My chest tightened at the way he saidto me,as if I’d been heading for him deliberately. My guardian angel.
“Not quite,” I said with a shake of my head. “They caught me, and I ended up locked in an office by Angelo. They talked about shooting me, but I managed to wiggle out of the window when they left me alone. I ran until I found a crowd, hoping they wouldn’t risk shooting someone else by accident.”
At this point, Rhett pulled himself up fully on the bed, the sheets pooling low on his flat stomach, and I forced myself not to dead-eye stare at his dick area to see if he was naked under there. I couldn’t see any clothes, but I had the sense that he wouldn’t have slept naked without checking if it was okay with me. He just seemed the type.
As he scooted back to sit side by side with me, our hands still joined, I heard and felt the long sigh that escaped him. “Angelo Ricci is bad fucking news,” I said into the silence. “And I won’t let you end up as his next victim, Rhett.”
Angelo Ricci had saved my life once. More than once, really. But that was a long time ago. Just like with Jace, he was no longer the boy I knew and loved.
“I need to get out of Siena,” I said, trying to focus only on the current situation. “Get out and lay low. I know how to stay undetected; I’m just not sure if they’re watching all the roads in and out of this town.”
“No doubt. If not them, the cops and state troopers who work for them,” Rhett added. “But I already have the perfect fucking idea. I just need to run it by the others.”
It was my turn to grasp his hand like it was the last lifeline holding me to sanity. “Please tell me it doesn’t involve Jace!”
He shifted to face me, a lopsided smile gracing his lips, the lip ring glinting at me from the small slivers of sunlight making it through the thick curtains. “Leave Jace to me. Bad blood or not, I’m sure he doesn’t want to see you dead.” A snort escaped me because I wasn’t sure he comprehended the true depths of Jace’s hatred toward me. Rhett’s smile didn’t falter though. “I’m just going to propose that you stay on the tour with us until our next stop. We head out of Siena tomorrow. This is our grassroots tour, as a way to give back after the past few record breaking releases, so we’re playing a few smaller shows along the way, but then we hit New York, where we play three huge shows. I’m sure you can disappear in a city that size.”
Hope bloomed so briefly in my chest. Fuck, I hated hope. The disappointment when it got dashed was near debilitating. But Rhett was right. New York would be the perfect place for me to escape to. If he could work out a way to bring me along on the tour.
Would Jace be able to look past his hatred toward me to help me one last time? To save my life? Eight years ago, the answer would have been easy. Effortless. But now, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, I was pretty sure the answer would beno.
Licking my lips, I glanced to the closed door behind which those low voices still rumbled. Then my stomach growled.
“You need breakfast,” Rhett announced. “You fell asleep before we could eat last night.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, but you’ve done enough. I can work something out… something that won’t cause tension in your band. Thelastthing I need is to be blamed for the hottest rock band on this planet breaking up.”
Rhett’s brows lifted, and his teeth tugged on that lip piercing. Was it bad that I was thinking about how badly I wanted to do that myself? Ugh, focus Billie!
“You think it’d come to that?” he asked thoughtfully, then shook his head. “I don’t.”
My lips parted, but only a frustrated sound escaped. “Rhett…Zep…” I gave him a playful smile, and he chuckled in return. “You don’t know Jace like I do. You sticking up for me in any capacity would be akin to tossing a hand grenade into the middle of your band. I’m not letting you do that.”
He shook his head more firmly. “No, Thorn,youdon’t know Jace likeIdo. Yeah, it won’t be pretty; I’m under no illusions about that. But he won’t throw you back out there to be gunned down by the Ricci family goons, no matter how much of an argument he puts up.”
I swallowed hard. “How can you be so sure?” My voice was small. Weak. But I wanted to believe he was right… because I had no other ideas. Facing Jace right now,askingfor his help, it’d be like reopening an old, infected wound. But surely that was better than taking my chances on the street with no warm clothes, no money, no place to sleep.
“I’mso sure,” Rhett whispered back, cupping my cheek to raise my face up so he could hold my gaze, “because every day of my life these last seven and a half years, I’ve played songs about a girl who broke my friend's heart. A girl he loved so hard he shaped his multimillion-dollar career around her. He hates you, he resents you,now. But I’ve never known a man wholoved so hard. Regardless of the damage you’re both carrying, when it comes down to the wire, he’ll protect you.”
Rhett’s thumb swiped my cheek, and I realized my eyes were leaking. Fuck, I wanted him to be right. The acidic burn of dread creeping up my throat couldn’t be convinced, though.
“If you’re wrong—”
“I’m not wrong,” he cut me off with a firm nod.
I narrowed my eyes. “If you’re wrong, then I’ll disappear. Okay? If Jace doesn’t agree to let me hide out until New York, then I walk away, and he can write a whole new bestselling album about the audacious bitch who tried to plead for mercy.”
Rhett grinned. “Dramatic, but also probably accurate. It won’t happen, though. He’ll agree. Trust me?”
I sniffed, biting the inside of my cheek. Trust him? He was a stranger. Worse than a stranger, he was the enemy. But he was also the guy who’d saved me when I was running for my life. He’d literally given me the shirt off his back, then held true to his word in giving me a warm bed for the night. No strings attached.
Sure, he might be a stranger, but so far… yeah, I trusted him. He had yet to prove that I couldn’t.
The bedroom door flew open before I could give Rhett my answer, and the breath in my lungs solidified to ice under Jace’s glacial glare.
“I fuckingknewI could hearhervoice. I thought I was clear with you, Rhett, fuck her once, then throw her the hell out.” His sneer was pure hatred toward me. “It’s all she’s good for, anyway.”
That cut deep. But what did I expect? I’d given him plenty of reason to think that about me and held no desire to change the narrative now.
