Page 63 of Now Their Starlet

“I did what I had to do!” she repeats, her voice so shrill it’s a wonder she hasn’t broken the windows.

Her words have me freezing in place. That’s basically an admission of what she did, right? That has to be useful for something.

Hopefully the burner phone caught it. Now I just need to get out of this situation. Preferably without Gina taking pictures of me. I’ve never even taken nudes for myself before. Not on purpose. The last thing I want is my own mother taking them of me.

Unfortunately, now that she’s started, it doesn’t seem like she’s going to stop anytime soon.

“You know nothing about what it’s like to have to fuck a casting director to give you a chance,” Gina snarls, her wine scent growing thick and cloying in the air with her genuine distress. “No idea what they do to little fourteen-year-old girls who come to the big city from a town in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere! You’ve been blessed with an easy life! A good alpha!” She waves towards Ezra, whose eyes widen as he holds his hands up in surrender.

“Aren’t you forgetting he shoved my head into a countertop?”

“Uh, yeah,” Ezra says, pointing at himself. “Not exactly a shining example.”

“Be quiet!” she snaps. “Alphas do that all the time!”

The alphas I know—the alphas I trust—come to mind.

Eli’s undeniable strength in every fiber of his body, never once being used against me. Not even when we were at each other’s throats when Beck and I first started dating.

Everett’s ridiculous levels of dominance he never uses to force me or anyone else into submission, even though he very easily could.

Hell, even Cameron, who cornered me outside the bathroom when we first met, has never given the impression that he was going to physically hurt me.

“That’s not—that’s not true, Mom.” My voice is tight with emotion at the thought of my guys.

It’s obvious that Gina believes every word she’s saying—and it’s sad.

Something cracks open in my chest as she stands there, swaying on her feet, her robe still open. There are tracks of mascara running down her pale cheeks and her glassy eyes are even more glazed over. I’m sure she’s remembering whatever ghosts she has from her past.

I can have empathy for her as a woman. But that doesn’t drown out the feelings of roiling anger I have towards her as the daughter she continues to fail.

And fuck over, if I’m being honest. Her failures as a mother go beyond just her not being emotionally present.

“Shut your mouth.” Even though her words are sharp, they don’t carry that same frantic, screeching energy the rest of this shitshow has. They’re almost said as an afterthought.

“What in the world is going on up here?” Stuart says from the open doorway, his normally neutral expression twisted into a scowl.

“You tell us,” Ezra says with a soft snort. “You should get her outta here and into bed or something. She’s crazy drunk.”

Stuart’s scowl only grows deeper at Ezra’s words and he shakes his head, his steps brisk as he moves in front of Gina and ties her robe shut again.

“Shut up,” Gina says once more, the words broken on a sob. She collapses into Stuart’s arms and he helps guide her towards the door.

He shoots a glare over his shoulder at Ezra.

“You should leave. You’ve done enough for tonight,” Stuart huffs.

Ezra just shrugs, heading towards the door.

“Night Andi,” he says. Despite the tension around his eyes from the insanity of that interaction with Gina, I see relief in his expression. Or maybe I’m projecting and the relief I’m feeling right now is just that poignant.

I find myself excited for the door closing and the lock clicking shut for the first time since I was locked in here.

I wait a full minute, standing there with bated breath as my hands clench into fists around the fabric of Beck’s hoodie. When I don’t hear anyone coming back to my room, I scramble towards the garment bag.

It wasn’t a dream. The burner phone is still there. And it recorded everything.

I just have to gather the rest of the evidence.