Kelsey
“Jailbait,” his taunting voice follows me down the hallway where the storerooms and dressing rooms are. “It’s been a long time.”
It has been a long time. It's been six years.
Six years since I've heard his voice. Six years since I last saw his sneering face.
Six years which was not nearly long enough for me to forget the fear he instills in me.
My body starts to tremble as I run. I have never forgotten what living with him and his father was like.
There was a reason I had gotten away from him.
Away from Marco. I had hoped to never see my foster brother again.
“And you are still so fine.”
My skin crawls. I move faster.
Click.
“Jailbait,” his tone is menacing. His footsteps sure. “You saw something you weren’t supposed to see.”
The exit is up ahead.
“I can’t let you leave.”
Tick. Thump.
Plaster puffs from the wall at eye level.
I scream and zig to the left. Zag to the right. The exit is right in front of me. I shove at the bar, and the metal door swings out into the street.
It’s been raining the whole time I’ve been in the club. It’s pouring down in diagonal sheets that drench me and make it hard to see. The darkness flickers, turning as bright as day before tossing us into dimness once more.
Tick. Thump.
A brick in the building on my right explodes. Grit stings my bare thigh, ribs, and shoulder.
I’m almost at the corner. It’s a busier street. I might have a chance if I can make it.
The world lights up again, making me an easy target.
“We could come to an agreement. I could let you live,” he calls out. “We could have fun like we used to.”
No. Fucking. Way.
My ankle screams in pain as I burst onto the next street. “Help me!”
Ordinary people out for a fun night in the nearby clubs gawk at me as I fly past. Men stare because I’m wearing nothing but my underwear. The women are all wearing blank, emotionless expressions.
I don’t care. None of it matters. The only thing that matters in this moment is getting away from Marco.
Please don’t be there. I glance back.
He’s put his gun away and slowed with the thickening crowd.
I bounce off someone.
Marco stills.
“Help me,” I beg.
The woman shouts and pushes at me. “Get away from me.”
“Sorry.” I pant, pushing her around me as I scramble to add any distance I can.
Feet planted wide, he watches but doesn’t follow.
I don’t wait to find out what his next move will be.
I keep running, weaving through the foot traffic until Marco is no longer visible when I glance back.
Eventually the sharp ache in my swelling ankle and the way my knees want to buckle become insistent.
Every muscle is on fire, my lungs burning from lack of oxygen.
The pavement scrapes up my palms as I collapse and retch.
A black Escalade cruises slowly toward me. The tinted back window lowers.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Marco opens the door. He must have had his driver pick him up and follow me until I tired myself out. He holds up my gym bag. “Get in the car.”
He has my life in his grip. My address, my apartment keys, every dollar to my name.
“You should get in the car. You have nowhere to run to.” The gun in his other hand makes an appearance close to his body.
If I run, he will find me. If I get in the car, no one else ever will.
I struggle to my feet, searching for an escape route. Wrapping my arms around my icy middle.
“Atta girl,” Marco croons, making my skin crawl. “Hurry up and get in the car.”
The sky flickers—bright, black, bright.
In the sudden illumination Riot Maddox’s image stares at me from the brick wall on the next building. Another line of L.A. Riot World Tour posters covers the promo space.
Are you happy? This is all your fault. If you wouldn’t have ruined everything I wouldn’t be about to go missing at the hands of my foster brother.
A fear that I had thought I’d been able to put behind me. Left in my teen years. Shit, I was such a fool. Both in falling in love and in believing I was actually safe. What am I supposed to do now?
“Whoa, no way!” a familiar drawl stops and restarts my heart. “Kelsey Peterson, is that you?”
Lungs tight, gaze locked with Marco, I reply to the man I have yet to look at. “Drummer Boy?”
“Yeah, girl. What the hell are you doing out here in your underwear?” His concern grows as he nears.
Marco’s dead eyes tell me he’ll be back for me. He shuts the door and the Escalade rolls on.
Whatever strength has been holding me upright deserts me. I crumple, shoulders shaking.
“Rough night?” Bronx’s jacket falls around my shoulders, covering me from neck to knee.
Rough couple of years.
Unable to speak, I gawk at the giant man I haven’t seen since everything went down between his buddy and I two years ago. Riot, the arrogant prick kept the band, his friends, and the family I always wanted. I got all the heartbreak.
The L.A. Riot drummer tugs the zipper up on the jacket. He’s wearing one of his signature sleeveless singlets, his muscular, inked arms and shoulders taking a beating from the rain.
“You’re terrified.” He winds an arm around my shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get out of this rain and you can tell me what the hell has you freaked.”
It’s over for now. Marco is gone. The adrenaline is wearing off. My teeth are chattering. I yelp at the excruciating pain with the first step.
Bronx checks me over, notices my damaged ankle. “Damn. That’s got to hurt.”
Putting an arm behind my knees, he swings me up and carries me.
I could argue. I want to argue. Order him to put me down and let me disappear into the night.
I used to be the one bossing this big guy around.
I could make him promise not to ever tell Riot he saw me like this.
Drenched, in my underwear. A total wreck.
My ex would probably get a kick out of it. The way he did when he screwed the record label head’s daughter, Sonatina Savant, while lying to my face about how he wanted me to be his one and only. Cheating on me, at his brother’s wedding no less.
But I’m exhausted. Lightheaded. The pain in my ankle is radiating to my toes and up to my knee. And it’s nice to see his face. I reach up and touch his cheeks, making sure I’m not bleeding out on the pavement, hallucinating a familiar face to keep me company in my final moments. “You’re real.”
He’s solid and warm, and he chuckles. “Yes, I’m real. And I’m taking you to the emergency department.”
“No.” Shaking my head, I shove at his chest. “I can’t go to the hospital.”
“That ankle seems bad, Kelsey.”
“I lost my purse.” I don’t have any insurance. I already have hospital bills I have no way to pay. “Put me down. I’m fine, really. I can take care of myself. I’m not going to the hospital.”
His brow tightens. “I’ll give you a ride home then.”
“No.” Marco left because he knows where I live thanks to having my bag. He’s probably already sent an associate to wait for me to return. I can’t go home.
Not that it matters. That eviction notice pinned on my door made me homeless. It happened quicker than I expected; that’s all. I was meant to have time to gather my measly belongings. My hopelessness threatens to overwhelm me again.
“You’re not going to argue with me.” He carries me inside a darkly lit building. A woman croons on stage. She’s dancing in lingerie, huge feather fans fluttering from her hands. It’s a burlesque show, and a very different vibe from Scarlet.
No one stares at me, my appearance that of a drowned rat. They’re all infatuated with the woman on the stage. She is beautiful. Her moves an artistic lesson in seduction. Her lingerie exquisite, classy pieces.
Bronx lowers me onto a seat at a small table. A round mosaic candle flickers in the center. He talks to the server before he pulls the other chair beside mine. Sitting, he bends down to remove my stripper heels.
I tense up at the sudden amplitude of pain when he lifts my injured ankle onto his lap. He starts to examine the damage, carefully prodding and checking range of movement.
I take the opportunity to study him. He’s added more ink to his biceps and shoulders and throat. “You cut your hair.”
It used to be shoulder length.
“Yeah.” He tugs on the much shorter brown strands that are longer on top than they are at the sides. They’re wavy and thick. It works well with the thick ginger scruff on his jaw. He looks good. Really good.
I’m scarcely hanging on. He seems to be thriving. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to catch my friend’s show while we were in town. Tonight’s the only night I had to do it.”
“The big tour. First show is tomorrow.”
“You keep up.” His eyebrows raise as he leans in. “We’re going to be on the road for months.”
“You’re everywhere.” As much as I wish I wasn’t faced with my past literally staring at me everywhere I go, I miss the guys. “How’s Golden?”
“Your Golden boy is good. Still a total man-whore.” He grins. “But that’s the rockstar lifestyle, isn’t it?”
“It is.” In a way I was not cut out for.
“He misses you. I do too. Things haven’t been the same since you left.” He pauses, scanning my face as though looking for something.
I have no clue what he expects to see. Other than how hard life has been lately.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. Why’d you do it, Kels? Why’d you leave?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I didn’t want to, but how could I stay after the way Riot ended things? I didn’t have any other choice.”
“You could have reached out,” he says.
“Like you did.” That had hurt too. Not as much as Riot breaking my heart. But we’d been close, hadn’t we? And then we were nothing.
“Yeah.” He rubs a hand over his jaw. Turns quiet.
I can’t for the life of me tell what he’s thinking.
Eventually he says, “Neil passed.”
“I heard.” There’s a pang in my chest over my old friend. He’d struggled with the band’s growing fame. Gotten hooked on drugs. Rehab hadn’t solved his problems. He’d passed a few months after I left. A new bassist was brought on by Savant Records. “I was going to attend the funeral, but…”
“Yeah.” Bronx purses his lips. It’s clear he wants to say something. “Riot’s—”