Jace sat up, his eyes wide and sharp, but Rhett just chuckled as his fingers danced a pattern over the sleeve of my sweater.
“Typical,” Rhett mumbled. “I don’t know why any of us believed the label when they said they’d leave us alone.”
Jace shook his head, scowling. Rhett might be high, but Jace was as sober as a judge. And sharp-witted too. “Why would you and Angelo care what Big Noise thinks? I know you two, better than either of you give me credit for. Neither of you are acting like yourselves in that house. Why?”
I frowned. “Angel didn’t explain it already?” Jace just lifted his brows, and I shook my head. “Not the surveillance thing, obviously. But, surely, he explained why we’re being cautious here?”
“He said that he’s here for his father,” Rhett drawled.
“Right,” Jace agreed. “Then I punched him again.”
“You mean he let you punch him,” I teased, unable to help myself.
A flash of irritation crossed Jace’s features, then he smirked. “Right. So… I take it there’s more we need to know?”
I nodded. “Yeah, the Ricci corporation—or whatever the fuck they’re called—just bought a bunch of businesses from some other dumb-name company, and as Angel said, Big Noise Records was one of them. He got sent to Naples to deal with some guy who was working for some other bad guys or… something.” I shuddered, remembering the blood on my skin. “Anyway. It’s not just Big Noise recording you guys for behind-the-scenes footage. It's Giovanni keeping an eye on his heir.”
Jace’s eyes flicked down to my belly, and I nodded.
Rhett sighed dramatically. “We need marshmallows. I fucking love toasted marshmallows.”
Jace and I exchanged a look of confusion, then I snickered. Rhett really was high.
“I need to take a piss,” Jace muttered, pushing to his feet with a groan. “Play Rose that tune we just worked out; see what she thinks.”
He was gone before I could recover from the shock of not only hearing my old nickname on his lips, but the fact that he was being even slightly civil toward me. Ever since the kitchen incident with Rhett, it had felt like I’d landed in a weird alternate reality.
“Hey Thorn?” Rhett murmured as Jace walked away from the campfire. “You know you broke my heart?”
Fuck. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, shifting my position so I could look up at him. “But Rhett… you didn’t love me. You didn’t even know me. We’d only been together for a heartbeat, and—”
“And sometimes that’s all that you need. When you know… you know.” He gave a loose shrug. “Not that it matters now, I guess. You’re… living your best life as a mafia mistress. Or whatever the fuck you are to him. He doesn’t deserve you, though.”
Christ, was he trying to kill me? At a loss for words, and still too scared to admit my truth, I did the only thing I could think of. I cupped the back of his neck with my hand and pulled him down to kiss.
The moment our lips met, I knew I’d fucked up.
Rhett groaned, leaning into me as his hand found the back of my head. His tongue expertly teased my lips apart, and I turned to a puddle of goo. All thoughts of Angelo, the baby, all of it just evaporated out of my brain because this was exactly where I was meant to be.
“Fuck, Thorn…” He breathed the words as he hauled me into his lap, his hard length grinding against my crotch, but the swell of my belly between us was like a bucket of ice water over my head.
“Shit.” I pulled away, putting my fingers to his lips. “Rhett… we can’t do this.”
His brow dipped in anger. “You—”
“What the hell is going on?” Angelo snarled, his hand grabbing me by the back of the neck and all but dragging me out of Rhett’s lap.
Then he dropped me when Jace appeared out of nowhere and punched him right in the face, knocking him off balance and into the campfire.
I screamed, horrific memories of my own burns flashing through my mind, but Angelo was quick to roll to the side, thrashing back and forth in the dirt to put the small flames on his clothes out. Then, instead of striking back at Jace, he rushed to me.
“Hey, hey, Bella. You’re okay. It’s okay, see? I’m fine. No burns. Just a few holes. See?” he held up his coat to show me, his expression full of concern.
It wasn’t until Jace stared at me in bewilderment that I realized I was rocking back and forth, whimpering. Fuck. I’d have to explain this… but not now. Not tonight.
I swallowed back my old trauma and peeled myself out of Angelo’s grip.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I just… I need some air.” Despite the fact that we were outside. I didn’t give them a chance to point that out, taking off into the darkness.
I just needed to be alone.
nineteen
JACE
Billie took off and Angelo followed her, leaving me wondering what the actual fuck I’d missed in both of their lives. Twice now she’d revealed a piece of her past, a piece of her broken soul, before she’d snatched it back away, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the life Billie had lived without me. For years after she dumped my ass, I’d refused to think, discuss, or hear her fucking name. Ironic, considering I’d named the damn band after her, but music was the only avenue of “Billie pain” I’d allowed myself, and it was my nightly torture on stage—hearing Bellerose screamed out by tens of thousands of fans.
But the girl who’d inspired it all… I had no idea what she’d been through after her sixteenth birthday.
Dropping down next to Rhett, I looked toward the house, wondering if Billie would reappear, but when two shadows came into sight, it was only Flo and Grayson. They made their way across to us, taking seats on the other side of the fire, which still had random embers scattered around.
“What happened?” Gray asked shortly. I wasn’t surprised; that eagle-eyed fucker never missed a thing.
“Rhett kissed Billie, and Angelo lost his shit,” I said shortly.
Rhett snorted, rubbing a hand over his face as more laughter echoed from him. “Jace punched him into the fire. It was gold.”
Grayson almost looked impressed, and I wondered when I’d become such a pathetic bitch that my bandmates expected me to ignore all the Billie drama rather than fight. It never used to be that way, not when we were growing up. I was the damn hothead, with Angelo the calmer backup. Together, we’d been near unstoppable, which we’d had to be to keep Billie safe.
She was far too fucking desirable for her own good, then and now.
“Why did you kiss her?” Florence asked, arms wrapped tightly around herself, a position she’d been in a lot lately.
Rhett’s laughter died off a touch. “She just… she fucks with my head in ways I never expected. We’ve all done the rounds with women, right? We’ve all been in love that was only lust, but it was never like this. My soul knows hers. It makes no sense, and yet there’s not another fucking explanation I can come up with.”
He knew the truth. Billie was a soul destroyer, and the only way that worked was if she owned a part of it in the first place.