Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
Roman
“Roman?”
I turn away from the coffee machine to stare at Sloane, who doesn’t have a scrap of color in her cheeks.
“I’ll make you a mug,” I chuckle. “You look about as hungover as I feel.”
It’s a joke. Kind of. But the way she’s standing, how pale she is, tells me she’s not in the mood for one.
“No,” she says. “I need to talk to you.”
Everything shifts, the light buzz of the coffee machine and the low hum of the morning vanishing into the background.
She swallows hard, something heavy on her chest. Something she’s not sure how to say. My stomach tightens as she steps closer.
“What’s going on, Sloane?”
Her eyes lock onto mine, and I can’t quite figure out what’s swirling in there. It’s not just the hangover talking.
“It’s about the news articles,” she says, dragging the words out slowly, testing them.
Fuck.
I take a breath, trying to keep myself still, but the truth is, my pulse is already racing. I don’t need to hear the details. I know what they’ve been writing. We all do, the band, the photos, the stupid rumors.
“The articles,” I repeat, flatly. I’m already bracing myself for what she’s going to say next.
She looks at me for a long second, weighing whether or not to say the next part. When she does, the words are ripping out of her.
“I know who has been feeding the press private information.”
“Uh-huh, and was it, Elliot?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“So… who?”
She looks like she might throw up.
“Jeena.”
I freeze. The room just went quiet, the air itself stopped moving.
For a second, I can’t breathe.
I’ve been hit in the chest with a fucking sledgehammer. I don’t even know how to react. What the hell is she talking about?
“No, not Jeena,” I shoot back. “She wouldn’t. She’s the only member of my family I can talk to…”
“It was her,” she interjects. “I know it was.”
My stomach drops. Fuck. Fuck.
“Not Jeena,” I repeat, more to myself than her.
My head’s spinning, trying to process what she’s telling me. She’s the one person I’ve always trusted. The one person in this fucked up world who I thought had my back without question.
Sloane’s eyes are hard, but there’s a pain in them that I can’t ignore. She’s not the type to make shit up, and the certainty in her words cuts through me like a knife.
“It’s her, Roman. I’m sorry. My journalist friend gave me the name of the leak. Jeena West.”
I stagger back a step, hands gripping the counter because it’s the only thing keeping me upright. This isn’t real. This can’t be real. I’ve been through betrayal before, sure. But this? This is a gut punch I wasn’t prepared for. Not from her. Not from Jeena.
My breath catches, the air suddenly too thick to breathe.
“Jeena,” I say again, quieter this time. Maybe if I say it enough, it will start to make sense.
But it doesn’t. Nothing makes sense. She’s my cousin. She’s been there for me since… forever. Always the one I could turn to when everything else was falling apart. And now? Now she’s the one selling me out. Selling us out?
“What the hell?” I fucking hate how weak I sound. “I don’t… Why would she do this?”
I can feel Sloane’s eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to look at her.
She’s seen me lose it before, but this feels different.
Something is breaking inside me that I can’t fix.
I push off the counter and start pacing, trying to force my brain to work, trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make any damn sense.
“Roman,” Sloane says softly, stepping closer. “I’m sorry. But I need you to know the truth.”
I nod, my jaw tight. I need to know the truth, even if it breaks me. Even if it’s her.
“I’m calling her,” I growl, reaching for my phone before I even realize what I’m doing.
I hear Sloane’s breath catch behind me, but I don’t turn around. I don’t have time to look at her right now.
Jeena’s number is burned into my memory. I’ve dialed it a thousand times. This time, though? My hands are shaking. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to say to her. What can I say to her?
The phone rings, each second dragging, my heartbeat thundering in my chest. I’m about to break something just by standing still.
She picks up on the third ring.
“Roman, Happy New Year!”
“Jeena,” I growl, not bothering with pleasantries. My blood is boiling. “What the hell is this, huh? It was you? You were the one selling me out? Selling the band out? For what?”
There’s a long silence. Too long.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally says, trying to sound innocent, but I know her too well.
She’s stalling.
I grit my teeth. “Cut the crap. I know it’s you. Why the hell would you do this, Jeena? You’re my family. You’re the one person I’ve trusted. And now you’re fucking me over like this?”
Another silence, and I can hear her breathing. It’s not the usual calm, collected breath she takes when she’s trying to sound in control. It’s shaky. She’s cracking.
“Roman, I—”
“Don’t. Don’t give me excuses. Just tell me the fucking truth. Why? Why would you do this?”
She sighs heavily, and I can hear something in that sigh, a crack in the armor she’s been wearing.
“Money,” she eventually says. “I needed money. Things… they’ve been tight. Really tight. And we have an image to uphold, as you know. I… I thought I could keep it under control. But I couldn’t.”
I freeze.
What?
“I don’t… What do you mean, tight?” I ask, feeling the anger shift to something else. Something worse. “You’ve been selling us out for money? For a damn paycheck? Our family has money. I have money. I could have helped you out. The last thing you needed to do was break my trust.”
Jeena wavers. “I didn’t think it would go this far. I didn’t mean for it to spiral out of control, Roman. I didn’t… I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”
I’m seething now. I’m pacing again, my hand clenched into a fist, my body tight with fury. “But you did. You hurt me, Jeena. You’re selling me out to the highest bidder. You’re using everything I’ve trusted you with to line your pockets. You have no idea what this is doing to me.”
“I’m sorry. I… I just couldn’t…” She cuts herself off, cracking under what she’s done. “It was supposed to be small. Just a little side thing. But then it kept getting bigger, and I couldn’t stop it.”
I feel sick. My head is spinning with everything she’s said, but I can’t get the image of her out of my mind. The Jeena I used to know, the one who would have never, never done this.
I want to scream, to throw my phone, to do something to make this all go away. But I can’t.
“I need to go,” I say, my throat tight. “Just… get out of my life, Jeena.”
I hang up without another word.
The silence in the room is deafening.
Sloane is standing there, her eyes on me, watching as everything I thought I knew slips through my fingers. I can’t look at her. Not now. Not like this.
“I don’t even know who she is anymore,” I say, the words falling out before I can stop them. I feel gutted. Hollow. “She’s not the person I thought she was.”
I swallow hard, pushing the anger down, trying to force myself to stay in control. “I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know how to fix this.”
I don’t know if I ever will.
“What the hell did I just overhear?” Creed snaps as he enters the kitchen. “Jeena?”
All I can do is nod, the lump in my throat growing larger with every second. My head feels like it has been stuffed full of cotton, and I’m just… numb. I don’t even know what to say anymore. The truth is hanging between us, suffocating everything.
“She’s the one, Creed,” I mutter, barely able to get the words out. “She’s the one who’s been selling our shit to the press. All this time, I thought she was the one person I could trust.”
I swallow hard, my hands shaking as I wipe them against my jeans. The anger is still simmering just below the surface, but it’s so fucking tangled up with the hurt that I can’t even see straight.
Creed’s face hardens, his jaw working as he crosses his arms over his chest. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Your own fucking family? After everything?”
I can feel Sloane standing behind me, her hand resting lightly on my back. I don’t know if she’s trying to calm me or herself, but it’s the only thing grounding me right now.
“She didn’t just sell us out for the headlines,” I continue, almost to myself. “She’s been keeping me close, keeping tabs on everything. All this time, just waiting for the right moment to cash in on it.”
Creed’s eyes flash with something I can’t quite identify. “I don’t care what kind of shit she’s going through, this is fucked up. No excuse for that.”
I turn slowly, meeting his gaze. “I know. I know it’s fucked up, Creed. But I never saw it coming. She’s the last person I thought would do something like this.”
Ezra, who has been standing silently near the doorway, steps forward now, his eyes narrowed. “I cannot believe she would betray you, us, like this.”
Creed is rough, but there’s a hard edge to it that makes me look up. “Well, now we know what we’re dealing with. And it’s not a person who cares about you. Or us. We need to focus on what matters, man.”
“Roman, you’ve got us,” Sloane insists. “Don’t let this ruin everything we’ve built. We’ll get through it.”
I feel a surge of something in my chest at her words, something that feels almost relief but just as quickly turns into frustration. “It’s just… hard to trust anyone after this. She was my family. The one person I thought would always have my back.”
Ezra crosses the room to stand beside us, his hand resting lightly on my shoulder. “You’ve got more than blood around you right now, Roman. You’ve got people who choose to be here. Who choose you. We’ve got your back, every single one of us. And that’s the kind of family that doesn’t break.”
Creed lets out a long, slow breath. “So, what’s the plan then? We… deal with it, and move on?”
I glance over at him, feeling everything suddenly pressing down on me. It’s hard to process, harder still to come up with a way forward. But I know one thing for sure: I’m not doing this alone.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat. “We deal with it. And we move on. Together.”
Creed grunts. “Well, alright then. I can’t promise I won’t say anything to her if I ever see her again, though.”
I crack a tired smile at that. “I think we can all agree on that.”
Sloane finally moves around to stand in front of me, her eyes meeting mine. “Roman, don’t let her define who you are or what we’ve built here. Don’t let her break you. You’re stronger than that.”
Her words strike something profound inside me, something I’ve been afraid to confront. But right here, right now, I feel it, the stirrings of something I haven’t felt in a long time: hope.
I take a deep breath, pushing the anger down, trying to clear my mind. “You’re right. I’m not going to let her win. I’m not going to let anyone tear this apart.”
Sloane nods, a soft smile crossing her face. “We’ve got this. It’s just a bump in the road.”
Ezra grins, shaking his head. “A pretty big bump, but sure, we’ll roll with it.”
Creed lets out a low chuckle, then claps me on the back. “Hell yeah. Let’s show them what we’re made of. We’ll turn this shit around. New year, new opportunities.”
The year’s barely started, but maybe it’s not as fucked as I thought. If we stick together, we can make it through anything.