Staged (Exodus End 3)

“You’re going to cave the second he melts you with those eyes of his. Okay, I get it.”

Raven unlocked her phone’s screen and after locating the pictures, made gagging noises and handed the phone to Roux. Roux tried looking at the images objectively. Now that the shock had worn off a bit, maybe she’d see something in the pictures that she could use against him. Honestly, she was looking for something to excuse him, but it was all there clear as day. He had fucked Tamara, and later that very same night, he’d fucked

Roux. There weren’t enough condoms in the world to block that cross contamination.

Roux growled, her anger fully restored, and rushed into the open door of the bar. She scanned the room for Steve, and though she saw dozens of familiar faces, she couldn’t locate the one she was looking for.

“Hey!” Logan shouted. “Glad you joined us.” He shoved a glass of amber liquid into her hand. “You look like you could use a drink.”

Agreeing for the first time in her life, she chugged the liquor, the alcohol burning down her throat like fire.

“Where’s Steve?” Raven asked, yelling over the noise. She took the empty glass from Roux’s trembling fingers and set it on a nearby table.

“He was here a few minutes ago.” Logan glanced around. “Maybe he’s in the bathroom.”

Raven stood on tiptoe and searched the pub. “I’ll go check.” She rushed off in the direction of the clearly marked restroom.

“You want another drink?” Logan asked.

Not understanding what had gotten into her, Roux nodded. She’d liked the taste of that last drink, and she really liked the dizziness that had rushed to her head, and even enjoyed the heat that flushed her skin. She was on her third whiskey when Raven returned.

“He’s not in the bathroom,” Raven said. She stared pointedly at the nearly empty glass in Roux’s hand. “Are you drinking?”

“So?”

“I thought . . .” Raven tried to take the drink out of her hand, but Roux swallowed it down to protect it from thievery. “Roux, you don’t drink.”

“I can drink if I want to drink!” She shoved Raven out of her way and headed for the bar. What she needed was more drinks, not fewer.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t drink,” Raven said when she caught up to Roux. “I said you don’t drink.”

“Yeah, well, people change.” Roux’s face was numb, and her tongue felt strangely thick, but it didn’t get in the way of her swallowing another whiskey. Why had she sworn off alcohol? This stuff was great. She ordered another.

“Take it easy,” Raven said, trying to take the glass from Roux’s hand. “How many have you had?”

“Not enough.”

“You’re not used to drinking.”

“So?”

“So you don’t know your limit.”

“Don’t . . .” What was the word she was looking for? “Don’t . . . tell . . .”

“Don’t tell you what to do? Is that what you’re too drunk to say?”

Roux nodded, the sudden motion making her head swim. She pressed her hand to her face and tried to wipe the numbness away, but she couldn’t feel anything—inside or out—and that was a blessing.

Someone entered the pub, and she perked up, hoping it was Steve—she so wanted to see him even if she couldn’t remember why—but it was just Lily and right behind her, Iona. A flash of burgundy in the corner near the door drew Roux’s attention. Her breath caught. Tamara was here. Tamara was smirking at her. Tamara had touched him. Had fucked him.

An uncontrollable rage filled Roux’s entire body. She rose to her feet, both fists raised, and shouldered her way through the crowd. She was going to fucking kill that whore.

Thirty-One

Steve climbed out of the cab at Heathrow Airport and searched for directional signs or signs of his idiot friend. He couldn’t believe Zach was running back to Enrique. At least he’d been thoughtful enough to let Steve know where he was going so he could stop him. All he’d messaged was I’m going back to LA. Enrique needs me. But that was enough to allow Steve to give chase. He knew it was stupid to interfere in someone else’s love life, but now that he had Roux, now that he knew how perfect a relationship could be when it was based on mutual respect and trust and compromise, he was happy to pass on endless words of advice whether Zach wanted to hear them or not. He was scanning the departure board for flights to Los Angeles when he got a text from Logan.

Don’t look now, but she’s at it again.

Steve didn’t have time to decipher cryptic messages. He had to butt into Zach’s business before the fool did something he’d regret.

There were four flights to Los Angeles in the next two hours. Steve would have to buy a ticket to one of them and hunt Zach down terminal by terminal. The process would be greatly complicated if Zach’s flight wasn’t nonstop. Or if he happened to be flying out of a different airport. Or if he had a connecting flight in some bizarre country that had flights out of an obscure terminal. But Steve would worry about those possibilities if or when he’d exhausted his options here. He’d been texting Zach for hints to his whereabouts, but so far, he hadn’t answered. He probably knew that Steve would try to stop him.

He checked his phone as another message landed in his inbox—also not from Zach. Max? Max never texted him unless it was to give him the time and place for a band meeting.

Max’s message had Steve scratching his head. Dude, that is foul. Why would you risk what you have with Roux for that? The text was punctuated with a green-faced vomiting emoji.

What kind of hallucinogenic drugs were his bandmates doing?

No idea what you’re talking about. He’d just finished sending the same message to both Logan and Max when a third message—this one from Dare—arrived.

Your girlfriend is drinking.

Drinking? Roux? Surely Dare was mistaken. That or he didn’t know which member of Baroquen was Steve’s girlfriend.

Also from Dare: Where are you? I think you have a major bomb to diffuse here.

From Max: Her, really? To each his own, but her? Foul.

A picture from Logan downloaded. It showed Steve naked with some chick—who was too round to be Roux—riding him, her hands clutching her breasts and her head tilted back. Red hair, but not the coppery shade of Roux’s. Burgundy—a color as fake as that picture had to be.

“What the fuck?” he said aloud, scanning his memory for the incident so conveniently caught in a photo. Scratch that—caught in several photos. Photos that arrived on his phone one after another. Steve had been with many, many women over the years, but he remembered each encounter, and he had no recollection of this one, or of that woman. Photoshopped? Had to be. But how? He squinted at the first picture, studying it closely.

Wait. Was that the bed he’d slept in last night in Donington? He flicked through the pictures, looking at the background. That was Donington. So they had to be phony. He hadn’t slept with any women in Donington except Roux, and that woman sucking his cock there . . . Damn, she must be good at deep throat; she wasn’t even straining, and they always strained when his impressive cock was involved.

He shook himself. Focus, Steve.

The woman sucking his cock was not Roux. And that was not Roux’s tit in his mouth or her ass in his hand or . . . The tattoo on the woman’s forearm looked familiar—dagger through a skull tattoo. Where had he seen it before? Burgundy hair . . .

A sour taste caught in the back of his throat. Think, Steve, think. But his mind didn’t want to grasp the reality of who it was. Every piece of him fought the realization for as long as possible.

A cold sweat trickled down his spine.

“Holy shit!” Tamara. No wonder Max had been calling foul. Tamara. He’d fucked Tamara.

But he hadn’t. He couldn’t have. He’d have ripped his own dick off and flushed it down the toilet if it had been engulfed by any of her odious holes. His skin began to crawl as he recalled he was a missing hour or two of his life, when he’d been dreaming that Roux had been trying to molest him while he’d been mostly unconscious. But that had been a dream. It had to have been a dream. The contrary was unthinkable.

Had Roux seen the pictures? She must have. What must she be thinking? He tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. He sent her a text.

Please tell me you didn’t see those pictures.

No response. He growled in frustration and slammed his phone on the ground. The screen shattered on impact.

“Shit!” Why had he done that? It was

his only way of communicating with anyone.

He scooped up the ruined device and tried powering it on, but it didn’t respond, no matter how many times he jabbed the fucking button.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

People were staring at him. He was used to being stared at. One did not look as good as he did without people staring on occasion, but they weren’t looking at him with admiration or typical sexual interest. They were looking at him like he was crazy. At least there was one familiar person in that sea of judgmental faces.

“Zach!”

Steve waved, but Zach turned tail and ran. Should he go after him or return to Roux? How had his life gone from perfect to fucked up in the span of only a few minutes? He wasn’t sure who he’d rather strangle at that moment, Tamara or Enrique. Hell, he had two hands. Why not choke them both?

Thirty-Two

Roux had never hit anyone out of spite before, so she was surprised by how much her knuckles hurt when they crashed into Tamara’s smug mouth. Teeth, she thought blankly as her arm drew back and smashed against a rather hard cheekbone and then a jaw. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing. She just wanted to hurt someone. Hurt someone like she was hurting. And the cause of all her pain was right there. Why not hurt her?

“You fucking bitch!” Roux screamed while Tamara covered her head with both arms and tried to crawl under the table. “Fight back, you cunt. Don’t just take it. Fight back!”

What? No. Roux didn’t want that. Someone else was using her mouth. Someone else was reaching under the table and yanking Tamara out of her hiding spot by her hair.

“You think it’s okay to fuck another woman’s man?” Roux spat—literally—in Tamara’s no-longer-smug face.

Roux took another swing at her, but someone grabbed her wrist before it could connect.

“I saw him first!” Tamara shouted, showing a bit more bravado now that Roux was restrained. She backed into the nearest wall when Roux managed to wrestle free. Roux’s hands had minds of their own as they circled Tamara’s throat and squeezed.

Roux was breathing like a wild animal, blood thrumming in her ears, adrenaline surging through her body. She wanted the bitch to die. Not just hurt, but actually die. And she was more than prepared to do the honors.