I saw it for what it was. Knowledge running wild in his blue eyes. He’d already come to the conclusion before I could cut him off at the pass.
Dude might look like a jacked-up dolt. No brain cells left because his head was too full of arrogance and conceit.
Rhys Manning was nothing but obnoxious ego and secreted wisdom and fucking warm-hearted care.
Thing was, only people who got to witness those last two were the ones closest to him. Guy too terrified to let anyone else behind that brash demeanor that was just as real as the rest of them, but one he still used as a façade.
Walls too fortified to be toppled.
Guessed it was true that he and I had always had a ton in common.
And I knew right then he knew. That he could see right through me.
To the fear. To the ferocity. To the determination that singed and scorched and etched retribution on my soul.
There’d be nothing left of it when I was done.
“What are you in, man?” he finally asked, the dread in his tone warbling through the silence that bottled the cab.
I unlatched the door. “Nothing has changed, Rhys. Just…forget it. Thanks for the ride,” I said to shut him down as I hurried to climb out, needing to get my head clear of this.
Clicking the door shut, I started toward the sleeping house. Didn’t get three steps away before the window rolled down and he shouted after me, “One question.”
I paused, shifted to look at him from over my shoulder, and lifted my chin to give him the go.
No doubt, I was going to regret it.
Rhys’ expression was hard, as hard as the indictment lined in the demand. “Royce know?”
Disquiet curled down my spine, stomach coiling with a vile sickness that clawed and claimed.
Knew I shouldn’t, but I gave him a tight nod, the bit of honesty that I could offer. “Yeah.”
“Fuck,” he hissed. Fear blanched his face. Ghost white. Dread painted him a ghastly gray.
Guessed that was all I had to say.
He turned away, looked out the windshield, and blew out from his nose before he was speaking toward the window, refusing to grace me with a glance, his jaw working like mad. “Tell me this isn’t about those girls. Tell me you weren’t fuckin’ under Karl Fitzgerald’s thumb. Know you were pushin’ for us to sign with them. Before everything about Emily came out. Before Royce revealed the truth about Karl Fitzgerald. Tell me you didn’t stoop that low.”
Their faces flickered through my mind.
The agony.
What they’d gone through.
The ones that had gone missing.
In a flash, I was back at his car, my hands planted on the windowsill. I leaned down so I could jut my head inside.
Voice grit. “That bastard stole everything from me. Stole from the ones I love. Hurt and cheated and lied. Ruined innumerable lives. You really think I’d stoop that low, man? Force a girl? Only stoopin’ I’m doing is getting on my knees to pray the motherfucker ends up dead.”
Him and the rest of them.
Nodding, Rhys slanted his attention back at me. “Wouldn’t have believed it…but fuck, man, what happened to Em…”
He scrubbed a meaty palm over his face.
Shaken by what had come out.
Fitzgerald had had the intention of cutting the rest of us from the band once we’d signed so Emily would be the only one under his control.
All of us knew the very real reality of what could have become of her.
And I’d let it happen, fighting one battle and not realizing a whole different war was brewing right under my nose.
Royce had ripped his tarnished throne out from under him.
Stolen his crown and crumbled his empire.
It was a start, but I intended on setting that entire world on fire.
“Saw some things…in LA. Years ago.” I let the confession bleed out. Let it ring with implication.
Worry streaked through his expression. “Royce using you? To testify?”
“No, man,” I said solemnly. “I’m using Royce.”
Rhys flinched.
Getting it.
That this went so much deeper than he knew.
The very reason I had to keep him out of it.
I angled in closer, vehemence curling through my muscles. “You’re just a dude who got scammed by a greedy businessman, Rhys. You know nothing more. And you maintain that until we get to trial. Keep your nose out of it. You got me?”
He shook his head. “You’re in trouble? Means I fuckin’ am, too.”
He didn’t say anything else, just peeled out in the gravel as he lurched forward. I watched as he took the short distance to come to a stop in front of his mother’s house.
Blowing out the strain, I turned and trudged back toward ours.
Night pressed down, as heavy as the exhaustion that weighed my bones. Every window in the house was blackened, only the light next to the door scattering a dim glow across the porch.
The air was cool, a light breeze ushering in the fall that consumed the last days of summer. Bugs hummed a low buzz from their perch in the swishing branches of the trees.
The stillness profound.
The hole inside me gaped wider than it ever had.
So close. So fucking close and she was still out of reach.
Girl on my tongue and dancing in my soul.
I tipped my head toward the sky to the spiral of stars that wrote the heavens in song.
Endless, ethereal beauty.
My fingers itched with the need to play.
With the need to create magic.
To sing this girl in a sonnet.
Weave her in poetry.
A horse whinnied from the stables, drawing my attention that direction. Far to the back of the property, a single light blazed from the smaller house my younger brother Lincoln had built a handful of years ago.
But the stables and workshop were still there.
Standing like a tribute.
A memorial.
Unable to resist the lure, I moved that way and crept through the shadows to a place that to me would forever be
