Graham
I stare after her with uneasy feelings about everything she said. It’s a strange aching in the pit of my stomach. Something I’m not accustomed to, and I don’t like it.
She thinks I feel guilty? Believes that’s the reason I want to talk to her? Maybe I understand why she would think that. It may even be a little true, but not for the reasons she thinks. It has nothing to do with brotherly duties even if that was my role for so long.
Even my perverse, forbidden desires don’t make me feel guilty.
She has no idea how much that kiss changed everything for me, even if I denied it for a while. It means I did what I intended. I drew the line in the sand and created the boundaries that defined who we were to each other. No, that’s not what I did. I removed myself from her life. I redefined our roles to appear as if we were nothing at all.
The only guilt I feel is making her believe that lie.
After my father’s revelations Friday night, I’ve wanted nothing more than a pound of Krista’s flesh. The woman is still wreaking havoc on my family because bankrupting a multi-generational fortune wasn’t enough. If not for my personal wealth, my father would’ve lost everything.
Then, beyond the money, there’s my father. She’s filled his head with lies from day one. Convinced him her ex-husband was abusive. She used his grief over my mother’s death to gaslight him anytime he tried to put his foot down. She’s drained the life from him.
All I’ve imagined about for days is how I wish he’d never met her, but every time the idea occurs, I remember if Dad hadn’t married Krista, Casey wouldn’t have been part of my life. And the thought of what would’ve happened to her had I not been around makes me murderous.
I wanted to ask her how she was doing, make sure she was okay after the shit show with her mother the other night. Krista deserves to rot, even though I wonder if that will happen now—if I will be able to let it happen—but it shouldn’t have happened so publicly. Not just because of me and the impact on my family, but because of Casey. The look of horror on her face nearly broke me.
But then the feeling she didn’t want to be near me overshadowed that. And the need to close that distance fueled me until I was in her space. The second I gripped her chin, every cell in my body begged me to do more. To erase the inches that separated us.
For a moment, I could see her surrendering to me. Then Blair appeared and she couldn’t get away fast enough. Some might’ve become smug at what could’ve been considered jealousy, but I know that girl. She immediately thought Blair was my date and felt embarrassed for intruding.
Blair was not my date, by the way. She’s my attorney and happily married. She was present as I signed the contracts for the CEO position.
When the elevator doors slide open, I find myself wanting to pick a fight.
The person I want to take my anger out on isn’t in his office, so I make my way to the next ones on my list.
I swing the door open without knocking and walk in. All the members of Sons of Sin are in the room, and not one of the five heads looks up. Not the two on the sofa playing a video game. Not the other two by the windows hunched over sheets of paper on a table, one holding a guitar, the other holding a guitar and a baby. Not the one with another infant on the floor turning ten shades of green as he changes a diaper.
I blink. Then blink again, wondering if I’m hallucinating, but the sight doesn’t change. This office looks like a daycare—for adults and children. These people have been running a business?
I’m so shocked I just stare, forgetting to speak.
“Something we can do for you, Davis?” Ryder Jamison asks without turning his head away from the guitar in his lap.
“This is how you run a multi-million-dollar company?” I bark. Like I said, I want to fight, even if starting it this way is ridiculous because numbers don’t lie. However unorthodox, the label hasn’t just thrived under them. It’s excelled. I saw the financials before I signed on the dotted line.
For the last five years, I’ve built a fortune and a reputation on my ability to take bankrupt companies and revive them by any means necessary, for hostile takeovers of the weak, and several other lucrative, if sometimes borderline illegal, business choices. It became the distraction I needed to keep my mind off a leggy blond I shouldn’t have been thinking about. But Sin Records is not like those companies. Their last quarter showed more profit than the company did in the last decade under my father and his business partner, Nichols Lockwood.
I took the position because it was always supposed to be mine. The company was supposed to be my legacy. I spent years learning everything I could about every aspect of business, from supply and demand to finance to branding. Not a single micro or macro was neglected. Most of it had nothing to do with the music industry itself, but I wanted to build my knowledge and prove myself beyond the Davis name, so when the day came that I took over L&D records, people would know it wasn’t just my DNA that got me there.
Then my father and Lockwood quietly sold the company. There were no formal announcements, no bids—they just sold it. By the time rumors circulated they were taking offers, the ink was already dry.
When I confronted my father, demanding to know why I wasn’t given the chance to buy it, he looked at me with apologetic eyes.
“I’m sorry, . We weren’t considering it, but Trey Masters and Sebastian Delrie made an offer.
I threw my hands in the air. I knew who Trey Masters was. Everyone in the business world did, but I had no idea who the other guy was. “So, you tell them no!”
Dad looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head. “No one tells Delrie no.”
“For fuck’s sake, Dad. You act like he’ll toss you into the Potomac.”
“More like the Gulf,” he muttered. I shook my head and walked away.
I did some digging on Delrie, shocked to find he was a major stockholder and COO of Diamond Industries—a small but booming company founded in Louisiana that expanded rapidly over the years—a graduate of Loyola with a degree in architecture, and a renowned tattoo artist but nothing else. Even on the dark web, it was like he was a ghost. Once my lawyers told me the sale was airtight, I didn’t dig any further.
My bodyguard, Will Lucchese, told me my comment about the Potomac wasn’t too far off. The man was mafia, but according to my bodyguard, Delrie was wild but didn’t just drop bodies because he didn’t get his way.
The same wasn’t necessarily true of me. I didn’t go around killing people per se, but I might have been known to use whatever persuasion I needed to get what I wanted.
Then, six weeks ago, I received a phone call from Jamison offering me the CEO position. I was more than a little stunned, given that the last interaction I’d had with him or Masters was in high school, and that ended with black eyes and broken noses. Also, it was no secret that Liam Parsons had become part of their inner circle, and I was the son of the man who destroyed his marriage and career, not to mention help keep him and his daughter apart.
I did not hesitate to take the job. I’m not sure anything would’ve stopped me. There were no cons as far as I was concerned. But ever since that party, I’ve wondered…
“Did you plan all that bullshit at the party? Coordinate her arrest to coincide with announcing me being the new CEO?” It didn’t take me long to realize the entire thing was orchestrated.
“Why would we do that?” Ryder asks, this time deeming me worthy enough to cut his eyes my way.
“I don’t know why. Maybe you thought it would be some kind of good publicity to offset the bad. Or maybe you just thought it would be publicity period for the former owner’s wife to be carried out in handcuffs while his son takes over the company. I’d be a fool not to question the timing of it all since it’s no secret that Masters didn’t even want a CEO.”
The strumming of the guitars stops. The video game goes silent. All eyes turn to me. Seems like something got their attention. I assume they don’t like being called out or questioned.
“Man, I don’t know if that makes you one cocky motherfucker or a pathetically insecure one,” Angel Martin tells me from his place on the sofa. “The ink is barely dry on that contract, you know? I’m sure we can still cancel the whole thing.”
My teeth grit, biting back the retort burning on my tongue. I am cocky, but more so, I’m distrustful and a little paranoid. The business world is cutthroat, and everyone has an agenda. I’m wondering if I should’ve questioned what theirs was a little more before I took the offer. But I was thinking from a place of entitlement and arrogance. My dick may have been involved, too.
And there was no way the contract could be nullified without meeting very specific requirements. Because I pissed them off and called them out wasn’t one.
“Calm down.” Maddox shifts the baby on his lap, sets the guitar aside, and turns around to look at me, then points to the other men in the room. “I told all of you he would think it’s a setup.”
“That’s because you’re a paranoid prick, too.” Dane Pierce, the band’s drummer, says as he carries a baby girl in one arm like a sack of potatoes while holding the diaper away from him. He passes the baby off to Jake Martin, the band’s bass player and his brother-in-law, and walks out the door muttering something about nuclear waste.
“For the record, yes, the shit with Krista was planned.” Maddox nods toward the door. I turn and find the man I want to pick a fight with standing there.
Having it verified that it was indeed a setup for Krista increases the desire to punch him in the face. I was already irritated as hell after the way he reacted to me speaking to Casey. He probably thinks I didn’t hear him tell her to stay away from me. But ever since the wheels started turning—the moment I realized the arrest was planned for that moment—I’ve been getting angrier by the second because he planned it while Casey would be there to watch. She’s been through hell with her mom, but for some reason, she loved her anyway. Not to mention she hates attention of any kind, even if indirect. Watching her mother kick and scream like a banshee embarrassed Casey.
“We coordinated with Liam, Henry, and the police a week ago because Liam and Henry were convinced Krista wouldn’t be able to resist the invitation,” Maddox finishes saying.
“And we were right.” Liam glares at me, almost daring me to disagree.
And I do. “Yeah. You were right. And you humiliated your daughter in the process.”
He stands, forgetting to put his weight on the crutches he’s using, to his full height as if that would intimidate me. He’s two inches taller. Give the man a prize. “Whether it happened there or elsewhere, it was going to happen, but Casey was informed. She chose to be there, anyway.”
“Good for you, Liam. You warned her. Of course, she fucking showed up. It was her best friend’s party.” Well, that was an accidental slip. I’ve been away for years. I’m not supposed to know who her best friend is. But I don’t let my mistake slow my rant. “Do you think knowing in advance made a difference? Were you standing there when she heard the bitch scream bloody murder? Did you see her face turn white as a sheet? Does that sound like she was okay?”
He steps closer to me, his nostrils flaring. “Do you think you know my daughter better than me?”
“I know I do.” Another slip. Everyone assumes I know nothing about her anymore. There’s nothing I don’t know about her. I step into him, and we’re nearly chest-to-chest. Even if it’s been years, I know her desires, what makes her happy, and sad…. I know her secrets. The ones he knows nothing about. Even if I know she’s got secrets from me too.
“Whoa!” Maddox and Angel appear beside us—I forgot they were even in the room.
“Let them have a go,” Ryder taunts, still in the same seat but now holding Master’s child.
Maddox tosses him a glare as they separate us as if they’re worried we’ll fight. Angel pushes Liam back while Maddox shoves me to the opposite side. He points at me. “Yes, it was planned, but no there was no ulterior motive where you were concerned. We had that release party planned days before your attorney called.”
“And you couldn’t warn me?”
“Couldn’t take the chance you’d give them the heads up, mate,” Ryder claims.
I lock eyes with Liam and raise a finger, pointing at him. “ He knew.”
“Yeah.” Maddox rubs his chin thoughtfully while he glares at Liam. “I get the feeling you forgot to share a few things, didn’t you Liam?”
“Jesus Christ, what does it matter now? It’s done,” Angel grumbles. “And if Casey got upset, I’m sorry, but that bitch could’ve killed my sister. She’s lucky I didn’t toss her ass over the goddamn roof.”
“Enough!” Maddox bellows when his son starts to cry. He walks over, takes the baby, shushing him a bit, mumbling softly, then, when he quiets, he turns icy eyes on everyone. “You’re right,” he says low and deep. “I didn’t want a CEO. Ryder did. We argued for months until Angel had enough and bought into the label just to be the tiebreaker. You’re here, so no secret what he decided. I thought we went over everything important and made sure there would be no issues with anyone.” He turns his hard, accusing glare to Liam, who tips his chin a bit and then looks back at me. “But the choice was only for you. There was no shortlist. If I was being forced to fill the role, you are the only one I considered, and you can guess why. Far as the rest, sorry you were blindsided.” Liam scoffs, and my attention snaps to him. I open my mouth, ready to start again, but Maddox doesn’t give me a chance. “But whatever the hell this is…” He gestures between us as the baby in his arms squirms. “It stays the hell out of my goddamn company, or I will make you both regret the day you met me.”
“I already do most days,” Angel growls, earning a reprimand from Jake across the room.
“We’ll be fine,” Liam finally says, but his eyes say more. We’ll be fine as long as I toe the line he’s wordlessly drawn.
I don’t toe lines. I obliterate them.
“Now, get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Office.” Maddox bellows.
“Thought it was our office,” Ryder taunts.
“Shut the hell up, asshole,” Maddox replies.
I growl but turn to leave at the same time as Liam. “Not you.” Maddox points at Liam.
I’m disappointed. I wanted to continue our conversation. It will get finished, even if not here or today.
I’m almost to my office on the other side of the building when I hear my name. I turn and find Liam behind me.
I stand with my hands in my pockets so I don’t punch him in his mouth. He stops a foot away from me, his eyes appraising me, and then he scrubs his hands over his face. “I apologize for that, but I need you to understand that Casey was considered in every step of this. I know you’re concerned for her, and I can appreciate that.”
I raise a brow, a little shocked he’s quick to apologize because I wouldn’t be. I also wait for the other half of that statement because he’s not done. “But?” I prod when he doesn’t spit it out.
“I don’t have an issue with you, . You’ve watched out for Casey for a long time. I’m grateful.”
“I would hope so since you’re the one who asked me to.” I’m still waiting. I can feel the rest coming.
“I did. It was comforting to know she had someone in her corner when I couldn’t be there, but now I need another favor.” My lips press together, knowing what he’s about to say. It’s written all over his face even if I hadn’t heard what he said to Casey. “Now, I need you to stay away from her.”
“And why is that?”
His dark blond hair brushes his shoulders as he shakes his head. “The whys aren’t important. It’s only important that you do it.”
“Is that a request or a demand?”
“It’s whatever it needs to be for you to listen. Trust me, it’s for the best.” He doesn’t give me a chance to agree before he walks off.
Maybe it’s better he didn’t wait for my response because I’m not sure staying away from her is even possible.