Rock Reclaimed (Rock Revenge Trilogy 2)

I pulled out my phone and hit the button to accept the call. I couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t.

“Ian? Are you there?”

Her voice was so frail. I tried to swallow, darting a glance at the still-closed studio door. They couldn’t hear. They didn’t know.

I walked down the first branch of the maze of hallways and gripped the phone until my fingers spasmed. “I’m here, Mum. He let you call?”

I shut my eyes. That was where we were at, wasn’t it? Me running away from the specter of a man I’d eagerly gone into league with. My mother needing permission to use the phone to call me, because I wasn’t only saving my ass by robbing my brother blind. Maybe, just maybe I’d save hers. Perhaps if there was enough money, she’d finally leave.

Maybe even be my mother for a change, instead of just some man’s lover.

“I’ve tried to call before. You don’t answer. Why don’t you answer?”

Guilt slammed into me, tearing through flesh and bone to where I was still so raw inside after singing with my brother.

My goddamn brother.

“How can you do this? He’s your son too. Why would you want me to ruin him? You left him to fend for himself, just like you left me. Only difference was your body was still there most nights. But you didn’t care.” I ripped back my sleeve and stared almost unseeingly at the bandage on my arm. I’d only wrapped it to hide the wound from Zoe, but she knew.

Everyone saw my scars, though I spent all my time trying to cover them up.

“You know that isn’t true. He’s the one who didn’t care. He burned down our home! You went to see it for yourself. That’s how much he cared. He tried to erase me, just like he erased your father.”

“Because he was smart—far smarter than me. If something hurts you, you should rip it out. Not sit there and nurse the pain until it’s part of you.” I yanked down my sleeve and punched the wall. I barely felt the agony that sang up my arm.

That was the only way I could think.

Make it hurt.

Make it bleed.

I was amazed I couldn’t feel the blood congealing around my feet, sealing me to the floor. It was coming out of every goddamn pore.

“You know how much we’ve struggled. He would never care to help us. Would never lift a finger—”

“He didn’t know where you were or even if you were still alive! You wanted everyone to think you were dead. Just vanished into the ether so when I pulled off this ridiculous scam, it would seem more real. But it’s not reality. You know what’s reality? I’m a fool. A puppet. Because even if I do this, even if I steal from your son—your own goddamn son—you still won’t love me. You don’t love me any more than you ever loved him.”

“You don’t know how I felt. Or how I feel.”

Was it my imagination or had her voice grown in strength? That note of feeble woe-is-me she adopted so readily nowadays gone in a flash.

“No, you’re right. I just know what you told me. You said he was your favorite. That it hurt you so much to leave him, but you’d done it for love. And then the man left you because of me. Because you were pregnant with me. I was the cause of the loss of all your great loves…your son, the man you wanted to be with. But I was always there, wasn’t I, Mum? I always kept fucking trying.”

“You owe us this.” Her voice dropped a decibel. “I don’t know what’s happened to you and why you’ve changed, but you owe us this money. It’s your fault we’re in debt. That Jerry has to—” She stopped and exhaled. “Your fault.”

“You’re right. It’s my fault I agreed to any of this.” Swallowing hard, I ducked into a conference room and shut the door when a Ripper executive and someone who was clearly a rockstar on his roster walked past. God knows who might’ve heard me already.

Jesus, I was losing it. Having conversations like this in hearing range of anyone who wandered by.

Maybe I wanted to get caught.

Fuck, maybe I needed to be caught so all of this ended—now.

“It’s my fault I didn’t just do my time,” I continued quietly when silence reigned across the phone line. “I should’ve just taken my sentence. At least I’d be free now. At this rate, I’ll never be free. You’ll both see to that, won’t you?” I laughed and rubbed my fist over the burn in my chest. “And

I still won’t have a mother who gives a shit about me.”

“You promised me. Promised us. It’s just money. He won’t even care if he loses it. You’re all snuggled up with him now, aren’t you? Going to cut us out entirely. That was always your plan.”