42. Riot
Riot
Inch by painful inch, Kelsey is letting me back in.
She’s letting me see the fragile pieces of her soul and giving me the opportunity to be there for her. Screwing it up is not an option.
The crowd is quiet as I signal the guys to take a break between songs. I want to perform an acoustic piece I have been working on. I pick at the strings on my guitar. “I have a song I would like to play for you.”
One of the crew brings a stool out to center stage. I take a seat. “I know our new music has been circulating, and the rumors are that L.A. Riot’s next album will be a collection of hate songs. But this is not one of them. This is a song I wrote years ago. It’s about a friend of mine.”
I search out Kelsey where she’s standing on the edge of the stage. This is not a song about our losses or heartbreak. It’s a song about the hope a teenage boy has when he meets the girl who will change his life. She doesn’t look away when I hold her gaze while I pick chords from my guitar.
If you could only see the way you look to me
In your cropped tee and your faded jeans
I saw you ollie, I saw you be free
And I wonder what the hell you found in me
Because a girl like you doesn’t fall for a boy like me
And a boy like me doesn’t hope for a girl like you
But you walked into my life
And I will never be the same
It will always be you
Every breath I take is going to be for you…
She doesn’t run, and she doesn’t turn away. Through the entire song we stay connected.
Lyrics aren’t going to change anything between us. We have a long way to go. But I couldn’t play another hate song about her. I need her to hear the truth about how much she means to me.
I stand and one of the crew runs on and removes the stool.
“Thank you for being here with us tonight,” I tell the crowd, but my focus is on Kelsey.
We’ll be leaving first thing, but I have yet to confirm it with her.
I’ve got the flights booked. I’ve informed Rebel and Summer we’re coming.
I didn’t tell them why yet. That’s a conversation I need to have in person with my brothers.
Her eyes widen as she looks past me. Her jaw drops. Any softness in her turns to ice.
I turn to see what she’s staring at.
Sonatina walks onto my stage like she owns the damn thing.
Fuck, no. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
A big smile plastered on her face; she steals my microphone and addresses the crowd. “I hope you guys don’t mind me showing up like this. I wanted to surprise my boyfriend. You know how it is.”
The crowd turns frenzied. They scream for her as she launches herself into my arms and plants a dirty, wet kiss on me.
I drop her like she’s lava.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I snarl through gritted teeth before I look back to Kelsey. Only to find she’s gone.
Sonatina loops an arm around my waist when I try to go after her. “We all deserve to celebrate me joining Riot on the tour, don’t we? How about Riot and I sing ‘Chokehold’?”
The crowd is pumped. That excited energy is normally contagious. Tonight it’s not.
Bronx, Kodiak, and Golden all shrug as we exchange confused glances.
“What do you want to do? Follow little Katie, let down your fans, and piss off my daddy? Or be a professional and finish out the concert?” She squeezes my ass.
“One song.” To finish up the concert, keep Carmine happy, and not cause gossip that could put Kelsey in the spotlight.
“Great.” She smiles like a shark before she heads to the edge of the stage where her assistant is waiting with Sonatina’s lucky, gold-plated microphone. We start to play. Instead of coming back to me, she moves to the front of the stage, effectively turning L.A. Riot into her backup.
It’s fucking bullshit.
The minute its over I walk off on her. She hurries to keep up with me, but I outpace her easily.
I call Kelsey. It rings out. I call her again.
I need to find out where she got to and explain to her that I had no fucking clue Sonatina was going to show up here, but I am going to fix it.
When that call rings out too, I text her.
My phone rings and I answer without bothering to look at the screen. “Kels—”
“Not Kels,” Micah says. “Busy night tonight so I thought I would call you. Your target is on the move. Has been for about an hour.”
“Where’s he heading?” If it’s Vegas...
“I should have those details any minute.” I can hear him tapping away on a keyboard. “The other thing is those funds you wanted to investigate... it’s a total dead end.”
“What?” There must be a paper trail. We need it to prove Kelsey isn’t behind it.
“I mean it goes to an offshore account. Through a shell company. The details I’ve been able to find are thin.”
“I need evidence.”
“I’ll keep looking,” he says.
“Okay, call me back when you have his destination. I need to get hold of Kelsey.” I hang up on him and try her again. Still no answer. Where the fuck is she?
“If you don’t stop walking away from me, I am going to make your life hell, Riot Maddox,” Sonatina calls out.
“You already have.” I whirl around on her. “You drugged me.”
“Don’t be a little bitch,” she says. “You wanted me too. The whole weekend you were flirting with me. I just helped you drop the charade you had going. Don’t pretend like you didn’t love fucking me.”
“What?” the world spins out and back in again.
Holy fuck. Holy shit.
My stomach revolts. Is that why I struggled to recall the details around how I ended up sleeping with her? Why the things I did remember made it hard to enjoy sex. “You... raped me.”
“Rape? Ha. Most men wouldn’t care how they got into my panties.” She shakes her head like she can’t believe that I’m not happy about it.
“I should have you charged with sexual assault.”
“But you won’t because if you do you can kiss all of this goodbye.
” She waves her arm around to indicate the stadium and everything we’ve accomplished tonight.
“Are you really going to risk it all for a chance to look weak? No one will believe you couldn’t fight me off.
You’re such a big masculine man, and I’m just a dainty little thing. ”
She’s a fucking bitch.
I wrap my hand around her throat and walk her into the closest wall. It takes all my self-control not to throttle her. “You destroyed my relationship with Kelsey.”
“Oh, no.” Her lips twitch up in the corners. “That was all you. You were itching to be on my side in every argument. You wouldn’t have acted like that if you hadn’t wanted me.”
I’d wanted to protect L.A. Riot. And I’d hurt Kelsey to do so.
“It never had anything to do with you, Sonatina. Get that through your thick skull. I didn’t want you.
I never wanted you. I sure as hell didn’t want you to drug me so you could rape me.
” No one will ever believe that she could.
She’s right about that. Trying to have her charged for it would only make it public that I wasn’t able to protect myself from some spoiled little princess.
“You didn’t want me? That’s cute. You all but fell into my bed after she vanished. Or don’t you remember that?”
“How could I forget? The whole time I was just trying to stop thinking about her. But I couldn’t.
And it’s taken me way too long to realize it was never because of what I thought she’d done to me.
I loved her. I loved her when we were kids, I loved her when she did the only thing she could do and left me, and I love her now.
There is nothing you can do to change that.
” I drop her. “So whatever you’re trying to do...
whatever you hope to get out of me... it’s not happening. We’re done.”
“No.” She straightens her clothes. “We’re not. Not if you want to keep your band topping the charts. Or keep your precious Kelsey from doing prison time. She stole from Savant Records too. Not just you.”
“She didn’t do any of it.”
“Does it matter?” Her expression turns shrewd. “If it looks like she did?”
Fucking hell. “It was you... you set her up.”
“I get what I want.” She smirks. “Daddy makes sure of it. Now you will too.”
My heart sinks. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Your ring on my finger. A little chapel in the desert. Elvis taking us through our vows. The perfect romantic moment our fans will go crazy for. We’ll be the king and queen of the music scene.”
No fucking way... this bitch has lost her ever loving mind. “Over my dead body.”