Dead Serious

by C. M. Stunich

  She pauses, looking at me with a tightness around her eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  The rest of the band falters and in the sudden silence, a voice breaks through the speaker system.

  “If you shoot him,” a woman begins, her voice heavy with an Australian accent. Only it's not Lola. It can't possibly be Lola. “Then I'll shoot your son. I swear to God I'll do it.”

  Heels clack across the floor, bright orange ones. At first I really think it is Lola, moving across the stage with a little boy's shirt clutched in her hand. But it's not. It's a woman with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, a small round face and pursed lips. This has to be Lola's sister, Poppet. Has to be.

  She pauses center stage, glancing over her shoulder at us, pressing the barrel of her gun into the side of the boy's head. My heart won't stop pounding, sending a rush of blood to my ears that makes it sound like I'm drowning, and maybe I am.

  That's Travis' son.

  That fucking kid right there, the one with the brown hair and the gentle face, the long arms, the thin fingers. Everything about him is like a mirror image of my dead friend when he was that age. Everything, down to the freckles on the back of his neck.

  Jesus Christ.

  The crowd goes completely and utterly silent.

  “I'm sorry, Stephen, but I love you too much. I won't let her take you from me.” Poppet lifts her chin defiantly as I uncurl my fingers from Naomi's waist and wonder how quick I can get up there. If I can sneak up on her, maybe I can knock the gun away from the kid? From Tyler.

  Poppet's wearing the wireless headset, giving her voice the power of a thousand screaming soldiers. It booms out the speakers and echoes around us, tearing my heart to pieces.

  America's voice is much softer, drifting up from down below, but it's audible.

  “You touch my son, and I'll make you wish you were dead.”

  “Stop!” Poppet screams, and I can only imagine what's going on down there. Where the fuck is Brayden Ryker? “I swear to God I'll do it.” She shoves the gun harder against Tyler's skull. His sobs are quiet, soft, like he's already been broken. No. No. I won't fucking let this happen. “Stephen is not the enemy here,” Poppet says, looking up, addressing the gathered crowd. “He's a victim.” She drags Tyler forward a few more steps.

  To my right, I see Cohen Rose and that green haired bitch from Ice and Glass at the edge of the curtains. With more guns. Fuck.

  If I'm going to do this, I have to move now.

  “Tell 'em what this is all about. How you got yourself knocked up by a little rocker boy that didn't want you, how he threatened to fight for custody of his son. Tell 'em what you did to that bloke with your car, America. Tell everybody. We all know you're a fucking murderer already. It's over for you, bitch.”

  My heart seriously stops right here, freezes up and breaks me down for a moment, paralyzing me.

  What? What? What the fuck?

  “And now, after raising this child as his own, you come to Stephen and you tell him the bloody truth and expect him to hand Tyler over? Go fuck yourself.”

  A gunshot explodes from down below and Poppet screams. If America just shot Stephen, what happens now? I start to move forward, to go for Tyler, but I'm too late. Naomi is already a few seconds ahead of me.

  Her body slams into Poppet's and the two of them fall to the floor, leaving Tyler unharmed and screaming in the center of the stage. I keep moving, aware that Cohen and that green haired bitch are coming this way. At this point though, all I give a shit about is Naomi. Hopefully, the other members of Amatory Riot can show some backbone and step up to the plate.

  Naomi and Poppet struggle for a moment before the gun goes off and Naomi jerks back like she's been hit. My heart nearly stops dead right there, I swear. I almost give up on fucking life. But Naomi doesn't stop moving, still fighting over the pistol as the crowd erupts into an animalistic fury. If we don't get this under control right now, people are going to die out there. Think a stampede only happens on the African plains? Dead wrong. This shit happens, and it's sad and it's horrible and it only serves to reflect the basest part of the human soul. I won't let that happen.

  I finally reach Naomi and Poppet, sliding to my knees and pulling back a fist, slamming it as hard as I can into Poppet's face. She drops her hold on the gun immediately, leaving Naomi with it clutched in her fingers. I swing again. And again. And again. Until blood coats my knuckles and Poppet stops struggling.

  When I look down at my knee, I see that I'm kneeling in a pool of red.

  My eyes snap up and find Naomi's face, but there's no expression there, nothing to judge how much pain she's in, how bad she's hurt.

  “Baby,” I whimper, trying to pull her to me. More gunshots explode from behind us, lighting up the stage like morbid fireworks.

  “I'm fine,” Naomi growls, pushing me away, holding a hand to her side. There's blood oozing between her fingers and staining her pale skin with ruby red. She nods with her chin, indicating that I should go. What she doesn't realize is that there's nothing more important in this world to me than her. “I'm not going anywhere, Turner. Just get the kid.”

  I glance over my shoulder and see Tyler screaming, hands over his ears. There's a body near his feet. My brain doesn't even register who it is. I won't. I can't.

  I look back at Naomi. She looks okay, she's even smiling at me. I'll get up, grab the kid and be right back here. Just a split second, that's it.

  One, single, second.

  My eyes water with unshed tears and as soon as Turner moves away, I let the blood bubble out of my lips. I'm breathing wetness right now. I'm drowning – just like Katie. It's poetic justice in a sense, isn't it? I'm going to die here. I can't think like that, can't even let myself go there. I have no idea what's going on around me, but it doesn't matter. There's chaos. In chaos, even I can find harmony.

  I look down, at America in her white suit, Stephen's body at her feet. She's searching the stage frantically, her eyes catching on Tyler to my left. You killed Hayden and Katie, maybe not indirectly, but you did. You killed Travis? I think about what Poppet said and in that light headed clarity that only comes with so much blood loss, I put some of the pieces of the puzzle together. It only makes sense that America was the one that killed Turner's friend. That she and not Stephen was the one ran him over with her car. I'm not saying Stephen's a saint – he's obviously at fault in all of this – but he's not alone.

  He's not the only one who needs justice.

  I'm going to die.

  Crap.

  “Naomi!” Turner's screaming my name. I turn my head just in time to see Brayden Ryker with a gun pointed at my skull.

  I have seconds. Literally seconds. I have to decide now.

  I lift my gun up, take aim at America and shoot.

  To my right, Brayden pulls the trigger, and after that, everything else is a mystery.

  In the midst of dawning realizations and broken hearts, nobody remembers to utter the final words of my song.

  “If you break me, baby, be prepared to pick up the pieces.”

  To be continued...

  Dear Reader,

  Please put down your pitchforks and your torches. You knew this was coming, right? This is Hard Rock Roots, after all. It happens. Life happens. Shit gets fucked up. But guess what?

  I am a sucker for happy endings. I like all of my characters to ride off into the sunset with their tattoos sparkling in the fading light of evening. So no worries. Relax, take a deep breath. You know I love you, right? Seriously.

  Naomi and Turner will have another book. It's okay. Breathe. Next up though, Ronnie and Lola are up to bat in "Doll Face" Releases November 24th, 2014.

  Rock stars, dirty sex, and blood. Oh my! C.M.

  Ready for another dose of effed the hell up? Hard Rock Roots Book 7: "Doll Face". Releases November 24th, 2014.

  Add this book to your to-read list on Goodreads!

  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23399746-doll-face?f
rom_search=true

  If you enjoyed "Dead Serious", you might like C.M. Stunich's new stand-alone novel, "Taming Her Boss". Releases November 17th, 2014.

  Lex Lyndon is used to getting what he wants.

  Even if what he wants is to submit.

  Olivia "Oli" Ashcraft has a decent job with decent hours and decent pay, so why screw things up? Because Oli has a temper. A bad one. Born and raised in San Francisco, Oli doesn't have any fantasies of being dominated or manipulated by anyone, let alone a preppy, spoiled CEO. Tired of fighting with the misogynistic jerk in the corner office, Olivia decides to confront Lex only to be offered a tantalizing proposition: take control.

  Lex wants a woman in charge, and he's willing to pay for it. In the bedroom and out of it.

  ***

  Add this book to your to-read list on Goodreads!

  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18484681-taming-her-boss?ac=1

  My boss is a dick.

  This is a fact that can't be sugarcoated, denied, or contemplated. It just is. Lex Lyndon is an asshole. He struts around the office in a suit that costs more than my car and he never smiles. You'd think a man who owned a piece of fabric worth more than a Lexus would at least have something to be happy about. But no. Instead, he breathes down the necks of every employee on floor twelve and occasionally makes his way down to floors eleven and nine to glare and stomp around in his five figure loafers (he only skips floor ten because it's where the cleaning supplies are kept). He's attractive in that dark, mysterious sort of way, but any infatuation I might've developed over the man has been completely and utterly flattened by narrowed, steel gray eyes and lips pursed so tight I don't think a kind word has ever filtered between them.

  For the most part, Mr. Lyndon avoids my desk. One, because I'm always here on time. Two, because I never leave early. And three, because I'm the best at what I do. Period. Although, in all honesty, I don't think Lex Lyndon has any clue what it is that I do for his grandfather's-now his father's-soon to be his business. So when he glides over to my desk, smooth as smoke and twice as sultry, I ignore him and keep on doing what it is that I do. That is, what I never expected I'd ever be doing. My moms (yes, I have two of them) think I'm simply a paper pusher, and they're disappointed enough as it is. Three years of art school and this is all you have to show for it? Well, so I suppose I'm a bit of a sell-out as far as things go. I abandoned oil painting and took up real estate. But not local, residential stuff. I'm talking international, commercial real estate, investments. Basically, I move around amounts of money so astronomical they make my head spin. I buy properties and then I sell them. Online.

  And Mr. Lyndon occasionally stops by to narrow his eyes and sniff. Sometimes, he adjusts his tie – always a different color, never a brown or beige or black. I guess the random assortment of brightness on all of his dark suited person should reveal something to me, like maybe underneath all of that pompous arrogance and demeaning sneer, there's a person who feels things, who smiles, who laughs. But I never see it. To me, the legend of the Laughing Lex Lyndon may as well be Bigfoot. It could exist, but a few shoddy, blurry portraits aren't convincing anyone.

  Today though, today is different.

  Today, Mr. Lyndon comes up behind me in the lunch room, the lunch room, where he never goes, and pauses. I don't know he's there at first, not until my friend and confidante, Maxi Heath, drops her fork into her lap and starts to choke on her rice noodles. Her pale green eyes focus on a spot directly above my head and stay there, wide and inquiring. It only takes me a second to turn in my chair and spot him, like a blotch of night against the brightness of the sunshine filtering in the window. He looks so out of place standing on these linoleum floors, like his majestic feet were never meant to grace the presence of such poor craftsmanship. I try not to roll my eyes.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Lyndon?” I ask, voice calm but unyielding. This is, after all, my lunch break. My unpaid lunch break. During this hour, I'm free to do as I please. It's the law, and frankly, no matter what he thinks, Lex Lyndon is not above the law.

  Lex takes a deep breath and wrinkles his nose at the smell of hot Thai food, his pale skin practically glowing under the fluorescent bulbs from overhead. Even in this light, though, he's handsome – tall, strong, lean, confident. I'm sure Lex has no problem finding women to fill his bed. Or men, if that's his flavor. I have no idea since I've never seen him flirt with anyone, and according to office gossip, he's single.

  “Are you Oliver?” he asks me, voice a Lucullan feast for the ears and sumptuous as silk over chocolate. Yeah, he's that good. He's also mean. I can already tell from the slight inflection in his voice that something – or someone – has pissed him off today.

  I clear my throat and swallow a bit of broccoli.

  “My name is Olivia. Some people call me Oli.” I try to be as polite as possible, but it isn't easy, not with him lording over me the way he's doing. If he's trying to intimidate me, it isn't working. Lex barely registers that I've even spoken and doesn't acknowledge my statement.

  “Were you in charge of the Eureka Inn project?” I have to pause here for a moment and think about it. Maybe Lex doesn't realize, but if it has to do with buying or selling, I'm in charge of pretty much every project. “Are you not sure?” he hisses, fists clenching at his sides. I watch his knuckles fold and unfold next to the perfectly sharp creases in his black trousers. “Because this is a multi-million dollar deal, and if you can't even give me a yes or no answer to that question, we have a serious problem.”

  I wish I could say I was shocked by his behavior, but I'm not. I've seen it before, directed at other employees around the floor. But I've never had it focused on me, and let me tell you, I'm not about to put up with it.

  Maxi looks terrified, like a deer caught in the headlights. I don't blame her. She's not the only one that looks like that when Lex is around. Most of the employees spend their time gazing at Lex in equal parts fear and lust (or envy if they don't swing his way). She's just one of hundreds.

  I refuse to participate.

  I push my chair back and stand up, rising to my full height and not caring that Lex towers over my petite frame. No big deal. Today's battles are fought with wit and craft, knowledge and cunning, not brawn or stature or elegant frames draped in muscle. I take a deep breath and brush some of the ruby red hair from my forehead. It's all natural, even though it looks like it came from a bottle. I've got an almost purple tint to my hair that doesn't match either of my mothers. Since they refuse to tell me who the birth mother is, I've never been able to figure out which one of them it is.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Lyndon,” I begin, speaking slowly but surely, making sure my voice is projected up and out. I used to play the usher at my brother's baseball games when he was a kid, so I know I've got the lungs to make myself heard. “You may not be aware of the daily operations that occur in each and every department as that would be a logistical impossibility as well as a poor use of time management, but let me fill you in on a little secret. Every deal here is a multi-million dollar deal, so I apologize if I have to comb through my mind a bit before I can recall the specifics.”

  I pause and the room is so silent, you could hear a pin drop.

  Lex opens his mouth, and his face reddens bright as a summer cherry, but I don't let him speak, not yet.

  “The Eureka Inn project was halted because the building inspectors that we hired, and which came very highly recommended to our company by our local real estate representative, falsified documentation on the boiler system for the building. We were told that all was well and functioning and that all seventy-five of the historic rooms and suites on the property could be adequately heated according to local and state regulations. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for we wouldn't want to step on the toes of any of our foreign partners, the sale was halted when a third party inspector deemed the system irreparable and well past the last legs of its life. Therefore, to make this property sellable, we'll need to install a whole n
ew heating system.” I take a deep breath to continue when Lex holds up his hand. His face has gone from red to white and now he looks a little like a ghost.

  “Miss Oliver,” he growls, butchering my name worse than a lamb at slaughter. “Do you have any concept of the way in which you address me?”

  “This isn't the 19th century, Mr. Lyndon. I think the way in which I address you is perfectly adequate.”

  Lex stares at me, his strong, square jaw tightening painfully and his perfect, white teeth gritting so hard I can practically hear the enamel scraping.

  “Do you like working here, Miss Oliver?”

  I stare him down, locking my eyes on his, letting him know that this is the 21st century, and that I will not take shit. Not from him, not from anyone. I do my job, and I'm damn good at it. That's all he needs to know, and that's all that matters.

  “It pays the bills,” I respond lamely. What else can I say? I don't like working here. Nobody does. Lex makes certain of that.

  “Well then,” he snarls, fury foaming around his being like he's just been infected with rabies. Seriously, I have never seen such character or emotion on the man before. It makes him … dangerous. And sexy. Too bad his attitude is so sour. It spoils the milk, so to speak. “Consider them unpaid. You're fired.”

  I don't flinch.

  Instead, I cross my arms over my green blouse, the one I know makes my cheeks look rosy, and I smile.

  “You can't fire me,” I tell him, flicking my tongue across my lower lip to moisten it. The air in here is getting hot, sizzling with fire and rage. Lex can posture all he wants though, won't do him any good. I won't be intimidated. “Not with unjust cause. And besides, without me, this company wouldn't function properly. It'd be like prying out a cog from a clock. It might still tick, but it won't keep time.”