Staged (Exodus End 3)

“Oh,” Sam said, “is she engaged?” His voice was uncharacteristically squeaky. “Congratulations! Did you post that on Instagram too?”

“Not yet,” Roux said. “But if you think people were defensive of us before, try messing with us after they hear how Steve proposed.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s very sweet, I’m sure.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Iona interrupted. “Are you threatening us?”

“Don’t forget who owns your contract,” Sam said.

Dare crossed his arms and smiled crookedly. “That would be me.”

“Huh?” Sam blinked.

Actually, they were all blinking at Dare. How had he managed to gain ownership of Baroquen’s contract?

“Your business partners were quite interested in quietly selling their shares in your sinking ship. I got a very good deal.” Dare’s smile broadened. “On all of them.”

“Even if you bought every share available, I still own the majority,” Sam said, but his usual bluster had diminished to a mere breeze.

“True,” Dare said, “but once all of our various lawsuits are officially filed—”

“And won,” Max said with complete confidence.

“And won,” Dare said agreeably, “you’ll have to liquidate your assets, and who in their right mind would invest in an entertainment conglomerate reeking of scandal?”

“No one,” Logan said.

Max elbowed him and nodded at Dare.

Logan’s eyes widened. “Dare?”

“Keep up, Logan,” Max said.

“But why would he . . .” Logan shook his head.

“So all the entertainers who have contracts under this greedy motherfucker aren’t left footing his legal bills and losing everything,” Steve said, wishing Dare stood closer to him so he could hug him. “If you need additional finances, I’ve got some money burning a hole in my bank account.” Steve nodded, meaning every word.

“I might take you up on that,” Dare said. “It’s a lot of power for one man to hold.”

“And responsibility,” Max said. “I’m in too.”

“You guys aren’t leaving me out of this,” Logan said.

“I don’t have much, but I’ll risk everything I have,” Reagan said. “Down to the shirt off my back.”

“If you’re really interested in buying,” Sam said, “we could come up with a fair deal for my shares.”

Steve laughed. “Are you trying to bargain with us? Why would we do that? In case you haven’t been paying attention, we hold all the cards here.”

“It will put you in charge more quickly,” Sam said, “and I’ll quietly go away. You’ll never hear from me or my girlfriend again.”

Steve pressed his eyebrows together. “Girlfriend?” What woman would date the sleazeball?

“Tamara. My girlfriend.”

“Tamara!”

Sam snorted. “With all your digging around my business, you didn’t come across that little gem?”

“Did you know she staged those pictures of us together?” Steve asked. Because what boyfriend would put up with that kind of behavior?

Sam laughed and started backing away from Steve’s open door with renewed confidence. “You guys don’t have shit on me,” Sam said. “I should have known this was a ploy to make me nervous or, I don’t know, but—”

“You stole from us,” Max said, his hand wrapping into the fabric of Sam’s lapel. “Twenty-seven point eight million dollars. We have all the shit on you we’ll ever need. As for the libelous bull in Bianca’s tabloid? She’s going down too. And your sex-offending girlfriend? Steve is going to press charges against her as soon as possible.”

“I am?” Steve asked. He was still reeling over the knowledge that his two least favorite people in the world were a couple. Had that been why Bianca had been so smug when he’d met with her all those weeks ago? Because the man watching Tamara flirt with Steve wasn’t Pyre—as he’d suspected—but Sam? What the fuck? How had they gotten together? Why? When? He had so many questions. Like why did Sam find it humorous that his girlfriend had drugged and molested a man he loathed? Unless he’d put her up to it. Steve wouldn’t put that past him. Maybe he even gave her the key to Steve’s room so she could stage those disgusting pictures. Hell, he might have been holding the fucking camera. And maybe Bianca had posted those pictures online to get Sam and Tamara to break up, not to hurt Steve. But what did it matter? The three of them were all going down in flames, and their disastrous crash was so fun to watch.

“Yes, you are pressing charges,” Roux said quietly, her hand warm against Steve’s lower back.

“Yeah,” Steve said, standing straighter. He should press charges. He probably had the evidence he needed. He definitely had the support to get through the ordeal. “I guess you and your girlfriend can enjoy conjugal visits while you’re both in jail.”

Sam snorted, but he was craftily working his way from the center of the group toward open space farther down the hallway. “White collar criminals don’t go to jail.”

“So you admit you’re a criminal,” Reagan said. “I heard him. Did you all hear him?”

There was a general murmur of consensus.

“That’s not admissible in court,” Sam said. “God, musicians are morons. I don’t know how I put up with you types for all these years.”

“Guess you don’t have to put up with us anymore,” Max said. “As Steve said, you’re fired. We’ll see you in court.”

“If you can find me,” Sam said. He broke free of the crowd and hurried down the hallway. Butch stepped in front of him, looking angrier than Steve had ever seen him.

“Going somewhere?” Butch asked.

Two additional security guards stepped in to flank Butch. One of them—Reagan’s husband Ethan—looked particularly lethal with his biceps bulging above his crossed arms.

“You can’t legally detain me,” Sam said, stepping backward.

“I wasn’t planning on this being legal,” Butch said.

“Allow me,” Ethan said. “I still remember how to give Miranda rights.”

“We aren’t in the US,” Butch reminded him.

Ethan grinned. “True. Guess he doesn’t have any rights, then.”

He dropped Sam to the floor so quickly that a collective gasp filled the hall.

“You have the right to keep your lying, conniving mouth shut,” Ethan said, placing a knee in Sam’s back and whipping out a pair of handcuffs. They were lined with velvet and were obviously of the novelty variety, but that didn’t stop Ethan from clicking one bracelet closed over Sam’s wrist or from them being effective restraints. “You have the right to pay an attorney a lot of money to try to defend your sorry, undeserving ass.”

Steve liked this guy. He needed to hang out with him more often.

“If you can’t afford an attorney, you’re shit out of luck, asshole. No public defender is going to work very hard to help a swine like you.”

“You can’t do this,” Sam said. “You have no authority to—”

Ethan slammed a fist into the floor inches from Sam’s face. “I suggest you exercise that first right before you say something that makes me really mad.”

“He got fired from the force for beating the crap out o

f some perpetrator,” Reagan said helpfully.

“And that perpetrator didn’t make my wife’s life a living hell,” Ethan said, “so just imagine how much crap I could beat out of you.”

“Buckets of crap,” Logan said.

“Now, I’m not sure how we get you extradited back to the States, but someone at the US embassy will know.” Ethan stood and yanked Sam to his feet. “Are you going to ask your girlfriend to join us peacefully, or should I pretend she resisted my citizen’s arrest as well?”

“You can’t threaten us. Who do you think you are?”

“If this was an action movie, I’d come up with a sweet one-liner right now,” Ethan said with a smirk. He settled for shoving Sam toward the elevator.

“Justice,” Reagan said, following the security team down the hall. “That’s what you should have said, babe. You’re justice.”

“Your worst nightmare,” Max called out his suggestion.

“Your wettest dream!” Azura shouted, and then she lowered her voice to add, “Actually, he should say that to me. Rawr!”

“He’s married to my brother,” Dare pointed out.

“And to your sister-in-law,” Logan said.

“That has to be a total mindfuck,” Max said with a laugh.

Dare grinned. “Not really. If Trey’s happy . . .”

“. . . I’m happy,” half the group said in unison.

“Did you really buy out all of Sam’s partners?” Steve asked Dare.

Dare’s grin changed from sentimental to devious. “Nah. That was a total bluff. I knew it would make that weasel squirm, though.”

“I think we should consider doing it for real,” Steve said. “I thought maybe we’d get around to starting our own label, but if we can buy out our previous label, and all the contracts it currently holds, we could do great things for some truly talented people. As much as I despise Sam, he does have excellent taste in music.”

“Let’s give it some thought,” Max said. “We can have a meeting about it in a few days.”

Steve silently vowed not to push his opinions on Max in this situation. He’d learned from their experiences with Sam that if Max thought he was being pressured, he dug in his heels and didn’t give an inch, whether his stubbornness ultimately hurt him or not.