Brenda was further into the enormous cathedral, handing her baby off to her husband, Humphrey, and loading him down with an enormous diaper bag.
“Boys, you’re on time,” she greeted us with a sigh of relief. “Thank fuck for that.”
Humphrey scowled and covered the baby’s ears, like the kid could understand cursing already. “I thought you were supposed to have another six months of leave,” he told Brenda in a pissy tone, barely even glancing at Jace and I. He was firmly not a fan of our music, more of a classicaljazzfan. Weirdo.
“Yes, well, that was before someone murdered one of my artists, Daniel,” she replied. She always called him by his surname because she said Humphrey was an old man’s name. “Take care of our little monster; I’ll be home as soon as I can.” She showered kisses on her baby, then smacked a quick one on her husband’s lips before effectively dismissing him and turning to us with her manager face firmly in place. “Where’s Gray?”
“On his way,” I said before Jace could be an asshole. “Should be arriving any minute.”
Her gaze shifted over my shoulder, and her lips tipped up in an affectionate smile. Gray had always been her favorite. “Speak of the devil. Right on time.”
“She shouldn’t fucking be here,” Jace snarled as Billie walked in with Grayson holding her hand firmly. She was a vision in her simple black dress, her golden-blonde hair sleeked back into a low bun. Gray said something to her, and she tilted her head to look up at him with the sweetest look on her face…
Maybe he’d already won.
But then she searched the room until her eyes met mine, and her lips curved in a smile of pure joy. I was back in the game.Thank fuck.
“Save it,” I snapped to Jace, “you know why she’s here. Same reason asheis.” Angelo had just stepped through the front door, unwinding his charcoal scarf like he had every right to be here at our sister’s funeral.
He didn’t even try to hide his gun as his coat billowed open, and a jolt of fear ran through me. It was Flo’s day, her final farewell… and yet we were all armed and ready for an attack.
Would we all leave this cathedral alive? I wasn’t so sure.
I barely got even a moment to hug Billie before we were being ushered to our seats, and the rest of the invited guests—celebrities, influencers, corporate assholes—were all allowed to enter. I had no interest in playing nice, so I just slouched low in my seat between Jace and Billie with my fingers tightly entwined with hers.
Most of the ceremony bypassed me like a haze of white noise. I had to block it all out because every kind word about Flo made me want to cry. Fuck, she hadn’t deserved this.
When a montage of photos started playing on the huge projector screen, I lost my fight. Tears rolled silently down my face, and I fought the urge to pull my sunglasses back down. I could hardly believe she was gone. Really gone. No more tours, no more song collaboration…
It’d been so easy to convince myself over the last week and a half that she was just away, just off doing her own thing, and we’d see her again in the studio. But that wasn’t the case, and the reality was finally setting in.
Jace nudged me as the photo montage ended. “You’re up, bro. You got this?”
I’d foolishly volunteered to read a eulogy, written on behalf of all of us. I felt guilty about how I’d treated her in the last few months, and that guilt pushed me to take on this responsibility. Now, though, I was second guessing myself.
“You’ve got this,” Billie whispered, squeezing my fingers. “Speak from the heart.”
Fuck. I really did not have this, but I couldn’t let Flo down now.
Choking back my tears, I stood and slowly made my way up to the podium. Before I got there, though, a loud crack rang out through the cavernous cathedral, and something hard smacked into me, sending me crashing to the ground in pain.
thirty-nine
ANGELO
Everyone had been so sure that Florence’s funeral would be the target of another attack, whether on Billie—as I expected—or on the rest of Bellerose. As such, the security wasthickto ensure whoever made a move would be apprehendedaliveand delivered to my warehouse for questioning.
When a shot rang out through the cathedral and Rhett disappeared out of sight, all I felt was surprise. Of everyone involved in the farmhouse attack, Rhett Silver—or Ryan Gold—was probably the least likely target. Okay, not true. Jace was the least likely. Smug fuck that he was literally had no ties to crime, no skeletons in his closet, no debts… he was the epitome of squeaky clean.
Still, I was more than taken aback to see Rhett targeted… only to realize that it wasn’t an attack at all. Thanks to the heavy security protocols we’d put in place, within just a minute of chaos, we’d worked out what had happened.
Some grief-stricken—or celebrity obsessed—members of the public outside the cathedral had scaled the fences and tried to force their way into the cathedral to see Bellerosein the flesh. Our trigger-happy security had seen this person as a threat, mistaking the drink bottle in their hand for a grenade. And shot them.
Another member of security had reacted to the sound, diving on Rhett to protect him.
How utterly anticlimactic.
Of course, a Bellerose fan was dead, and that cut the remainder of the ceremony shorter than anticipated. Celebs and cashed-up assholes were all ushered, crying, from the cathedral by various bodyguards and private security, but my focus was entirely locked on Billie. Her safety was my primary objective. The dress she wore was cinched under her breasts but loose around her midsection to hide the lack of residual baby bump. So far, she’d garneredplentyof curious looks, but most of those were about her relationship with Bellerose, not her connection to the Ricci family.
