Rockstars, Babies & Happily Ever Afters

by Cari Quinn

  “You don’t even know she wants to play in a band.”

  “No.” They’d never discussed it, but he’d glimpsed the longing in her eyes when she talked about Oblivion. And when she touched a guitar, her reverence was clear in every strum of her fingers.

  “But she’s your sister. Your twin.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’ll want to do it. I just want her to have the opportunity if she decides to take it.”

  “If she’s a fit for Warning Sign. A lot of ifs there.”

  “Yeah, there are. But she’s never had a chance to be in the spotlight, and she deserves it.” He closed his eyes and tried to smile. “Hell, maybe she’ll even like it there, unlike me.”

  “Yet you’re willing to get on another stage with another band, just to give her the option.” Lila gripped one of his hands in both of hers and brought it to her mouth. “And I’m supposed to not be in love with you? Tell me how.”

  “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you, thanks.” He curled his arms around her and rested his chin on her hair. “Thank you for today. For coming here to find me, for calling Simon, for sitting with my sister.”

  “What happened with Simon?”

  “We talked. A little. He said some encouraging things, I guess. Fuck.” Blowing out a breath, he jerked his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but he showed. And that means something.”

  “You’re giving him time and space. He’ll come back around.”

  Another shrug. He didn’t know if Simon would or not. Even if he did, Nick didn’t know if things would ever be the same as they’d once been. Between him and Simon, or with Oblivion.

  But that was for tomorrow. All of it was.

  “Any of those things you did would be above and beyond the call, but all three together…” He gestured behind him at the wall. “You get that.”

  She pressed her lips together and slipped out of his arms to return to the bed. She crawled across it and traced the words he’d carved into the wall. “You need to give me one of these.”

  He kneeled beside her. “One of what?”

  “Whatever you used to carve in the words.”

  Heart beating way too fast, he leaned over the bed and felt around on the floor until the corkscrew he’d used jabbed him in the palm. He handed it over and watched her curse her way through printing her own declaration.

  When she’d finished, she flipped the corkscrew into his hand. He caught it one-handed, still riveted by what she’d written just below his message.

  Nick Crandall loves Lila Ronson. Forever.

  Lila Ronson loves Nick Crandall. Forever.

  “Now that that’s out of the way…” She gave him a light push and he fell back on the bed. Hiking up her skirt, she crawled over him and yanked down his zipper. “You owe me a fuck.”

  He glanced up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but thank you. Thank you,” he repeated fervently as she laughed.

  Then he rolled her over onto her back and paid what he owed.

  With interest.

  If you missed the origin story of Nick and Lila’s please read Shattered and Fused—in our LOST IN OBLIVION series. Please visit RockerReads.com for more details.

  Malachi and Elle: First Rhythm

  A Found in Oblivion Extra

  Did you ever want to know how Malachi and Elle first met?

  Around three years ago

  In the darkness, all the women looked the same.

  Wavy hair, big eyes made up with too much eyeliner and shadow, slinky dresses intended to reveal more than conceal. Pouty lips that begged for something, whether it was alcohol, or pills, or a cock.

  Another night, another party. He’d been to so many of them that they blurred. But not here, not this area. His own playground was farther north, away from the glitz of LA and the seedy underbelly that crept in around the edges of Carson. This was a different dynamic altogether. The danger was hidden under booming music and fake smiles. And the weapons of choice were the kind that you armed yourself, intended for your own destruction.

  He moved to the closest corner and slouched against the wall as he scanned the crowd. His expression made it clear he wasn’t looking for conversation—or more. But only an idiot would turn his back on these people.

  Without looking at his phone, he hit the speed dial he’d set up just yesterday when she’d first called him. It wasn’t as if they were close. In fact, it had been a long time since he’d spoken with Lila Shawcross—now Ronson, since she’d recently shed herself of her marital entanglements to his father. Then she’d broken that lovely streak by calling him out of the blue, and not for a social call. That was one of the things he’d always disliked most about her. She was always searching for angles, always on the hunt to play the game.

  He didn’t fucking play. Money meant little to him, and fame and attention even less.

  But there were always other ways to barter. Other kinds of currency to trade.

  Lila was a button-pusher from way back, and she’d known what screws to turn with him before she even picked up the phone.

  “I’m here,” he said without preamble. “Now what?”

  “You know what. I laid it all out for you yesterday. Richelle used to date Vinnie Santorini, the guy who owns that building. My sources say he remains her main supplier.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I want you to scare him into dumping her. He’s in deep, and she needs to make a clean break.”

  “And I give a fuck why? If she needs to make a clean break, that’s on her. I have my own shit to handle.”

  “Yes, you do, and I promised to help you make that problem go away. Cassalia’s parents want to sue you for negligence and civil responsibility in her death, Malachi. If you keep hiding your head in the sand, they’re going to go to the media and you’re going to be hit with a huge—”

  “Because I’m guilty,” he said flatly. “Of course I’m guilty.”

  “You were her fiancé.”

  “We broke up. She wouldn’t quit that shit, so I ended things.” He lowered his voice when the guy in front of him shot a glance over his shoulder, his joint hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

  There was no need to advertise his business here, even if half these people were too stoned to remember it tomorrow.

  “Still, she was a small-town girl before she met you,” Lila went on. “Your lifestyle helped introduce her to the drugs that ended her life. You were the one who broke her heart and sent her into a spiral.”

  “What about my goddamn spiral? Does that matter? Christ.” He stabbed his fingers into his eyes, the questions and comments he’d received over the last few weeks after every freaking race pelting his skull.

  It must be difficult, losing the woman you love in such a public way.

  Had Cassalia always been suicidal? Was she dealing with depression, or was it your breakup that sent her over the edge?

  And his favorite:

  How can you continue to race after such a heartbreaking event?

  How could he was a good question. And it was why he’d stopped doing the legit races that ended with questions and flashbulbs popping and turned to the underground ones where no one gave a crap why he did anything and just cared if he made them money. They were dirty, and dangerous, and just this side of legal.

  He couldn’t have cared less, if it meant he got to do what he loved outside the glare of the goddamn public eye.

  Now more conditions were being put upon that love. More threats levied his way couched under concern.

  “There’s all kinds of ways to balance scales, Mal,” Lila said softly, and for a second, he thought he heard genuine compassion in her tone. Then she cleared her throat and her voice hardened. “Since you’re there now, that must mean you agree to my terms.”

  He said nothing. Just gripped his phone and wished he’d never picked it up yesterday. He might not be any further ahead, but he wouldn’t be in this frigging un
tenable position of playing nurse-slash-bodyguard-slash-protector for a woman he didn’t even know.

  Didn’t want to know, if she was a fucking user like Cassalia had been.

  “If you convince Vinnie that it’s in his best interest not to sell to Richelle anymore, certain stipulations of our agreement will come into play. If you bump it up a notch and join Warning Sign as well, your garage will be funded, your issues with the Franklins will go away, and the story will be buried, deep enough that you’ll probably never hear the words Cassalia Franklin spoken aloud in your presence ever again.”

  Mal cupped the back of his neck and squeezed. The pressure reminded him that this was a means to an end. The garage would be back in the black. His men wouldn’t have to worry about their jobs—not that he ever would’ve let it get that bad, even if he had to break his own moral code. Again.

  Amazing how flexible that damn thing could be when you were desperate enough.

  And he was.

  He was fucking desperate to make all of this go away. To stop looking back at the waste before he drowned in it.

  “This Richelle, why does she matter so much to you?” he asked, his voice close to a growl.

  His ex-stepmother didn’t step out the door without a payday waiting on the other side, usually in the form of an artist she could mold for the benefit of her bank account. So there must be a damn good reason she was sullying herself with concerns about some druggie chick.

  Just another one in a sea of them. Faceless, nameless, unrecognizable.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it fucking damn well matters. You’re asking me to walk into a goddamn nest of drug dealers and who knows what else, and you won’t even tell me why. Who is this girl to you, Lila? Some new commodity that went off the rails? Some investment that went bad?”

  Her pause was so lengthy that Mal cursed, about to end the call.

  “She’s the twin sister of the man I love. The only family he has left in this world. She’s everything to him. Okay?”

  Mal narrowed his eyes, squinting into the smoky, shifting near darkness, lit only by the flickering Christmas lights strung along the eaves. The room throbbed with the bass from the music, something he’d never heard but would never forget.

  He wanted to argue. So what? What the fuck does the man you love matter to me? Lila wasn’t married to his dad anymore, and he wouldn’t have felt more kindly toward her had she been. To his way of thinking, anyone who married his fuckwit of a father deserved whatever shit flowed their way.

  But somehow her impassioned response stilled his tongue. He didn’t know why. He didn’t believe in love any more than he believed in anything else.

  But Christ, he was jealous as fuck that she still did. That she could.

  “Third floor,” he said flatly, repeating the info she’d given him during their last phone call. “That’s his apartment.”

  Lila let out a long breath. She’d been holding it, he realized, waiting for him to say no. Expecting him to.

  Because Malachi Shawcross never did a damn thing for anyone unless there was something in it for himself. Just like good ol’ Dad.

  “Yes,” Lila said. “Vinnie lives upstairs with his brother Don.”

  Mal was already on the move, pushing his way through the dancing, laughing crowd and scanning the endless faces in the darkness. Lila had said yesterday that Vinnie and Richelle sometimes came down to the parties on the first floor when they weren’t “holed up.”

  Lila had refused to elaborate on exactly what that meant.

  “Family affair,” he said into the phone as he stalked through the writhing mass of people. His head was already a little buzzy from the scent of weed floating through the air. Just what he needed—a contact high.

  Luckily, it took a hell of a lot more than their low-grade shit to get him lit.

  “Yes. Though the woman they work with isn’t family. She doesn’t have any, from what I could find. Former foster child. She had previous dealings with someone else who is important to me.”

  Mal didn’t know why Lila was playing share-and-tell hour, but that wasn’t unusual with her. She’d fill his head with useless crap so that he’d miss the salient points buried beneath her bullshit.

  He wasn’t falling for it this time.

  A woman toting beer in plastic red cups held high over her head bumped his shoulder and giggled as the liquid sloshed over his arm. “Oops, sorry.” She stared at his chest then apparently realized his head was a few feet up. Tilting her own back, she frowned. “You’re a big one.”

  “You don’t know the half.” He wiped off his wet arm and smeared it on her jacket sleeve, making her giggle again.

  She was still laughing when he moved past her. Damn stoners.

  “She’s not here,” Mal told Lila a few minutes later after making a full sweep of the first level. “Unless she doesn’t look like that picture you sent me. Was that recent?”

  Blond hair, blue eyes, sweet smile. She looked more like a preschool teacher than a fairly hardcore user. Hardcore in frequency if not in selection, though as soon as someone messed with blow, he figured they were headed nowhere good. But his ex-stepmommy had been adamant that Richelle could be “saved.”

  Sure, she could. Just like the rest of them could be too.

  “Yes, just a few weeks ago. She changes her hair color now and then. Sometimes she’s brunette too. Hang on.”

  He swallowed another curse as bubbles showed up on his screen, indicating another message was being sent. A moment later, he was staring at the same preschool teacher lookalike, except now she was vamped up. Hair so dark it was the richest color of oak, wet red lips, and still, those same innocent blue eyes. But they had a hint of something else in them now. Mischief. Seduction.

  A sort of knowing that seared him right to the marrow.

  “Got it,” he told Lila, making his way to the door to the central front hallway where you could choose which apartment to visit. “I’m headed up. I’ll get back to you.”

  He was about to click off when her words cut through the din around him. “Mal, be careful.”

  Saying nothing, he waited.

  “She’s…fragile,” Lila said. “Women like her tend to bring out the desire to protect.”

  Mal barked out a laugh. “What, you think I’ll fall under her spell or something?” He braced a fist on the inside door and shoved it open, stepping into the only somewhat quieter hall. A narrow stairway to his right led upstairs. “Not gonna happen.”

  “Not you.” Lila dismissed the possibility so succinctly that he imagined he could see her waving her pale hand in his face. “The man she’s with. He might not want to let her go so easily.”

  “So I’m to fight to the death, is that it? I’m supposed to save someone who has two working legs and probably doesn’t want to be fucking saved?”

  Just as Cassalia hadn’t wanted to be saved. Oh, she’d talked a good game. One he’d even believed for a while. But she’d loved her addiction a hell of a lot more than she’d ever cared for him.

  She’d proved that in the end.

  “Be smart. And watch your back.” Lila clicked off before he could respond with a sarcastic remark. Probably why she’d hung up so fast.

  They’d danced the same steps more than a few times, which was exactly why he didn’t know why she’d called him. No matter her reasons—that he operated in the same sort of circles and had the muscle to take care of business—she was trusting him with something very important to her. Someone very important.

  He climbed the first step and gripped the banister when the stair sagged under his weight. Awesome. He chanced the next one, and the next, finally releasing the rail to bound up the stairs two at a time. Then he did the same on the next flight, stopping at the top to stare at the single door at the end of a dank hallway. The carpet was peeling up, revealing the stained floor beneath. Water spots—some small and some not—dotted the ceiling.

  Welcome to the jungle.


  The closer he walked to the lone door, the louder the music became. It was different than the kind downstairs. This was club music, the kind meant to screw with your mind as much as the cutesy mixed drinks served by the gallon. But there wouldn’t be any of those drinks up on this level, he was sure. The party atmosphere downstairs hadn’t reached this far.

  This was all business.

  Mal stopped outside the door and pulled at the brim of the ridiculous baseball cap he’d pulled on over his shaggy hair. He was going to shave that shit off one of these days. He’d alternated between shaving his head and growing out his hair for a while now, but the time had come to make a choice.

  This was another of those choices. Tonight, he was finally going to leave the past behind him.

  He shifted so that he could feel the reassuring weight of the gun tucked against his back. He didn’t intend to use it, but he knew how if he needed to. Walking into a situation like this unarmed could be a death sentence. He was a lot of things, but stupid enough to take that chance wasn’t one of them.

  Just as he lifted his hand to rap on the wood, the door swung inward. A tall, leanly muscular guy in jeans and a Raiders jersey cocked his head, his shrewd eyes narrowing on Mal. “You must be Sampson.” He glanced at his watch. “You’re late. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Considering the story Mal had concocted thoroughly sucked—that he’d heard from a friend of a friend that Vinnie was the guy to see for some primo dope—he’d have to run with this one and see where it took him.

  “Sorry.” Mal gave a noncommittal shrug. “Ran into some trouble.”

  “Some trouble getting the money? I told you I don’t do no holds on merchandise.” He glanced over his shoulder and said something in Italian to the guy behind him, then looked back at Mal with a smirk. “Even if that merch is hot little blonds.”

  Mal’s fingers twitched and it took everything he possessed not to plow his fist into this guy’s cocky face. But he had another problem now. He’d brought enough money for a run-of-the-mill transaction. He hadn’t brought enough cash to fucking buy Richelle—whatever that might cost. Unless this fuck was “selling” her cheap.