Her gaze shifted over my shoulder, and her lips tipped up in an affectionate smile. Gray had always been her favorite. “Speak of the devil. Right on time.”
“She shouldn’t fucking be here,” Jace snarled as Billie walked in with Grayson holding her hand firmly. She was a vision in her simple black dress, her golden-blonde hair sleeked back into a low bun. Gray said something to her, and she tilted her head to look up at him with the sweetest look on her face…
Maybe he’d already won.
But then she searched the room until her eyes met mine, and her lips curved in a smile of pure joy. I was back in the game. Thank fuck.
“Save it,” I snapped to Jace, “you know why she’s here. Same reason as he is.” Angelo had just stepped through the front door, unwinding his charcoal scarf like he had every right to be here at our sister’s funeral.
He didn’t even try to hide his gun as his coat billowed open, and a jolt of fear ran through me. It was Flo’s day, her final farewell… and yet we were all armed and ready for an attack.
Would we all leave this cathedral alive? I wasn’t so sure.
I barely got even a moment to hug Billie before we were being ushered to our seats, and the rest of the invited guests—celebrities, influencers, corporate assholes—were all allowed to enter. I had no interest in playing nice, so I just slouched low in my seat between Jace and Billie with my fingers tightly entwined with hers.
Most of the ceremony bypassed me like a haze of white noise. I had to block it all out because every kind word about Flo made me want to cry. Fuck, she hadn’t deserved this.
When a montage of photos started playing on the huge projector screen, I lost my fight. Tears rolled silently down my face, and I fought the urge to pull my sunglasses back down. I could hardly believe she was gone. Really gone. No more tours, no more song collaboration…
It’d been so easy to convince myself over the last week and a half that she was just away, just off doing her own thing, and we’d see her again in the studio. But that wasn’t the case, and the reality was finally setting in.
Jace nudged me as the photo montage ended. “You’re up, bro. You got this?”
I’d foolishly volunteered to read a eulogy, written on behalf of all of us. I felt guilty about how I’d treated her in the last few months, and that guilt pushed me to take on this responsibility. Now, though, I was second guessing myself.
“You’ve got this,” Billie whispered, squeezing my fingers. “Speak from the heart.”
Fuck. I really did not have this, but I couldn’t let Flo down now.
Choking back my tears, I stood and slowly made my way up to the podium. Before I got there, though, a loud crack rang out through the cavernous cathedral, and something hard smacked into me, sending me crashing to the ground in pain.
thirty-nine
ANGELO
Everyone had been so sure that Florence’s funeral would be the target of another attack, whether on Billie—as I expected—or on the rest of Bellerose. As such, the security was thick to ensure whoever made a move would be apprehended alive and delivered to my warehouse for questioning.
When a shot rang out through the cathedral and Rhett disappeared out of sight, all I felt was surprise. Of everyone involved in the farmhouse attack, Rhett Silver—or Ryan Gold—was probably the least likely target. Okay, not true. Jace was the least likely. Smug fuck that he was literally had no ties to crime, no skeletons in his closet, no debts… he was the epitome of squeaky clean.
Still, I was more than taken aback to see Rhett targeted… only to realize that it wasn’t an attack at all. Thanks to the heavy security protocols we’d put in place, within just a minute of chaos, we’d worked out what had happened.
Some grief-stricken—or celebrity obsessed—members of the public outside the cathedral had scaled the fences and tried to force their way into the cathedral to see Bellerose in the flesh. Our trigger-happy security had seen this person as a threat, mistaking the drink bottle in their hand for a grenade. And shot them.
Another member of security had reacted to the sound, diving on Rhett to protect him.
How utterly anticlimactic.
Of course, a Bellerose fan was dead, and that cut the remainder of the ceremony shorter than anticipated. Celebs and cashed-up assholes were all ushered, crying, from the cathedral by various bodyguards and private security, but my focus was entirely locked on Billie. Her safety was my primary objective. The dress she wore was cinched under her breasts but loose around her midsection to hide the lack of residual baby bump. So far, she’d garnered plenty of curious looks, but most of those were about her relationship with Bellerose, not her connection to the Ricci family.
“Holy fuck, that guy was heavy,” Rhett grumbled, rubbing his shoulder where he’d struck the stone steps when he’d been shoved to the ground. “I can already feel the bruise coming up.”
“Better than being shot,” Grayson commented, and I smirked my agreement. Rhett was just being a little bitch to gain sympathy from nurse Billie. Sly bastard. “I wonder what this is about.” Gray was looking over my shoulder, and I turned to find a harried Brenda striding toward us through the remaining mourners. We’d been waiting until our car was ready to take us to Florence’s wake; the front of the cathedral was already roped off in a crime scene. Now, though, it seemed like something else was going on.
Brenda’s lips were pursed tight, her brow tight with frustration. “Don’t make things difficult. You lot have already caused enough of a headache as it is.”
Jace bristled, his bad mood darkening with every passing moment. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Brenda drew a breath, presumably to explain, but before she could get a word out, Big Dick Hamilton—Big Noise Records CEO and my father’s newest lapdog—slithered over to us.
“Angelo,” he greeted me with a frozen smile. “I wasn’t aware you’d be attending. Did you know Florence?”
I leveled him a hard glare. “What can we help you with, Dick? The band are in mourning, as I’m sure you can appreciate. All business matters can go through their manager.” I gestured to Brenda, who nodded her agreement.
Big Dick’s complexion blanched somewhat. “Actually, this is a matter that requires urgent attention from the band directly. It’s with regards to Florence’s estate and her named beneficiary.”
This couldn’t be good. More money games?
“Flo didn’t have an estate,” Rhett rasped, red around the eyes. “And she had no family. So what—”
“Ah, see, that’s the problem. Someone has come forward claiming to be her legal spouse and, therefore, the sole beneficiary of Miss Foster’s estate, which, incidentally…” He trailed off, glancing around. “This isn’t the time or place. I’d, of course, like to save this for another day, but with Florence’s spouse pushing the matter through legal channels, it really can’t wait.”
Jace was two seconds away from losing his shit; I could see it all over his drawn features. “What the fuck are you trying to say, Big Dick?”
The designer-suited CEO sighed. “Miss Foster’s spouse is demanding a meeting with the remaining members of Bellerose to discuss future royalties and remuneration for the canceled portion of the recent tour.”