Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ANDI
Saturday nights at the club used to feel like a release. Noise, music, lights, friends. A small universe where problems stayed outside the doors. Lately, it feels more like a stage inside a pressure chamber.
We’re down to five contestants now, so Mitch has declared it “playoffs,” apparently giving him the authority to rewrite the rules whenever he feels like it. Instead of choosing our own songs, we’ve each been assigned one in a genre we don’t normally perform. Mine is by Disturbed.
I almost laugh when he tells me. Of course it is.
I don’t mind the song. I mind the timing.
Everything in my life feels like it’s teetering on a fault line, and now I’m supposed to scream about war into a microphone.
But they don’t get to disrupt my life. They don’t get to take away everything that makes me, me.
I don’t sing for boardrooms, investors, or the youth center staff.
This is the one place where no one gets to manage me.
Backstage, I rummage through the costume rack, building the look piece by piece. Camouflage shirt, cut and reshaped. Black shorts. Boots. A headband tied tight across my forehead. Pink streaks in my hair again because I’m tired of muting myself for anyone.
If I’m going to sing about battle, I might as well look like I expect one.
When the sirens at the beginning of “Indestructible” wail through the speakers, the lights turn red and spin. I step onto the stage and hold the salute a second longer than necessary before the music crashes in.
The first verse steadies me. The second settles into my bones. The crowd dissolves into motion and shadow beyond the stage lights, and I focus on the rhythm, breath control, and the physical demand of pushing my voice into territory it doesn’t usually venture.
Then I see him.
Not immediately. Not until I move to the left side of the stage and my line of sight shifts. His ball cap is pulled low over his face at first, then he pushes it up just in time to meet my gaze. He’s putting on his own show just for me.
Jackson Rhoades is three tables back, just behind Luke. He’s not wearing a suit tonight—no flag pin, no entourage, just dark clothes that let him fade into the crowd. But he’s not here to disappear. He sits with his back straight, hands folded, eyes locked on me, daring me to acknowledge him.
The realization doesn’t jolt me with fear. It settles in my bones, cold and certain: he can find me anywhere. He can sit ten feet from the man I love, pretend it’s a coincidence, just to see how close he can get before I flinch.
The club feels smaller, the air heavier.
My pulse doesn’t race—it slows, each beat deliberate.
I step off the riser, the stage lights painting my skin in red and gold.
The second verse is defiance, and I let the words cut through the haze, my voice steady and sharp.
I sing for him, but I sing for myself too—every lyric a line I refuse to let him cross.
When I sing about standing unbreakable, I am not performing.
I am answering him.
I move closer to his table than necessary. Close enough that he has to tilt his head up to meet my eyes. Close enough that he understands I see him, and I am not retreating.
For a brief second, his mouth tightens.
Then Luke shifts in his chair. He’s turning. I feel it before I see it.
No.
I finish the chorus and step down from the stage before the final chord fades. I cross the floor and take the chair opposite Luke, rather than sliding into the one beside him.
His eyes search my face immediately.
“What’s wrong?” he asks quietly.
I take my phone from Katie and type beneath the table where no one can see.
He is here. Behind you. Don’t look.
Luke’s phone vibrates in his hand. When he looks down, his jaw locks. His shoulders change shape. He doesn’t turn.
Why are you not sitting w/ME?
Because sitting beside you makes you visible. Because if he sees what you are to me, he recalibrates. Because I refuse to hand him leverage.
I answer carefully.
He’s threatening. I don’t want you targeted.
Luke reads it. His eyes darken, not with confusion but with anger held in check.
I add:
Element of surprise. He may not know about you yet. Trust me. Please.
A long second passes.
Then my phone vibrates.
I’m leaving.
Before I can respond, he stands. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look behind him. He walks straight toward the exit.
I feel the shift instantly.
From the outside, that move looks like distance. It looks like a disagreement. It looks like a fracture.
Jackson doesn’t move. He watches me instead.
And I understand the play.
If anyone here was paying attention, they would have just seen my boyfriend walk out after I performed a song about war while staring at another man.
That narrative could write itself.
I keep my face neutral and remain seated for a count of five before I rise and head for the door.
Outside, the air is cool against my overheated skin. Luke’s truck isn’t in the front lot. I scan the row twice before the old instinct tries to flare—the one that remembers standing alone too many times.
No. This isn’t that. This is a test. A manipulation of perception. A demonstration that proximity can be weaponized.
I circle toward the back of the building.
“Why the hell are you walking around out here in that?”
I turn and see Luke stepping from the shadows near the side entrance. He’s parked behind the club, away from the main lot, where he has a clear view of who comes and goes.
Relief hits me so hard I don’t bother to contain it. I cross the distance between us, and he catches me midair as I jump into his arms. My legs wrap around his waist without thinking. He steadies me immediately, his hands firm against my back.
“Did someone touch you?” he asks.
“No,” I say, pressing my forehead to his. “But he’s pushing.”
Luke shifts his weight and sets me on the tailgate of his truck, staying close enough that I can still feel his body heat.
“My text didn’t go through,” he says, pulling out his phone. The screen shows the message beneath mine: Failure to send.
I stare at it.
One message interrupted. One visual of him walking out.
One man sitting still.
That’s all it would take to build a story.
“They can interfere,” I say slowly.
Luke nods. “Or someone jammed the signal in the room. Or we hit a dead spot. I don’t know. But I don’t like it.”
“He wanted you to look,” I say.
“I know.”
“He wanted to see what you’d do.”
“I wanted to drag him out by his collar.”
I almost smile. “That’s why I didn’t sit beside you.”
His hands tighten on my waist, not in anger, but in restraint. “You don’t get to decide alone anymore,” he says, his voice lower now. “Remember?”
“I’m not,” I reply. “I’m trying to keep options open.”
He studies me for a long moment, reading between the lines the way he always does.
“They isolate you first,” he says finally. “That’s how this works. Separate you. Make you look unstable. Make it look like you’re alone.”
“You’re right.”
“That is not happening.” His certainty doesn’t feel impulsive. It feels measured. “Not this time.”
A car idles near the edge of the lot. We both notice it at the same time. Headlights on. Engine running. No one is getting out.
Luke memorizes the plate number without comment.
The car rolls slowly toward the exit and disappears.
Neither of us pretends it was random. When he opens the passenger door for me, I hesitate just long enough to glance back at the club windows.
Through the tinted glass, I can still see Jackson seated at his table.
Watching.
Let him.
Tonight wasn’t about intimidation. It was reconnaissance.
And now we know how close he’s willing to get.