Chapter Twenty-Five
Violet
The missed call notification from my mom glows on my screen like an accusation. She will be even angrier now.
I hung up on her the last time we spoke.
She deserves the truth now. The whole, ugly, complicated truth.
It’s eleven at night back home. I dial her number, my fingers trembling.
It rings once before she picks up. No greeting on her end, just a tense silence.
“Mom.”
“Violet.” Her voice is a flat line of aggravation. “You hung up on me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Theo showed up.” I adjust on the couch in the sitting room, trying not to wake Cassie, who’s passed out in my bed. It’s five in the morning here in Milan, and Cassie would bite my head off if I woke her before sunrise.
“He’s gone now,” I tell her.
“Your boyfriend shouldn’t interrupt a conversation with your mother.”
“Ex-boyfriend.” I correct, waiting to hear her reaction.
She clicks her tongue. “You mean to tell me there’s more to the lies you’ve been piling on me?”
“No. God, no, Mom. It’s just all part of the same big mess.” I take a shuddering breath, squeezing my eyes shut. “Let me explain. Please. Just let me get it all out.”
A beat of silence. Then, a quick but hesitant, “Go on.”
I start with the wound that felt most fresh for both of us.
“Theo and I aren’t together. And before you interrupt like I know you want to, it’s not because we decided we’re better as friends or the timing is off or anything stupid.
” My brain isn’t ready to hit my mom with this news, but I can’t hold back any longer from her.
Not only is it ruining her dreams of me marrying Theo, but it’s also going to hurt her relationship with one of our family members.
Her sister’s daughter, to boot. “Theo cheated on me, Mom.”
Her sharp inhale cuts through the phone, but she remains silent like I ask.
“And he cheated on me with Leah.”
“He what?” The volume of her shriek has me pulling the phone a few inches from my ear.
“For months. That’s why I had to end it.
I walked into the house after my last show at Madison Square Garden.
” My voice trails off, realizing I haven’t dug into that part of my betrayal yet.
“Anyway, Theo and Leah were naked on the couch. I confronted him after Leah left the house, and he blamed me for his cheating.”
She doesn’t say anything, so I plunge into the deep end before she has a chance to come up for air.
“Solace is me. I didn’t create her. The label did, legally, but the voice, the songs, that’s all me.
They built a whole fake identity. A brand they could own completely.
They said it was for privacy, but that wasn’t the case.
It was for control. If they find me, they’d bury Violet Lockwood so deep no one would ever find her. ”
I tell her about the conglomerate, the threats, the endless phone calls.
Twenty minutes are spent going over the same speech I’d given Skye the night before.
Honestly, it’s easier to tell this time because I feel like the largest weight has already been lifted when I placed my truth on Skye’s reliable shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I whisper, tears flowing freely now. “I wanted to tell you every single day. I hated lying to you. I hated the distance, but I didn’t know how to keep you safe from the world I’d gotten myself into. The fewer people that knew, the better.”
“Safe?” Her voice breaks. “Violet, I’m your mom. It’s my job to worry about your safety. Not the other way around.” Her voice is as soft now as it was when I’d fallen on the kindergarten blacktop and scraped my knee. “You carried this monstrous secret to protect everyone.”
“I was trying to protect everything,” I sob. “The music, my dream, you. But it all got screwed up, and it seems I’ve made it worse.”
“No,” she says, firm now. “You were surviving. In a situation no one should ever be in. This monster used your talent and then held a metaphorical knife to your throat to keep you quiet.”
There’s a shuffle on the other end of the line, followed by the sound of a keyboard clicking.
“Mom, you don’t have to—”
“I absolutely do. Your cheating ex and a pack of legal sharks think they can corner my baby? They have another thing coming.”
“Mom, really. My agent will take care of it. I already called her, and I’m waiting to hear back later this morning. She said she’d have some answers for me.”
My mom sighs into the phone, but the typing on her keyboard stops. I smile at the idea of my mom taking on all of this on her own. Linda Lockwood really is a force to be reckoned with.
“You will let me know the minute you hear something?”
My smile grows wider. “Of course I will, Mom.” Then, another punch of guilt hits my stomach. “There’s actually something else I’d like to talk to you about.”
She clears her throat, and I hear the click of the mouse. “Should I get a nightcap?”
“Not unless you want to,” I reassure her. “It’s more on a personal level.”
I hear her blowing air like she’s about to dive in and swim a full medley. “I’m ready. You can tell me anything.”
Heat floods through my chest at my mom’s words, and I keep myself from hugging the phone for fear of hanging up on my mom twice in less than twenty-four hours.
“I’m gay,” I pause to think, then add, “well, maybe bi.”
Her breath catches. “Oh, sweetie. That’s wonderful!”
My eyes go so wide, I’m surprised they don’t pop out of my skull. “What?”
I swear I can see her waving a hand at my reaction and leaning her elbows on her knees like she’s about to give me a real talking to.
“Love is love, Vi. And if it weren’t for your daddy ruining me for anyone else on the planet, I’d have found myself a nice woman that could please me—”
“MOM!”
She chuckles, and I look around the room to make sure nobody else heard the words that just left her mouth.
“Oh, don’t be a prude, Vi. I’m just saying, women know what women want. And Lord knows they don’t need a map to find the sweet spot.”
“Oh God,” I groan, covering my face with my hands. It’s like watching a horror movie with one eye closed, knowing you’ll still see the bad stuff, but feeling safer that only half of your vision has to endure what’s coming.
“Either way.” She exhales. “So, tell me again why you’re in Milan? If you’re not there to watch Theo win the Olympic games…”
“I’m here to sing the National Anthem at the closing ceremony.” There’s a smile in my voice as the words come out. It may not be the first time I’m saying it, but when you tell your mom the biggest news of your life, it’s like hearing it yourself for the first time.
My mom screams. Actually screams into the phone, and her hands start clapping.
THUD.
“Shit,” she curses in the midst of muffled sounds. “Dropped my phone.”
I laugh, and we spend the next few minutes discussing the ins and outs of what I actually do from day to day. I tell her about Skye and how we met at the bar, which led to the biggest, “Lord bless that child for taking care of my girl. You could have been scooped up by one of those traffickers.”
The rest of the conversation is a lot less colorful, but by the time we’re ready to hang up, I feel like she’s herself again.
Then it hits me.
My mom can finally come to one of my shows. And this time, when she stares at the singer up on stage, she’ll know it’s her little girl.
The Milan sun is a paler version of its usual self, filtering through the awning of the cafe. I’m nursing my cappuccino, the foam art long gone, dissolving into a swirl of nothing while Cassie attacks a cornetto with the intensity of a wildlife documentary narrator.
“And this…” She points a flaky pastry at me. “Is why you let me pack your non-stage wardrobe. Look at you. You look like a person.”
“I am a person,” I say, but she totally ignores me, taking a bite of the pastry as she keeps talking.
“You’re a chic, mysterious, ‘I have a secret life and a broody girlfriend’ person.”
I glance down at my outfit. Soft, gray trousers with a simple black silk tank, and a cloud-blue sweater to top it off. My collar at my throat dangles, the O-ring catching the sunlight. And I feel more like me than any version of the sequined armor of Solace ever made me feel.
“I didn’t let you pack my bag, Cass.” A real smile tugs at my lips. “You broke into my closet and did a hostile takeover.”
She waves her pastry dismissively, chugging her cappuccino and setting the empty cup beside her other empty cup.
Fuck.
She’s going to climb that skyscraper and touch those trees herself. No elevator needed.
“Semantics. The point is, you’re not wearing leggings and an oversized shirt.
This is growth. This is healing. It's a manifestation of you telling your terrifying domme the truth.” She leans forward, her eyes softening from their usual manic gleam.
“Seriously though, Vi. I’m happy for you.
The air around you doesn’t feel like it’s vibrating with panic anymore. It just feels like you.”
The warmth in my chest spreads. It’s true. The colossal secret is out. At least with the few people that truly matter.
The punishment from Skye was clean and had rules. It had an end date, even though she broke it last night with a demand to see me this morning. There is structure to my chaos now, unlike before, where there had only been the free-fall of lying.
“Thanks, Cass. It’s better.”
“Good.” She sits back, dusting sugar from her fingers. “Now. Bigger question. The closing ceremonies. Are you ready to be Solace for the world one more time before you go dark for the album cycle?”
The familiar flutter of nerves takes flight in my stomach. Not the old, crippling dread of being found out, but the pure anxiety of performance. Of being enough.
“I’m ready. The arrangement is ready. I’m just nervous.”
“I would be too,” Cass toys with the rim of her empty mug. “You’re singing the Star Spangled Banner. If you fuck that up, it’s not only your fans that will notice, but the entire country you’re representing.”
I swallow hard.
“Great, thanks, Cass.”
“Meh. Nerves are just excitement in a boring outfit. You’ll crush it.
And then disappear into the studio for six months to make that album come to life.
” She checks her watch. “Speaking of disappearing. We should motor on out of here if I’m going to gawk at those tree buildings during your booty call. ”
I roll my eyes, but stand, dropping some euros on the table. “It’s not a booty call.”
“Right. Right. Strategy.” She does a scarily accurate impression of Skye’s low and broody tone. “Which, in my extensive research, is a booty call with extra steps.”
Laughing, we turn to weave through the maze of tightly packed cafe tables and walk toward the street.
The morning crowd is a mix of tourists looking at maps and locals speeding by on Vespas.
I’m halfway to the sidewalk, my mind already drifting toward what Skye might have planned, when a body steps directly into my path.
I automatically sidestep, murmuring, “Excuse me,” but my gaze is snagged on his shirt.
It’s a simple, cheap-looking black t-shirt. Screen-printed across the chest in blocky white letters is a logo I know from a thousand legal documents and night-fueled presentations. AETHELGARD HOLDINGS.
My breath hitches. Ice water flooding through my veins.
My eyes snap to his face. He is unremarkable, in his mid-thirties, with thinning brown hair.
A bland and forgettable expression, but I do remember him.
The slightly too-eager reporter from backstage after my show at Madison Square Garden.
When Michel had to escort me off the stage and into a safe space so I didn’t get shot.
I’d been too exhausted and had forgotten the interview I’d promised him, so I’d brushed him off.
He is here. In Milan. Wearing the logo of the conglomerate that wanted to erase Violet to take over Solace.
His eyes meet mine, and a slow, cold smile spreads across his face. It’s not friendly, it’s filled with recognition.
“Miss Lockwood,” he says, his voice flat. “Fancy meeting you here.”
My throat goes dry as my eyes dart toward Cassie. She mouths something to me that I can’t quite make out, but as my eyes trail to her side, I see the metal of a gun barrel being pressed into her hip.
“Any sudden movements and we’ll make a bigger scene than you ever could on stage, Songbird.”
I want to try something. Anything. But I can’t risk Cassie’s life. I can’t risk my own. There has to be a way out of this.
There is a blur of movement from my other side. A strong, sweet chemical smell fills my nose and mouth as a thick cloth is clamped over my face from behind.
I thrash, my hands coming up to claw at the arm locked around my neck, but my limbs are already growing heavy.
The world tilts on its axis, and the last thing I see is the Aethegard logo, swimming in my vision.
Cassie’s horrified face, her mouth in a perfect ‘O’ of shock, reaching for me as her mouth is covered, being dragged down the vacant alley by the cafe building.
Then, the pale Milan sun blinks out as everything goes dark.