“Thank you,” I say softly.
I expect her to walk away, but she lingers, watching me, before asking, “What did he take from you, anyway?”
Fuck.
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that.
The words stick in my throat until I force them out.
“My brother,” I growl.
“I’m sorry.”
“Life isn’t fair,” I tell her with a shrug.
“Preacher, meet choir,” she hisses back. I can barely make out the shape of a hurt smile past her scarf. “One more thing, Osprey.”
“Yeah?”
“When you pull the trigger, you’d better be damned sure it’s a killshot. Because if you miss this time...the fallout’s gonna hit a lot of people. It’ll be a massacre.” Her voice hardens. “And if you ruin her, I swear—I’ll come for you in ways that make Vance Haydn look like a kicked puppy.”
I study her in silence.
We’ve never met in person, though we knew of each other through the typical media connections and, of course, her global pop star fame.
She’s never been someone I was interested in writing about.
I don’t mess with addicts unless they start hurting other people, no matter how much I seek to humanize their stories. Even after she got clean and turned her life around, I felt a sort of distant respect for her that kept her out of my publication.
Even so, she’s not what I thought.
Easterly’s got a damned good friend in her, and she’s lucky.
“You have my word,” I promise, and Milah snorts in disbelief.
“I hope it’s better than I’ve heard,” she says.
Just like that, she’s gone.
Leaving me alone with this massive heap of paper and spinning questions that won’t be answered until I’ve autopsied every single word.
I barely remember to buzz the front desk to update Gary on my plans to stay. Then I pull an espresso shot from the machine, settle at my desk, and buckle down.
Everything hinges on wrecking Haydn, the same as always.
With Easterly, Barry, and Callie all on the line, the stakes have never been higher.
* * *
All night, I’m staring at words, reading each page three times, stopping only to refill my coffee until my veins vibrate with caffeinated fury.
I’m barely aware when the sun comes up and hits my back. The harsh rays pierce through the window, warming the nape of my neck.
Eventually, I catch the faint rustle of people filtering in.
An hour later, Wanda slips into my office to leave something on my desk. She freezes and stares at me.
“Oh,” she says faintly. “I didn’t realize you were already in.”
I don’t even look up from the text. Every page I read feels like a rising fever, pushing me on with this terrible urgency.
“Sorry. Working. You can leave that,” I mutter, flipping to the next page.
“Of course.”
She leaves a folder on the corner of my desk and lets herself out.
The odd look from the corner of her eye won’t slow me down.
I don’t care about appearances.
I don’t care about food.
Even the coffee stops mattering.
This contract is twice as long as it should be, a legal hydra that would drive most lawyers insane. It’s a tangle of messy legalese that’s also eerily precise, aiming to cover every loophole that might tilt favors away from Haydn.
The language makes it almost impossible to fully unravel, to understand what rights it grants and what it takes away.
I don’t envy whoever Easterly had reviewing this monstrosity when she signed, before real money started rolling in. I doubt any average J.D. could hash this goddamned beast. No one except the snake who wrote it with his legal team shat out of hell.
Plus, one very determined media owner with a grudge.
I know one thing.
You don’t throw up a smokescreen that blots out the sun unless there’s something worth hiding.
I keep reading until long after people have started filtering out of the office. Wanda checks in and leaves a sandwich on my desk, but I haven’t touched it by nightfall.
I’m so deep in the document, the frustration, the fury that it sounds like a bell from another world when my phone pings with a reminder.
Frowning, I glare at the screen.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper.
I forgot. This is the night.
I’m supposed to pick Barrett up for Alvin Landry’s comeback show as promised.
I’m about to pack it in, more than two thirds through the contract before I see it—and it’s not the wording that makes me pause.
It’s the section number.
§14.2.
Identical to the notation Barry’s always scribbling.
At first glance, it looks like a simple clause for reversion of rights if the agreement terminates. The heightened drumming in my pulse says it’s not that fucking simple.
I reread the last few pages a second time.
Something stinks to high heaven.
“No,” I rasp, the word scratching my throat so much I rub my neck.
I’m a dead man walking without sleep.
I can’t be understanding this right.
Can I?
I slump in my chair, staring at the ceiling and turning it over in my head before I stop and read it slowly again.