Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
LIVIANNA/LILY
Now
Dangerous Men & Better Answers
Itoss my purse onto the couch in my office. I’m so frustrated by Jaxon’s constant riddles about how we were close, but he never gives me a straight answer about what that was like.
Penelope appears in my doorway. “Livianna, there’s a man here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment. What would you like me to do?”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Sebastian Holloway.” She holds back a smile. “I never thought I’d get to meet a movie star.”
“I don’t want to see…” My mind hooks onto what I could gain from meeting with Sebastian. “On second thought, send him in. And make sure he’s extremely comfortable.”
“Will do.” She practically runs down the hall.
I should tell her how dangerous he is, but there are still questions in my mind surrounding the things Callum told me he knew about Sebastian, like why he wants to hurt me.
A minute later, Sebastian crosses into the room without waiting for permission, dropping onto the couch as if it already belongs to him.
“Livianna Mayze.” He glances around my office. “Look at what you’ve done for yourself. Or should I say what you and Jaxon Crowne built?”
I want to scream and tear out Sebastian’s eyes, but I need him. He might have information about Callum that I don’t have.
I purposely try to stay calm, taking measured breaths. “Sebastian. You look well for a man crashing an office he wasn’t invited into. But curiosity has the best of me. Why are you here? Was dinner with me not enough time to catch up?”
Sebastian smiles. “Dinner was a start. This is a continuation.”
“Of what, exactly?” I stay standing, keeping my hands folded in front of me, and refusing to give him any kind of reaction.
I know he’s a predator, and I need to keep my wits about me.
“You should figure out who your real friends are.” He leans back, arms spreading wide along the cushions like he owns the room. “Because it doesn’t seem like you know.”
My pulse kicks, but I don’t let it reach my face. “Why would you believe that? You don’t know any of my friends. Except Gia, and I’ve heard how that ended.”
His eyes twitch with that revelation. “Well, you only heard her side.”
“I trust her.”
“But you don’t trust me?”
“We cleared up our issues when we were at Geoffrey’s. I’m not sure I understand where you’re going with this.”
He stands, probably realizing I’m not going to sit. “We need to have a conversation about Zara.”
“What? Why? I had nothing to do with her. We hated each other.”
“That’s the point.”
“Then tell me.” I go to the table, giving myself distance. “What does Zara have to do with your visit?”
“We’ll get to that once you know your place.”
“My place? Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. You might want to look at where you’re standing.” I stay behind the table, keeping it between us like a wall he can’t cross without invitation. “Since you’re here, you’re going to answer a few questions for me, Sebastian.”
“Am I?”
He thinks he has me where he wants me, but I know too much now. I have information that could destroy him.
“You are.” I fold my arms, giving him nothing else to read. “Or I make one call to the paparazzi and give them my opinions about the rumors that swirl around you.”
His body tenses, calculation replacing whatever amusement he’d strutted in. “That’s a dangerous move, Livianna.”
“I don’t make idle threats.” I hold my ground, staying in place. Trying to get through this stupidity, I drop the reason I wanted to talk to him. “You came here uninvited with an obvious chip on your shoulder. So just tell me. Why are you here?”
“I need something from you. Something only you can give me.”
“There’s nothing I can give you.”
“But there is.”
“Can we cut the dramatics? I gave up acting long ago.” I mosey to the window, trying to appear unbothered. “Just say what you’re here to say.”
“You know Zara’s accident wasn’t an accident.” He leans against the back of a chair.
“I don’t know anything about it. Why do you think I do?”
“Timing.”
“What about it?”
“You and Cash got back together, and she threatened you at Trax. We had a nice dinner to clear the air, but then she wound up dead. I can’t help but think Cash had something to do with it.”
My mouth drops open, but I snap it shut and shake my head. “He was with me at a show. We weren’t anywhere near her.”
Sebastian’s forehead wrinkles, and his face crumbles into confusion. “Are you sure that was the same night?”
“Yes! Callum and I don’t even think about her anymore.” I step away, going back to my drawing station. “You can’t possibly think we have anything to do with that.”
Sebastian peers out the window, his stance losing all composure. “Then who the fuck was it?”
“I have no idea. She wasn’t the nicest person. I’m sure she had a lot of enemies.”
He twists in my direction. “She had a lot of friends.”
“Did she, or was she manipulating them?”
He glares at the suggestion. “I shouldn’t have come here. I just thought…?”
“You thought I’d tell you my husband killed your friend?”
“I thought I could get…” He straightens out his jacket. “Never mind my visit. I’m obviously off base.”
“You are.” I trek to the door. “Maybe we need to reconsider our friendship.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s time you leave.” I gesture for him to go.
“That’s fine, but if Cash had anything to do with her accident, he will pay.” Sebastian laughs under his breath on his way out. “I’m not the one Cash needs to worry about.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask him. He already knows.”
Right after work, I rush to Callum. I pull into the driveway of the Laurel Canyon house.
My pulse accelerates as I throw the car into park, climb out, and start talking to myself as I march toward the front door. “What the hell did you mean, Sebastian? What’s this threat Callum knows about?”
I’ve got to get answers from Callum. The front door hangs ajar, and my stomach sinks. I push it wider and go inside.
The first thing I see stops me cold. “What the hell happened?”
The living room looks like a storm tore through it. Callum’s guitars, the ones he treats like his children, lie scattered across the living room floor.
Necks snapped clean at the joints. Bodies split open, and wood splintered into jagged edges. The only thing holding some of them together at all is the frayed strings, stretched taut across the wreckage like the instruments are refusing to die.
“Callum?” My voice cracks on his name, echoing through the destruction.
Silence answers me first. Then a shuffle from the bedroom, followed by a glass shattering against the tile in his bathroom.
I amble toward the sound, stepping over a shattered instrument, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Callum, where are you?”
He appears in the doorway of his bedroom, hair wild, knuckles split and bleeding down one hand. His eyes find mine, but there’s a delay in them, like he’s not sure I’m real.
“Lily?” He blinks hard, swaying slightly. “When did you get here?”
“Just now.” Fear claws up my throat. “What happened? Your guitars, the whole living room?—”
“I don’t fucking know.” He looks down at his bloody hand like it belongs to someone else. “I mean, I got upset.”
My stomach bottoms out. “You don’t remember, or you got upset? Which is it?”
“I was…” Confusion tears through his expression. “I was writing, and the song wasn’t… Everything’s ruined, and my hand’s bleeding.”
“Were you frustrated about the music?”
“Um…yeah.” He treks past me into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about this, Livianna.”
“Not even you could stop me from that.” I cross the room and take his injured hand in both of mine, turning it toward the light.
The cuts are deep enough to need stitches, but not deep enough to explain the terror in his eyes. “We need to get this looked at.”
“It’s my hand, Lily. What if I can’t play anymore?”
“Then Bren and Cooper can pick up where you need them.” I grab a towel and wrap it around his wound. I peek up and meet his gaze. “You’ve never done this before.”
“I know.” He brushes past me. “Let’s get this checked out.”
“Callum.”
“What?”
I glance around at the wreckage, the shattered guitars, the strings still holding fragments together that should have fallen apart completely.
I force a confident expression onto my face. “You’re going to be fine. It’s probably nothing.”
Callum grabs his keys off the counter, avoiding my eyes. “Urgent care is ten minutes from here. I can drive myself.”
“Not with those cuts.” I snatch the keys before he reaches the door. “I’m driving.”
“Lily, I’m fine, and I always drive.” He reaches for them, but I step back.
“You’re bleeding through a dish towel.” I gesture at the mess behind us. “Nothing about this place says fine.”
He exhales, and some of the fight drains out of his shoulders. “Okay. You can take the wheel.”
We rush through the living room toward the front door, and I slow near the broken instruments, unable to stop myself from looking closer.
One guitar, a black one he never lets anyone touch, lies in two pieces near the fireplace. A single string still connects the neck to the body, stretched taut, refusing to snap all the way through.
“Callum.” I crouch beside it, studying the break. “This isn’t just frustration. This looks?—”
“Don’t.” His voice cuts sharply behind me. “Just leave it.”
I stand and turn to face him. “I’m not leaving anything. You destroyed a room full of your most prized possessions. What?—”
“I said leave it, Livianna.” His jaw locks, and for a second, fear covers him.
I don’t push further, but I file the reaction away. “Okay, let’s go.”
We hurry out together, and I lock the door behind us since he can’t manage it one-handed. The drive to urgent care stretches in silence, tension coiled tight in the space between us. He stares out the window, muscles tight, saying nothing.
“Callum, please talk to me.” I keep my eyes on the road, giving him space to answer without the pressure of eye contact. “Please tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He flexes his good hand against his knee. “I lost my temper. It happens, and you know that.”