14. Naz
FOURTEEN
NAZ
“No.”
“Look, I know it’s not ideal, but we need somewhere we can use as a base until Blake and Emmy can do some more digging at the office. The only people we can trust are each other. No one outside the four of you, Luc, and the direct security team can be privy to any of this.”
“Cory, my grandparents are moving in tomorrow. You all think this wacko doesn’t know about my land, but what if we’re wrong? I can’t put them at risk like that.”
“There’s got to be another option,” Scott says, and I feel a surge of warmth that he’s on my side.
“Even if we’re working under the radar and not letting anyone at the label know what our next steps are, doesn’t the band have near-unlimited resources at their disposal?
It seems dumb to take a chance like this. ”
“The problem is that we don’t have time to set anything up and test whether they’re being tracked by any other means, but so far I don’t think they are.
Emmy’s theory is the best we’ve got, and so far everything holds up.
Whoever it is definitely thought you were at your condo, the call to your building manager proves that. ”
“How would you even get them here?” I ask. “Will and Ari are across the country. And aren’t you with Luc and Jesse somewhere in the Caribbean?”
“I’ve got all that handled. And we’ll keep your grandparents safe, too, Naz. I promise.”
“I don’t like it,” I say, but I don’t have any other quick ideas.
These guys are my best friends—my family.
I care about their safety more than anything, and I would really like us all to be together while we figure this out.
It’s not like there isn’t enough room. There are four bedrooms upstairs and three on the main floor, where my grandparents' main living space and the nurse’s quarters are set up.
So what’s my hang up? Am I really so afraid of my grandparents’ disapproval that I’d rather make a shitty situation worse for the people who mean most to me?
For someone who spends a lot of time pretending I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, I sure am focusing a lot on what everyone will think when the two very different sides of my life come together like this.
“Hey,” Scott says softly, moving to my side and pressing a hand against my cheek. My face flames even though we’re not on any kind of video chat, so it’s not like Cory can see us right now. “It’s going to be okay. They all understand.”
“I need to think about this,” I say, pulling away from Scott’s attempt at comforting me. If anything, him being able to read me so well is only making me feel more claustrophobic. “I’m going to get some air.”
Scott nods. “Cory, Naz is going to go get things settled with the new home health nurse who arrived just before you called. If you have another minute, I have a few things I need to go over with you.”
I pause midway through the door to the library I had built for my grandparents, trying to hold back a wince. I’d nearly forgotten about Simon in the wake of all the revelations we all have had to process. So much for keeping my private and professional lives separate.
Not that I really thought it was reasonable to never have any crossover between the two sides of my life, but I’d hoped I could maintain some semblance of peace at least during the initial transition.
My grandfather is already struggling with moving in here, and he’ll never want to stay longer than he absolutely has to in order to avoid a care facility if my lifestyle that he disapproves of is shoved in his face every moment of every day.
If only there was more time. A month from now, the guesthouse will be finished enough for them to stay there, and everyone could reasonably avoid each other. I purposefully put the houses on opposite sides of the property, where they cannot be seen or heard by each other.
As it is, only the basement and main framework are complete, and I had the construction paused for a week while my grandparents get settled.
I wonder how difficult it would be to pull a handful of trailers onto the property instead? Or would that be too conspicuous?
“Is everything alright?”
The sound of Simon’s voice behind me lurches me out of my internal thoughts, causing me to spill the contents of the glass of water I’d just poured down the front of my shirt.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” Simon says, quickly reaching to grab a dishtowel and passing it to me. “I didn’t mean to jump scare you.”
“Not your fault,” I assure him, using the dishtowel to mop up my mess from the counter and floor. My shirt is a lost cause. “I’m a little in my head.”
His forehead creases with concern. “It sounded like whatever’s going on is serious. Are your grandparents okay?”
”Oh, no. Sorry, I should have said that first. Everything is on track for them to move in tomorrow. It’s… work stuff?”
“Ah. I understand. I definitely don’t want to intrude, but if there’s anything I can do to help…”
We’d discussed how important it was to keep my career completely separate, so he’s probably trying to feel out the situation to know if he should even ask.
“Shit has kinda hit the fan,” I admit, worrying my bottom lip. “You’re probably going to be getting a little more excitement than you signed up for.”
Simon tilts his head to the side, one eyebrow cocked curiously.
“I think you deserve to know some of what is happening, because it does, at least indirectly, affect you. And I understand if any of this is too much and you want to reevaluate your position here. If you feel comfortable staying, I can assure you that none of this should impact your duties or my grandfather’s care, except that he—”
“Mr. Les– Naz,” he corrects, remembering that I’d asked him to use my first name when addressing me.
He can save the honorifics for my grandparents.
“It’s okay. Just tell me what’s going on and how I can help,” he says, bringing me a new glass of water and ushering me into a seat at the kitchen island.
Simon isn’t stupid. He knows exactly who he’s working with and signed a whole stack of NDAs before Emmy would even allow him on the phone with me.
If he did any homework at all, he knows about the trouble we’ve been dealing with, most recently the violence that shut us out of our last concert and the bomb threat that made news last week.
“When we spoke on the phone, I told you I had taken steps to assure our privacy here, and that so far no one outside of a small group of people know where this property is.”
“Yes, I remember. I know you go through great lengths to keep your career from affecting your grandparents, specifically.”
“Well, the good news is that so far this property is still far enough off anyone’s radar that we’ve been able to avoid being noticed or bothered.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my friends.
My bandmates, that is. They were attacked earlier this afternoon, despite being in locations we thought were private. ”
Simon’s eyes widen. “Are they okay?”
“Thankfully, yes. We’re all a little shaken up by it, of course.”
“Understandably.”
“They’re coming here,” I blurt out, wanting to get to the point. “It’ll hopefully be very temporary, and I really hope it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable or unsafe.”
“Unsafe how?”
“Because we’re targets. We’ve pissed off someone enough that they’re making it their mission to put our lives at risk. You already know about the bomb threat. The attack today was some kind of drone carrying explosives. Well, we think they were just fireworks, but they caused enough damage.”
Simon pauses and looks at me quizzically. “Fireworks, really?”
“Yeah, the house Ari and Will were staying in had a broken window and scorch marks all over the yard. And Jesse, you know about his boyfriend Luc Martín, right?” Simon nods.
Of course he does. Everyone has heard about the very public Super Bowl Halftime kiss that was televised across the world. It got more publicity than the game did, making Jesse Moore and Luc Martín household names even outside of music and sports.
“A drone showed up where they were staying. On a yacht out in the middle of nowhere basically. Luc knocked it down, and it ended up blowing up and setting a fire on their boat.”
“Jesus,” Simon says under his breath. “It’s lucky they weren’t seriously injured, but…”
“But what?”
“Fireworks? Like, commercial fireworks?”
“Yeah. Or at least that’s what was in the debris left at the house. We’re still waiting for more information about what the drone from the yacht attack was carrying.”
“If it was the same fireworks, that seems like an odd choice after a bomb threat, don’t you think? Comparatively, it feels more like a prank than a threat.”
There’s a slight throbbing behind my eyes that’s becoming worse the harder I think about any of this. “I’m not sure. I guess because of what happened on the boat, I didn’t really consider it to be less dangerous.”
“I’m not saying fireworks can’t be dangerous, obviously they are and a lot can go wrong.
But why wouldn’t the drones drop another bomb, or something guaranteed to cause more damage?
Wouldn’t someone who is presumably escalating a threat against you do something bigger or more dangerous, especially considering their first attempt wasn’t successful? ”
Now that he’s pointed it out, it does feel like a strange deescalation. I can’t decide if it matters. If the pattern of attacks isn’t typical, what are we dealing with? “So does that mean we’re dealing with two different people or groups, or something else?”
“The news said the bomb didn’t detonate, right?”
“Yeah. It was missing a component or something.”
Simon’s dark green eyes narrow, his lips pursed in contemplation. “Have the police given y’all any more information about it? What component was missing, or if it seemed well made?”
“All I know is what the lead detective told us after the initial findings, which was that the bomb was suspected to be homemade and botched.”
“What if the bomb was never meant to go off?”
“What?”
“Obviously, this is just speculation. I have little to no background knowledge of the situation, nor am I any kind of professional, but I do listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, and this is tickling that same part of my brain.” I gesture for him to go ahead, because now I’m curious.
“Assuming you’re dealing with the same person and/or people, the stunt with the fireworks actually makes a lot more sense if the bomb was never meant to go off.
It would suggest that the attacks are meant to scare or intimidate rather than be a true threat to your lives. ”
“Honestly, that would make a lot more sense,” I say thoughtfully. “And it could mean we aren’t dealing with someone or something new.”
Until now, I’d been working under the assumption that the bomb threat and the drones were separate issues from the coordinated attack on our careers and credibility.
Aside from Luc’s sister getting run off the road on her bike by stupid, over-eager paparazzi, none of the threats or attacks we’ve been dealing with over the last year have been to our lives or person.
From the beginning of this whole mess, the aim has been to discredit us or provoke us into making ourselves look bad.
I blink over at Simon. “You might be a genius,” I tell him, pushing away from the kitchen island.
“I need to go talk to Scott and Cory, our security lead. Are you okay here? I know I just kind of dumped all of that on you, and we completely glossed over the fact that you’re going to be in a houseful of people you don’t know and whom my grandparents very much dislike.
A houseful of people that , again, are targets whether we know the severity of the threat or not…
” I trail off, giving him the chance to speak up if he has any concerns.
Simon waves me off. “I trust that you wouldn’t bring your grandparents here if you thought it would put them at risk. And I’m sure your friends are fine. Between you and me, I was told you’re the surly one of the group, and I think we’re getting along just fine.”
My lips twitch into an involuntary smile. “Did Scott tell you that?”
“Maybe.”
My head shakes as I start down the hall. “Thanks again. We’ll talk more later, if that’s okay?”
Simon’s nonchalance about the whole situation reminds me a bit of Scott.
He comes off like he doesn’t have a care in the world, even when things get serious or scary.
But I have a feeling that, like Scott, he’s probably observant, hypervigilant, and quick to action when necessary.
Those types of personalities that don’t sweat the small stuff and are good in an emergency are well-suited to their jobs.
Reminder to self—Add a bonus for hazard pay to Simon’s check.