88. Hawk
Sitting on a ridiculously comfortable chair in the luxuriously appointed conference room on the top floor of Castor Records, I stared at the man across from me with nothing but disdain.
From the moment I’d met him, back when I was just a snot-nosed punk with more balls than brains, Cornelius Castor had been running my life. For the most part, that had been a good thing. He’d signed Black Kite to our first record deal, of course. He’d lined our pockets and had our name on the lips of every rock music fan on nearly every continent around the world. We’d played and traveled and lived lives most people could never fuckin’ imagine.
And I was grateful, truly, for the things I’d been afforded because of that life.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that for nearly twenty years, my life hadn’t been my own. Everything from what clothes I had worn to how short I could cut my hair had all been a part of his grand plan. Cornelius had a way of making things happen, and for the last two decades, I’d been happy enough to go along for the ride, so terrified that if I second guessed him—if I veered even slightly off the path that he had laid out for us all those years ago—then somehow everything would disappear.
The fans. The money.
The infamy.
I had loved it. Needed it.
So, rather than face what life would be like outside of being a rock star, I’d followed Castor’s lead.
Every decision I’d made, every direction I’d taken, had been, in some way, guided by him.
Him or his pit viper of a daughter.
Looking at him now—so comfortable in his wealth and position—I couldn’t even drum up an ounce of sympathy for what I was about to do.
“I just don’t know what you were thinking, Hawk,” Cornelius said, his brow furrowed in displeasure as he glared at us from across the table. The guys sat on the same side as me, with Mick to my right and Alex and Gavin to my left. All of us lined up shoulder to shoulder, creating a united front.
Because we were gonna fuckin’ need it.
“Flouncing around in some backwater garbage dump of a town, having verbal confrontations with the locals.” He shook his head, staring at me like a disappointed father. “Do you have any idea how influential the McQueen family is in that part of the country? That woman’s father owns a sizable portion of the remaining manufacturing plants in the mid-west, not to mention his real estate holdings. And there you were, getting aggressive with his daughter and her husband like it was one of your trashy parties.”
By the end of his speech Castor’s voice had risen to that haughty tone that I was more than familiar with; he’d used it on us guys more than once when he’d felt we’d fucked up somehow.
Typically, I let that tone convince me that I was in the wrong, shaming me into apologizing for whatever imagined slight he was pissed about.
This time, I wasn’t going to let it get to me.
“I didn’t get aggressive with anyone, Cornelius,” I replied, my tone neutral.
“Well, there are a handful of videos flying around the internet that make it look like that’s exactly what you did.”
I’d seen the videos he was talking about, and I wasn’t nearly as concerned as he was.
It had been all over the internet by the time the sun had risen the morning after our botched date in Grand Rapids. A video of the encounter with Wren’s childhood nemesis and her idiot husband, taken by one of the few other patrons in the restaurant. It showed me scowling down at Denise while her husband stood by, slack-jawed and bumbling. The sound was terrible—whoever had taken it had been too near the noisy kitchen to actually catch the words we’d said—but words weren’t needed. It was enough that my angry face was front and center as I glared at the pair of them before I leaned down and kissed Wren.
It wasn’t much, but for the world of celebrity gossip, it had been enough. Blogs and Instagram pages had blown up with speculation about who I’d kissed and what it could mean. Who was the mystery woman that Hawk Jameson was willing to fight for? Was she the reason Black Kite had broken up?
It also hadn’t taken them long to reveal exactly who Wren was and tear her life apart.
I tried to be mad about that part, but it was the reason she was currently at my house, hopefully still lying naked in my bed where I’d left her just over an hour ago. I smiled at the thought before realizing I probably looked a little manic, and schooled my expression before replying to Castor.
“Those videos don’t mean shit and you know it.”
“Well, excuse me, but evidence of you accosting an innocent woman in a public space isn’t exactly great for your brand, considering your history and all.”
“Considering my history, accosting people is my brand.” I drawled, and Mick cleared his throat beside me.
Gritting my teeth, I swallowed down the rest of what I wanted to say, even though I practically choked on it.
The closer we got to the end, the harder it was to hold back my anger.
“Those videos are circumstantial at best,” Mick said, ever the diplomat. “Hawk was in public when he was approached. It’s hardly his fault that the woman got her feelings hurt. He’s under no obligation to engage with the public on his private time.”
“Alright,” sniffed Cornelius, carelessly waving away Mick’s words. “We get the idea, Hawk. They interrupted your little date. That’s really not the biggest issue here.”
Fuck, I hated him so much.
He really did feel that he was more important than everyone else. It blew my mind that he had taken the stable of incredibly talented artists under his label, people with more talent and drive than I could imagine, completely wasted their potential, and this prick still felt that he was better than all of them simply by virtue of his supposed wealth.
Well, he was about to get a massive wake up call.
“Why don’t you tell me what the issue is then, Cornelius?”
Rapping his knuckles against the glossy black conference table, he stared at me, a calculating look in his eye. I waited him out, but I knew he was considering his next words carefully.
That was one of his strengths, actually. His ability to be patient. I had always been a reactive person, flying off the handle when faced with something difficult.
Knowing what I did now, I could look back and see where that kind of behavior had been severely detrimental. Reacting before thinking had cost me more money and friendships than I cared to admit.
But no more.
Finally, when he felt that he’d let me wait long enough—and cemented his position as the guy in charge, I guessed—Cornelius spoke.
“The issue, Hawk, is that your little adventure into America’s Heartland was poorly timed at best.” Sitting up straighter, he leaned over the table, trying to intimidate me, but I refused to budge.
It was my turn to be unconcerned.
“You can’t just be drumming up this kind of exposure when we have nothing to sell. This is the kind of shit you need to save for an album release or announcing a tour. Really get people talking before we start taking their money again.” He grinned, his smile avaricious as he pictured all the profits he could be getting. “I’m done waiting. I want the final song for the album now, Hawk.”
This was it. This was the moment I’d been planning more than five years for. Finally, after all the months of waiting and plotting and stressing, it was time to make our move.
Pulling a page out of Cornelius’s playbook, I waited, letting him wonder what I was thinking for a fuckin’ change.
“Well?” he questioned, when the silence had gone on long enough to make him uncomfortable. “Give me that song!”
“You see, that’s gonna be a problem, Cornelius. Because we’re not giving you the album.”
Raising his eyebrows, he stared at us incredulously before barking out a sharp laugh.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, I know you heard me. But I’ll say it again, you know, for performative value.” Straightening myself in my chair, I placed both hands on the table as I stared at him. “We are not giving you the last album.”
“Nice try, Hawk, but we have a deal. A contract signed by all of you that locks Black Kite into a four-album deal. You signed that contract willingly and now I want that fourth album.”
“Yeah...no,” Alex chimed in, his smile gleeful. “That ain’t gonna work for us, Corny.”
“You guys really are idiots,” Castor said, shaking his head. “You can fight this all you want, but if you don’t produce that fourth album, you’re all in breach of contract. I’ll sue you for every fucking penny you have.” Narrowing his eyes, Cornelius glared at me. “You won’t even be able to play at an open mic night when I’m finished with you.”
“About that contract,” Mick said, opening his fancy briefcase and removing a stack of papers. “It won’t be an issue.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re going to let them out of it,” Mick said with complete confidence.
“And why the hell would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, Hawk will tell everyone about how you blackmailed him into marrying your daughter with a false police report.”
Cornelius looked a little nervous now, his chest rising and falling as he took rapid breaths, trying desperately to not appear affected, even though I could see the sweat beading at his temples.
“No one will believe that,” he boasted, sitting back as he attempted to maintain his cool. “Hawk has been in trouble with the law before. People won’t even bat an eye if he finds himself in more hot water.” Turning his angry, hateful glare on me, he added, “No one actually gives a shit about Hawk Jameson.”
“Maybe,” Mick agreed, flipping through the papers until he found what he was looking for. “But they might give a shit about the amount of money you’ve embezzled out of this company.” Tossing the papers across the table, Mick shrugged. “Or your shareholders will, anyway.”
This time, the fear on Castor’s face was very clear, the color draining away as he looked at the documents Mick had presented him with.
“Where—where did you get this information?”
“You’re not the only one with contacts, Castor,” Mick offered vaguely, and I smiled. Turned out that Mick really did know people who knew people. The investors he’d found for our new label—some group out of Manhattan called Misfit Holdings—were very helpful in offering the services of some of their more questionable friends, people who were more than capable of digging into all the places that Cornelius Castor wanted to keep hidden. Those same contacts had uncovered a whole host of financial sins, including falsified sales reports, international money transfers to numbered bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, and the fact that he was borrowing money from a whole new crop of investors to cover it all up, leaving Castor Records very, very far in the red.
“What do you think the board of directors is going to say when they realize that you’ve been overvaluing your company by giving them fake revenue reports and convincing them to keep investing even when there was really nothing left to invest in? Black Kite is the last real artist under your label, aren’t they? The others have all been bled dry and disbanded, an impressive accomplishment, even for you.”
Cornelius clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring, but said nothing.
“The one lesson guys like you never learn,” Gavin chimed in, speaking for the first time since we’d entered the conference room. “Always treat your employees well. It wasn’t even that difficult to find someone in your accounting department who was more than happy to blow the whistle on all the shit you were trying to cover up.”
“You’re a fucking liar. No one would turn on me!” Cornelius spat, but he didn’t seem like he actually believed that.
“I mean, you can go with that if you like,” I offered, leaning back in my chair, finally feeling relaxed after weeks of questioning and stress.
This was it. We were almost free.
“That’s a risk you’re free to take. But just know that if you don’t sign the documents that Mick has prepared releasing us from our contract and signing over the rights to all our master copies to us, then we will have no choice but to go public with what we know.”
“You fucking punks,” he snarled, spit flying from his mouth as he stood, leaning over the table aggressively, all semblance of civility gone. “You assholes would be nothing without me! I dragged your trashy asses out of the fucking gutter and made you what you are. And you have the fucking balls to threaten me? You should be thanking me!”
“You’re right,” I said, nodding. “I should thank you. I should thank you for grinding our creativity into the fucking dirt.” Turning my head to the guys next to me, we shared a look, knowing that was the truth. Our music had suffered with each album we’d released, bent and twisted by Cornelius as he took our ideas and manipulated them into what he thought would sell best. “Thank you for turning our passion into your commodity. Thank you for exploiting every second of our lives for you to make a profit. And I should absolutely thank you for tying me to your harpy of a daughter. Victoria showed me exactly what kind of woman to avoid in life and how to really appreciate a good one when she came along.”
Just thinking about Wren sent off a spark in my chest, knowing that she’d agreed to stay.
That they were mine.
“Of course you’d make this about pussy,” Cornelius scoffed, insulting both Wren and Tori in one breath.
Where the fuck was Tori, anyway? She usually loved using these meetings to lord her power within the company over me.
“I could have given two shits if you and Tori were happy. That marriage was about tying you to Castor Records. I knew you were feeling the pinch, and I needed a way to keep you making money. When Tori showed up with that sob story about some groupie you’d knocked up, I saw an opportunity and I took it.”
I thought I knew how much I hated him, but hearing that he was complacent in Tori’s plot to keep my family from me ratcheted my loathing up a thousand degrees.
I felt not a single ounce of sorrow for ruining his life.
“Well, then you’ll understand why we’re here now.” I kept my words low, trying to contain my rage before I exploded and destroyed all of Mick’s hard work. “Just sign the fucking papers and you’ll never have to lay eyes on any of us again.”
Cornelius eyed me, the muscles in his jaw working as he considered his options.
“I sign this—free you from your contract and give you your shitty masters—and you’ll keep what you know to yourselves?”
“You have our word that we’ll never speak of it again,” Mick said, offering additional documents for us to sign, stating exactly that. “No one in this room will utter a word about your financial indiscretions from this moment forward.”
Of course, the documents said nothing about how many people we may or may not have told prior to this meeting, but Cornelius wasn’t thinking rationally, letting his panic guide him.
“Fine,” he eventually agreed, pulling some fancy-ass pen out of his inner pocket and uncapping it like a douche. “You know, boys? I’m so disappointed in you all.”
“Cry me a fuckin’ river, Castor,” Alex said, scrawling his signature over the paper before him. “Then drown in it.”
Once all the signatures were in place, Castor gathered all the papers, piling them before him and shaking his head.
“That’s it, then. Our business is finished.” Glaring at each of us and saving me for last, I considered him, noticing for the first time how haggard he was looking, gaunt and old and tired, like a man at the end of his rope.
Good. I hoped he fucking swung from it.
Standing, I signaled to the guys that our time was up. After Mick had gathered our copies of the paperwork, we headed for the door, more than ready to put Castor Records behind us.
Before I left, I paused, turning one last time to take in the man who had changed my life, both for better and for worse.
“Hey,” I said, waiting until he raised his head before continuing. “I think you’ll find that when it comes down to it...no one gives a shit about Cornelius Castor.”