Deacon pushed through the glass doors of the penthouse lobby. The metal casing shuddered with the force of his touch. His entire focus on the elevator and getting upstairs to talk to everyone.

His phone burned in his pocket. The buzz of messages and social media updates ratcheted up his anger.

“Deacon. Crap,” Harper muttered from behind him. “Jesus, will you wait up. You’ve got an entire foot of leg on me.”

He turned to see her, pink cheeked with exertion to keep up with him. Wispy blonde hairs escaped her braid and stuck to the corner of her mouth. She pushed them away with a huff.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just re-freaking-lax. You’re going to go upstairs and rip heads off.”

“You’re damn right, I am.” His chest tightened as the doors opened. He slid his card into the slot to go to his floor, then jammed it into his back pocket.

“They might not know about the contr—” she shut up at his look. “Okay, so they probably know.”

“Probably?” Deacon paced the length of the car. It was too tight, too closed in. He needed someplace open. He should have had Harper take him to the beach. The sea air would have helped, but he wanted answers.

Now.

Finally the elevator dinged and he strode off. Harper crossed the room and headed up the stairs. Part of him wanted to tell her to stay, but this wasn’t about them right now. It was about the band.

Simon and Nick were leaning on the counter in the kitchen, a trio of empty beer bottles in the center. Guitars littered the living room with Simon’s notebook open on the coffee table. The hum of an amp still on was the backdrop for the dirty story Simon was telling Nick.

“Where are Jazz and Gray?”

“Well, hello to you, too,” Nick said lazily. His elbows were propped on the counter, a beer dangling from his fingers.

“Where. Are. They.”

Nick stood, his shoulders straightening. “I just got a text from Jazz. She said they were on their way.”

“Good.” Deacon paced to the back porch and out to the balcony ledge. He dug his fingers into the pitted cement topper on the half wall. The pain pushed the red haze of rage back a little.

Seeing them just sitting around like nothing was wrong made him want to tear more than heads off. He wanted to rip off an arm and beat Nick’s smug face bloody. Or maybe wipe Simon’s smirk off with a plank full of nails.

He took out his phone and dragged the little triangle back to the last ten minutes of conversation between himself and Ellis. He let it play, making sure that it was at the part that gave specifics about why they shouldn’t sign the contract before shoving his phone back into his pocket.

“What the hell is his problem?”

Deacon’s shoulders tightened at Simon’s question. Neither of them had moved. Still drinking their beers like the world owed them something. They fucking had to know. There was no way a specific note like that would be put in the contract without talking to Simon and Nick. Did they think they were just going to get away with it? That it wouldn’t matter to the rest of them? Or worse, that it wouldn’t be caught?

The ding of the elevator and Jazz’s low voice drew Deacon back inside. As he entered the kitchen, he saw Gray’s closed off face and Jazz’s shattered eyes and knew she’d found something similar at her meeting.

“Would someone tell me what the fuck is with the drama?” Nick snapped his beer down on the granite counter.

Deacon fisted his hands as anger pulsed through his blood making his head feel like a kick drum. He dug out his phone and turned up the volume before pushing play. He tossed the phone on the island, and Booker Ellis’s voice boomed out.

Startled, Simon immediately took a step back and crossed his arms. Nick stared at the phone. As Ellis explained the contract, Nick’s shoulders tightened and his chin lifted. Nick stared right into Deacon’s eyes as the lawyer gave the reasons why the deal was to be avoided.

Simon’s hand fell to his sides as he heard the particulars. Deacon broke the stare down with Nick and studied Simon. Did Simon know all the clauses? Or was he just as surprised?

Jazz wrapped wound her arm through Gray’s, who stood still, with his hands in his pockets, gray eyes blank and staring straight ahead. Was he even fucking listening?

When the percentages came out, there was a silence around the table. Deacon could hear Ellis telling him to take his time and then the low, growl of his, “Fuck you,” after a minute of silence.

Jazz gasped out a sob. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

Deacon stepped forward. “You wanna tell us something, Nick? Simon?”

Nick’s chin went up a notch. There was a trace of uncertainty in his eyes, but the glitter of anger and pride was there, too. “We’re protecting the band that Simon and I created.”

The words were a blow. Deacon felt his shoulders and spine pop and crack as he rocked back on his heels. He’d known. The entire car ride, he’d rolled the information around in his mind, hoping there was some way that he was wrong.

That his best friends wouldn’t have betrayed him like this. Such a small thing, but in the world of contracts, a controlling interest in the band was important, not only money-wise, but with the decisions that would be made down the line.

Their votes would count for more—like a fucking corporation, it was controlling interest to Simon and Nick, then the leftovers to Deacon, Jazz and Gray. On the off-chance that Jazz and Gray weren’t full band members yet because they’d signed on late, that still left him.

He’d been there since nearly the start. Simon and Nick may have put the original band together, but they hadn’t started playing real gigs until he’d come along to tighten the songs and push them toward setlists that made sense.

“That you created?” Deacon said, hating that he could hear his voice crack. He swallowed hard, and cleared his throat. “I wasn’t in that basement for years with you? Is that it?”

“You didn’t write the songs.”

Deacon’s eyes snapped to Nick. “I didn’t—” At a loss, he couldn’t string words together. He’d been the one to clean up the melodies and make the connections between Simon’s epic Rush-length solos and layer them with Nick’s snappy guitar work. Deacon had been the one to painstakingly build the songs and find a cohesive bass line that would work with the raw talent Simon and Nick had.

He’d been the one to write the one song with Gray that had pulled them out of the garage band anonymity to give them a shot.

“I thought we were a family.” Jazz’s voice was like a lost little girl.

Deacon squeezed his eyes shut at the tears that dripped down her ivory cheeks.

Nick threw his bottle into the sink. The crash of glass hitting the ceramic sink made Jazz jump. “This is business. And with the way things have been lately, I wanted to make sure everyone was protected.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Deacon thundered.

Nick came around the island. “Less than six months ago, you were threatening to leave. You found another set of people to work with. Your loyalty definitely wasn’t with me.” Nick waved a finger between himself and Simon. “With us.”

“That set of people is in this room now. They’ve made us better than we ever were alone.” Deacon stalked across the room until he was toe-to-toe with Nick. “So you went to Trident—went to fucking Miller alone and added this shit?”

“No, he came to us. He asked us—me and Simon—for the meeting. But that doesn’t matter. It’s smart. We haven’t even been a band for a year yet.” Nick opened his arms wide, looking up at him with a white hot anger lighting his eyes. “We don’t know if this is going to work out. And the majority of the songs were written between me and Simon.”

“What’s the big deal? This is just for the first album.” Simon came forward, grabbing at Deacon’s arm.

“The big deal is you didn’t come to us about it,” Jazz said, diving into the three of them. She pushed into the middle, a hand on Deacon’s chest and one on Nick’s, but her focus was on Nick. “The big deal is that they’re trying to rip us off and you were in on it!”

Simon held up his hands. “That’s not what this is about.”

Deacon pushed forward again. “It’s not? Really, tell me what the genius scheme was. Better yet, tell me when this all went down.”

“It was the morning after Snake came to the show.”

Deacon speared his fingers into his hair. “I knew it. I knew it was too fucking early for you guys to be up.” He pushed the stool out of the way. It bounced into the tile and rolled until it hit the carpeted lip of the living room.

With everything they’d finally put behind them, one moment with Snake, and they were back to the beginning. He tugged the roots of his hair until the pain cleared his head.

“So you took it upon yourselves to fuck us over in the contract? Even though we’ve worked hard on all of these songs and made them ours. You talk about loyalty, but where the fuck is yours?” Deacon spun to Simon. “And yours? You thought this was okay? Nick, I can almost understand, but you, Simon?”

Simon wouldn’t meet his eyes. He stared off to the side, out the doors to the patio.

Deacon shook his head. “You greedy, fucking bastards.”

The fist came out of nowhere and landed perfectly along his jaw and cheek. Deacon’s head snapped back and he tasted blood. All the rage and hurt exploded out of him. He hauled Nick up by the shirt front and plowed him through the kitchen and into the fridge.

With a forearm to his windpipe, he lifted Nick onto his toes. “You do not want to dance with me today, Nick.” He slammed him into the stainless steel front. He saw the flare of pain and longed to give Nick more. He ground Nick’s shoulder blades into the handles. “You fucking got played by the label.”

“Let go.” Nick’s voice was dark and low.

Deacon might have him on pure muscle, but Nick was rattlesnake mean when it came to fighting. He jammed him into the fridge one more time then let him down. “You heard that recording. It’s not just about your percentages. They’ll rip us to shreds with that contract. If we don’t get signed to another album, they keep ‘The Becoming’.”

“We didn’t know about that,” Simon said.

Deacon turned to him. “Shocking revelation. They lied to you. Jackson Miller has Gordo in his pocket. All he had to do was look for one weakness. One report from that fucking weasel and then what? He asked you guys to come to the office just to talk? Just to catch up?”

Simon scrubbed his hands over his face. “He wanted to discuss opportunities,” he said with a sigh.

“Right.” Deacon gave a humorous laugh. “Opportunities.”

Jazz came to stand by Deacon. “And you didn’t care about us? You didn’t care that Gray and I took a chance on you.”

“We took the chance on you, sweetheart,” Nick said as he massaged his neck.

Jazz whirled on him. “We just spent six weeks together on a bus, on writing new songs.” She turned to Simon. “On a million different interviews, and you think I don’t deserve an even stake in this band!”

Her voice rose and an angry red slashed her cheeks. She balled her fists at her sides and those freaking tears were back. But they were angry ones this time. She dashed them away and widened her feet.

“You’re still an unknown, Jazz.” Nick’s voice was quiet this time. He turned his attention to Gray. “Aren’t you going to say anything, Ghost?”

Gray lifted a shoulder. “I just want to play.”

Jazz turned around. “The song, Gray. They’ll take your song.”

Again, Gray shrugged. “So, I’ll write more.”

Deacon frowned. Back when they’d been living in the laundromat, Gray had been adamant not to lose the rights to the song they wrote together. What the hell was going on with him?

Jazz stomped her foot. “That’s not the point. At my meeting, we talked about this shit percentages thing, but my lawyer didn’t mention the fact that we would lose the rights to ‘The Becoming’ if we signed this stupid contract.”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Nick asked, his voice spiking.

“We’re sure as shit not signing this.” Deacon pulled out the wad of papers from the inside pocket of his jacket and slapped them on the counter.

“So you want to walk away?” Nick laughed. “And you wonder why I went with the controlling interest of this band. You always want to walk, don’t you Deak?”

Deacon gripped the sides of the counter. “I didn’t say anything about leaving the fucking band.”

“We don’t have options. This is an all or nothing contract. You heard Jackson,” Nick growled.

“Trident isn’t the only label out there.”

“Do you see anyone darkening our door?” Nick stared at the ceiling. “God, you’re such a fucking Boy Scout. This is a once in a lifetime deal.”

“No, they want us to feel like it is. They throw in this penthouse and a car and make everything sound all great.” Every gift, every smug smile, every pat on the head—all of it was to lure them in. And all of it could be taken away.

“Yeah, well, if we don’t take this then what do we do?” Simon broke in. “Hope and pray we can hunt down another one? And that the contract will be any different?”

“We have to try.”

“We have eight days, Deacon. They need an answer by October first.” Nick went around the island to the drawer and took out a pack of cigarettes. He looked to Jazz. “Don’t start.”

“Outside,” she snapped.

Nick tucked a cig into the corner of his mouth and headed outside. Before he was out the door, Deacon heard the snick of Nick’s lighter, and the acrid odor of tobacco teased his nose.

A soft hand slid across his lower back. Deacon closed his eyes. He’d been raging and hadn’t heard her come back downstairs. He gazed into her worried eyes, pulled her around to the front of him, and lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, baby.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek. “Are you okay?”

He pressed his cheek into her hand. “I don’t know.” She wrapped her other arm around his waist, then lifted onto her toes. The brush of her mouth was soft and cool. It was everything he wasn’t right now.

Deacon’s arms shook with the anger that still thrummed through his veins. He kept the kiss light, even though he wanted nothing more than to blink out and lose himself in her. He wanted to take her somewhere so he could pound himself into her and dislodge some of the weight that sat on his chest. He knew that if he lost himself in Harper, he’d be able to breathe again.

But this was only the beginning.

He pulled Harper in, pressing her cheek against his chest. He saw Jazz standing beside Gray. Instead of consoling her, Gray sat stonefaced while she sniffled, their pinkies intertwined.

Nick was smoking, starting a new cigarette from the first one. Simon switched out beer for vodka.

He’d thought they were past this. Thought they’d actually been working toward something for the first time. And now, he didn’t know what to think.

Or how to fix them.

* * *

Harper curled into one of the L-corners of the sectional. They’d been at it for over three hours, and Deacon was vibrating with too many emotions to comprehend. Anger and hurt were first. She heard it in the broken, huskiness of his voice.

She would have snuck away to let them hash it out, but Deacon kept looking for her at the oddest times. Once his eyes lit on her, his face would ease the tiniest bit and his voice would fade back to a shout, instead of the scary growl.

“For fuck’s sake, Deacon. What do you want from me?” Nick shouted.

“I want you to try and look for another way! Do you have the Trident kool-aid on tap or something? This is not a good deal. This will haunt us our entire career!”

“We’ll write other songs.”

“That’s not the point. If they think they can get away with it once, they will do it again. What else is in this fucking pile of papers that we didn’t catch? Do you know that they get a cut of our tour money too? Licensing of our fucking face. Do you want to go back to that boyband look.”

“No. Jesus, no.” Nick braced himself on the counter.

“That’s what could happen. They will own us.”

Deacon’s voice was hoarse from shouting to be heard. His shoulders heaving with anger and frustration.

Harper couldn’t take it anymore. She crawled out of her hole and crossed the room. “All right, that’s enough.”

“This isn’t your business, Chef Girl,” Simon said gently. There was no anger in his tone, just weariness.

“No, it’s not. And that’s why I’ve been over there keeping quiet, but now you’re just going around and round. You are not going to find answers tonight.” If they didn’t stop screaming at each other there was going to be more bloodshed than Nick’s cheap shot a few hours ago.

Watching Deacon’s shoulders sag with each push back and argument to sign the contract was killing her. She simply couldn’t watch any longer.

“Deacon, I need you to come upstairs.” She moved in front of him, placing her palms on his chest. “In fact, let’s pack a bag and get out of here for tonight.” She stood on her tiptoes and brought her hands up to cup his jaw.

His eyes were red rimmed and dry. His beautiful green eyes drowning in pain. She couldn’t even look at Nick right now because she’d be the one to lose it. She’d beat that frustratingly calm look off his face with her fists. Everything inside of her wanted to rip his hair out at the roots until he was left with nothing but a bloody scalp.

“Please, babe,” she whispered.

Deacon looked around to his friends. She wasn’t sure what kind of decisions he was making, but she saw the finality flit across his face.

Wordlessly, he nodded and closed his laptop. He tucked it under his arm and let her lead him to the stairs.

“Running as always,” Nick muttered.

Harper pushed Deacon aside and flew down the three stairs she’d climbed.

“Harper, don’t.”

She heard Deacon’s voice, but ignored it. In fact, she couldn’t hear around the screams in her head. She crossed the room, her bare feet slapping on the tile. “You are the most selfish, cowardly asshole on this fucking planet.” She stabbed her finger into Nick’s chest. “Can’t you see what you’ve done to them? How much you’ve hurt them?”

His golden eyes blazed with anger as Nick stared down at her. His jaw stony, the tick of muscle in his jaw warning her away.

Maybe it was the bravado of knowing Nick wouldn’t do anything to her with Deacon in the room, maybe it was the hurt that Deacon had been feeling all day and stoically denying, maybe it was just her hitting a wall. This wasn’t her business. The band wasn’t hers, these people weren’t hers.

No.

That was a lie. These were her people. At least for now. She’d spent weeks with them, loved and laughed with them. She’d nursed them through cuts and scrapes and bad shows that left them all at their lowest points.

“You think you’re protecting the band with this epically shitty deal, but all you’re doing is living in fear. Fear that you’re not good enough, and guess what? They saw that in your eyes, Nick Crandall. You were the perfect mark.”

Nick’s lips parted slightly, and she knew she’d struck deep. “You convinced Simon that this was for the good of the band. Because he’s not built like that. He wouldn’t want to bring that kind of shit down on the band.”

“What the fuck do you know? You’re no one. Just a girl that Deacon’s fucking until something better comes around. Until we record the album and we’re back on tour.” Nick’s lip curled into a smirk. “You’re just a placeholder.”

She heard Deacon behind her. The crash of something being flung out of the way. Then she saw the murder in his eyes from her periphery. And in that moment, she knew it wasn’t going to be a few fists. She knew that he’d do something he’d regret. Knew that his heightened emotions would make this whole situation end badly.

So she did what she had to.

She reared back and slapped Nick across the face, and when he barely rocked back, she scraped her nails down his cheek.

“What the fuck?” Nick stumbled back into Simon. “Get her the fuck away from me.”

She went after him, grabbing his collar. She let the anger inside of her rage free. Because nothing she did would hurt Nick. Not like Deacon would. Not like she’d seen that day on the stage.

What he did to Johnny Cage and Killian Kemper would be a playground scuffle compared to what he’d do to Nick. Not when hurt was radiating off of him like a fever.

Deacon’s arms came around her waist and he pulled her off.

Simon pushed Nick behind him and put his hand out to keep her at an arm’s length. “Okay, hellcat. You just calm the fuck down.”

Harper could feel Deacon’s body shuddering behind her. Taking advantage of the fact that Deacon had her a good six inches off the floor, she kicked out, the ball of her foot glancing off Simon’s hip.

“Jesus, Harper.” Deacon drew her back, his arms locked around her ribcage. He twisted her around and caught her up with one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. “Enough.”

The bark of his voice and his wide green eyes let her know that he was focused on her, not on the insults that Nick had let free. Problem diffused, she sagged in his arms.

Her eyes fell on Jazz’s shocked face. Her eyebrows had disappeared into her bangs, but then Jazz looked from Nick to Deacon, then back to Harper, and her lips twitched.

Confident that Jazz wouldn’t hold it against her, she returned her attention to Deacon. His jaw was still clenched and his shoulders were as tight as the resistance bands he abused on the bus, but he made no move to go after Nick.

Thank God.

She only had to act like a hysterical girl.

Take one for the team, Harper Lee.

“You can put me down now. I won’t kill him.”

Deacon shifted her tighter against him. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Lawless.”

“I have to live up to my nickname, right? It’s been weeks since Texas.”

Deacon managed to laugh and let her slid down to the floor. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kept her tight to his side. “You’re lucky Harper can take care of herself.”

Nick stood by the island in the kitchen with a beer bottle against his cheek. He lowered it to take a sip and Harper was glad to see three angry red stripes down his cheek.

The asshole deserved more for that crack about her being a placeholder, but it was better than the emergency room he would have ended up in if Deacon had gotten his hands on him.

Which is why she needed to get him out of there. Pronto. The climate in the room had changed again, but she didn’t trust that it would stay that way.

“Get me out of here.”

Deacon nodded. He led her back to the stairs. “Are you okay?”

She held up a hand. “Don’t worry about me, Deacon.”

“What he said, he didn’t mean it.”

“Of course he did.” Harper tugged her shirt up and off, shucked her pants and underwear, and went for the shower.

Deacon followed her. “He’s just pissed at me.”

“Don’t make excuses for him. He’s mad because we called him on the bonehead move. The truth hurts.” She snapped the curtain to the shower open and stepped under the luxury rain nozzle.

She lifted her face to the spray as she tried to wash away Nick’s words. She was just a placeholder, as awful as it was. And if there was a sting of tears under the water, that was her problem. Her career trajectory might not be on par with Deacon’s, but it was still important. And it was hers.

She’d worked hard to pay for culinary school and she didn’t want to be making road food for the rest of her life. She wanted to build on what she was learning and make it work for her. Someday she’d have her own business license and employees.

She flattened her palm on the tile, letting the cool marble soak into her skin until her tears turned to water. Someday wasn’t today. She knew she had to pay her dues. And soon enough, that meant going where the work was.

She quickly finished up and opened the curtain to Deacon’s steady gaze. He held out a towel for her, and she let him wrap her up in the huge, warm terrycloth. And when he encircled her in another layer of those sturdy arms, she battled back the tears again.

Please, Meg. Just hold off that call for a little while. Right now, he needs me.