Page 88 of Unclaimed Bonds
LUKE
TWO WEEKS AGO:
March 14, 2025: 8 p.m.
Luna Solar: Concert Venue
Itake my seat in the VIP section. I came tonight even after she rejected me in hopes that I could talk to her. She promised me tomorrow, but I know her—she’ll invent some excuse to avoid me.
She’s been avoiding me for three years. Fuck, we’re business partners, and somehow, she avoids direct in-person meetings with me. When we do meet, she’s available through video chats, and we are never alone. If I call, she doesn’t answer. Her only responses are either in text or email.
But she’s home now, and I’m not giving up. I need her to see how much I love her, care about her. I need her to see that I am not that spoiled, vindictive person she believes that I am.
I receive an elbow jab to my ribs and emit a breathy oomph. “Why are you here if you’re going to mope?” Jeremy hisses in my ear.
“I’m not moping. I’m just thinking about everything that happened earlier today.”
He chuckles. “You worried that the betrothal contract still holds water?”
No, I’m not fucking thinking of that. Leave it to Jeremy to mention that shit. “Now I am. Thanks,” I mutter under my breath.
“Did you see the way he looked at her when they escorted him out of the room?” He glances sideways at me, but I refuse to acknowledge his question. He whistles. “Come on, man. I mean, he killed his own father to protect her.”
I want to throttle Jeremy. I don’t care if thousands of people in this venue watch us. Iwillhit him. “Can you not talk for the rest of the show? Or here’s an idea—switch seats with Justin.”
Instead, Jeremy holds out a pamphlet. “She’s not sitting here because she’s part of the main attraction.”
I glance down at the paper he tosses into my lap. A banner across the bottom catches my attention: Special guest model featuring petite line, Princess Jessica Langhlam. Musical guest featuring Raw, Charlie Langhlam, and “G.”
What? Princess Jessica has never made a public appearance, ever. Even in photos, they aren’t clear enough to capture her facial features. We all share a standing joke that she’s actually a ghost. Once, a reporter had the nerve to ask Jeremy if she was ugly, thus the reason for her staying out of the limelight. Jeremy broke the reporter’s nose, and our PR guy had a field day calming the media storm.
The lights flash, and everyone quiets in their seats. The host rambles on during his opening. The music starts. Models walkonto the runway. Charlie enters, playing his guitar, and starts to sing.
Then I hear her. My girl makes her way onto the stage. She wears a spectacular faux-leather outfit with a flowing cape. Fake tattoo mesh sleeves cover the scars on her arms. Her long hair is made up in a fancy braid that almost looks like a faux hawk, and her signature choker necklace covers the scar at the base of her throat. That very scar I made to save her life. She sings the chorus along with Charlie.
I become mesmerized. Everything else disappears. I don’t hear the crowd screaming for her. I don’t see the band. It’s only her—singing, dancing, happy, free. Everything she is or isn’t melts away when she performs. I hate her mask, though. I always have. I told her many times before—it’s a grave injustice to her fans to hide her face. Her face when she sings expresses all her emotions. Her music, the lyrics she writes, acts like her diary, poetically written and composed into a song. It’s why her fans love her—they relate to her.
I feel it, too. I know some of her songs were written about me. It hurts how I angered her, betrayed her, broke her heart. My own bleeds just thinking about it. She’s written a thousand songs for other artists, but she kept and sang the ones she identified with the most.
She stand between Raw’s lead singer, Ray, and Charlie. She slings one arm over Charlie’s shoulder as he performs a solo riff. Jealousy runs up my spine. He’s my doppelganger in every way, yet their friendship represents so much more than I ever had with her. She loves him, trusts him, believes in him. She smiles at him. I wish I could see more of her face.
A piece of paper flutters from the ceiling and lands near my foot. I look around, but no one moves to retrieve it.
Jessica faces the crowd, belting the lines to a new song. “You’re supposed to protect me, love me, take care of me. Instead, you shatter my soul.”
Jeremy side-eyes me. I bend forward to pick up the paper. When I turn it over, I discover that it’s a tarot card, with the picture of Death.
Fear seizes my heart, transporting me back to memories from eight years earlier.
Chapter 42
Death Card
LUKE
EIGHT YEARS AGO:
November 14, 2016: 11:55 p.m.
