52. Coleheart
COLEHEART
T hey were halfway to the arena when Preston’s phone started lighting up like it was trying to burn through his palm.
Mack.
Again. And again.
Spring watched the screen flare and fade, flare and fade. She was upset – angry, really – but what caught her was Preston’s silence. Not avoidance. Something heavier. Something she had seen before. After a spell, she asked, “You okay?”
He didn’t answer right away. His teeth clenched hard enough to ache, his grip on the steering wheel shifting. Finally, he exhaled. “You know what’s wild? She waited. “Mack, this man’s been like a father to me,” he said, voice low. “Taught me everything. Protected me. Or at least I thought he did.”
Spring’s chest tightened.
“He’s been stealing from me my entire career,” Preston continued.
“Your dad helped him. And somewhere in all of that… my best friend is dead.” His voice cracked, just barely.
And all I can think right now is, don’t mess up the lyrics to ‘Why Did We Fall in Love ?’” He let out a tired laugh that wasn’t funny at all. “That’s where my brain is.”
Spring reached for his hand. “You’re exhausted, baby.”
“I’m tired, tired of all of it,” he said simply.
The car accelerated a little. Not reckless, just… urgent.
“You know what else I keep thinking?” he added. “What if my mom knew? Even a little? What does that say about her? About me?” He shook his head. “Feels like everybody only wants me for what I can do. What I can produce. What I can give.”
Spring turned toward him fully now. “Hey.” He glanced at her.
“I’m not one of those people,” she said.
“You know that.” He nodded, but she pressed on anyway.
“You’re not my headline. You’re not your talent.
You’re not what they take from you.” She squeezed his hand.
“Mr. Cole, you’re my soul. You see me for who I am. And I see you.”
His eyes glistened, but he kept driving.
They pulled up to the arena, the building alive with movement and sound. Trucks, lights, security – the machine in full swing.
Mack’s name flashed on his phone again. Preston didn’t answer. Instead, he parked.
As they stepped out, they weren’t alone. Brian was there, focused and steady, along with Rae, camera down and eyes sharp.
The coroner followed behind, pale but resolute.
This wasn’t a spectacle. It was a reckoning.
Preston looked at Spring one last time before they headed inside. “Whatever happens in there…”
She nodded. “We’re together. Justice League.”
He kissed her hand. “Just Us.”
They walk into the noise, into the light, into the place where the world expected a performance?—
But what’s coming wasn’t a song. It was the truth.
The bass from the stage shook the hallway walls as they moved, Preston leading, Spring, Brian, and Rae right behind him, the coroner trailing like a man who suddenly regretted every decision that brought him here.
Out on stage, Talia was already singing.
Her voice rolled through the arena – big, soulful, commanding – holding the crowd exactly where it needed to be while the band played underneath her.
Mack stood just offstage, headset on, smiling like a man who’d built the whole night with his bare hands.
He turned when he heard the footsteps.
“Preston,” Mack said casually. “Where the hell have you been? You know what, never mind. We got to get you to wardrobe?—”
Preston didn’t slow down. “You stole from me.”
Mack blinked once, then laughed – not nervously, but as if entertained. He said to the crew working backstage, “Everyone give us five.”
The stagehands, lighting engineers, and so on left accordingly, leaving Preston and his crew with Mack behind stage.
The music swelled onstage as Talia hit a run that pulled cheers from the crowd.
Mack glanced toward the arena, then back to Preston. “Now, what’s this about?”
“This is about the forty percent you’ve been stealing,” Preston said.
“Careful,” he warned lightly. “You’re about ten feet from two thousand people who paid to hear you sing.”
“You took Cameron’s life,” Preston said, voice low. “And you tried to bury it.”
Mack tilted his head. “You got proof of that?”
Spring stepped forward, holding the photo. The coroner shifted awkwardly behind them.
Mack’s eyes flickered to the image just for a second. Then the smile came back.
Onstage, Talia finished the chorus and the crowd roared.
Mack lifted his hands like he was conducting the moment. “You hear that?” he said to Preston. “That’s what tonight is about.”
Preston stepped closer. “No,” he said quietly. “Tonight’s about the truth. This has always been about you being a lying, thieving, no good, son-of-a-bitch,”
Mack stepped forward, voice cracking loud enough to feel like it rattled the walls. “You got some motherfucking nerve to say I stole from you.”
Everyone froze.
“When I met you,” Mack continued, jabbing a finger toward Preston, “you were just a kid singing Stevie Wonder covers in hallways. That’s it.”
Preston didn’t move.
“I built you into Preston Cole,” Mack snapped. “Studio time. Producers. Meetings with A to get out of the mess she was under, and I saved her, and saved you, with the stroke of a pen.
You owed me from the day I walked into that talent show and you lost your nerve on stage.
And for a year, you spent all your time runnin’ behind this little girl, and you couldn’t write any good material – hell, you could hardly dance.
All you were was a voice. I built everything else.
So yeah, I took my cut of that. I was entitled to compensation. ”
“You didn’t build me,” Preston finished.
“You exploited me. And tonight, that ends. See, we already spoke to Ralph, and he’s going to fix what you stole.
And as far as my money goes, on the way over here, I transferred every dollar I own to an account that you can’t access.
So you can enjoy this little trip down memory lane, but I don’t need this, and I don’t need you. ”
Outside, the crowd roared louder, unaware that the man they had come to see was going through a crisis.
Mack stared at Preston like he was finally seeing him for the first time. Not a product. Not a boy. But a man who was finally done paying for someone else’s hunger.
Mack didn’t panic.
That was the part that chilled Spring.
He tilted his head, half-smiling, like this was all some twisted inside joke that only he understood.
“You took my money,” he said lightly. “So where’s my motherfucking money?”
Preston scoffed. “It’s over, Mack, you?—”
“Ain’t shit over,” Mack said as he pulled out his 9 mm pistol. “See, you must got me confused with a man who repeats himself. Now, where in the fuck is my money?”
Preston didn’t take his eyes off Mack, his arm reaching out to protect Spring. “You would really shoot me Mack?” he asked quietly. “After everything?”
Mack laughed, a short, ugly sound. “I ain’t gonna shoot you, Superstar,” he says, lifting the gun casually. He took a sip from his drink, then shifted his arm, waving the gun at everyone. “But I’ll blow everyone’s motherfucking head off if you don’t give me my money. One at a time.”
Rae chimed in. “Okay, everyone calm down.”
“Shut the hell up, new girl. Ain’t no calming down.
This boy in grown folk business. All in the Kool-Aid and don’t know the flavor, kinda like you right now.
Thinking he’s a man, but everybody gonna learn today.
See, I don’t play when it comes to my bread.
That’s where you fucked up,” Mack said, eyes locked on Spring.
“I told Ralph the day your ass came back to town, this was a bad idea. Always bringing up trouble.”
Everything stopped. Preston’s heart slammed against his chest. “Mack, you are going to shoot everyone and then?—”
Mack smirked. “I don’t give a fuck, Superstar. Where is my goddamn money?” He cocked the pistol back and loaded a bullet in the chamber. “You kids never listen. Y’all have no idea what the real world is like. Cameron didn’t listen, either.”
Spring froze. “What?”
Mack waved a hand like he was bored. “Boy got loud. Got brave. Same way you doing now.” He chuckled. “Thought he was gonna expose something. So we tussled.”
Spring felt the room tilt.
“He hit his head,” Mack continued, casual as hell. “Wrong angle. Wrong moment. I didn’t mean to hurt that kid. But when you tussle with a lion, sometimes you get bit.”
Preston’s breath left his body.
“And then,” Mack added, almost amused, “we made it look right. Thanks to the doctor over there.”
Talia’s voice cut through the room as she stepped fully in the room, fresh from the stage, adrenaline still running through her. “What’s going on?”
Mack chimed in. “Oh, we just having a family discussion. These little motherfuckers wanna be Black Scooby Doo Detective agency and Daphne and Fred about to get a foot in their asses.”
“Mack,” Talia screamed, “you need to calm down.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, they stole from me. And one thing I don’t allow is someone stealing.”
“Mack, ain’t nobody scared of you.” Spring bluffed. She wasn’t sure why she said it – she was indeed terrified, but that had never stopped her from speaking her mind.
Mack turned to her. “You know, everything was fine till you got back to town.”
“You call being ten million dollars in debt fine?”
He aimed the gun at her. “You the reason for all of this. Your daddy didn’t teach you respect. I told you, I ain’t your daddy. I will blow your mother?—”
He stopped, because Preston had moved.
The second the gun had pointed at Spring, Preston stopped thinking, and launched. Pure instinct. No plan. No hesitation.
He crashed into Mack like a freight train, hands flying, rage and love colliding in one violent, singular purpose.
Nobody puts her in danger.
They slam into the table, drinks spilling. The gun jerked?—
BANG.
The gun went off. Preston was still fighting Mack, four swift, violent blows disarming him. Mack fell to the ground.
The sound was deafening.
Mack stumbled back to his feet, shocked that Preston had done that, that he’d dared.
Preston kicked the gun and Brian picked it up. Preston turned to Spring instantly.
He looked at her white dress, where blood was splattered on it. “Oh my god, Spring. Where are you hit?”
She looked down, shocked by the blood, then looked back into Preston eyes. “Its not my blood.”
She examined him. His shirt was stained, her eyes revealing it all. The adrenaline was surging through him as he looked down and realized he was the one that was shot.
He clutched his side, breath ragged, teeth clenched in pain and fury.
Everything froze.
Preston hit the floor hard.
Spring screamed his name.
Time fractured.
Spring dropped to her knees beside him, hands shaking. “Preston, stay with me. Stay with me.”
He looked up at her, still there, still fighting.
Mack jumped up. “No, no, no, no. Get up, Superstar, you gotta get up. Preston, baby, come on, son, g?—”
“Stay away from him!” she screamed at Mack.
He backed away slowly now, bravado gone, eyes darting like an animal that just realized the room had turned on him.
Talia was crying. Brian was already moving to Preston’s aid. Rae’s voice was sharp, commanding, grounded as she called 911.
“You shot him!” Talia screamed. Mack screamed back “I… he… Preston! Get up, man, come on, now. Please, get up, baby.”
And Mack finally understood something he should’ve learned a long time ago: he never owned Preston Cole.
And the moment he’d threatened Spring?—
He lost everything.