black and white. Twenty-five percent for both Nicholas Crandall and Simon Kagan, leaving the remaining fifty to be distributed between himself, Jazz, and Gray evenly.
“Deacon?” Harper stood beside him, her fingers clamped around his biceps. “Deacon.” She shook him. When he didn’t answer, she leaned over him and looked down at the page. “Fuck me running.”
Deacon gave a humorless laugh. “Evidently, some of us are getting fucked by more than just the label.”
To his credit, Booker Ellis’s face remained expressionless. “I have an out of the office meeting. You can stay in here as long as you like.”
Deacon stood with the older man and held out his hand, pleased to see that it didn’t shake. “I appreciate your time, sir.”
“If you have any questions, please call me.”
Deacon could hear the sympathy and regret in Ellis’s voice. When the door closed behind him, Deacon let himself bend forward and press his forehead to the table.
“C’mon, big guy, talk to me.”
“And say what?” He couldn’t even look at her. He couldn’t breathe, let alone talk. He needed to run. He needed to punch something. He needed to scream.
“Tell me what I can do.”
He heard the pain in her voice, the worry and the hesitancy, but he couldn’t—he just couldn’t. “I need to get out of here.” He swiped his phone off the table and saw that it was still recording.
He lifted the phone to his mouth. “Fuck you,” he said on a harsh whisper. “Fuck you.” Then he clicked off the phone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
September 21, 2:38 PM - Darkness Seeps Through the Cracks
Deacon pushed through the glass doors of the penthouse lobby. The metal casing shuddered with the force of his touch. His entire focus on the elevator and getting upstairs to talk to everyone.
His phone burned in his pocket. The buzz of messages and social media updates ratcheted up his anger.
“Deacon. Crap,” Harper muttered from behind him. “Jesus, will you wait up. You’ve got an entire foot of leg on me.”
He turned to see her, pink cheeked with exertion to keep up with him. Wispy blonde hairs escaped her braid and stuck to the corner of her mouth. She pushed them away with a huff.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just re-freaking-lax. You’re going to go upstairs and rip heads off.”
“You’re damn right, I am.” His chest tightened as the doors opened. He slid his card into the slot to go to his floor, then jammed it into his back pocket.
“They might not know about the contr—” she shut up at his look. “Okay, so they probably know.”
“Probably?” Deacon paced the length of the car. It was too tight, too closed in. He needed someplace open. He should have had Harper take him to the beach. The sea air would have helped, but he wanted answers.
Now.
Finally the elevator dinged and he strode off. Harper crossed the room and headed up the stairs. Part of him wanted to tell her to stay, but this wasn’t about them right now. It was about the band.
Simon and Nick were leaning on the coun
ter in the kitchen, a trio of empty beer bottles in the center. Guitars littered the living room with Simon’s notebook open on the coffee table. The hum of an amp still on was the backdrop for the dirty story Simon was telling Nick.
“Where are Jazz and Gray?”
“Well, hello to you, too,” Nick said lazily. His elbows were propped on the counter, a beer dangling from his fingers.
“Where. Are. They.”
Nick stood, his shoulders straightening. “I just got a text from Jazz. She said they were on their way.”
“Good.” Deacon paced to the back porch and out to the balcony ledge. He dug his fingers into the pitted cement topper on the half wall. The pain pushed the red haze of rage back a little.
Seeing them just sitting around like nothing was wrong made him want to tear more than heads off. He wanted to rip off an arm and beat Nick’s smug face bloody. Or maybe wipe Simon’s smirk off with a plank full of nails.
He took out his phone and dragged the little triangle back to the last ten minutes of conversation between himself and Ellis. He let it play, making sure that it was at the part that gave specifics about why they shouldn’t sign the contract before shoving his phone back into his pocket.
“What the hell is his problem?”
Deacon’s shoulders tightened at Simon’s question. Neither of them had moved. Still drinking their beers like the world owed them something. They fucking had to know. There was no way a specific note like that would be put in the contract without talking to Simon and Nick. Did they think they were just going to get away with it? That it wouldn’t matter to the rest of them? Or worse, that it wouldn’t be caught?
The ding of the elevator and Jazz’s low voice drew Deacon back inside. As he entered the kitchen, he saw Gray’s closed off face and Jazz’s shattered eyes and knew she’d found something similar at her meeting.
“Would someone tell me what the fuck is with the drama?” Nick snapped his beer down on the granite counter.
Deacon fisted his hands as anger pulsed through his blood making his head feel like a kick drum. He dug out his phone and turned up the volume before pushing play. He tossed the phone on the island, and Booker Ellis’s voice boomed out.
Startled, Simon immediately took a step back and crossed his arms. Nick stared at the phone. As Ellis explained the contract, Nick’s shoulders tightened and his chin lifted. Nick stared right into Deacon’s eyes as the lawyer gave the reasons why the deal was to be avoided.
Simon’s hand fell to his sides as he heard the particulars. Deacon broke the stare down with Nick and studied Simon. Did Simon know all the clauses? Or was he just as surprised?
Jazz wrapped wound her arm through Gray’s, who stood still, with his hands in his pockets, gray eyes blank and staring straight ahead. Was he even fucking listening?
When the percentages came out, there was a silence around the table. Deacon could hear Ellis telling him to take his time and then the low, growl of his, “Fuck you,” after a minute of silence.
Jazz gasped out a sob. “I was hoping I was wrong.”
Deacon stepped forward. “You wanna tell us something, Nick? Simon?”
Nick’s chin went up a notch. There was a trace of uncertainty in his eyes, but the glitter of anger and pride was there, too. “We’re protecting the band that Simon and I created.”
The words were a blow. Deacon felt his shoulders and spine pop and crack as he rocked back on his heels. He’d known. The entire car ride, he’d rolled the information around in his mind, hoping there was some way that he was wrong.
That his best friends wouldn’t have betrayed him like this. Such a small thing, but in the world of contracts, a controlling interest in the band was important, not only money-wise, but with the decisions that would be made down the line.
Their votes would count for more—like a fucking corporation, it was controlling interest to Simon and Nick, then the leftovers to Deacon, Jazz and Gray. On the off-chance that Jazz and Gray weren’t full band members yet because they’d signed on late, that still left him.
He’d been there since nearly the start. Simon and Nick may have put the original band together, but they hadn’t started playing real gigs until he’d come along to tighten the songs and push them toward setlists that made sense.
“That you created?” Deacon said, hating that he could hear his voice crack. He swallowed hard, and cleared his throat. “I wasn’t in that basement for years with you? Is that it?”
“You didn’t write the songs.”
Deacon’s eyes snapped to Nick. “I didn’t—” At a loss, he couldn’t string words together. He’d been the one to clean up the melodies and make the connections between Simon’s epic Rush-length solos and layer them with Nick’s snappy guitar work. Deacon had been the one to painstakingly build the songs and find a cohesive bass line that would work with the raw talent Simon and Nick had.
He’d been the one to write the one song with Gray that had pulled them out of the garage band anonymity to give them a shot.
“I thought we were a family.” Jazz’s voice was like a lost little girl.
Deacon squeezed his eyes shut at the tears that dripped down her ivory cheeks.
Nick threw his bottle into the sink. The crash of glass hitting the ceramic sink made Jazz jump. “This is business. And with the way things have been lately, I wanted to make sure everyone was protected.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Deacon thundered.
Nick came around the island. “Less than six months ago, you were threatening to leave. You found another set of people to work with. Your loyalty definitely wasn’t with me.” Nick waved a finger between himself and Simon. “With us.”
“That set of people is in this room now. They’ve made us better than we ever were alone.” Deacon stalked across the room until he was toe-to-toe with Nick. “So you went to Trident—went to fucking Miller alone and added this shit?”
“No, he came to us. He asked us—me and Simon—for the meeting. But that doesn’t matter. It’s smart. We haven’t even been a band for a year yet.” Nick opened his arms wide, looking up at him with a white hot anger lighting his eyes. “We don’t know if this is going to work out. And the majority of the songs were written between me and Simon.”
“What’s the big deal? This is just for the first album.” Simon came forward, grabbing at Deacon’s arm.
“The big deal is you didn’t come to us about it,” Jazz said, diving into the three of them. She pushed into the middle, a hand on Deacon’s chest and one on Nick’s, but her focus was on Nick. “The big deal is that they’re trying to rip us off and you were in on it!”
Simon held up his hands. “That’s not what this is about.”
Deacon pushed forward again. “It’s not? Really, tell me what the genius scheme was. Better yet, tell me when this all went down.”
“It was the morning after Snake came to the show.”
Deacon speared his fingers into his hair. “I knew it. I knew it was too fucking early for you guys to be up.” He pushed the stool out of the way. It bounced into the tile and rolled until it hit the carpeted lip of the living room.
With everything they’d finally put behind them, one moment with Snake, and they were back to the beginning. He tugged the roots of his hair until the pain cleared his head.
“So you took it upon yourselves to fuck us over in the contract? Even though we’ve worked hard on all of these songs and made them ours. You talk about loyalty, but where the fuck is yours?” Deacon spun to Simon. “And yours? You thought this was okay? Nick, I can almost understand, but you, Simon?”
Simon wouldn’t meet his eyes. He stared off to the side, out the doors to the patio.
Deacon shook his head. “You greedy, fucking bastards.”
The fist came out of nowhere and landed perfectly along his jaw and cheek. Deacon’s head snapped back and he tasted blood. All the rage and hurt exploded out of him. He hauled Nick up by the shirt front and plowed him through t
he kitchen and into the fridge.
With a forearm to his windpipe, he lifted Nick onto his toes. “You do not want to dance with me today, Nick.” He slammed him into the stainless steel front. He saw the flare of pain and longed to give Nick more. He ground Nick’s shoulder blades into the handles. “You fucking got played by the label.”
“Let go.” Nick’s voice was dark and low.
Deacon might have him on pure muscle, but Nick was rattlesnake mean when it came to fighting. He jammed him into the fridge one more time then let him down. “You heard that recording. It’s not just about your percentages. They’ll rip us to shreds with that contract. If we don’t get signed to another album, they keep ‘The Becoming’.”
“We didn’t know about that,” Simon said.
Deacon turned to him. “Shocking revelation. They lied to you. Jackson Miller has Gordo in his pocket. All he had to do was look for one weakness. One report from that fucking weasel and then what? He asked you guys to come to the office just to talk? Just to catch up?”
Simon scrubbed his hands over his face. “He wanted to discuss opportunities,” he said with a sigh.
“Right.” Deacon gave a humorous laugh. “Opportunities.”
Jazz came to stand by Deacon. “And you didn’t care about us? You didn’t care that Gray and I took a chance on you.”
“We took the chance on you, sweetheart,” Nick said as he massaged his neck.
Jazz whirled on him. “We just spent six weeks together on a bus, on writing new songs.” She turned to Simon. “On a million different interviews, and you think I don’t deserve an even stake in this band!”
Her voice rose and an angry red slashed her cheeks. She balled her fists at her sides and those freaking tears were back. But they were angry ones this time. She dashed them away and widened her feet.
“You’re still an unknown, Jazz.” Nick’s voice was quiet this time. He turned his attention to Gray. “Aren’t you going to say anything, Ghost?”
Gray lifted a shoulder. “I just want to play.”
Jazz turned around. “The song, Gray. They’ll take your song.”
Rocked Page 39
