All the members of my band had already gathered, the guys sipping from tumblers of scotch, toasting our good fortune, while I was suddenly feeling as if I were coming up on a catastrophe.
Melanie was tucked on a couch in the far corner, and our manager, Angela, sat in one of the upholstered high-backed chairs in front of the imposing desk.
Behind it was Karl Fitzgerald.
The man who’d been hunting us for close to a year. Someone who commanded respect, but there was just something slimy and seedy about him that had immediately made me refuse it.
But he was the money man.
And sometimes you couldn’t ignore or pass that up.
Not when they were offering so much of it. Not when it would change everything. Not when this contract was written in the blood of my band.
Tonight had already been proof of that.
“Ah, I see you decided to show up,” Mr. Fitzgerald said, rocking back in the leather chair that he helmed, his beady eyes immediately latching onto Royce.
Another burst of hatred sizzled through Royce’s being. So violent I felt it punch the atmosphere.
A crack of lightning.
“I’m not here to argue with you, Mr. Fitzgerald. I’m here to sign the band you sent me to acquire.”
Royce had gone all business. The same man he’d been that morning when he’d walked into Richard’s hotel room the first time.
Mr. Fitzgerald’s scrutiny landed on our entwined hands. An incredulous smirk played around his pompous mouth. “I see you’ve acquired a little something for yourself.”
“What I do with my personal life is none of your concern.”
“No?” he challenged.
“No,” Royce returned, so cold, I was pretty sure everyone felt an ice age descend. Angela shifted in discomfort, her eyes wide and almost in shock.
Each of the guys took note of the malice that shivered through the air.
Shoulders straightening and spines stiffening.
Mr. Fitzgerald chuckled a low sound and then gestured to the contract that was spread on the desk in front of him. Angela had scoured it and given it her stamp of approval.
There was nothing left standing in the way except for this terror I could feel rising from my spirit and spilling into my bloodstream.
A warning.
Hostility that had smoldered and seethed and festered until it’d fermented into something toxic. So thick I was certain I was choking on it.
“Shall we finish this thing?” Mr. Fitzgerald asked, craning his head.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Richard said.
My brother stepped up to take the fancy pen that Mr. Fitzgerald offered him.
He was a force. Powerful and proud and persuasive. Though I knew him well enough to see the way his muscles quivered with strain.
Thinking he had to hold the entirety of the weight of this decision on his shoulders.
He hesitated before the tip of the pen hit the paper, and he let the ink flow across the signature line.
He seemed to freeze on the last letter before he finished on a heavy exhale, relief entering his posture when he passed the pen over to Rhys. “This is it, man.”
Richard clapped Rhys on the shoulder as he stepped up to take Richard’s place. He leaned over the desk and signed with a grin and a flourishing sweep of his hand.
“It’s done, baby. Big time, here we come. You’re up, Leif.”
Leif accepted the pen and leaned over the contract. He nodded his head along to some drumbeat that only he knew, as if he were ascribing this moment its own song.
A rhythm to this momentous memory.
He looked up at me. Passing the baton.
“Set it in stone, Em.”
Nerves clawed across my chest. Everything tight. A pinpoint of anxiety.
Royce released my hand, and I felt the power of his gaze hit the side of my face. I looked that way.
You are a star, he mouthed.
I slowly eased the rest of the way up to the desk. Richard shifted the contract around my direction where I stood on the opposite side. Our eyes met, and I sent him a soft smile.
This was it.
I lifted the pen and set it to the line, my hand shaking out of control as I signed, the curly letters of my name blooming to life on the paper.
Done.
Finished.
Like Leif had said—our fate set in stone.
Carved into the paper that promised so many things.
I heaved out something that sounded of relief and shock, realizing just makin’ the decision was the hardest part.
That lasted all of a second before a tremor of dismay curled through my senses when Karl Fitzgerald’s quietly controlled voice hit my ear. “Good girl. Now it’s time to start acting like the superstar I’m going to make you. Ditching my stepson should be the first move. The only thing he will bring you is disappointment.”
Confusion clouded my mind, thoughts distorted, twisting with the dread I’d felt rising since the second we’d stepped into this house.
Stepson.
Royce was Karl Fitzgerald’s stepson?