“You think I don’t know, don’t you?” Jonas’ icy voice froze me up. The blood drained from my face instantly, while the wad of meat in my mouth turned to stone. I quickly grabbed my glass of water to force it down before I choked on it.
“What are you talking about?” I finally managed a hoarse whisper, still feeling the ball of food sliding down my esophagus, attempting to get stuck.
Jonas toyed with his utensils sitting gingerly against the sides of his dish. It was an insignificant gesture I found odd at that moment, like the act of restraint to not lose control. It did nothing but insight terror to my bones.
“I know everything, Liz. I have informants everywhere. I know what toothpaste you use, what hairspray is your favorite, and what kind of fucking tampons you like. Nothing gets past me.”
Stunned, I sat in the chair, afraid to move, stiff as a board. My fork slipped from my fingers and thumped onto the carpeted floor. I didn’t retrieve it. Instead, I placed my hands in my lap and tried to look unscathed from his words.
He was breathing hard, keeping his voice low enough for just my ears only, but I could hear the harshness of his tone dig into my chest like a sharpened knife.
“I loved you, but someone like you knows nothing of loyalty, nothing of the good things in life. That is why I sold the band to another company. You can go your own way, screw up your life even more if you like. I’m sick of playing second best. I don’t want to see your face anymore.”
He tossed his napkin on the table, looking like he’d lost his appetite too.
“If you ever try to contact Emilio again, I won’t hesitate to kill you. You hear me? This is me being merciful, something I think you believe I don’t have in my stone cold heart.”
He waved down the waitress for the bill. I still couldn’t even speak. My breath was locked in my lungs and refusing to move. All I could do was stare at Jonas in utter disbelief.
Did he just dump me?
“I have to go. I have an after lunch meeting with my soon to be fiancé. We’re going to pick out wedding rings. It’s quite cumbersome by the sounds of it. I’m sure it won’t be any more fun than this.” He motioned toward the table and exhaled loudly. His face was dark red, and he kept adjusting his collar.
“Jonas…I…”
“Don’t.” He stared me down, his complexion deepening as he tried to control his temper. He was on the verge of losing it, and I’d never seen him angrier. If we weren’t in such a public place, I was pretty sure my face wouldn’t be intact.
“You’ve done enough. I’ve already silenced plenty of people because of you. You don’t see anything that goes on around you. You don’t even care who you hurt or what sort of effects your drug use, your petty promiscuity leads to. You have no idea, just living in your little bubble, high on life and whatever you shove down your pretty throat. I should’ve known I could never tame someone like you, even when I really wanted to. I gave you everything, and you tossed it out the window. So, you’ve pushed me to the point I’ve had to pick a decent woman back home to marry— just for politics—to shut up my enemies down south who do business stateside too. It would do me no good to stay with you. You’re nothing but a little whore.”
His emphasis on the last word made me want to jump up and run away as fast as I could.
“You’re wrong. You never knew me. At all.” My voice shook.
I felt my tears welling up, but fought them back. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing anything like that from me. Not this time.
He sighed, looking calmer yet still unstable. He was still conflicted, like he couldn’t make up his mind on whether to stay or run and couldn’t decide. What the hell was this about his marriage of convenience? Wasn’t he supposed to be asking me to marry him? Lonzo told me he was going to ask me, not some random proper girl from back “home”. What the hell was going on?
“You said you loved me,” I whispered. I don’t know why I even brought that up. Did I really care? Had I even given a crap about this man? Could I really be feeling jealous?
“I do.” He stood up after signing the receipt and stuffing his wallet back into his jacket. “But that isn’t enough for either of us.”
“I’m sorry.”
His haughty laugh turned my blood cold. He shook his head as he got to his feet. Before he turned away, he walked toward me and stood next to the booth, drilling his cold eyes down into me.
“It’s too late for apologies, Miss Westing. Far too late. Lonzo will take you home. I’ve got better things to do.”
Just like that, he stopped calling me by my first name. I didn’t know that could sting so badly.
He spun and swiftly strolled the length of the dining room, sweeping through the doors in a vivid blur. I could see the dark of his suit more than him as I sat there, my lunch half eaten and my heart still frozen.
Wasn’t this what I’d wanted all along? Why did it feel like someone had torn my heart out?
Jonas dared to put a death warrant on my head if I sought out Emilio. No matter what, I was always losing at this game. But it wasn’t my game anymore, was it? How does one get beat at their own fucking game?
Dabbing my eyes and grabbing a mirror from my bag, I wiped the streaked makeup away from my face and onto the pristine white napkin of the restaurant. I didn’t care who was watching me now. I downed the rest of my tea and straightened my posture. I may have been beaten, but I was going to walk out of here with my dignity intact.
Fuck Jonas.
Fuck them all.
Chapter Ten
Audrey
I stared out the window, letting the early spring air fill my lungs, regardless of the pollution invading the perfect afternoon. Taxi cabs and people shouting kept me in a trance as I watched their bodies fill the streets below, like tiny insects waiting to be crushed. But I was no giant to do such a thing. I was just as pathetically tiny as they were, already smashed to smithereens on the inside.
My eyes burned, swollen from crying all afternoon. I’d arrived an hour after Saul had left me at the park to find his stuff gone. All of it. Even his keyboard and equipment. There’d never been anything that stung more than that…nothing. My heart completely left me that moment too. I was alone now. Not even my sister Liv was here. I’d knocked on her door before heading to my room. All alone for the first time in my entire life and I hated it.
It felt like a vacuum, sucking my consciousness away, even though the hours passed slowly. I could barely remember the last few things I did before this moment, sitting on the edge of the window, staring at the fire escape and wishing I could evaporate into the misty clouds hovering above my head.
I was still here though, and I wouldn’t disappear into the atmosphere like I wanted to. I’d never been suicidal, but I could see how appealing it could be in moments like these where the darkness was heavy and the mind was a tiny whisper away from oblivion. The only thing I could hold onto was Liz. I was still her big sister, and I had to be there for her, always, no matter what. If she lost me, I didn’t want to think of how out of control she could become. I’d become her anchor, and I knew my role well. It was almost a co-dependency really. I was her stronghold, and she was the reason why I existed.
Maybe it was more than that, but that was all I had at this moment, and it was enough to keep me from sliding closer to the edge and letting the overwhelming despair engulf me. That’s all I needed. Just that one reason, enough to keep my head above water, and I silently thanked my sister for that tiny little beacon.
She’d never know how much she’d saved me that day.
Morning came, beckoning me from my sleep. I’d even left the curtains open in hopes that the sunlight of the dawn would tempt me out of bed, knowing I’d be in a desolate mood. It didn’t work as I laid there, staring at the popcorn ceiling, my mind empty and my lips cracked. I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since yesterday, and I was pretty sure I’d cried gallons all evening.
My stomach won the battle, and I relucta
ntly sat up. I was just about to get up and shower when there was clamorous knock on the door. I jumped to my feet, hoping it was Saul returning. The tiny spark of hope hovered inside like a pleasant lighthouse beacon in the fog after a storm.
“Saul?” I yanked the door open and found Liz staring back at me.
“It’s me. Look…I need to talk to you…” She lifted an eyebrow when she saw the state I was in. “Don’t look so excited to see me.” She pushed past me into the room and slumped into a chair.
“Come right on in, Sis,” I mumbled and hastily shoved the door shut. “What’s going on?”
“I have to go to California.”
I shoved my hair back, knowing I was looking horrid.
“Why? L.A.?”
She nodded.
“I got us both tickets for the noon flight. Get your stuff packed.”
“WH—what? You want me to go to California with you…today?”
“That’s what I just said. Come on. Hit the shower. You look like…wait...what the fuck happened to you?” Liv narrowed her eyes at me, scrutinizing the wreck before her.
“Saul left me. I cheated on him with Random, and I told him yesterday after the meeting.”
Liv’s eyebrows flew up as she took another good look around my room. “I see…Well, even better. You have no reason to stay here. Hell, Jonas broke up with me. Now, get ready. We don’t have much time. I’ll start packing your crap. You go shower. You need it.”
I groaned as she pulled out my bags from the motel’s closet, shaking them out and unzipping them. She haphazardly started tossing my clothes into them.
“Wait, try to be a little nicer to my stuff than you are to yours, alright? I’m jumping in the shower.” I grabbed the bundle in her hands and picked out an outfit before tossing it back at her. “Roll my stuff up, alright? I don’t want to be ironing all day when we get to L.A.”
Just like that, without any good reason, we were going to be on the road again. Given that we didn’t have to go back into the studio for a few weeks, I was ready to get the hell out of this suffocating hole. Saul had my number; if he changed his mind, which I highly doubted he would, he could always call me.
I was going to be waiting forever, but if it took that long, I’d wait an eternity for his call.
Always.
Chapter Eleven
Liv
“So tell me what exactly happened?” Audrey asked as she shoved her duffle bag into the overhead storage of the plane and slipped into the seat next to me. We’d gotten a slight upgrade and were flying first class, but it wasn’t that much more comfortable than coach in my opinion. Unless a person was willing to pay an arm and leg for the amount it cost to get onto a really swanky plane where you could practically live in your seat up in the air, first class had seriously gone downhill from what people saw in the movies. Especially since we’d paid for tickets at last minute in a sardine packed full plane.
“Well, after Jonas broke up with me and left, he sent Lonzo in to drive me back to the hotel. On the way back, he handed me this envelope and told me that I needed to go to the address in there.”
“What? You broke up? Why would Lonzo tell you to do anything? Did Jonas put him up to this?”
I shook my head.
“Nope, he told me that Jonas and Emilio couldn’t know about this at all.” I frowned at her. She had a way of making me feel shittier about my decisions. How did she do that so easily? “Jonas told me to take a hike because he knew everything.”
“Wow…” Audrey sat back, surprised. “So what was in the envelope again?”
“Lonzo said that all my questions would be answered when I got to that address back in L.A.”
“That’s it? What the fuck, Liz? What if he’s leading you into some crazy sex trafficking house and you’re falling right for it? Geezus, really?”
“Shh…can you say that louder?” I shook my head as we got nasty stares from other passengers that were taking their seats. I could see they were thinking we would be chatting it up all the way back to the west coast. “I looked it up on Google.”
Audrey rolled her eyes, rubbing her forehead. “Well, that’s a fucking relief, Sis. Google knows it all!”
I bit my lip, knowing she was doing me a favor by coming with me to L.A. without an inkling about why or a good reason for it, but she had to trust me. I had to trust that Lonzo was going to show me something worth my time.
“I kind of said something like that to Lonzo, and you know how he never smiles? He laughed at me! He just kept shaking his head and said, ‘Liz, you need to go there. Just tell them you’re my girlfriend. They will tell you everything you need to know about Emilio and Jonas. You’ll thank me for this one day. Trust me’.”
“Why’s he being all nice to you all of a sudden?”
“Hell if I know. Maybe he wants to see me naked again.” I wrinkled my nose at Audrey who leaned back and closed her eyes. I could tell the situation with her and Saul wasn’t much better than my problems with Jonas and Emilio, but at least she was trying her hardest to deal with me and my craziness at a most inopportune time of her life.
“Say that again…” Audrey’s mouth gaped open.
“I don’t know why he’s telling me this crap. He saw me naked…you don’t want to know.” I grimaced at the thought but continued, “Look, I know I haven’t been the best sister ever and that things are kind of messed up right now on both our ends, but I need you with me when I go see what’s going on. Maybe I’ll find something so unfathomable about Emilio and Jonas, they’ll have to either leave us alone forever or…”
Audrey flicked an eye open to peer at me. “Or what?”
“Or something, maybe we can have a little leverage over them with. I don’t know. Whatever it is, we’ll have to deal with it either way.”
“Why am I not surprised? Sounds fun. Can we take a nap on the way? I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll listen to my music. Tap me if you need me.”
“Mm-hmm,” Audrey hummed back at me before she tucked her neck pillow into position and slipped an eye cover over her face. She was seriously going to sleep on the plane. I sighed, knowing full well I’d never be able to rest. Planes made me nervous, even though we’d been riding them a lot during tour. I wish I could sleep on the plane like she could.
I tucked my earbuds in and cranked up the music from my IPod. Shoving my own neck pillow against my back, I tried to close my eyes as the plane lurched forward. That did nothing for my nerves.
A tap on my shoulder had me pulling them off and groaning as the flight attendant motioned me to turn off my music. I gave her a tight smile before she moved on. I’d have to bear the brunt of the take off with nothing but my thoughts to torment me. Great.
I closed my eyes again and thought about the words Lorenzo told me. He knew Emilio better than anyone else. Why hadn’t I asked him more questions sooner? Why was I even going on this wild goose chase after days of no contact with Emilio? Obviously, he was done with whatever it was he was doing down in Mexico, so why hadn’t he called? I was sick to my stomach thinking of it all, and the gravity shift didn’t help much.
I eyed the puke bag sticking out of the back of the seat in front of me. Shaking my head, I yanked the shade down to the outside world. No way in hell would I do something as embarrassing as throwing up on a plane. Hell no. I could swallow it down. I’d done it already for weeks. The nausea was waning away now that I was almost four months along.
The moment the seatbelt sign flicked off, I shoved my earbuds back in and turned up the music. It helped ease some of my anxiety, and the plane leveling off was a definite plus. Audrey was practically snoring next to me.
Her break up with Saul concerned me. Where the hell was that guy, anyway? He couldn’t just walk out of the band…could he? I frowned at the thought and hoped not. Regardless, it was going to be tense recording in a few months if things had gone sour. I would hate to have to watch them hate on each other while trying to make be
autiful music. It would be a mood killer for sure. If we couldn’t make it work, what would be the fate of The Fall of Sky?
And what of this baby I was carrying? It was definitely more pressing than anything else on my mind. I had to tell Emilio if he was at this address we’d be heading to. What would he say to the news? Nothing made sense to me, and nothing was for certain. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to get hold of him. But how? Jonas was the best option, obviously, but also the worst. Lorenzo would’ve been better, but since we’d been off tour, I’d seen about as much of him as I had Emilio, and he wasn’t talking.
I groaned softly. My troubles were giving me a headache, and all I wanted to do was relax and try to keep my breakfast in my stomach.
“Anything to drink?” the flight attendants with their massive cart were next to us now. I nudged Audrey a couple times as I nodded.
“Yeah, can I get a ginger ale please? Thanks. Audrey…what do you want to drink?” I shook her arm a bit more, and she hardly moved as she responded.
“A coke in the can,” she mumbled and turned away from me. I peered up to the attendants to make sure they’d heard her. They had, already busy filling cups of ice to hand them to us along with the cans of drinks. I popped both our tables down from their restraints and placed Audrey’s in front of her for when she woke up. She had to be exhausted to want to sleep through her fix of soda.
I popped the tab of my drink and dumped the contents onto the ice. It fizzed madly, and my mouth watered for a sip. It felt amazingly cold and settled well in my turbulent stomach.
“How long before we’re in L.A.?” I asked the attendant.
“Three more hours. Did you want a meal?”
“Oh no, thanks.” The last thing I needed was to add to the chaos in my belly. Audrey had grabbed breakfast at the airport before we boarded because she’d planned to sleep the whole way. I had eaten with her, but it was not working as well for me as it had Audrey. It sucked to be pregnant. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking continuing on with it.