The Rocker Who Shatters Me

by Terri Anne Browning

  I forced my gaze not to linger on him so I turned my attention to my stepson. If you saw Harris right then with her you probably would have thought she belonged to him. Trinity looked more like Devlin and Harris than she did me, but even now there was no mistaking whose eyes she was going to end up with. The blue-gray depths of my daughter’s eyes were possibly the only thing she would ever inherit from me when it came to looks.

  “What’s wrong?” Devlin asked, looking concerned when he noticed I hadn’t rung the doorbell yet. “Are you okay? We don’t have to stay if you aren’t up to it.”

  I shook my head as I blinked back the tears that were trying to spill from my eyes. “No. I’m fine. Just taking a moment to savor how perfect this Christmas already is.”

  “Ah, baby.” Devlin bent and brushed his lips across mine. “I love you, Nat.”

  “I love her too, but do you think we could move this precious little scene inside?” Harris asked. “It’s cold and Trinity should be inside where it’s warm.”

  “You’re a good brother, Harris,” I told him, pulling him against me and his father so that we were standing in a group hug. “I love you, buddy.” I kissed his cheek. “This is going to be the best Christmas ever.”

  PLAYLIST

  “I Did With You”—Lady Antebellum

  “Top of the World”—Anthem Lights

  “I Wont See You Tonight, Pt. 1”—Avenged Sevenfold

  “Goodbye Agony”—Black Veil Brides

  “Human”—Christina Perri

  “Battleships”—Daughtry

  “Alone Together”—Fall Out Boys

  “Hands On You”—Florida Georgia Line

  “Unkiss Me”—Maroon 5

  “Only You’re the One”—Lifehouse

  “A Thousand Years”—Matt McAndrew (The Voice Performance)

  “Jealous”—Nick Jonas

  “Stay”—Safety Suit

  “Big Girls Cry”—Sia

  “Na Na”—Tray Songz

  “Broken”—Lifehouse

  “Make You Miss Me”—Sam Hunt

  And now, enjoy this sneak peek into the next The Rocker… Series Book

  THE ROCKER WHO HATES ME

  Emmie

  The headset attached to my ear was quiet. At least I could be grateful for that tonight. Especially when everything else was going all to hell tonight.

  I’ve had to deal with all kinds of delays to concerts before in the years that I’ve dealt with Demon’s Wings. Technical issues. Drunken rockers. Fans trying to swarm the stage. The weather.

  Tonight’s delay was not as easy to deal with. At least not for me, and especially not for the rocker who was trying to soothe the five-year-old currently throwing a tantrum. I bit the inside of my cheek as I watched my daughter cling to her father’s leg and glare up at me like I was the worst mother on the planet.

  “B-but I w-wa-ant to watch Daddy s-s-sing tonight, M-momma!” Mia sobbed. “You’re s-so m-mean.” Her big green eyes were full of angry tears and I had to take a few deep breaths before I said something I knew I would regret.

  I rubbed a hand over my forehead, trying to keep my tension headache at bay long enough to deal with my child and get her father out on stage so that he could finish tonight’s damn concert. “Mia, you know that you can’t go out there. It’s already past your bedtime and if you stay up any later you’re going to be grumpy all day tomorrow and won’t be able to watch Daddy sing then.”

  Tomorrow, when we would be at a different venue and not the freaking festival we were closing for tonight. I didn’t want Mia to leave the bus tonight because there were thirty other bands and over a hundred thousand fans roaming around everywhere.

  “I don’t care!” Mia screamed, releasing Nik’s leg, and stomping her feet. “I want to see it tonight. He’s my daddy and I want to see him singing my special song. It’s not fair that everybody else gets to and not me.”

  “Nik…” I looked at him for help with this, but he was such a sucker for Mia that I knew it was no use. He was going to make me the only bad guy tonight.

  It wasn’t often that Mia threw tantrums like this. Only when she was tired and being particularly stubborn did she start stomping feet and making demands about what she wanted. Normally she was a calm kid and rarely gave me trouble. Which made times like this even worse because I wasn’t expecting it. Maybe if she would just give me a heads up I could deal a little better.

  Just something simple like “Oh, by the way, Momma, I plan on being a little terror tonight right before Daddy goes on stage. Maybe you should have Uncle Axton do a few extra songs so that the fans won’t want to throw things at the stage because the show has been delayed by half an hour.”

  I fucking wished it were that easy.

  Nik lifted our still-sobbing daughter into his arms. Her little legs wrapped around his chest and her arms went around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder and cried like I’d just told her there was no such thing as Santa or the Easter Bunny. Those broken sounds were like daggers to my heart and I had to fight tears of my own as I watched Nik try to soothe her.

  “How about I tuck you in, baby doll?” Nik murmured. “I’ll sing you your special song and wait until you fall asleep before I go out. Okay?”

  Mia didn’t answer, but her sobs turned into little hiccups as her father carried her down the hall to her roost. He shut the door behind him and I dropped down onto the edge of the couch. With a tired sigh I scrubbed my hands over my face.

  “That was intense.”

  I lifted my head to glance at the woman who had become my lifeline ever since Jagger had been born. Felicity was not only my children’s nanny, but she had also become one of my closest friends. Especially after what she had done, not only for me, but Lucy as well.

  When I’d hired her I’d hoped that she would make my day-to-day life easier to manage, and she had. But she’d also done something for me that I never would have asked of anyone, yet I’d been so sincerely thankful for it. The day she’d walked into my office and told me that I never had to fear Vince Grady again, I’d been blown over…

  Which made keeping the fact that Jet Hannigan was looking for her a secret that much harder. It was selfish of me to not tell her but I didn’t want to worry her or send her running. I expected the biker to arrive any day now, and had actually been expecting it for weeks. This close to upstate California, however, and I knew that I was just going on borrowed time with Felicity.

  “Times like this I can’t help remembering what a bad mother is like and then comparing myself to her,” I told her honestly. “I hope to gods that Mia never finds out what kind of evil people there are in the world. And if she considers my wanting her to be safe ‘mean’, I can live with that.”

  Or so I kept trying to convince myself. It was hard to hear my firstborn tell me I was mean when all I wanted was to love her.

  Felicity moved out of the kitchenette where she’d been fixing herself a mug of tea and sat down beside me. “You’re a great mother, Emmie. Don’t ever doubt that. One day, when Mia has kids of her own, she will realize exactly how privileged she was to have had you as her mother.”

  “Thanks, Felicity. I hope you’re right.”

  “Any idea how much longer you guys might be?” The sound of Natalie in my ear had me standing.

  I touched the little button on the headset so that she could hear me. “Maybe twenty more minutes.”

  “Okay. Just checking,” Natalie assured me, sounding calm when I knew that she was probably already thinking of ways to distract the shitload of people waiting to see my husband and his band-brothers perform tonight.

  “Get Wroth out there and have him and Drake battle,” I told her, figuring that would be the best course of action and keep the fans happy for at least ten minutes. “If we’re any longer than twenty minutes, have Axton sing something new. It will piss Nik off but it’s all I have to offer right now.”

  Nik and Axton were best friends any other time except for
when they were on stage. Then it was World War Rocker mayhem as they tried to outdo each other. For Axton to take the stage and do a set in Nik’s place would be the ultimate slap in the face for my rocker. But I was all out of ideas for how to keep a hundred thousand fans happy while Nik dealt with more important things.

  “Yeah. Okay. I’ll get him to standby just in case.”

  Ten minutes later Nik came into the living room. His face was drawn and his eyes were bright. Clenching his jaw, he didn’t say a word to me as he left the bus. I sighed. Looked like I was the bad guy in more than one person’s eyes tonight. I knew that he wasn’t really mad at me, but at the situation. Didn’t mean it didn’t sting, though.

  “Enjoy the rest of the night,” Felicity told me with a smile. “I’m going to make an early night of it.”

  “Yeah, goodnight, girl,” I muttered as I followed after my unhappy husband.

  Outside the bus there was utter mayhem. There were roadies running around trying to get instruments and technical shit put away. With Demon’s Wings closing the festival down, the other bands were either watching the concert as fans or getting their stuff packed away so they could hit the road for their next gig.

  I weaved through crowds of people I knew, barely knew, and just plain didn’t want to know. When I reached the main stage where Drake and Wroth were still shredding like the rock gods they were, Nik was standing on the side of the stage. I touched his arm and he turned to face me.

  Some of the strain that had been on his face earlier eased and he pulled me against him, kissing me so deep that my toes started to curl in my sneakers. By the time he lifted his head, we were both breathing hard. I leaned my head against his chest, soothed by the sound of his pounding heart.

  “I love you,” he rasped by my ear and some of my bad mood lifted as I tried to push the whole Mia episode to the back of my mind.

  “I love you, too.” I held on tight to him and we just stood there listening to Drake and Wroth battling it out on their guitars for several more minutes.

  When Nik finally took the stage with his band-brothers, I stood there for a little longer and got lost in the sound of my husband’s voice. It never failed to make goose bumps rise on my arms. His voice had always affected me like that and it would most likely continue to for the rest of our lives.

  Halfway through the set, I started to feel kind of off. My heart started pounding and I knew that I was starting to have a panic attack. I rarely had them and I couldn’t understand why I would have one right then. An overwhelming feeling of anxiety flooded through me and I suddenly had the need to go back to the bus and check on my children.

  I’d barely taken more than a few steps in the direction of the buses when I heard Natalie’s voice in my ear. “Em, code red.”

  My heart stopped for a moment before I could figure out what code red meant. Fuck, I’d come up with the code system for me and Natalie to use at the beginning of this damn tour; before the new security staff that Seller had provided for us after the attack on Shane and Harper’s bus two months ago had come along. Why couldn’t I immediately remember what a code red meant?

  “Where?” I demanded, but I could already guess.

  “Shane’s bus,” Natalie confirmed and my gut twisted in a mixture of dread and rage. What the fuck was with people and messing with Shane and Harper lately? Why couldn’t they just deal with the fact that he’d married her and move on? “Harper is over at Lana and Drake’s bus with Peterson and T-Rex. Ranger must be with her because he’s not on the bus.”

  “So no one was hurt?” I was running now, trying to fight through my panic attack. Was this why I was feeling like this? It wouldn’t have surprised me if it was but I still couldn’t shake the need to go check on my kids.

  “No. But the place is a disaster.”

  I didn’t care about the condition of the bus. A bus could be fixed or I could even buy Shane a new one. The last time some lunatic had trashed his bus, however, there had nearly been a fatality. Ranger was still limping a little from his injuries.

  “Send someone over to check on Felicity and the kids,” I told my assistant. “I need to know that they are okay.”

  “I’ll go myself,” Natalie assured me.

  By the time I got to the bus, our security team was standing guard outside the door. Peterson was already inside, but there was no sign of Harper and T-Rex, the guy that Seller had provided as Harper’s second guard. I was glad that Harper wasn’t there to see the mess her temporary home had been reduced to.

  If I’d thought that the first time some psycho had done something like this was bad, it was nothing to the destruction that had been done this time. “Were they looking for something?”

  Peterson shook his head. “No. I don’t think that was it. There’s another note on the mirror…”

  Seeing his face, I rushed down the hall to the bathroom. The mirror was shattered but there was a message in red on the glass. It was written in red lipstick—thankfully not blood this time. One bitch down. One to go. You’re next you dirty slut.

  One down? It kept repeating in my brain as I thought back to the last message that this lunatic had left. Because there was no doubt in my mind now that it was definitely the same person. It had said You’re next bitches, but I hadn’t really thought about the plural of the word. I’d just assumed the person had been in such a rush that they hadn’t thought about the way they were spelling.

  Now I couldn’t help but think I’d been wrong and this crazy idiot was after not only Harper but someone else as well.

  Static suddenly filled my headset and a second later I heard Natalie’s voice. It was tension and tears. “Emmie!”

  My heart stopped. It literally stopped at the sound of her voice. I knew. The mother in me knew. My eyes were still on the “One down” part of the message when Natalie hit me in the chest with her next words. “Mia is gone. She’s gone, Emmie.”

  Mia

  I waited until I heard Felicity’s snores before I climbed out of bed. I’d let Daddy think that I was asleep after he’d sung my favorite song, the song that was mine and only mine.

  I didn’t care what Momma said. I was going to listen to my daddy sing to his fans tonight. It wasn’t fair that they got to hear my song without me. And besides, Daddy said that he sang much better when he knew that I was watching him.

  I tiptoed through our sleeping area and down the hall to the living room. My shoes were in the little box that Momma made me put them in when I came inside from playing with Luca and Lyric earlier. I put them on without tying them. I was still learning how to tie them and I was scared that Felicity would wake up and catch me.

  The lock on the door to our bus was tricky and it took me five tries before I could get it open. With a glance over my shoulder to make sure that Felicity hadn’t heard me, I jumped down from the last step on the bus and quietly shut the door behind me.

  Outside the bus, it was dark—a lot darker than I was used to all by myself. The lights on the poles in the parking lot where our bus was parked weren’t working and I shivered. I didn’t like the dark, but I wanted to see my Daddy and my uncles playing their music for everyone.

  Carefully, I ran past the other buses, trying to keep out of sight in case Momma or my aunts saw me sneaking out. I knew that if I got caught, I would be in trouble. Momma would probably make me stay in my room for a million years and I’d never get to play with my cousins or friends again.

  There were a lot of people. More than I’d seen before, ever. They were all lots taller than me, though, and they didn’t even pay any attention as I ran toward the stage where I could hear Daddy singing. It wasn’t my song, but I knew that he would sing it soon. He always sang it.

  Imagining the smile on Daddy’s face when he saw me standing beside the stage at the end of his show made me run a little faster. I loved it when Daddy smiled at me. It made me feel special and I knew that he loved me mostest when he smiled at me.

  When a hand grabbed my arm, I scre
amed, scared that it was Momma and she was going to be mad at me. But when I saw the hand holding my arm, I knew it wasn’t Momma. This woman had on gloves. Why did she have on gloves? Was she afraid to get dirty?

  Before I could raise my head and see who had grabbed me, the woman lifted me up and tossed me over her shoulder. I didn’t know what to do. This woman didn’t smell like anyone I knew. She wasn’t tall like Aunt Lana or Aunt Dallas. She didn’t breathe like Aunt Harper and she wasn’t short like Aunt Layla. She scared me and I didn’t like for her to touch me.

  I struggled against her, hoping she would drop me. “Let me go!” I screamed and hit my fists against her back. She grunted and tightened her hold on my legs but she didn’t let me go.

  “Let me go,” I screamed again and started to cry. “Let me go.” I wiggled and kicked my feet but the woman started running. I was so scared. When she reached the buses she stopped and put her hand over my mouth before she started running again. I tried to see her face, but she had a hood over her head, and all I saw was a funny mark on her chin.

  Her hand over my mouth made me feel like I couldn’t breathe right. I sucked in deep breaths through my nose and wiggled against the woman. Momma, I thought as the woman left the parking lot and ran onto the street outside the big stadium where my daddy was singing. I want my momma!

  “Mia?”

  My eyes opened wide when I heard my name. I was sure that I knew the woman who had yelled my name. The woman holding me stopped and glanced back over her shoulder for a second and then she started running even faster than before.

  I’d seen the person who had called to me. I did know her. I remembered her coming to my house once with my Uncle Axton and I’d seen her once at my friend Jordan’s house. He’d called her Aunt Gabs…

  The woman holding me suddenly fell and I landed under her. My face hurt from where it scraped over the broken street, but I squirmed free and tried to crawl away while the woman jumped to her feet so fast I was sure she was a ninja.

  “Mia?” Aunt Gabs was breathing hard as she reached for me and lifted me into her arms. I was crying so much that I didn’t see her face, but I felt safe with her holding me. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”