Page 15 of For Wrath and Redemption
It would leash us creatively, and the despair that lashes in my chest warns that I wouldn’t survive it. Heartless has been the only thing keeping me together. If I lose it because of my own fucked-up mistakes...
I’d have nothing left.
The thought is like a punch to the stomach, and I have to lean my body on the wall so I don’t hunch over from the swirling anxiety. My life would be over, and not just metaphorically. What is there to live for if I can’t write and perform music?
Nothing.
The reality makes me want to throw up.
I work to control my breathing as Hammond’s voice waves about in the air around me, mixing with the sounds of my panicked heartbeat.
“Your father and I havealmostsuccessfully killed the story, but there are still likely to be mentions about it in the tabloids, and the label will probably find out eventually. Luckily, as of right now, they’re just as eager to finish this tour as you are. They make more money that way. So your father and I have worked out a?—”
“What’s in it for him? What’s my father getting out of this?”
“Having a son who isn’t a felon isn’t incentive enough?”
It’s not Hammond who answers. It’s the woman, and despite her obvious attempt to sound neutral, I hear the tension in her tone. Her voice is like warm honey over jagged glass. Sweet masking sharp. Husky, yet deceptively smooth and soothing. It calms my nerves before setting my teeth on edge.
Finally, I open my eyes and turn them toward her. Her face is blank as she stares back at me. Her head is cocked slightly to the side, and her eyebrow is arched as if her question wasn’t rhetorical. She’s waiting for me to answer, and when she blinks once, I do.
“No. It’s not.”
She purses her plump lips, and her forehead creases as she carefully considers her next words. When she speaks, it’s slowly, and with a clarity that commands all my attention. Everything else in the room fades into silence until it’s just her. The woman with the deceivingly honeyed voice and the cherubic blue eyes.
“Your reputation and well-being are important to Mr. Henderson, Mr. Hendrix. He doesn’t want you or your career to suffer. This is why he sent me.”
I walk toward her, closing the distance between us in only a few strides, until I’m only three feet in front of her. I tower over her, but she doesn’t back down. She doesn’t seem intimidated in the slightest.
“Sent you to do what?”
“To repair the damage to your public image and assist you in”—she pauses, and I watch her once again take measure of the weight of her words before continuing—“making less destructive choices in your daily routines.”
My nostrils flare as I blink through the haze of fury. I can tell she’s doing her best to avoid coming off as patronizing, but she fails. There’s no delicate way to tell someone they’ve fucked up so badly they’ve been assigned a babysitter. She calls herself a PR manager, but I see through the posturing. She’s here because my father doesn’t trust me tobehaveon my own. I’ve threatened the one thing he cares about—his image.
All my other fuckups pale in comparison to this one because this one connects me to him.
Shame burns my throat and fans the flames of my anger. Anger toward myself. Anger toward my father. Anger toward this woman forbeing his paid minion. I stare down at her. Her hair and makeup are flawless, despite it being almost four in the morning. Her designer clothes are without creases or wrinkles, and the expression on her pretty face is carefully constructed. It’s all an artfully crafted façade for a single purpose. To deceive.
She’s everything I hate about my father’s world. Manufactured sincerity. Beautiful and calculating. Fake in every way.
I ball my hands into fists and squeeze tightly until my fingers ache from the pressure of my thick metal rings. A small voice in the back of my head tells me that this woman is not the enemy, that she doesn’t deserve my wrath, but the chaotic vortex of my own emotions silences it.
She’shere.He’snot.
And focusing on her will hurt less than acknowledging the truth.
I curl my lip into a sneer. “My father sent you to babysit me.”
“Those are your words. Not mine. I’m here to do a job.”
I narrow my eyes. The surety in her voice pisses me off further. I don’t like being a project. I don’t like the idea of being manipulated into someone else for my father’s approval. In this moment, I think I’d rather take the felony.
Bad press has followed Heartless around since the beginning, and while Sav has been able to somewhat repair her image, I’ve barely begun. Even attempting sobriety has done nothing to quell the rumors and gossip columns. As far as the public knows, I’m the volatile guitarist who will smoke, swallow, snort, or screw just about anything without pretense.
And honestly? They’re not exactly wrong.
“Do you even know what you’re getting yourself into?” I ask, my voice low and taunting. “You think being my shadow will come without trouble? It won’t. Thisjobwon’t be easy.”
