Page 108 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
Stephen's swollen eyes track my entrance with the kind of wariness prey animals develop right before they become someone's dinner.
Smart.
I close the door behind me. The soft click echoes in the sterile room, final as a coffin lid.
"Rex." His name for me comes out garbled through the wires holding his jaw together, each syllable grinding against metal. "Shou'n't be 'ere."
"And you shouldn't have put your hands on Bells." I move closer to the bed, boots silent on linoleum. "But here we fucking are."
His hands clench on the sheets. White-knuckled despite the pain it must cause. Good. I want him hurting. Want him to feel a fraction of what he put Bells through.
"Di'n't touch?—"
"Bullshit." The word cracks like a whip. "I saw you. Saw exactly where your hands were before I rearranged your face."
Stephen's breathing quickens, shallow and rapid. The heart monitor beside his bed picks up pace, beeping faster. Part of me—the part that's kept carefully locked away since the accident—wants to rip that monitor off and watch the panic really set in.
Instead, I let the silence stretch. Let him marinate in fear while I survey the damage I inflicted.
Multiple facial fractures. Shattered orbital bone. Broken nose—compound fracture, from the look of the splint. Jaw wired shut. Probably going to need reconstructive surgery once the swelling goes down.
My work. My art.
Not bad for someone who can't even drink water without making a mess.
That's when I notice the patient information board mounted on the wall. Name, attending physician, care team, dietary restrictions. And there?—
Designation: Alpha
“I thought you were a beta, Stephen.”
It's one of the only fucking reasons I agreed to work with him in the first place. Thought a beta manager would be less of a prick, since we were already a band full of alphas.
Joke's on me.
Stephen glances at the board, then back to me. A slight flicker of nervousness tightens his expression, but not for long.
"'S a joke," he manages through clenched metal. "'Tween me'n the nurses."
Liar.
Every instinct honed by years of learning to detect bullshit from across a room, of protecting Nash from people who smiled while planning to fuck us over—all of it screams that Stephen Hughes is lying through his wired teeth.
"Right." I lean against the windowsill, arms crossed. Casual. Like we're just two old friends catching up. "An inside joke about your secondary gender. That's totally normal and not suspicious as fuck."
"Wha' d'you wan', Rex?" Each word clearly costs him. Good. "Came to gloat?"
"Came to find out what the hell you were doing with Bells." I push off the windowsill, moving closer. Not touching. Not yet. Just... occupying space. Making him aware of exactly how much bigger I am, how easily I could finish what I started. "By my studio. In that alley. What were you trying to do?"
Stephen's laugh is wet, painful. Blood flecks appear at the corners of his mouth where the wires dig into damaged tissue. "'M his manager. Was talkin' business."
"Bullshit. Business doesn't make someone freeze like that. Business doesn't make someone look like they're about to crawl out of their skin." My hands clench into fists at my sides so I don't undo every last bit of his healing and then some. "So I'll ask again. What. Were. You. Doing."
"Why d'you care?" The question comes out slurred but pointed. His visible eye sharpens despite the swelling. "Thought he's jus' your revenge plot. Your weapon 'gainst me."
The accuracy stings more than it should.
"He's my singer," I say flatly. "And you don't touch my band."
