Paid off by Fitzgerald.
He wanted Emily, but none of the rest.
They’d just signed away their rights as a band.
I’d known he’d done it before but had never had the direct proof until now, the original and the altered contracts in my possession.
“If you remember clause 17.B3 of the Mylton Records bylaws, any fraudulent modifications or alterations of contracts is cause for immediate removal of Chair. Second-in-line is to assume that position. And guess who that is?”
My stepfather’s current position gave him ninety-five percent of the votes, and he’d just ousted himself and placed me as the head of the company.
He struggled as Casile slapped the cuffs on his wrists. “No. I’ll never let you take this company, you little fucker.”
I lifted my chin, adjusted the cuffs on my suit jacket, finding some kind of sick calm in the midst of this.
Years of hatred.
Years of planning.
Years to bring this to fruition.
“You took everything in my life that was important to me. There is nothing left for you to take. This . . . this is for my sister, for my family, for all those women, you pile of shit. Get ready because I’m about to drop a match on it.”
He roared. “This is my company.”
Casile jerked him back. “Let’s go.”
“Fuck you. Release me.”
Casile tugged him back, trying to wrangle him when he thrashed. “No. This isn’t over. Not even close.”
Satisfaction hit me as I watched them start to move him around the desk, all while I was getting smacked with an entirely different dread.
A river of disbelief and hurt flooded my system.
A deluge of her.
My attention jerked through the bodies surging forward to find her standing frozen in the middle of the chaos.
Hurt bleeding from that green gaze.
That energy tethering us shivered with sparks of unrelenting pain.
I started to go for her when Richard was suddenly in my face, forcing me to look at him as he yanked at his hair. “What the fuck was that?” he hissed, his voice lowered.
“I think it was clear enough.”
“Yeah, it sounds like you just fucked us.”
I laughed a low sound. “What I just did was save you.”
In the background, my stepfather was still fighting. Thinking he had control of this. Control I’d taken from him.
Dropping his attention to the ground, Richard gave his head a harsh shake. When he looked back at me, fear blazed in his eyes. “Who is in those pictures?”
My teeth gritted. “Not you.”
Didn’t know if he was guilty or not.
But I hadn’t come for him.
“This is bullshit. I want my attorney . . . now.” My stepfather was shouting his demands while the officers pushed forward in a frenzy of activity. It jostled me back, out of the way, and a furor hit the room as the police officers tried to wrangle him through the crowd that was growing. People catching on to the fact that a shakedown was taking place in the middle of a celebrity fest.
Could only imagine what was going to be plastered across the tabloids tomorrow.
My bastard stepfather would be taken to the county jail where he would be extradited to Los Angeles. Originally, this was supposed to go down at his home. So my sister could witness it.
Since he’d demanded to come here for the signing, things had to be shifted last minute.
Pete and Detective Casile had come through like they promised.
He writhed, trying to break free, like he thought maybe he wasn’t going to have to make this walk of shame through the guests of this party.
Another blow to his crumbling regime.
Through the chaos, my eyes raced to find the one.
Searching for the one thing left that mattered.
My sight landed on Melanie, who glared at me with outright disgust.
A roll of disappointment.
I jerked my eyes away, attention jumping across the faces as their manager was being led away by an officer, although without any cuffs.
Right then, I knew one more seedy fucker was being shackled and hauled away. Another group of officers sent to apprehend him during the meeting to ensure he’d be caught unaware.
His world shattered the way he’d shattered mine.
Hatred burned in my blood with the thought of the prick. At the reaction evoked in Emily when she’d seen him here.
Fear and shock and questions rolling from her.
I hated that she’d been subject to it.
I finally caught sight of her just as she raced out the door ahead of the mayhem.
Running.
And I knew exactly who she was running from.Twenty-SevenEmilyOh God.
Oh God.
What just happened?
Rushing down the hall ahead of the chaos going down behind me, I struggled to make my feet carry me under the weight of the realization of what Royce had done.
He’d used me.
Used me to take over his stepfather’s company.
A stepping-stone.
The memory of his warning tumbled through my mind.
“I’m afraid you’re going to hate me when you find out who I really am.”