HERO (The Complete Series)

by Bella Love-Wins

  My mind continued to replay what happened the night before. I held on to a vivid image of her straddling me on the chair in my dressing room. The way she had felt on top of me, grinding up against my stiff cock. Her lips on mine, her hair falling around her face, the silky feel of her stocking-clad thighs under that skintight dress. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, well aware of my aroused cock straining against the fabric of my athletic shorts. Staying out on the deck was not going to work. I stood up, threw my shirt back on, and headed inside.

  Kevin was in the living room waiting for me. “Don’t forget we start in two hours, Johnny.”

  “Start what?”

  “This is one of the reasons I’m on you all the time, you know that? We talked about this a few times. My assistant put together those alerts for your phone, and event prints out your schedule so you know what’s coming.”

  “Lay off me, Kevin. Just tell me what’s on for today.”

  He let out a long breath. “We’ll be in town a couple of days before the next event. Terry and his sound crew, and your band members are coming by to record a few songs with you. They’ll be here for part of today, and tomorrow we’ll all head down to use the label’s studio.”

  I wanted to argue. After all the chaos and travel, my body deserved a good old-fashioned day off. But he was right. He had mentioned it a few times. At least today would not be as big a hassle as driving through town to use one of the label’s studios. This was why we had gone ahead and invested in building a state-of-the-art studio in my basement two years ago.

  “Great,” I answered. “Yes I remember now.”

  He shook his head. “Anyway, you need to start thinking ahead, to your next album. If we’re lucky, we can get some things lined up early, and get you performing one of them at the Disk Spinner Awards. You do remember that’s in two days, right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Everyone will be here in about two hours,” Kevin concluded, and left the kitchen.

  I went back up to my room to get ready. I showered and dressed, and packed up my lucky guitar. It was still in its case from the concert last night. It was a well-worn acoustic guitar, and lucky because my parents had given it to me as a Christmas gift the year before they were killed. I traveled to every show with it, and used it whenever I was recording a new song for the first time.

  I opened the case and looked down at it, letting the familiarity sink in. There was a pocket inside the top of the case. That’s where I kept the small notebook with my song ideas. Over the last few months, I had been writing new lyrics whenever they came to me. Some of it was really good, and although Kevin rarely let me have full creative license, I was used to having some concepts on hand to help the songwriters’ work feel more like my own.

  In the past, whenever I had brought up taking over the songwriting, Kevin would tell me that as soon as I was a megastar, I could get away with experimenting and playing my own stuff. In his mind, we were close. Until then, there was a formula—his formula—that had to be followed if I was ever going to climb what he saw as the final rung to musical greatness. The way I saw it, complete creative independence was the imminent next step, whether Kevin agreed or not.

  I spent the rest of the time strumming some chords and writing down a few lyrics that inspired me. After a while, I closed the guitar case and slung it over my back. I left the room this time to head downstairs, and halfway down the hall, a strange question hit me. How long would Amanda make me wait?

  Chapter 5 - Amanda

  Kevin poked his head out of the main room of the recording studio in the basement. A small army of band members, producers, directors, sound engineers and a songwriter had been in there for hours, dropping tracks for Johnny’s next album. I was asked to stay close for his protection. Fred and Larry were upstairs. I was stationed in the small waiting area since early afternoon, when not running errands that would be more fitting for Kevin’s personal assistant. She had the flu or some other ailment, and had not pre-ordered any catered food. Fulfilling the coffee and food requests fell to me somehow.

  If I was not sitting in the leather couch, I was flipping through old rock magazines, or accompanying Johnny’s driver to get coffee runs in the valley. It was now past dinner-hour, so I could just guess what he wanted.

  “Rachel, would you mind going out with the driver to get us more coffees?” he asked.

  I nodded, still not used to switching between names, and heaved myself off the leather couch to collect their orders. I stepped into the room where the sound equipment was housed. Kevin was sitting at the enormous soundboard, elbow to elbow with their producer named Terry. The other staff in that outer room lounged in plush-looking chairs and monitored the screens in front of them. Johnny and his band were in the recording booth, visible on the other side of the sound-proof glass wall that divided the large room in half. He seemed so exhausted, and had a dull, dreary look in his eyes. I had only seen him a handful of times throughout the day, and had not gotten a chance to speak to him. Each time I did pop in the studio, though, he looked less energized. They had been recording a couple of pop-style rock songs about drinking and living it up. His demeanor didn’t correspond with the lyrics or the beats.

  Maybe it had to do with what did not happen last night in the dressing room, or when we got to his place. Whatever it was, I chose to let it be. Johnny was an adult. He would have to figure out how to keep things platonic—as would I. It was difficult for me too, having to put the brakes on last night, but it was for the best.

  “Three black coffees, two with milk, no sugar, four with two sugars, and one with one milk and a sweetener. And then two iced teas?” I repeated back what I had keyed into my phone, feeling like a barista again.

  I closed out my phone and left the room, but not before Kevin flashed what seemed like a triumphant smile at me. I had no idea what made him so happy all of a sudden. To everyone else, he probably appeared jovial and grateful for my assistance, but I felt there was more to it. Maybe after last night, Kevin was starting to realize I took the job seriously. For him, it would be the ideal outcome to keep Johnny focused on his career.

  I shook off the over-analysis and went upstairs to find Charles, the driver. He had been waiting out front, so we quickly left and descended the Hollywood Hills. Soon we were in front of the specialty coffee shop again. I went inside the now familiar space to make the order. The lineup was short, so I got to the cashier quickly. There was a different barista working the counter this time, and after I rattled off the order and paid with cash, she looked at me intently.

  “Can I ask you a question?” She finally said after handing me change.

  “Sure.”

  “Are you Johnny Q Venom’s girlfriend?”

  I should have prepared myself for this, but I did not believe people would recognize me this quickly. I was unsure what to say.

  “Sorry, I know I’m totally being rude,” she said. “We’re not supposed to single out celebrities who come in or anything, but I just got this, and I couldn’t help myself.” She bent under the counter and produced a paper copy of Guess Who tabloid magazine, turning it to face me. “This girl in the pictures from his concert last night…well she looks a lot like you.”

  ‘JQV’s Jealous New GF Takes Out Teenage Fan’ was the headline over a picture of me straddling the girl on the ground. It was clear the photo had been taken from someone’s camera phone. I flipped to the next page and gasped in utter horror at the picture plastered across the page. It was a picture of Johnny and me backstage at the concert. We were in his dressing room making out. It was an awkward angle and made my ass look huge with the dress halfway up to my waist. And Christ! The damned shapewear was peeking out underneath. The end result was beyond humiliating.

  “But how did they—” I caught myself and stared up at the girl. “Can I have this? I’ll bring it back.”

  She shrugged. I tucked the gossip rag into my purse and grabbed the trays of drinks off the end of the bar. I
tried to play it cool until I exited the shop, and half-raced over to the limo to get back to Johnny’s place. The driver could not get there fast enough. As embarrassing as those photos were, all I could think about was whether it was the stalker who planted the hidden camera, and how we could have missed it when we did the sweep of Johnny’s dressing room.

  Chapter 6 - Amanda

  When we finally made it back to the house, I carefully took the drinks inside and down to the waiting room. I put everything down, pulled out the magazine and burst into the studio room without knocking. Johnny was singing something in the booth. Everyone jolted and turned to me.

  “Rachel. What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.

  I held out the paper. “Look!”

  He took the magazine from my hand and opened to the page I had dog-eared. His face went from mellow to serious to mad as hell, and then his skin turned a deep red. He pulled me outside into the little waiting room.

  “You two are still fucking around? And at the concert? How the hell did someone get a camera in there?” he roared up at me.

  Before I could say anything, he turned to go back inside the studio. I followed him in to wait.

  “Do you want me to call Fred down here?” I asked.

  “No. I’ll wait for Johnny to finish and we can all go up.”

  Some of the sound guys filed out of the room to find their beverages. The second Johnny stopped the verse he had been practicing, Kevin pressed a button on the soundboard to get his attention. “Johnny! Get out here. Now.”

  It was too late by the time I figured out my misstep. I had been worried about the possibility it was the stalker’s doing, and about the breach in security that could lead to such an invasion of privacy. I did not stop to consider Kevin would be more concerned that we were making out in the second picture.

  Johnny entered the room and I braced for Kevin’s onslaught.

  “Do you see this?” Kevin asked, waving the open magazine in his face.

  “What the—?” He tore the pages out of Kevin’s hands. “There was a camera in my dressing room?”

  I looked up at him and nodded. “It looks that way. I’m so sorry, Johnny, we must have missed it when we swept the room. I take full responsibility.”

  “But it wasn’t you,” Johnny said. “Fred and his team were the ones who checked the room. You were rehearsing.”

  He was right. I breathed a—slight—sigh of relief, but was more concerned about how it happened. I glanced back at Kevin. “We need to talk to Fred. This could have been paparazzi, but I’m more worried it might be the stalker.”

  “We’ll get up there soon enough. In the meantime, would you two care to explain yourselves to me? Rachel, need I remind you again? You’re …not a stripper.”

  Johnny glanced over at the other men in the room, the sound guys, the producer and his assistants. Kevin didn’t seem to care who heard.

  “Kevin, you’re out of line—” Johnny started, but Kevin cut him off before he could finish.

  “Let’s get upstairs so Fred can tell us how the hell this happened,” he said, charging past me to go upstairs.

  I grabbed Johnny’s arm and pulled him to the side before he could go off on Kevin. I could see rage in his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “He has a right to be upset.”

  Johnny whipped around, looking back at the door Kevin took. “Maybe, but he does not get to talk to you that way anymore.” After Kevin was gone, we stepped out into the waiting area and sat for a while so he could cool down. “I don’t know why I’ve put up with him for this long.”

  “He’s family.”

  “Trust me. That’s been the only reason. But there’s only so much a guy can take.” I nodded and listened. After a long pause, he continued. “He and Lady are the only family I’ve got. I think I mentioned they adopted me when my parents were murdered. They’ve been loyal, and had my back all this time, but Kevin has gone over the edge lately.”

  Murdered. The word sent a chill over me. Back when I had initially researched Johnny, his bio had only noted they were deceased, but had left no indication they were killed.

  He continued. “I don’t have any siblings. I have aunts, uncles and cousins on both my parents’ sides, but they aren’t like family. They were never in my life before my parents passed. Of course, they conveniently found me when my name got out there, sniffing around for money. No one has ever been there like Lady and Kevin. So yeah, he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s all I have right now.”

  He stopped for a moment and stared at me. I held my breath, awaiting his next words. I felt for him. He looked to be in such pain, from the look in his eyes.

  I put an arm over his shoulder. “You’ve got friends, right?”

  “A few. This can be a lonely business, Amanda.”

  “Well, you have me…you’ve become someone I feel I can trust. You’ve had my back for this gig, too. There’s no way I’d still be here if you weren’t rooting for me.”

  He pulled back to look at me. “Thanks. That means a lot, Amanda. I feel the same way.”

  “Good,” I replied smiling at him. After a pause, I told him, “He means well, you know. He just wants the best for you.”

  “I know he does, but he needs to get it through his thick skull that he can’t speak to you that way.”

  “Good luck with that… Anyway, come on. Let’s go talk to Fred.”

  Fred was sitting with Larry and Kevin in the spare office when we got upstairs. They had my copy of the magazine on the table, and had already begun to look into how it happened and how to uncover who was behind it.

  “I put a call in to the security manager at the concert hall,” Larry told us. “They found the camera that was planted in the room. The fact that it was still there suggests the person was not able to regain access to the room after they planted it.”

  “One of the site staff is taking it to Jenny and Lucas for analysis,” Fred informed us. “And to be clear, we don’t believe this was the work of our stalker.”

  Kevin’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How could you possibly know that so quickly?”

  “The stalker replied to a post while the concert took place. Lucas got a lock on the IP address this time. Up to now, the unsub has been using a cloaked IP that pinged off satellites all over the world. That made it impossible for us to track in real time. She’s definitely getting sloppy. The message she posted during the concert was added from an IP in New York. She was on the other side of the country when this happened.”

  “Then, who did this?” I asked. “I mean—why? Why would someone go this far?”

  Kevin seemed relieved. “He’s famous. The paps would do it in a heartbeat if they could get away with it.” He held up the magazine. “Gossip rags like Guess Who, and the infinite number of online celebrity blogs would all pay through the nose for stuff like this. When the paparazzi gets a so-called ‘money shot’ on someone like Johnny, they’re looking at quite a payday. Nude photos of celebrities sell for even more. This brings me to you, Fred. How could your guys let it happen?”

  “I don’t know how we missed it. My best guess is they snuck it in after the sweep was completed. They could have put one of the event staff up to it.”

  My stomach turned at the thought. Someone had planted a camera just to get a shot of Johnny in some state of undress, with intentions of selling it on the digital black market. Still, my revolt quickly morphed into relief—it could have been a lot worse if Johnny and I had taken it further. They could have potentially gotten a ‘money shot’ of both of us.

  “Dammit!” Johnny said. I could only guess he had the same thought.

  “The good news is these types of cameras use wireless to send images and footage back to whoever planted it. They may have had a problem trying to regain access to the room to remove it, which is good for us. It means the shots were all transmitted wirelessly, and with that footprint, we have a good shot at finding whoever did this.”

  Somehow, bringi
ng the scum to justice did not take away my feeling of violation.

  “So what does this mean for the stalker?” I asked. “Will it infuriate her, or accelerate her plans in any way?”

  “Possibly. We’ll keep monitoring the IP we found during her slipup, and see where it leads us.”

  “I need a moment,” Johnny announced and got up from the table. He took the hallway closest to us and climbed the stairs, probably to his room. I didn’t blame him.

  Chapter 7 - Johnny

  I desperately wanted to stretch my hand out for Amanda to come with me when I left the spare office. I should not have made a move on her in the dressing room. I should have expected someone would pull a stunt like that. Amanda did not seem too upset, but I was angry.

  After about an hour, I went downstairs to look for her. Kevin was gone. Fred and Larry were still in their office. Amanda was not anywhere on the main floor. I went down to the recording studio. The sound guys were still in there with the band. They used the time well while I was upstairs, working out some of the instrumental pieces. Amanda was not down there either, though. I climbed up the back steps and went right up to the second floor. Her door was closed.

  I knocked, and she opened her door almost immediately. I couldn’t help but stare at her body. She had changed into tiny running shorts and a black sports bra. Her flat, toned stomach was on full display. It took some effort to stop myself from pushing her against the wall and kissing her until she was breathless. All I could think of was that kiss, then picking her up and carrying her to my bed.

  “Do you need something, Johnny?”

  I snapped back to reality, setting aside the salacious thought.

  “Can we talk?” I asked.

  “I’m going for a run in your gym downstairs. Is it urgent?”