Shea’s voice trailed off into silence before roaring applause broke through the air. It echoed through the enormous hall as people jumped to their feet to give her a standing ovation.
Tears sprang to Shea’s eyes.
Because she’d felt the beauty, too, the same thing that seemed to ride on the energy that filled the space.
It was what was waiting for her offstage that was vile.
Shea whispered a quiet, “Thank you,” into the mic before she exited the stage.
Her mother hovered behind the curtains. “There’s my shining star.” She made sure everyone heard.
Her mother’s creepy boyfriend Donny, who’d been tacked to her mother’s side since the second they’d rolled into Nashville, was nearly salivating where he stood behind Shea’s mother.
“Come here, sweetheart, there are people to meet,” her mother said.
Shea did her best to smile pleasantly as she shook hands with those who only wanted her for the things she didn’t want to give, like touching her skin gave them a taste of glory when she knew without a shadow of a doubt she’d sold her soul into sin.
No, it wasn’t because she desired any of it.
She’d simply been on this train for far too long and had no access to the brakes, the pressure and coercion too much to take, so she’d always given in. For so long she’d simply gone through the motions and never voiced her opinions or concerns because they were never heard anyway. Her mother was in full control and she couldn’t find the strength to fight her.
But now she wondered when it would be her who would break.
Warily, Shea looked up when she felt the eyes boring into her. A searing heat of predatory lust. She felt burned by it, and not in a desirous way, but like hell had found its way to her.
She shuddered.
Her mother prodded her back and pushed up onto her toes to speak into her ear. “Go on, girl. He’s waiting on you.”
When Shea hesitated, she could feel her mother’s annoyance, as if she were speaking to a toddler who had no clue what it took to make it in the real world.
Shea wasn’t sure she did.
“Achieving your dreams will require sacrifices, Shea.”
In that moment, Shea had never hated her mother more. She’d sold her off so easily, using her for little more than personal gain. Shea had spent years striving harder and higher and faster, thinking if she managed to touch the sky her mother would finally see her as the star she wanted her to be. She’d spent so many years being tailored into this thing, stitched and patched and sewn into something that had become unrecognizable.
But the outside was completely mismatched with the fabric of who she wanted to be.
“Besides,” her mother said with a perverse grin, “the two of you make a gorgeous couple. It’s what the world wants to see. A beautiful young girl on the arm of a successful, handsome man. He’s put himself on the line for you, and it’s time you showed some gratitude for it.”
Gratitude?
The simmering bile in her stomach worked into a frenzy, and Shea thought she would be sick.
She knew Martin Jennings was attractive. She wasn’t blind. But in the year she’d known him, she also felt something dark lurking around him, something ugly that radiated from his pores like an omen.
Every cell in her body implored she stay away.
Instead, she made her feet move in his direction where he held back like a phantom along the far wall.
She ducked her head timidly when she came to a stop in front of him.
“Magnificent,” he said in his smooth, slick voice. He touched her cheek, and she held her breath, trying not to flinch. “Do you have any idea the effect you had on the crowd, Delaney Rhoads? Every single person out there was putty in your hands. You are magic.”
Her thoughts went back to her grandmother, a picture of a frail woman lying in the confines of her bed.
Would she have thought the show magic?
What would she think now?
The pads of Martin’s fingers slid down the outside of her arm and threaded through her fingers. Chills of unease lifted her skin, but she didn’t fight it, just like she hadn’t fought it two days before when he’d pushed her against the wall in his office and kissed her mouth and her neck.
But tonight when he guided her down a winding maze of backstage corridors and led her into a vacant office hidden in the bowels of the theater, the lights cast low, he didn’t stop. He set her on the desk and lifted the skirt of her dress as he went.
Tears soaked her face, and Martin wiped the wetness away. “You’re far too beautiful to cry, Delaney Rhoads.” He brushed his mouth at the corner of hers and she whimpered.
“Shh…you’re mine now.”
She shook violently, no poised on her tongue, but she didn’t know how to release it. Just like she didn’t know how to say it with every path her mother had led her down.
Say it, Shea. Say no. Please, say it, she silently begged herself, before she turned to silently begging him. No. No. No.
Metal clanked as he fumbled through his belt, and his slacks dropped to his thighs. Shea panicked, her hands shoving and slapping at his chest as her breaths turned ragged with fear.
“Shh,” he whispered again, as he shackled both her wrists in one of his hands and forced her closer to the edge of the desk. He wedged himself between her legs.
She cried out in pain when he ripped through her.
She sobbed. Her breaths choked and panted as he moved in her.
Music filtered from above, another act on stage, and she tried with everything she had to focus on those beautiful sounds and not the grunts raking from Martin’s mouth. But there was nothing beautiful in this moment.
Sadness and pain crushed her. How ironic that a man was touching her for the first time in her life, and she’d never felt more alone.
And Shea… Shea might have hated this man with all her life. Shea might have hated her mother more than she ever had before. But not nearly as much as she hated herself.
I STOOD IN THE hallway outside Mark’s door. My chest heaved as I sucked down a steeling breath, hand shaking on the knob. Searching for courage just to open the fucking door.
Quiet echoed down the hall of the huge house. All the guys were gone and Austin was tucked away in his room down the opposite hall.
We’d been back in L.A. for two days and my girls would be here tomorrow. This needed to get done and soon.
We were pressing on with our original plans, refusing to back down to Jennings’s threats. Besides, we figured it was safer for them to be here. With me.
God knew I’d sleep better.
Had Kenny, another attorney, and some of their guys here in L.A. digging their heels in deep, trenching through any shit they could find on the pompous bastard. Shit that had nothin’ to do with Sunder or Shea or any of us. Safe shit that would still send him straight to hell, because we knew where his greedy hands had been.
What Shea didn’t know was I had a reserve. A backup plan. That I’d gladly incriminate myself to finally make Jennings go away.
For good.
One way or another, we were going to make sure he had no say about anything in Kallie’s future.
Now I just needed to make it through this door. Just didn’t know it was going to be so damned hard.
Cold raced up my arm as my hand clutched the metal knob, and I squeezed my eyes, forcing myself to turn it. The door swung open, hinges squeaky from disuse.
The smell clinging to the abandoned room hit me like two tons of bricks.
I squeezed my eyes tighter as I fought it, before I finally released the breath I’d been holding and shuddered through a deep inhale.
It was musty and stifled, but in it was him, like the leather of that old jacket he’d always worn and a hint of the herbal cigarettes he’d always smoked.
Grief that’d been locked up tight battled for escape. Gathering like a thunderstorm in my chest. Slowly building. Enclosing on my throat.<
br />
The loss of Mark had been so sudden and traumatic, part of it still didn’t feel real. Sometimes I imagined I’d look up and find him rounding the corner—that shy, insecure smile he always wore spreading into something genuine and honest when he looked at me.
God, he’d been a lost soul.
So fucking lost.
But that didn’t mean the bond between the five of us wasn’t solid. Distorted, warped pieces that somehow perfectly aligned and fit. My fucked-up family. But I thought maybe the bond between Mark and I had been even greater because I’d been so fucking lost, too.
Dazed, I drifted out into the middle of the room as I felt the weight of my friend’s loss. Rays of light streaked in from the gap in the blinds, cutting into the gloom. The king bed was unmade, a rumple of sheets and blankets that spoke of a thrashing spirit, sheets of paper strewn about the floor, the words so often silent on his tongue lashed out across the pages.
I wandered over to his desk. My fingertips trailed over the picture displayed in a frame. It was all the guys with our arms slung over each other’s shoulders, beers in our free hands, Zee and Austin there, too. It brought on a wistful smile, and I shook my head, wondering how the hell I was ever going to get through this.
But I had to.
Had a little girl who was ready to shine her light on this desolate room.
I tore the linens from the bed and shoved them into a black garbage bag, then grabbed one of the empty boxes I’d left out in the hall and began to clear out his desk. This stuff? I’d just roll tape across the seam of the box. Seal it up. Save it. Knew one day Zee would want to go rummaging through when his broken heart was ready to take that step.
The drawers were filled with a ton of old cassette tapes and CDs, his own words scrawled across them, music we had made. All the scratches and scribbles of paper when we’d jammed, the guy always quick to jot stuff down when we were capturing a moment in a song.
My chest tightened with unspent sorrow.
God. It fucking hurt.
My eyes blurred as I filled one box then another, forcing myself to just forge through.
When I cleared out his desk, I moved on to his walk-in closet, flipped on the light switch. Light flickered before it came to life, and I blinked to adjust to the harshness. It was just a long, narrow path, clothes hung up on either side, old, tattered shoes shoved in the cubbies, and clutter clogging the shelves.
A soft chuckle of affection slipped into the room. Guy couldn’t get rid of anything.
I shoved sections of shirts together, pressing them between my hands to lift the hangers free, and threw them out into the middle of the bedroom floor. I continued on till one side was clear, then the other, until there was a fucking mountain of clothes in the middle of the bedroom floor.
Some hipster thrift shop was going to have a field day.
I started pulling out boxes, the anguish oppressive as I struggled to make it through what felt like ridding the last of Mark’s presence from our lives.
Knew that’s why I’d stalled for so long.
Wanted one last thing to hang onto, even when I hadn’t had the strength to step through the door.
Getting down on my knees, I pulled out a few storage boxes Mark had shoved under the shelves at the far back corner. I lifted a lid and peeked inside.
Pictures.
I sat back and pulled out a stack. Nostalgia, darts of regret and pain, and a forever kind of connection I knew could never be severed hit me. Image after image of us as teenagers, hanging out in Ash’s garage, back in the days when we were gonna take the world by the balls and there was nothing that could have stopped us from making it big.
Back before we’d let the lifestyle wear us thin and the endless parties take us down all kinds of roads we never should have gone.
My gut clenched at some of the faces, some of the guys we’d called friends who were nothing less than dealers feeding the blood-thirsty frenzy. The need to feel something that in the end just didn’t exist.
Only thing there was emptiness.
Pissed me off more because some of these guys were directly tied to Jennings.
I cringed when I saw a picture of Donny. One of Jennings’s right-hand guys. Blitzed-out blue eyes stared back, face tweaked with that seedy fucking grin.
Seemed the second Mark started hanging out with that creep, he’d been sucked into a downward spiral he couldn’t stop. Tripped right into the cesspool that would be his demise. He’d gone and gotten in deep. Started hiding shit. Even from me. At that time, Donny had always been lurking, hanging out at every show, acting like it was his place and all part of the gig. I knew better. He’d been plying Mark with his supply.
I dug a little deeper in the box, moving more photos out of the way. I had the sudden urge to understand Mark better in that period of time. Wishing I’d paid closer attention. Done more before it’d been too late.
A thick leather-bound journal was tucked to the side. I pulled it out, feeling like a sick fuck for invading his privacy. But hell, he’d been my best friend. And I missed him. Missed him so fuckin’ bad it physically hurt, my chest feeling like it just might cave with the pressure in my heart, and I wanted to hang on to a little more.
I unlaced the leather strap and flipped to the first page. Immediately, I recognized his handwriting. The date jotted at the side was close to seven years ago.
The road’s tough. Especially nights like these when everyone is passed out around me. I can never sleep. Who would have known the loneliest time in the world is the moment before the sun comes up? Night after night, I meet that moment intimately. I know it like a lover even when there’s no comfort in its touch. It’s worth it. The band is worth it. But I get the sense I’ll never know what it’s like to be home.
I rubbed my hand over my face and tried to break up the overwhelming urge to weep. Killed me he’d felt this way. I rifled through more pages. Most of the entries echoed the same, sometimes skipping months. Getting just a little more desperate with each passing year.
I tried. I fucking tried. Baz got out of jail and got clean. I tried. I tried.
Why hadn’t I done something? Intervened?
I wavered, part of me wanting to slam the damned journal closed. Close it up and forget. But the other felt compelled. I skimmed through more pages where Mark had recorded just how lost he’d felt.
When I turned another page, my sight narrowed in on the handwriting that had turned messy and frantic, slanting crooked down the page.
I fucked up. Fucked up bad. Donny told me Martin said it’d only be once. Once. That was all it was supposed to be.
What the fuck?
He was talking about Jennings.
My heart rate sped and I sat up higher on my knees, fingers gripping the journal as I scanned for more.
Fucking Donny and his fucking mouth. Always with his fucking mouth. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew Martin was sick. Both of them were sick. But not that sick. I told Martin so. I told him to go to hell when he demanded the money I owe him. Told him I’d take everything I know to the cops. I was going to anyway, money be damned. I knew what he’d had Donny do to that girl. I knew what he planned to have him do. She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me. Call me a snitch. I didn’t care. Let the asshole burn.
A thread of awareness dangled in my periphery, something ominous and dark. Felt like I couldn’t grab a breath when I desperately flipped the page. A small stack of snapshots fell out from between the pages, fluttering to the floor. What my attention immediately latched on to was what Mark had written on the page.
Donny’s gone. Dead in the water. I’m going to be next. I know it. Feel it coming. Am I scared? Yeah. Terrified, really. I led Martin on. Made him believe I’d leaked info. Ratted him and Lester out. He thinks I’m blackmailing, but I don’t have anything but Donny’s word. And Donny’s word is about as valuable as a ten-dollar whore. My only intention had been to thwart the plans he had to hurt that girl
again. Only this time, make it final. Sick. Fucking sick. Couldn’t live with myself if it happened, so I’d rather die stopping it. I guess I finally did something in my life worth a shit.
It was dated two days before he’d overdosed.
Cold dread seized my heart, everything going heavy, like it was attempting to pump ice through my veins.
He killed him.
Oh God. My head spun. He killed him.
With trembling fingers, I reached down and picked up one of the pictures that’d fallen face down on the floor, hesitant to discover what was there, but knowing I couldn’t look away.
It was a snapshot of Mark and Donny and my baby brother. The party happening around them was clear. All three of them were obviously lost to a bombed-out wasteland.
But it was the woman Donny had draped across his lap that shook me to the core. A face so fucking familiar, that the breath punched from my lungs and left me on a shocked wheeze.
I’d seen that face hanging on Shea’s upstairs wall more times than I cared to count. Showcased in old frames, appearing years younger there than in this image. The woman who’d pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, Shea’s childhood memories a horror story of manipulation and greed.
Shea’s mom.
I gripped my head as I tried to process, swarmed with an onslaught of confusion and anger and utter devastation.
Mark, Jennings, Austin, and motherfucking Chloe Lynn.
She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me.
Who was he talking about? Didn’t want to accept the possibility it could be Shea. But I knew…I fucking knew.
I roared and shot to my feet. Another rush of dizziness hit me. My shoulder rammed into the wall, my balance blown, my world shattered. I stumbled over the shit blocking the closet doorway in a frantic bid to get out with one of the pictures fisted in my hand. I charged out of Mark’s room and down the hall. Didn’t even hesitate at his door, just threw it open. It flew back and crashed against the inside of his wall.
Austin jumped from his bed in the same second I stormed in.
Something livid ate up my insides. Propelling me forward.
Drowning to Breathe Page 25
