Micah’s jaw locks.
I exhale slowly, staring at the floor. I hate this. I hate all of them. I hate the way I barely hesitate anymore. But this is the life I signed away seven years ago. This is the goddamn price.
To this day, I’ve taken too many lives and threatened more than I can count. “I’ll take care of it,” I say quietly.
Nolan grins like it’s Christmas morning. “Knew I could count on you, kid.”
Adriana picks up a strawberry, bites into it, eyes still locked on me. “Whatever you do, make it look intentional. I know you like it sloppy.”
Micah flinches. I don’t breathe. Because we all know what she’s referring to. The kill that started everything. The one that still wakes me up at night.
Nolan claps his hands once. “Great talk, boys. We’ll see you downstairs. I’ll call with the details. Ralph will be in the city tonight.”
Fuck.
Adriana winks before following Nolan out the door. The door clicks shut, and we’re left in silence. And for a moment, I swear I can’t feel my own heartbeat.
Micah exhales slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. He sinks into the armchair by the window, legs spread, head tipped back.The skyline reflects in the glass behind him. “You said yes so easily,” he murmurs.
“Yeah.”
He nods once. “Fuck, dude.”
We both know the rules—and the consequences. Disobedience means lockup, white-knuckled days and nights of withdrawal we’re forced to survive together.
I push off the mattress and cross to the desk, dropping to my knees beside my suitcase. The zipper’s half broken; it takes two sharp tugs before it finally gives. Beneath rumpled clothes and a stack of lyric notebooks I never finish, I find the blood-red case.
My fingers hesitate for just a second before I flip it open. I stare at the gun and my notebooks, at the two lives I’ve been living side by side, one made of words and chords, the other of violence and addiction.
Micah watches silently as I pick it up, my thumb tracing the cold metal. Funny how something so goddamn small can decide whether someone lives or dies.
I think about all the times I’ve pulled the trigger for Nolan, or beaten a face in until it stopped begging.
And then I think about the first one—the kill that locked the chains around my throat. A blackout rage in a hotel room in L.A. I came to with blood on my hands and clothes, my ears ringing, my body shaking. Nolan told me that he was powerful enough to make the evidence disappear.
He looked at me differently after that, like he’d finally found the perfect tool. I signed the contract with trembling fingers, convinced I owed him my life.
At least...that’s how I remember it. Sometimes the memory feels too vivid, or even like it belongs to someone else. Maybe that’s what guilt does. It distorts everything until you can’t trust your own mind. And like Adriana did earlier, they like to remind me of that fucking night over and over again.
I slide the gun into the waistband of my jeans, my shirt falling over it. With a heavy sigh, I sit on the edge of the bed, and he joins me. We don’t touch, but the space between us is small enough to matter.
“We’re screwed, you know,” he says softly.
I smile—tired, but genuine. At first, Nolan just trafficked and laundered drugs through my performances, then our shows. Then it shifted to threats. Then killing. A slippery goddamn slope I can’t escape no matter how hard I claw at the dirt.
“We’ve been screwed for years,” I say. And this time, I don’t even try to pretend it’s a joke.
By noon, the fog in my head has thinned enough that the floor stops fucking tilting. Micah and I take the elevator down to the lobby, both of us pretending the gun tucked against my spine isn’t there. The hotel restaurant where we’re meeting our bandmates is one of those overpriced rooftop places encased in glass. But the food’s good, and Finnick and Kami are already waiting for us in a booth by the floor-to-ceiling window.
Kami waves both arms when she sees us, all red hair and sharp eyeliner and sunshine. “About time!” she calls. “We thought the paparazzi found you guys.”
Micah snorts. “Nah. Thank fuck.”
Finnick grins, dirty blonde hair a mess as usual. “Since you died on stage the other night, social media has beeninsane.”
“I haven’t bothered to look,” I mutter as I slide into the booth across from them. I genuinely never do. I’m never fucking active on social media, because I either see obsessive love, hate, or pictures of tits and, unfortunately, dicks.
He laughs. “That’s probably for the best, man.”