There was no consideration. I rushed him.
Arms wrapping around Cory’s waist, catching him by surprise. He flung his arm out to stop me.
The piercing agony in my shoulder sent me falling face-first to the ground, the wood impaling my flesh.
I screamed, holding onto the wound. Then I whimpered, trying to shove myself away with my heels when Cory started to climb to his feet.
Sure this was the end.
“Freeze.” The voice banged through the room, and I cried out in relief.
A clamor of heavy footsteps pounded into the room, and Cory was pushed facedown onto the floor, arms wrenched behind his back while he laughed like the madman that he was.
From where I lay on the cold, hard floor, my eyes sought out the one who’d stolen my heart.
Royce was on the ground five feet from me, those onyx eyes wide with regret and affection, a gash on the side of his head matting his hair and running with blood.
I’d thought he was meant to be the one standing at my side.
My partner.
My soul ached.
Maybe sometimes the ones who were supposed to stand with us were only meant to stand with us for a moment in time.
There to serve a purpose.
Just like I’d been Royce’s.
A scream tore from the doorway, and high heels clicked across the floor as the woman who’d been with Cory dropped to her knees at his side.
She wailed. “Cory, oh god, what happened? What did you do?”
She sank to her bottom when the officers hauled him up with his arms shackled behind his back. Cory’s legs were slack beneath him, the man refusing to stand as the officers dragged him toward the door.
Tears streamed down the woman’s face as she watched them take him away. Then she looked to Royce and slowly crawled on her hands and knees in his direction. “Royce, what have I done? I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”
She buried her face in his throat, and he threaded his fingers in her hair and slumped all the way back.
Love is the heart’s greatest deceit.
Maybe he was right, after all.
Grief crushed down.
So heavy.
Too much.
A paramedic was suddenly there, a hand on my back. “Stay still. Don’t move. Tell me where you’re injured.”
“My shoulder.”
Gloved fingers moved over the wound that was excruciating, but it was the wound deep within my soul that was truly agonizing.
What left me battered and bruised.
Broken.
But the truth was, it was worth the sacrifice.
Cory gone. No longer a threat. Those women saved.
Royce’s sister safe.
Just like me.
My spirit churned with a deep-seated relief.
I dropped my head, cut wide open by this double-edged sword.
The paramedic shifted me around to sitting and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. “We need to transfer you to the emergency room for sutures.”
“Okay,” I whispered, though I was looking at Royce, who was in a similar position across the room. Being examined while the woman remained a ball at his feet.
Remorse thrummed in the distance between us.
That energy fierce.
Tormented and wrong.
His expression was grim. Confirmation that this had been his intention all along.
I was being placed on a stretcher as a precaution when Richard broke through the crowd gathered in the room. He ran to me.
Hands fisted in his hair. “Shit . . . Em . . . are you hurt? Oh my god.”
Part of me wanted to go to him. To drop to my knees in front of him and wrap my arms around his fierce, warm, powerful body. Beg him to explain it to me. But the bigger part of me was terrified of what he would say.
What he would admit.
Richard gripped my hand. “I’m so sorry, Em. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have known from the start that Royce was up to something. He called me a week before he joined the tour and suggested that he come. He said he would make sure you signed if I agreed to bring him on, but he made me promise not to say anything. I thought he just wanted to sign the band. That we were working together to make that happen.”
“It’s okay,” I mumbled.
None of that mattered anymore. This whole thing was much bigger than us. My worry for Richard still great, unable to believe he would be involved in any of the accusations Royce had made against Karl Fitzgerald.
With the things Cory had done to me, I had no question they were true.
Richard brushed back the hair matted to my face. “You know who he is?”
Royce Reilly.
Liar.
Lover.
My heart.
My biggest mistake.
Now head of Mylton Records.
Previous lead of A Riot of Roses.
No, I hadn’t known.
But maybe I should have all along. The signs written in the stars that I’d dipped my fingers into, unable to stop from giving into the temptation.
He’d warned me I’d regret it. From the beginning, he’d told me not to forget that I would.