Page 137 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

“I know.”

I narrow my eyes. “You sound suspiciously sure.”

“Because I was clear about that.”

Dylan’s already pushed, or hinted, or tested the boundary enough for Gabe to shut it down, which means this is further along than I thought.

I rub a hand over my face. “Jeez.”

“An understandable reaction.”

“Don’t get smug. You’re still wrong.”

He folds his arms. “I may be early. That’s not the same as wrong.”

I point at him. “That sentence is exactly why people fantasize about throwing your phone into lakes.”

“People?”

“Me. I’m people.”

He inclines his head, accepting that with irritating composure. I let the silence sit for a few seconds before I say the part that actually matters.

“If you do this,” I say, “if you push this forward and it blows up in his face, I’m not helping you clean it up.”

Gabe’s expression turns very still. “You wouldn’t have to.”

A part of me sees the path he’s seeing. The label. The band. The possibility of dragging The Last Rebels into Redemption Records and forcing the whole industry to take us seriously overnight.

It would work.

That’s the worst part.

It would work beautifully, right up until the human beings involved remembered they weren’t assets and started bleeding all over the floor.

I push away from the window. “You need to tell him.”

Gabe looks at me. “Not yet.”

“Soon.”

“Yes.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

We hold each other’s gaze, the whole room balanced on that ugly little truth. There’s no good version of what comes next. Just less catastrophic ones.

I head for the door, then stop with my hand on the handle. “One more thing.” Gabe waits. “If Dylan’s feeding you the version of himself he thinks will get him through the door, don’t buy it just because the demos are good.”

“I won’t,” he says.

I hope he’s telling the truth.

TWENTY-THREE

Willow