My favorite little man had spent last night with me, and his mother was going to pick him up in less than an hour, which gave us just enough time to have a fun game of hide-and-seek. My time with Jordan was precious to me and I wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world.
It had only been him and me last night, since Liam was in Malibu for some kind of male-bonding thing before Shane Stevenson’s wedding. I was glad he’d gone with the rest of his band-brothers—mostly because I needed eyewitness proof that the biggest manwhore in rock history was actually getting married—but I’d missed him.
In the two years that we had been dating, we had spent very few nights apart, mostly when he was on tour. Since OtherWorld had ditched Rich Branson and signed on with Emmie as their new manager, I steered clear of his tours. Other than Liam’s band-brothers, very few people knew about our relationship. I liked it that way. The media left us alone.
“Aunt Gabs!”
I paused in my pretend search for Jordan as he came running out of my bedroom with his hands closed into fists. He shook them up at me, an excited expression on his handsome little face. I could see the beautiful meshing of his mother and father in every aspect of him and knew that one day he would be a heart-breaker.
He already was, because he sure as hell broke my heart every time he smiled so sweetly up at me like he was doing right then.
Crouching down in front of him, I hugged him tight. “I thought we were playing hide-and-seek, bambino?”
His shook his head. “No, Aunt Gabs. I’m bored.” He scrunched up his adorable face at me before waving his fists at me again. “Look what I found,” he said excitedly. “Can I have it? Can I? I like candy.”
I grinned. “Really? I never would have guessed.” Laughing, I opened his hands to see what he’d found. If he’d been in my closet, he might have found the few pieces of caramel that I’d left in one of my jacket pockets.
Jordan opened his hand and my heart actually stopped.
No. No. No.
NO!
Cold fear washed over me like a tsunami and my stomach heaved as I stared down at the ‘candy’ in Jordan’s hands.
Those were definitely not caramels. I had no idea what they were, but knew instantly that they weren’t candy of any kind. Nausea roiled in my stomach and I forced a smile to my face so as not to freak my little man out as I took them from him. “You don’t want those, bambino. Those are old and taste like dirt.”
Disappointment darkened his eyes. “But I want a snack, Aunt Gabs.”
My heart was breaking, but somehow I was able to smile for Jordan as I distracted him from the ‘candy’ by making him his favorite peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, banana, and honey sandwich. By the time Alexis showed up, her son was one big sticky mess and I rushed to clean him up before my beloved cousin could suspect that I wasn’t in a good place.
“Is your tummy full, Jordan?” Alexis asked her son as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Yes, Mamma.” He climbed down from his chair at my kitchen island and hugged his mother like he hadn’t just seen her the night before. “I missed you, Mamma.”
Alexis’s face softened and she crouched down to accept a wet kiss from her son. “I missed you more,” she told him softly. “I bet Papa missed you too. Go get your things so we can go home to him, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She straightened and turned to face me with a warm smile on her beautiful face. “Was he good for you?”
I tried to make my smile genuine, but inside my mind was a mess. My hands were still shaking and I thrust them into my jeans pockets so she wouldn’t see. “Always,” I assured her. “Thanks for letting me have him, Lee-Lee.”
“He loves you as much as I do, Gabs. You know you can see him any time you want.” She took another sip of her coffee before setting the cup down on the island. Her smile dimmed as she seemed to watch me closer. Fuck, I knew I couldn’t hide from her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied. Everything. Everything was wrong. But I couldn’t tell her that. If she knew what Liam had done, Jared Moreitti would kill him. I couldn’t let that happen.
Alexis made a noise, letting me know that she didn’t believe me and I forced a laugh. “Honest. It’s nothing. I’m just a little sad that Jordan is going home and I won’t get to see him for a few weeks?”
“Oh,” Alexis’s eyes widened. “So you’re going to visit Nonno after all?”
I shrugged. It was as good an excuse as any. Our grandfather had been making noises that he was lonely in Connecticut. Maybe I should go visit him, get away and clear my head. But first I had to clean up the mess Liam had made. “Yeah, so I won’t be able to get Jordan next weekend. Maybe not the following weekend, either.”
Were there drugs in my New York apartment too? I’d have to stop over and search. Alexis didn’t go to New York often, but sometimes Jared had to fly over for business and when we were all in town at the same time, I tended to keep to my weekend schedule with Jordan.
Nausea roiled in my stomach just thinking about what could be hidden in that apartment.
Ten minutes later I hugged my cousin and her son goodbye. With a tired sigh, I leaned back against the closed door and pulled the ‘candy’ Jordan had found from my pocket. My hands were trembling worse now as I examined the clear-wrapped pills.
What the fuck was this shit?
Pain like I’d never felt before sliced through my heart and I dropped down on the couch in my living room. What was Liam doing?
I wasn’t going to make excuses for him. I’d known what he did to himself; it had never been a secret. But he’d respected me by doing that kind of thing outside of our home. I’d looked the other way when he would come home high in the past.
Six months ago he’d been forced to take mandatory rehab because of a fight he’d gotten into on his last tour. I hadn’t been there, but he had been high and gotten into a fight with some drunken fan. Liam had walked away with a few bruises while the drunken fan had needed stitches.
Emmie had been able to work whatever voodoo magic she possessed and gotten him out of trouble with only the promise of showing up daily to some rehab in Beverly Hills. Since then I’d thought that he was done with drugs.
Obviously, I’d been living in a fool’s paradise.
Had I been blind to the signs of Liam using again? Or had I seen them and just refused to acknowledge them? I thought we were on the road to something long-lasting, something truly special…
Slowly, the pain in my chest was replaced with something far stronger. The longer I sat there staring down at the pills in my hand, the more my blood started to boil. How dare he bring that filth into our house? He’d hidden his poison in my closet knowing that Jordan was over often. He could have found it—and had.
Flashes of what could have happened if Jordan had just eaten the ‘candy’ rather than asking me blinded me for a moment. Pictures of finding Jordan’s lifeless body in my closet had bile rising in the back of my throat. Shuddering, I tossed the pills on the coffee table and stood. If he’d had the pills, then there was probably more.
Five minutes later I was ready to murder the man I loved. The man I thought loved me too—even if he hadn’t actually said it in the two years that we’d been together. Had I blinded myself to that, too? Did he not love me, after all?
Tears burning my eyes, whether in anger or pain I wasn’t sure, I picked up my phone and ran my finger over the first name that popped into my head.
I didn’t like calling Axton. Liam didn’t like for me to spend more time with my ex than I had to and Axton and I still tended to argue more often than anything else so I avoided him as much as possible. Our careers tossed us together, though, so it wasn’t like I could avoid him forever.
Right then, however, he was the only one I knew I could trust.
It felt like the phone rang forever before he finally picked up. “This better be good,” he growled.
I didn’t bother to greet h
im. “Liam’s using again, Ax. I’ve found three eight-balls of coke, a meth pipe…” I broke off. My hands were shaking again and I thought I might even drop the phone. “He has this shit in my apartment. Jordan is here almost every weekend. If he found this stuff—” I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain at the very thought of losing Jordan because of Liam’s habits.
Oh, God. Oh, fuck. I could have lost him. My precious little man could have put any of those things in his mouth and I would have never seen his beautiful smile again. The man I loved could have been responsible for taking away one of the most important people in my life.
I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I’d turned a blind eye because I thought my love would fix everything. Goddammit. A sob built in my throat and I fought to keep myself under control.
“I know, Brie.” Axton’s tone was quieter now, full of understanding. He knew how important Jordan was to me. Axton adored my little nephew, and because he had become close with Alexis during our relationship years before, Jordon even called him Uncle Ax.
I fell down on the edge of my bed and closed my eyes. “If you don’t come do something with this shit, I’m going to call the cops,” I threatened, not sure if I was speaking the truth or not, but I was pissed enough to do just about anything right then.
“Fuck, Brie.”
“I mean it.” A tear spilled free and I scrubbed the back of my free hand across my cheek angrily. “I don’t care anymore. I want this junk out of my home, along with him. You can tell him that, too.”
Axton blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay. Fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t touch anything. I’ll help you find the rest.”
“Rest? There is more of this shit?” I couldn’t control the volume of my voice. Mio Dio. This was a fucking nightmare.
“There’s always more.” His tone was calm in the face of my near hysteria. “He hides that shit everywhere. Just keep calm and I’ll be right over.”
I was helpless to stop the tears as they fell from my eyes now. Sucking in a deep breath, I shook my head as I stared off into space, feeling lost. “I’m over this shit,” I whispered brokenly. “I’m so completely over this shit.”
“Twenty minutes,” Axton repeated and then the phone went dead.
My phone fell to the floor beside the bed that I shared with Liam. Unable to hold back the sob that was choking me, I let it have free rein. The noise that filled my bedroom was a terrible sound, full of pain and a sadness that went soul-deep.
It was over.
I couldn’t have Liam and Jordan too. Not now. Liam had made me choose the second he had decided to hide his drugs in my home. I hadn’t even known it, but we had been living on borrowed time.
He had ruined everything.
“Why, Liam?” I whispered to the empty room as I wrapped my arms around my aching body. “Why?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gabriella
NINETEEN MONTHS EARLIER
“I wish you would come back to California.”
A sad smile lifted at my lips as I met Alexis’s gaze in the phone. “Sorry, Lee-Lee. I’m not very good company right now. You would have a better night without me, trust me.”
It was New Year’s Eve and she was getting ready for some big party that she and Jared were throwing at their new Malibu home. I’d spent the last week with our grandfather celebrating Christmas with him, but had gone back to my New York apartment yesterday. I’d needed to be alone.
Alexis had FaceTimed me as she was getting ready and I’d been relieved to see her face, hear her sweet voice.
It had been two months since I’d last seen Liam. I hadn’t spoken to him since before he’d left my West Hollywood apartment to go out with OtherWorld the night before Shane Stevenson’s wedding. There had been no phone calls, no texts, not even a damn email.
Why hadn’t he tried to contact me?
Why hadn’t he tried to fight for me? For us?
I didn’t know the answers and the not knowing was leaving me feeling lost.
Axton had told me Liam was in rehab. That he’d gone on his own this time. For the first time, Liam had walked into rehab without someone having to threaten him with something unless he got clean. He was doing it for himself this time.
Part of me hoped he was doing it for me, too.
It had taken two weeks before I’d calmed down after finding all those drugs in my apartment. Two weeks to breathe a little easier. Two weeks before I’d started doubting myself and the decision to break up with Liam without hearing his side of the story. I’d argued with myself for over a week about being so hasty in throwing Liam out of my life.
Halfway through week four, I’d gotten mad at myself for doubting my decisions. Liam had been the one to make me choose. He had brought things into my home that could have endangered the most precious person in my life. It was his fault that we weren’t together any longer. He had broken us.
He had broken me.
I’d been alternating between doubting myself and hating Liam. I missed him, worried about him. Every night before I fell asleep, I wondered if he was okay, if he was getting better. I would sleep for a few hours and then wake up with tears on my face because I missed him so much.
I wanted him in bed beside me, holding my hand, kissing my fingertips until I fell back to sleep. My heart would break a little more when I would realize that that wasn’t going to happen. Liam was gone. He wasn’t mine anymore.
The anger would flood back in and I would have to get out of bed, distract myself from the churning emotions that were slowly driving me toward insanity. I wanted to hit him, wanted to make him hurt just as much as I was hurting…
I wanted to hold him.
“Well, if you won’t come back to California, then Jordan and I will just have to come to New York. Jared’s brother and sister-in-law are flying in from Rome so we were thinking of coming out anyway. You, my dear cousin, just made up my mind.” Alexis grinned and it was so infectious that my own smile didn’t feel quite so forced for a moment. “I miss you, Gabs.”
“Miss you more, Lee-Lee,” I whispered around a sudden knot of emotion clogging my throat.
The sound of Jared’s voice coming from somewhere in the distance had Alexis ending the call. I blew her a kiss before tossing the phone aside and picking up the remote to unmute the television. I’d been flipping through the channels before Alexis had called.
A rerun of some crime show was on and I quickly flipped the channel when I saw decomposed bones. Yuck.
I settled on one of the New Year’s Eve countdown specials and curled my legs up under me as I half watched the show. Around ten thirty I decided to make some popcorn and had just gotten up when the commercial that was on was interrupted by the local news.
“…We don’t have confirmation on the other driver, but we just learned that the driver of the Ferrari is Liam Bryant. The bassist for OtherWorld has been reportedly in rehab for the past two months and has recently been released. Police haven’t said if Bryant was at fault, but that the rocker is in critical condition…”
All the air seemed to leave my lungs and I dropped back down onto the edge of the couch. Liam was hurt?
In a car accident?
No. No, that couldn’t be right. He couldn’t be hurt. The news had gotten it wrong, surely.
With trembling hands I reached for my phone and pulled up the first social media app I came to. The first thing I saw was a picture of Liam standing beside his gray Ferrari. The picture was old, had been taken several months before our breakup. Below the picture was the same news that I’d just heard on television.
I focused on the name of the hospital that the article said Liam was at. The trembling had spread from my hands, expanding to the rest of my body. I tried to stand but my legs were so shaky I fell back onto the couch almost immediately. Biting back a sob, I texted the car service that my grandfather always had on standby for me and Alexis whenever we needed it. There was no way I was going to be able to dri
ve when I was feeling like this, and getting a taxi on New Year’s Eve would have taken a miracle anyway.
It took me fifteen minutes to get downstairs on my wobbly legs. Thankfully, the car was already there and the driver was holding my door open for me. I could barely breathe through the lump in my throat, but somehow I told the driver where I needed to go.
By the time the driver stopped in front of the hospital, there were media vans everywhere. I didn’t wait for the driver to open my door. Getting out, I sprinted toward the main entrance, my only thoughts being to get inside and see Liam for myself. It had to be all a big mistake. It couldn’t have been as bad as the media had made it seem.
Please, God. Please, please, please let him be okay.
A huge man in a suit moved in front of the entrance before I could reach it. I blinked up at him and then realized that he wasn’t alone. He had a partner standing just a few feet to his right who was as big as he was.
“No one goes in or out at the moment, miss,” the man blocking my way informed me.
“I’m here to see Liam Bryant. I’m his girlfriend.”
The big man didn’t even bat an eye. “I don’t care if you’re the president’s girlfriend. You aren’t getting in.”
“But…”
“Leave or I will escort you off the property, miss.”
Fucking Emmie. She had put these goons there. She was the reason I couldn’t get in to see Liam. If she had been standing there right then, I would have scratched up her pretty face.
I didn’t have time to be angry, though. I needed to get in and knew there was only one way to do that. I needed help from the one person who would bother to help and who Emmie wouldn’t say no to.
It took longer than I was happy with to get to Axton’s apartment. I’d been trying to call and text him the entire drive over but he wasn’t answering. Stepping off the elevator on his floor, I immediately knew why. He was throwing one hell of a party. People were spilling out of the apartment when I opened the door.