The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

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The End

Part Four

Playing to Win

For Everly Lucas

I love your words.

Every single one of them.

Please don’t ever stop with the words.

One

Rory

About fifty different strains of music floated into the hallway behind the stage of the Albright Auditorium. Some tunes were pretty decent. Some downright sucked. Only a few actually kicked ass.

All the seats out in the performance hall were filled, and the emcee for the night was cracking corny jokes, trying to keep the crowd entertained before the talent show contest began. In my changing room, I stroked my fingers over the cords of my guitar, warming up.

Tonight was a big night for me, and not because the venue was huge, because it really wasn’t. No VIP I needed to impress was out there watching, either. But I wanted to win this competition anyway. So bad.

Because no one here knew who I really was.

I wasn’t going to just be Aurora Hart, daughter to Asher and Remy Hart from the world-famous band Non-Castrato. I finally had a chance to make my own name and see if I had what it took to go anywhere without their influence.

After being bullied at my old high school because my parents were rock stars—even though they’d actually moved on to producing music these days instead of singing, and their band hadn’t played together in almost ten years—I’d moved in with my aunt and uncle for a semester to finish high school in their neighborhood, under the name Rory Hartley.

Here, I could be anonymous and start over fresh, become anything I wanted to. But at the end of the day, I’d still just wanted to be me. I loved music, and I loved creating it, just like my parents did. Running through the strains of Heart’s “Barracuda,” I closed my eyes and began to murmur the lyrics just as a knock came at my door.

“Hey,” my cousin Trick greeted as he popped inside. “I just wanted to wish you good luck and see if you needed anything.”

At twenty, he was the only child of Aunt Eva’s and Uncle Pick’s still living at home. It had been strange to go from living with two younger sisters in thirteen-year-old Riley and eleven-year-old Ayden to having only an older brother-type figure to fight with for bathroom time. But no matter how much I’d wanted to strangle him for forgetting to put the toilet seat down, Trick and I had actually grown pretty close these last few months, even if I suspected it only stemmed from sympathy on his part because some evil mean girls had pinned me down in the bathroom of my last school and whacked all my hair off when I’d confronted them for posting signs of me all over the school, calling me a bitch and whore and all sorts of other lovely, untrue names.

The whole thing had left me traumatized, so that must be why he’d been taking it easy on me.

“Hey,” I greeted right back, setting my guitar aside so I could give him a big hug. “Thanks for stopping by, and nope, I think I’m good. Just waiting for my turn to play. Have they started yet?”

“Nah.” He waved a hand. “The lame host is still cracking unbelievably bad dad jokes.” He shuddered. “I had to get out of there for a minute, especially when my parents started laughing.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wish he’d hurry up. I’m ready to get this show on the road.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting so nervous,” he said, walking around my room to investigate, though there wasn’t much to snoop through, just a folding table, a couple chairs, a mirror, some inspirational posters on the wall, and a complimentary bottle of water. “You’ve got this contest in the bag.” Picking up the water, he twisted it open and took a swig.

I made a face, even though I hoped he was right. “You don’t know that for sure.”

He sent me a look, eyebrows lifted and expression dry. “Yeah…I do. You’ve been playing since you were, what, four? Or maybe I should say, you’ve been playing well since you were four. The only thing to concern yourself with right now is what you’re going to do with all that prize money?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Twenty-five hundred would make a sweet shopping spree.”

I shrugged dismissively and picked my guitar back up. “I’d probably just put it away in savings.”

Chuckling, Trick shook his head. “Wow, you are such a spoiled little rich girl. Here’s over two grand, and you’re just like…meh. Whatever. God, I wish I could be so blasé.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because you’re so destitute yourself, boy-whose-parents-own-the-most-famous-nightclub-in-the-state.”

“First world problems, kid. First world problems.” Grinning, he ruffled my hair and started to reverse from the room. “Hey, I’m going to head back out to Mom and Dad. See you after, okay?”