Property of Bash (Kings of Anarchy MC: Florida #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Hattie Lynn

I was sitting on a stool smack dab in the middle of the stage, wondering how I was going to make it through the next ten minutes.

As always, thanks to my team, the show had gone off thus far without a hitch.

But as I sat there on that little stool with sweat dripping down my spine, my mind kept going to the little girl backstage.

For all the blessings I’d been given in life —Two-time Grammy winner, platinum country music artist, one of the wealthiest women in the world, right behind Taylor Swift—I was powerless to change the outcome of Lucy’s life.

“Are you all having fun tonight?” I asked, leaning into the microphone, my voice filling the arena.

“Hell yeah!” the crowd roared.

“Fantastic.” I grinned. “So, I’m gonna need y’alls help with something. Think y’all can do that?”

Again the crowd went wild. “Hell yeah!”

“So, I’ve got a special guest here tonight and I’d love for you all to help me give her a big ol’ Chicago welcome.” The crowd erupted again.

“Okay. On the count of three, I want you all to shout ‘Come on out, Lucy.’ Are you ready?”

“One. Two. THREE!”

The building shook with the outpouring of love, and it was all I could do to keep myself from falling apart when all the fans screamed, “COME ON OUT, LACY!”

From the side of the stage, a woman in scrubs wheeled out a wheelchair, and my heart clenched so tight I could barely breathe.

The little girl sitting in it couldn’t be more than eight years old. Her head was completely bald, smooth as porcelain, and the oxygen tube snaking under her nose caught the lights.

She was so thin her hospital bracelet slid around her tiny wrist, and dark circles ringed her little eyes that should have been sparkling with excitement, not fighting to stay open.

But that smile on her face.

By all the gods in heaven, that radiant, shy smile that spread across her face when she saw the crowd cheering for her.

My heart felt like it was going to crack wide open.

“What do you think, darlin’?” I waved my hand out at the sixty thousand people up on their feet, screaming, crying, holding up their phones with the flashlights on. All of it was for her.

I blinked back the tears and waved Lucy forward, until her wheelchair was right next to my stool.

This beautiful baby had a clock counting down, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

I barely held my smile as I thought about the phone call from the Dream A Dream foundation three weeks ago.

Lucy Madox was an eight-year-old child diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Hearing that broke my heart, so when my PR team told me that her dream was to meet me in person, I jumped all over it and pulled out all the stops.

I sent my private jet to Arizona to pick up Lucy and her family, I reserved the presidential suite at the Four Seasons. I hired a personal healthcare team that was on standby, just in case.

“Chicago, meet my new friend Lucy!” I announced, and the crowd went absolutely wild.

Lucy waved a shaky hand.

Hopping off the stool, I crouched down next to her wheelchair, speaking directly into her ear so she could hear me over the crowd. “You doing okay, sweetheart?”

She nodded, that brave smile never wavering.

I stood back up and addressed the crowd. “Lucy here gets to pick our final song tonight.”

“YAY!!!”

“What do you wanna hear, darlin’?” I handed her the microphone, steadying it when her grip wavered.

Lucy’s voice was soft, barely a whisper, but the microphone managed to pick it up. “What Changed.”

The lump in my throat threatened to choke me. I’d taken that one out of my set years ago. I’d written that one right after I left Odin. Right after—

No.

I shoved that thought off the cliff in my mind where it belonged. I wasn’t going there.

Not tonight.

Not here when this was all about Lucy.

“If that’s what you wanna hear, darlin’, that’s what I’m gonna sing.”

Taking a deep breath, I settled back on my stool and positioned my fingers on the frets of my Gibson guitar, then strummed the first chord. As it rang out, haunting and raw, the entire arena fell silent. Even the air seemed to still.

“You said you loved me, and I believed every word.

Then you left without looking back.

Tell me what changed, what changed

‘Cause I’m still the same...”

I closed my eyes and poured my heart out.

All the wounds that I’d thought had long healed were ripped open wide. Verse by verse, the pain came pouring back in, but I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t.

I had to push through for Lucy.

When I opened my eyes again, the crowd was swaying along to the beat and sixty thousand phones lit up the ceiling, creating a galaxy of stars for a little girl fighting for her life.

“You said you loved me.

You said you’d stay.

Then you threw it all away

Tell me what changed, what changed

‘Cause my heart’s still the same...”

The arena was completely still as the last note faded to nothing, and then suddenly everyone erupted all at once. It was so loud that I worried about Lucy’s fragile ears.

“Chicago!” I shouted, climbing to my feet. “Thank you all so much for coming out!”

Raising my arms in the air, I waved, took a bow, then moved behind Lucy’s chair. “Let’s get you back to your momma.”

Lucy’s parents were there the second we made it backstage. “Thank you so much, Ms. Jackson.”

I let go of the chair and wrapped Terri in my arms, holding on tight. I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through. “It was my pleasure,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

Keep it together.

Pulling back with a watery smile, I squatted down beside Lucy’s chair. “Did you have a good time, sweetheart?”

As much as it could, her face lit up. “The best,” she said softly.

I could feel the tears building behind my eyes. “Good, baby. Good.”

With one last hug, I watched as her parents wheeled her away.

“God,” I breathed, finally letting the tears fall.

My personal security stepped out of the shadows, glancing at the Maddox’s retreating backs. “That’s tough.”

I nodded. “I can’t even imagine, Frank.”

At that moment, I closed my eyes and sent up a prayer to the Gods.

Please. I’ll give up everything I have if you spare her. All that I have is yours.

With that, I felt the crash start to settle into my bones. It happened after every concert. Performing for two hours might not seem like a big deal, but it always took it out of me.

“Let’s get you to your dressing room.”

I nodded.

Then, pulling myself up by my bootstraps, I let Frank lead me down the long hallway that ran behind the stage.

“I’ll be out here if you need anything, Ms. Jackson,” Frank said as he pushed open the door and peeked inside to make sure it was safe for me to go in.

“Thanks.”

Closing the door behind me, I dropped into the oversized chair in front of my dressing table and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

The come-down after a show was always brutal—adrenaline crashing into exhaustion, leaving me feeling hollow and wired at the same time.

“You good?” My personal assistant asked as she bustled around packing up my things.

“Yeah.”

“I swear,” she sighed. “There always seems to be more stuff.”

I laughed. That was true. I was a bit of a packrat.

Thankfully I had the adorable Sondra to wrangle it all, and she truly was adorable.

Her jet-black hair was long and shiny, though most of the time she had it tied up in a messy bun. Her eyes were the color of warm honey. She was also brilliant.

She’d been with me for three years, and honestly, I wasn’t sure how I’d survived before hiring her.

She made sure my life was organized and ran like a well-oiled machine.

That’s why she made the big bucks.

“Also, the car is already waiting outside to take us to the hotel,” she said, pulling my street clothes out of my bag and laying them on the couch. “And... your flight plan has been sent to the pilot.”

That last part came out of her mouth a little unsure.

Shifting my eyes to see her better in the mirror, I could see something else was on her mind. “That’s good, right?”

“Well,” she sighed. “I need to tell you something. A few things, actually.”

I stopped tugging on my fake lashes. “What’s up?”

“The Posh shoot got canceled.”

I froze. “What? Why?”

That photoshoot had been on the books for months. The editors at Posh Magazine had even reached out to my label twice to confirm we were still set.

“Well...” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s a mess over there.”

My brows snapped together. This was the first I was hearing about something going on over at Posh Magazine. “I don’t understand.”

Her shoulders dropped. “There’s a big editorial shakeup happening over there. Something about the creative director quitting and taking half his team with him. It’s a clusterfuck,” her eyes snapped to mine in the mirror like she couldn’t believe she just dropped the F-bomb.

I burst out laughing. “Don’t censor your words for me, boo. That’s my favorite word. You won’t offend me.”

Shaking her head at me, she flipped her iPad around so I could see what was on the screen.

It was the group chat between the heads of my label, my manager, my stylist, and everyone else needed to make the interview and photoshoot happen.

I leaned forward, squinting my eyes. “It looks like they’re scrambling.”

She nodded. “They totally are, and honestly, it’s their mess to clean up.”

I couldn’t help it. My assistant was as sweet as pie. So, for her to basically say, ‘Fuck it, let them figure it out,’ had me throwing my head back and laughing out loud.

Sobering, I agreed wholeheartedly. “Truer words, babe. Tru-er words.”

See. She was totally adorable.

“So, why were you stressing a minute ago?” I mean, it wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t control a multi-billion-dollar company from falling apart.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d be more upset.”

Upset?

Not a chance.

I was jumping all over getting an extra day off. Don’t get me wrong, touring around the globe and singing for thousands of people was literally my dream come true, but it could be brutal sometimes, too.