Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
C ass had no time to think.
Osh lunged at him again with a wild, drug-impaired expression and Cass stepped aside to grab the bassist’s wrist.
He twisted the jerk’s arm under him, seized the knife as it fell, and caught Osh in a choke hold against his chest.
As Cass held the knife up to his neck, his attacker went limp, all swagger gone from his sweaty body.
“Anyone want in?” he asked Osh’s guys.
“Hey man. I’m good.” The huge one looked at him blankly. He put his palms up while the skinny one eyed him with wrath but had the brains to stay back.
Tommy arrived with Audrey—a sizeable woman in a navy suit and sleeked back short blond hair who acted as another one of Cass’s bodyguards.
“Take them out.” He let go of Osh and pushed him out toward his security people. “Remember what I said, Osh. You’re gone.”
“Fucking bastard,” Osh managed to grumble under his breath.
Audrey took hold of him, and Tommy rounded on the others.
“Come on, Osh.” Audrey escorted him out, his two cronies following gloomily with Tommy bringing up the rear. “You’re a mess. Let’s get you home, ok pal?”
“He’s done,” Cass said to his manager who was already on the phone organizing Osh’s replacement.
He poured himself a scotch from the portable bar, the bartender rushing to help him with some ice.
Everyone else had let out a breath of relief as soon as the last of Osh’s party disappeared, with the caterers getting busy again and setting the dessert table and after-concert snacks. Kit had come back to take some water bottles into the production office while Maya had brought in Osh’s girl, who looked a little more with it, and was trying to get her fed and hydrated.
“Let’s run this show now.” Cass took a swig of his drink.
That felt good. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He should have dealt with this sooner and fired Osh immediately after the hotel incident. If he was to be a father, he’d have to learn to drop some of his people-pleasing tendencies and make hard decisions quicker.
As he vowed to be a better person for his child, excitement started to rise in him. His last concert in a while would be with Tilly. It would be fun.
He was heading for the dressing room to change from his vodka-soaked jeans when Griff appeared.
“What’s going on?” his brother asked, shrugging into his dark-brown utility jacket.
Cass stopped in his tracks. “Hey man, what are you doing here?”
“Marjo came rushing up to me,” Griff told him. “Said you were in danger.”
“I told you to stay with Tilly,” Cass insisted.
“She’s fine. She’s with Marjo. No one else there.”
Karim walked in, his tablet in the crook of his arm. “We’re all good. I got Didier Couture driving down from Saint-Hyacinthe. We’ll be an hour or so late. No big deal.”
“We should have gotten him in the first place. Less drama.” Cass couldn’t shake his annoyance. He turned to his brother. “Come on, let’s go check in with Tilly. I don’t like her without anyone watching her.”
“She’s fine,” Griff insisted, walking beside him out of the bustling backstage rooms where Karim was now barking orders at the staff. “Raphael and Evan are probably there now.”
“ Baptême , Griff, you should not have left her.” He had a restless feeling that having her here for the show might have been a dumb idea.
“Sorry, that little assistant of yours was really panicked,” Griff explained as they hit the main floor of the arena. “And Tilly herself insisted. She was worried about you.”
Cass peered at the deserted mixing station. No sign of Tilly, Marjo, or of his brother’s vampire bodyguards.
His heartbeat picking up speed, he sprinted toward the short steps. “Where is she? Where’s Tilly?”
“She was right here.” Griff walked to her empty chair before scanning the stadium. “And where’s your assistant?”
A feeling of dread rose inside him. “She could be in the bathroom or looking for me.”
“Maybe,” Griff pondered. “She did want to talk to this Manu guy.”
Cass’s gaze landed on the floor upon the much too familiar phone with its industrial steel gray case. The screen was shattered.
He scooped up the device. “It’s hers.”
“Damn!” Griff said.
Cass surveyed the area. Nothing was amiss aside from the phone. No chair overturned, her laptop was fine, as was the mixing equipment. He looked at her phone screen to see if the device still worked. The glass was completely cracked but he could make out the lock screen image—the sonogram of their baby.
“Dammit, Griff. She’s gone.” He stared at his brother, panic rising impossibly fast.
“She can’t be far.” Griff was trying to sound reassuring. “We’ll find her.”
Cass shook himself to focus on that single thought. “Yeah, we’ll find her.”
But something deep within him told him this was bad. Real bad.
He texted his brother’s bodyguard. Raphael. Tilly is missing. I need everybody on it. Now.
He stared at Griff with despair. “We have to find her.”
He was about to take off to one side of the arena and ask Griff to take the other side when Griff ordered, “Give me the phone.”
“Why?”
“It’s something of hers. If she’s here, I’ll locate her.”
Of course. A simple locator spell.
In his distress, it was like he’d forgotten everything he’d been taught as a child.
He gave Griff Tilly’s phone, grateful to have him here to keep him grounded.
Griff settled the phone in his open palm. “ Licth tasarah,” he intoned, drawing runes in the air above the device.
Cass smelled the faint scent of ozone as the air distorted into a small halo around the phone.
“Licth tasarah,” Griff repeated once more. The frequency of his voice dropping low.
“And?” Cass couldn’t wait.
“Soon.”
Griff mumbled his spell under his breath a few more times and the phone started to glow with a ghostly green hue.
“ Sacréfice .” Griff shot him a dejected look. “I’m sorry, brother.”
“No?”
“I can’t feel her presence anywhere near here.” He shook his head with a downcast expression. “I’m sure. She’s no longer in the building.”
“Fuck.” Cass reached for the cross at his neck and recalled he had given it to her.
“Hey Cass.” Karim was marching up toward them. He called from the floor below. “Didier just arrived in the city. Want to help him get situated when he gets here? I think the sound checks are pretty much done. We just need the okay from Tilly. We’ll be late but we can start letting people in.”
Cass’s own phone buzzed, and he looked at it with urgency. A text from Raphael had appeared on the screen. We still can’t find her.
Desperation rammed into him like a crashing freight train. “There’s no concert, Karim. Cancel everything.”
And he took off with only one purpose in mind.
Find her.