ChapterFour
Alec
Great.Just fucking great.
The universe just threw a couple of Care Bears at me.
The automatic door hisses shut behind the tiny pink umbrella and the woman carrying ninety-nine percent of the building’s available sunlight in her smile.And then it’s just me again—alone in the silence they left behind, my pulse caught somewhere between fight or flight, still trying to figure out which one to pick.
I scrub a hand over my mouth.
“This is fucking fantastic,” I growl under my breath.“I should’ve stayed in Los Angeles instead of walking into this ...this torture.Now I get to figure out who let this woman in and how the hell Mrs.Lafferty allowed this circus.”
Though ...technically, this could begrowth.Or whatever twisted version of it my therapist keeps preaching.This is exactly what he’d call an “opportunity.”This will open emotional gateways—whatever the fuck that means.
All I know is, gateways shouldn’t come with glitter and questions about whether I’m broken like a malfunctioning Elmo.
Okay, they didn’t exactly say I was a broken Elmo, but they definitely made me feel like one.
I’m still trying to get my breathing under control when Martin steps back behind the concierge desk.
He doesn’t greet me right away.
He watches me and it’s not with surprise, but something else ...suspicion, maybe?Probably just confusion.Or maybe ...cautiousness?He hasn’t seen me lose my shit yet, but everyone knows Alec from Dead Moth Parade had a very short fuse.
That’s the old me, though.The guy who used to explode at the slightest thing—some called it anger issues.There’s that saying about fame and lions sleeping or whatever.I should probably remember how that goes.But people believe I flip easily.
No one really understands why I was like that—even before the band broke up.Though things got a lot worse when they imploded between us.It was a toxic mix of drugs, alcohol, and terrible decisions from people who couldn’t get their shit together.Yeah, that included me.I’m not trying to excuse it, but in my defense, I didn’t realize I was carrying all that anger and baggage from my childhood until it started leaking everywhere.And by then ...well, it had become my branding.
I’m not proud of it, but ...shit happened.It was the eighties, well, and the nineties.But now?I’m chill.I’ve worked on it.But I’m not exactly in the business of showing people who I really am.I don’t care about rebuilding any reputation.
“Mr.Horvath?”Martin nods and inhales as if he’s bracing for something he knows I won’t like.My stomach tightens.
He looks like a man about to deliver bad news, and suddenly I’m back in that place.The memory of Roderick, the frontman, announcing the band was over flashes in my head, the crash of him breaking everything we’d worked for, like it was all some fucking joke.Yeah, those were good times.
Reporters and radio personalities still ask me why I knocked him down—gave him a black eye and a broken nose.It wasn’t my best moment, but in my defense, I told him a year before that if he couldn’t grow the fuck up and transcend with the times, to get his ass out of the band and let the rest of us move on.
Did he do it?No.Too full of himself, too full of drugs, and too convinced he was the only talented one in the band, he basically told me to fuck off.I should’ve quit back then, but shoulda-woulda-coulda doesn’t do much besides remind you that you were an idiot.
We’ve worked things out since then.
Now we’re brothers from another mother and all that shit.Even his siblings are close to us—two of them, Julian and Rhodes,moved into the new building across the street, as if we’re running a commune or something.They visit sometimes and I drop by when they invite me.
The point is, the way Martin’s standing there—his face set, his whole posture pinned in place—drags that memory straight to the front of my mind.And whatever’s coming next feels like it’s going to crash into me the same way that moment did.
Maybe he’s going to tell me that some punk in the building set my penthouse on fire.That’d be karma biting me on the ass for making fun of Dexter for the cherry bomb incident at his place.
“What’s going on?”I ask, my voice more clipped than I meant it to be.
“Well ...there’s something I need to tell you.”He hesitates, just for a breath, but it feels like an eternity.“Mrs.Lafferty passed away last month.”
I blink.Once.Twice.My brain has to catch up with his words.Mrs.Lafferty passed away.
“What?”The word comes out cracked, raw, too loud in the empty lobby.“No.You’re wrong.She’s ...perfectly healthy.”I rub the back of my neck because I must’ve heard him wrong.“How ...are you sure?”
I’m not making sense, I know that, but how could she be gone?She was the picture of health.She was the person who made everything work—the one reliable thing in this entire place.
Martin’s expression softens.“I’m very sorry, sir.It was unexpected.”
