LAUGHTER BOUNCED OFF THE walls of Kallie’s room. Bold and bright enough to fill up all the aching spaces inside me. Enough to sustain and encourage when part of me wanted to break.
It gave me the courage to shun the creeping fear and push on with our lives.
The kind of life I’d always promised to give my daughter. Only now, that promise had extended to me.
I pushed all thoughts of Martin aside and smiled at April who tucked a big lock of curls behind Kallie’s ear, my precious child beaming with all the teasing April had been tossing her way.
“Oh right…I see how it is. The two of you just up and ditch me the second something better comes along.” My best friend shook her head in feigned offense and tucked a few more of Kallie’s shirts into her suitcase.
I knocked my hip into April, grinning just as wide. “You know you’re going to love it. This big old house to yourself for the next who knows how long? Maybe it’s time you started doing a little entertaining of your own.”
While we were away, April would stay here, taking care of my cherished home.
She straightened the pile and added more, shaking her head while she did. “Only if I can find a man hanging around Savannah that looks half as good as yours.”
Just the mention of Sebastian spiked my pulse, need fluttering low in my belly at the mere thought of him touching me again. “Um…you have seen my husband? I’m not sure that’s possible.”
Almost two weeks had passed since the last time I’d seen him. Every day had felt like forever and the next even longer. They’d finally wrapped up the tour and returned to California two days ago. First thing in the morning, Kallie and I would be boarding a plane to reunite with him.
Threads of anticipation and warmth weaved through my chest, an intricate pattern of desire and comfort.
Never would I have thought a man like him could have provided me both.
The man hard and rigid and bold, yet still so impeccably soft.
God, I couldn’t wait to get wrapped in the safety of his arms.
Over the last few months, I’d gained another best friend. I also gained some of my confidence back. Since moving back to Savannah, I’d known joy. A true sense of family.
But it was Sebastian who’d completed that family.
That didn’t mean my emotions weren’t all over the place. This morning I’d hopped out of bed more excited than I’d been in a long, long time, then this afternoon I’d fallen to my knees and hugged a quilt my grandmother had made to my chest while I’d wept. Leaving this house, even if only temporary, felt as if I were leaving a piece of myself behind.
But all great relationships required sacrifice.
And I would make this one, whether if it was for a moment or a lifetime.
Did I hope we ended up back here? In this home I loved with all of me? With the sound of Kallie’s voice and the laughter of the children we added to our family echoing through it?
Yes.
But the love I had for Sebastian was so much greater than any place, because there was no way what I felt for him could be contained by walls or floors or ceilings.
April chuckled as she organized more of Kallie’s things. “Nice. Go and get my hopes up and then turn around and burst my bubble by bringing me back down to reality. Some friend you are. Take all the good guys and don’t leave any for the rest of us.”
“Ha. That pack of wild boys? They are far from mine.”
“Oh, please.” She rolled affectionate brown eyes. “Any one of those guys would walk through fire for you. When did that happen?”
I gestured to Kallie who was lost in concentration as she strategically packed her backpack with things to entertain her during the flight. “I’m pretty sure it was Kallie who happened. She has every last one of them wrapped around her fingers.”
All the guys adored her.
Would it be strange staying with them at the Sunder house while Sebastian and I figured things out? Should I be worried I was bringing her into a household of revelry and overindulgence, exposing her to things she shouldn’t see?
On some level, yes, but on a higher level, no. Because Sebastian said the guys were ready. They were on board with a new set of rules. Ones they’d promised to uphold for the sake of my little girl.
And if we did decide to stay in L.A., we wouldn’t be staying in that house for long.
It’d be temporary until we found a new home. New walls to create a million treasured memories. New floors to build a beautiful, breathtaking life.
I had faith in at all.
That my precious daughter would end up where she should be. With Sebastian and me. In a family that loved her above all else. Where Sebastian and I loved each other just as much. An indestructible foundation that could never be collapsed or defeated.
A tease slipped into my words. “I’m sure we could put some work in on wrapping one of them around your finger. None of the guys are all that bad to look at.”
Understatement of the year. Each of them had their own special lure, an appeal of their own.
She huffed. “Um…no…and thank you. I do believe I prefer my boys a little tamer. If I don’t find him in the library, then I don’t want him.”
I grinned. “Come on…don’t you want to add some excitement into your life?”
Her brows disappeared behind her blunted bangs. “You mean trouble?”
I laughed outright. My best friend was spot on.
My cell rang from my bedroom. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to grab that.”
“No problem. Kallie and I will keep doing our thing, won’t we, Butterfly?”
“Yep!” she said from her perch on the floor, shoving as many books into her bag as she could.
I let my fingertips glide over the top of her head as I passed, a gentle, I love you, because you could never have too many.
I rushed to my room. A small frown formed when I saw Lyrik’s number lighting up the screen, and I felt an unanticipated tremor rumble under my feet.
“Hello?” I answered, both hesitantly and urgently.
“Shea.”
Just the tone of his voice dropped me to my knees.
Kallie and I touched down in California late Saturday afternoon. Anthony picked us up at the airport and drove us toward Sebastian’s house in the Hollywood Hills.
My forehead rolled against the window, and I stared out at the city that blinked by unseen, a desolate blur of gray and color and pavement that whirled together to form a darkened cloud.
My baby girl sat behind me in her booster, her gaze also tuned to the city that whizzed by, but her constant curiosity and fascinated questions were absent from her tongue.
Everywhere hurt—my head and my stomach and this aching in my chest that made me feel as if I couldn’t breathe.
My lungs collapsed.
Right under the rubble that had become my life.
Why did he do it?
An unbearable silence filled up the confines of the car. Questions that begged to be asked were locked up with grief and the wrenching knowledge that none of us had answers.
The mood was such a contradiction to what I’d imagined less than twenty-four hours ago. Instead of the happy homecoming with laughter and kisses and thrumming, ecstatic hearts, I felt as if mine were being crushed.
I pressed my hand to my stomach and tried to still the turmoil, the hollowed out sickness that moaned from within.
Simple, simple dreams.
Why, Sebastian?
Why?
Hesitation rippled through the silence, and I could feel the overt worry in Anthony’s gaze as he quickly cut his eyes my way then back to the road again. Finally he spoke, his tone laden with concern. “I didn’t know if you would come.”
I turned to look at him. My chin trembled. “How could I not?”
In admission, he lifted his shoulders helplessly while still keeping both hands on the steering wheel. “People deal differently. Get scared. Give up. I wasn’t so sure where you’d land.”
“How could you think that? He’s my husband.” The words came on a wave of vehemence, the thought of losing him more than I could bear.
And even if he weren’t my husband, if his birthday night had turned out any other way, I would still be here. Here with him and for him and fighting with everything I had.
Just like somewhere inside me I knew he’d been fighting for me, too.
Anthony’s lips pressed into a thin line, and I knew it was sadness that tipped it down at one side. He cleared his throat.
“Please…don’t take that the wrong way. I have seen people bail when I least expected them to. But honestly? I would’ve been surprised…shocked really…if you weren’t right here.”
His voice softened and he laughed quietly. “Never thought Baz would love someone the way he loves you.”
He glanced in the mirror at Kallie and quieted his voice more. “The way he loves her. I guess that’s what shocked me most.”
He peered my way, then back to the road, his throat bobbing like it hurt as he swallowed. “And I always wanted it for him. But it did scare me that if he did find somebody—” Another pleading glance. “Someone like you…it would make him more dangerous than ever. With his love comes passion, Shea, and that passion is probably the strongest thing I’ve ever seen. He’s a fight-to-the-death kind of guy. He’s always been, and he’s always going to be. Those of us who love him? We’ve accepted it.”
My smile was full of grief and awe, my understanding one-hundred percent clear. I’d accepted it. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t also tried to protect him from it, because that was just a part of who I was, too.
Emotion pressed in from every direction, a spike of desperation slicing through the words. “Did anyone find out anything more?”
The shake of his head seemed regretful. “No. We were all blindsided by this, Shea. Not just you. We haven’t been able to get in to talk with him yet and Kenny doesn’t think he can make that happen until Monday.”
Monday?
He hesitated again, sliding his gaze back to Kallie, to the road, then me. As if gauging what to say. Weighing if he had it in him to hurt me more.
“Just tell me,” I begged, because I couldn’t stand being left in the dark.
His words were measured and quiet, as if he could shield little ears from the magnitude of them.
“The charges are bad, Shea. He broke his restraining order by going over there, which is probably the least of his worries. It’s the assault and battery. Breaking and entering. Felonies that can add up to life, especially with his record. For the first time Kenny’s outlook is bleak.”
He roughed a hand through his hair, anger and frustration and worry bleeding through. “This is going to be a battle I’m not sure we can win.”
Sorrow struck every cell. Invaded every crevice.
Hands squeezing the wheel, his deep voice broke into the torment. “But things that are worth it? They’re always a battle, Shea. Everything important comes with a cost. We don’t always realize the truth of that because we don’t fight for the things that don’t truly matter to us. In my experience, the best things come through tribulation. What is forged in the fire always comes out stronger.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat.
Sebastian was the fire.
“Thank you,” I whispered, just noticing we’d pulled to a stop in a drive in front of an immaculate home.
“That’s what I’m here for. Whatever you need, just ask, okay?”
I nodded.
Anthony helped us take our things into the house. On the outskirts of my mind I recognized it was incredibly beautiful, so different than the sleek, modern lines I’d anticipated. Instead it was a stunning structure of warm stucco, sweeping windows, and dark, homey woods, a Tuscan haven hidden away by lush vegetation in the Hills.
No place inside me had the capacity to appreciate it. All those places had been struck down, chained in a fear and a loss that spun firm and fast and ferocious, all muddled with a hope I refused to relinquish.
I held tight.
The only way I knew how to keep myself together.
Inside, all the guys were there to welcome us, but the mood was decidedly somber.
Zee hugged me for a long, long time, his hold so full of sympathy it made me want to give in and weep. Like he sensed it, he pulled back and took Kallie’s hand, asking if she wanted to go for a walk around the pool and gardens, luring her with the many different types of butterflies she would find.
Supportive eyes flashed to me, a look that promised he would take care of my baby. That he was offering me a second’s reprieve in the midst of tumult. A moment to catch up to the pieces that were still falling apart.
With a stoic jerk of his chin, Lyrik looked on with sorrow and understanding as he leaned back against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Beneath that rigid calm I saw it. A gleam of malice and mayhem, the glint in his eyes dark and foreboding and fueled by anger. No doubt he was itching to break out, to go track Martin down the same way Sebastian had done and seek his own revenge.
“Come on, Beautiful Shea,” Ash said, with none of the flirt and tease he normally injected into his words as he gathered my bags. “Let’s get you settled. You have to be exhausted.”
I was.
Absolutely exhausted.
Emotionally.
Mentally.
But I knew well enough there would be no sleep.
This is going to be a battle I’m not sure we can win.
I followed him upstairs. At the top of the landing were two hallways. We took the one to the right. Ash led me to the room at the very end on the left, shut off by high double-doors. He turned the knob and let the door swing open wide.
Sebastian.
His presence hit me like a rogue wave.
Completely unanticipated and knocking the breath from my lungs—all spice and man and dark seduction.
Greedily, my eyes sucked in his space. Natural light glimmered in from the balcony doors that overlooked the pool, and heavy, dark drapes framed them at the sides.
The guitar we’d played together on our wedding night was propped against the wall next to his bed, as if he’d lain there against the leather headboard and his fingers had played the strings.
Thinking of me.
I could almost hear that beautiful, beautiful voice filling the air, deep and rough and brushing across my skin, like the pleasured scrape of nails as we lost ourselves in the other’s body.
I pressed my hand to the wall to keep myself upright, overcome with the staggering weight of it all.
Ash eyed me warily. “You okay?”
I shook my head. “No.”
There was no use in lying because I was not okay.
Not in any shape or fashion.
He nodded, his discomfort clear. And part of me wanted to laugh, because I thought if I shed a single tear, this rocker just might bolt. Boys like him didn’t do well when women cried. But there he stood, his expression so blatantly clear.
He wished there was something he could do. A way to fix the mess Sebastian had gotten himself in.
With none of that flare or grandeur or cockiness, he gestured around the room. “Baz’s pad, obviously.”
It seemed stupid that I missed his arrogance, but it only amplified everything lacking. Everything missing.
Sebastian.
Sebastian.
Sebastian.
His name turned dizzying cartwheels through my mind.
“Bathroom’s there.” Ash pointed to the en suite. “Austin’s room is directly across the hall and I’m the first on the left, so I’m right here if you need anything.”
More hesitation, before he blew out a strained breath toward the ceiling, then looked back at me. “Baz had been clearing out Mark’s room for Kallie…it’s down the opposite hall, last door on the right. Kallie’s welcome to stay in there. Not sure with everything if you two want to be separated and it’s still a fuckin’ mess, but it’s there if you want it. We can help clear it out if you want us to. Nobody’s been up to finishing the job.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He twisted his mouth to the side. “You’re welcome.”
He sidestepped me, and I shifted, moving deeper into Sebastian’s room to give him room to pass. At the doorway, he paused with his back to me, before he slowly turned around. “Want you to know you’re welcome here, Shea. This is your home now, for as long as you want it to be, no matter what goes down with Baz.”
Tears resurfaced in my eyes, because it was so overwhelming, the loss and the love and the unwavering support they showed for each other.
“You’re family now.” He rapped his knuckles on the doorjamb, as if he were driving home the point.
Then he disappeared through the doorway and left me to the startling loneliness. You’d think it would be impossible for something so barren to feel so alive.
Lost, I wandered to the bed, fingertips tracing along the sheets long since cold, and I gathered up the blanket and pressed it to my nose to take in more of him.
Sebastian.
I wanted to be angry. Curse him for being so reckless.
But I saw him for who he was.
A guardian.
Unsettled, I looked around the empty room, knowing I couldn’t sit idle. That I had to do something.
The nerves skittering through me promised it was to fight.
I stepped out into the empty hall, somehow drawn toward Mark’s room.
Yesterday, Sebastian and I had been texting on and off. Even with the burden of Martin on our shoulders, we’d been excited, flirting and teasing and playing while we anticipated being together again.
The last text I’d received from him had been filled with the same kind of thrill.
Score. Found Kallie all kinds of cute shit for her room. Going to have it ready to surprise her tomorrow. Can’t wait to see her face. Getting to work. Love you.
No warning or indication of anything amiss.
Fingertips fluttering along the wall, I slowly edged in the direction of Mark’s room as Ash had instructed. Silence echoed back, as if the massive house held still, whispering a hushed warning. My steps slowed in apprehension as I traversed the landing and crossed into the opposite hall.
At the end of it, a pile of shopping bags sat outside the room. I crept closer. The door stood wide open. Holding onto the wall, I peeked around the corner and inside.
A mountain of clothes were piled in the middle of the floor, and a few black garbage bags sat at the end of the bed stuffed full and tied off with a knot.
Warily, I stepped inside. My heart rate sped.
Muted light glowed through the gaps in the blinds, a thick coat of dust covering everything, the sober energy in here dampened even more than throughout the rest of the house.
It must have been so difficult for Sebastian to come in here, my brave, beautiful man.
My eyes jumped around, trying to latch onto something, a feeling or a vibe or the heart of Sebastian that had sent him running from here and into the grips of Martin.
Crossing the room to the desk, I ran my fingers over the few pictures left cluttering the surface, as if those were the things Sebastian couldn’t bear to part with. A feeling of sorrow captured my spirit as I strayed into the void Mark’s tragedy had left behind. Heaviness weighing me down, I turned from the desk and eased around the pile of clothes, my attention hooking on the yawning closet where a single light still burned from within.
I peered inside. The rods and half the shelves had been cleared out.
Unease trickled into my senses.
A job half done.
I sucked in a breath as a vibration of disquiet stirred through me, and I tentatively took a few steps deeper into the closet.
Boxes lined the floor, some shoved farther toward the room as if Sebastian were planning to get rid of them or store them elsewhere, and a couple were still tucked in the shelves and coves.
At the very back, a plastic storage bin had been dragged out onto the closet floor, the lid balanced at the side. In front of it, a few pictures were scattered about and a journal was turned upside down, pages bent as if it’d been dropped.
I sank to my knees, shaking hands and panted breaths out of control as I reached down and cautiously picked up the journal.
I hated the thought of invading the man’s privacy, long after he was gone, but I knew whatever Sebastian had found was now clutched in my trembling hands.
Another piece of me broke for a man I didn’t know as I scanned the pure and utter desolation slashed across the pages. Page after page of hopelessness and shame. The heart and mind of a terribly lost soul.
Tears gathered in my eyes as I continued on, searching for anything. Any indication of what would have sent Sebastian toward a fate I knew he didn’t want.
My attention caught on an entry nearing the back, in a place where his typically messy penmanship had become almost violent. Frantic.
Fucking Donny and his fucking mouth.
Donny?
A sinking feeling washed through me, taunting me with flickers of recognition. Vicious blue eyes I would never forget. I gripped the book, reading as fast as I could.
Always with his fucking mouth. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew Martin was sick. Both of them were sick. But not that sick. I told Martin so. I told him to go to hell when he demanded the money I owe him. Told him I’d take everything I know to the cops. I was going to anyway, money be damned. I knew what he’d had Donny do to that girl. I knew what he planned to have him do. She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me. Call me a snitch. I didn’t care. Let the asshole burn.
That girl.
That girl.
That girl.
That girl.
Oh my God.
Was this me?
A liability. A loose end?
That sinking feeling pulled me beneath the surface, like blackened waters lapping over my head.
I flipped the page. All my breath locked up in my throat, so thick and tight and suffocating. Lightheadedness tilted the room.
Donny’s gone. Dead in the water. I’m going to be next. I know it. Feel it coming. Am I scared? Yeah. Terrified, really. I led Martin on. Made him believe I’d leaked info. Ratted him and Lester out. He thinks I’m blackmailing, but I don’t have anything but Donny’s word. And Donny’s word is about as valuable as a ten-dollar whore. My only intention had been to thwart the plans he had to hurt that girl again. Only this time, make it final. Sick. Fucking sick. Couldn’t live with myself if there was any chance of it happening, so I’d rather die stopping it. I guess I finally did something in my life worth a shit.
Horror and hate collided in a cataclysm of fear when I locked on the name.
Lester.
And I knew. And I knew. And I knew.
I lurched forward, holding myself up on my hands and knees as I gasped for absent air.
I’d always thought the threat I’d made had saved Kallie’s and my life. Allowed us to live the way he never would have let us. But now I wondered if it was the stupidest thing I’d ever done.
And Sebastian…he was so protective, bore so much shame, regret, and guilt over the loss of Mark. One inciting factor would be the match. A combustion of sparks and flames and gasoline that would set him off.
Send him over the edge of the cliff on which he always teetered.
Volatile and explosive.
Just like Anthony had claimed…had asked me to accept.
Sebastian never loved lightly.
This was what Martin had wanted, wasn’t it? What he’d counted on?
Divide and conquer.
Isolate and sabotage.
His whole intent was to take Sebastian from me. To leave me the most vulnerable I could be.
Little did he know I would fight him to the death.
Shivers shook through my entire body, and I tried to swallow around the rock in my throat as I reached down and picked up one of the pictures that lay face down on the floor.
My hand shot to my mouth to cover a cry.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Mark, Austin, Donny, and my mother.
A deep, guttural cry suddenly ricocheted off the walls in the small closet, one that meshed with the devastated sadness of mine.
I jerked to look over my shoulder.
Austin.
He clutched both sides of the doorframe, holding himself up, spirit and body crumpled and broken. Confession barely decipherable, he looked at me as if he were begging me to see him. “It’s my fault. It was always my fault.”
I scrambled to face him, pushing all the way up onto my knees, my words jumbled as they poured from my mouth. I held out the journal. “Austin…what is this? Tell me what you know.”
He winced as if the sight of it caused him physical pain. “We knew, Shea. Mark and I…we knew. Donny told us what Martin had them do to you.”
They knew.
Austin shook his head and laughed a spiteful sound. “There’s never any fucking proof, right, Shea? Assholes can just keep hurting and hurting and hurting and there’s never any proof. But Mark didn’t care. He said he was going to the cops anyway. And then Mark was gone… He was gone, Shea,” he said with all the implication he could summon.
Oh my God. Martin. He did this to Mark.
Everything spun and dizziness swelled.
Austin kept crying, words tumbling from him like a confession that had been held in for far too long. “Baz found all this shit Mark had kept…demanded to know what the hell I knew. I couldn’t keep it from him any longer, Shea. I couldn’t. I’m so fucking sorry. So sorry.”
I gulped over the reality of what Sebastian had found. Of what he had learned. My last secret. The one I’d kept to protect him.
I staggered onto unsteady feet, unable to process everything he was trying to tell me. My focus would only latch onto one thing. I shoved one of the pictures at him. “When…when was this picture taken?”
“I don’t know…maybe a year and a half ago. Not long before Mark died.”
Between the heavy, stale air, the disorganized chaos of the room, and the catastrophic discovery, I felt bile rise in my throat. My skin cold and clammy.
I took a desperate step forward.
“Where is she?”