Lasting Lyric (23 page)

When I finally reach the second floor, my heart is pounding out of my chest. Why I can sense something is bad, is beyond me. I just know Lyric needs me.

When I enter, the conference room is pitch black. “Charlie?” She doesn’t answer me. Maybe I’m in the wrong room? Flipping the light switch on, I find her. She’s slumped over on one of the many black cushioned chairs, surrounding an oversized oval glass table, covering her eyes. Immediately, I make my way over. I sit down next to her, placing my hand on her shoulder. “Lyric…what’s going on? You okay?” Her silence continues, but I remain calm, even though I’m about to go crazy.
What is going on
? “Please, babe, talk to me,” I urge her.

Taking a deep breath, she finally sits up, but doesn’t turn to look at me. She’s been crying, which has me to believe I’m about to be hit with something awful. “Security had Violet Ray detained.”

She talked so softly, I’m not sure I heard her right. “Security had Violet? Fucking serious?”

“I saw her,” she whispers.

What the
? “Hellz me,” I mutter, combing a hand through my hair. “Did you call the cops?”

“No.”

“Then what happened? What did you do?”

Finally meeting my eyes, she swivels her chair and faces me. The rim of her eyes are red and her makeup is smeared. My girl is traumatized about something, it’s killing me to see her this way. “I tried to get her to leave me alone…and was even ready to get the cops involved…but she gave me this before I had the chance.” She slides a manila envelope in my direction.

“What is it?”

“Open it,” she chokes out.

My hands begin to shake. What the hell is inside this thing? I’m fucking nervous, because my gut tells me my whole life is about to change…and not in a good way. I slowly open the envelope, taking out what looks like a set of pictures. Pictures of -
Fuck.
As if a bee had stung me, I jump out of my seat, pushing the chair behind me. This can’t be right.
This can’t be fucking right
! When the reality of what I’m seeing actually hits me, I yell, “What. The. Fuck!” I am reeling with rage. “Violet, fucking, Ray took pictures of us having sex?” The images I am holding are images of when Lyric and I first made love in my hot tub. This has got to be some kind of sick and twisted, gnarly joke.

“I don’t know who took the pictures,” her voice strained and weak.

I am fuming! I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry in all my life. “Then how did she get them?” Out of disgust and shock, I toss them back on the table, dragging a hand down my face. “Holy fuck,” I hiss. I feel sick to my stomach. Some perverted asshole found out where I lived, invaded my privacy, and took pictures of me fucking my woman! This seriously cannot be happening.

As I continue to pace around the room, I thought I heard Lyric mention, “She’s blackmailing me with them.”

Stopping in my tracks, I ask, “Say what? She’s doing what to you?” Obviously overwhelmed with questions, fury and pain, I walk back over to her, and kneel before her,

Her eyes begin to tear up again, when she explains, “She says, if I don’t come work for her, she’s going to blast the pictures on every social media site. Not only will my family be in the dirt again,
JINKS
will be too.”

“She can’t fucking do that. Someone illegally went onto my property and took those!” I point to the envelope. “We could sue her for doing this.” Grabbing both of her hands, I squeeze them, assuring her that I am here and I’m not going anywhere. Lowering my voice I say, “She won’t get away with it, I can promise you that.”

As she shakes her head, a teardrop drops onto my hand. “We’re ruined no matter what, Slim. We sue her, people will still know about it and we’ll still be on every front of every magazine and every headline. I can’t let that happen to you and my family.”

I’ve never seen her this way before. She’s usually so strong and confident, it’s unlike her to break down without a fight. I’m confused, though…what she just said, I don’t understand. “What the hell are you saying…you gonna go work for her just to keep our names out of the media? That isn’t gonna happen. Hell no!” I shoot up from my knees. “I won’t let you do it.”

“I don’t know!” she yells. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Then I am making the decision for you.” Without warning, I yank her up from the chair, pull her into my chest, and kiss the hell out of her. There is no other way I can explain to her how her leaving would affect me. I need her in my life.
JINKS
needs her. Her mouth allows mine to take over, tangling our tongues roughly together. Even with her salted tears, she tastes so good. I am so aggravated and in pain right now, I don’t want to stop. I want to take her on this table right here, right now, but this whole picture thing is getting in the way. Unlatching her lips, I cradle her face in the palms of my hands. My voice is hoarse and pained when I look her dead in the eye. “Over my dead body will you be leaving me and
JINKS
for that skank. No fucking way.” I wipe the tears away from her face, then pull her into a hug. She’s everything to me. I can’t lose her.

Feeling her heart beat against my chest, I continue to hold her sturdy and secure. I don’t want to let her go. Her face stays planted next to my heart, I’m sure she can hear it pounding out of control. Like I’m her survival kit, her arms tighten around my waist. We’re both afraid of letting go, afraid something else is going to happen.

Like a fucking collision, my instincts are correct when she blurts out, “She’s my mother.”

MY MIND WAS SPINNING, I
couldn’t believe what I had just seen. Intimate photographs between me and Slim, in his hot tub…having sex. This menace before me was just that - a menace. I wanted to believe I was on some kind of TV show and any minute someone would come out and laugh, saying it was all a joke. Just a prank. But it wasn’t. This was real. Very real. I was scared, petrified, yet I had to stand my ground and act like I was the one in charge. Violet should be scared of me! Right? I had the power, the sources, I could make her life a living hell. Sadly, it was her doing it to me, and I was at a loss of what to do.

Her cold hearted, penetrative blue eyes bore into mine. There is something familiar about those eyes that remind me of someone I know. I can’t place my finger on it, but it’s there. “Here’s the deal, sugar…you leave that rocker boy band behind, become my manager…and all this,” she glides her hands over the pictures, like they would magically disappear, “will simply go away. No lives will be plastered in the dirty news, you get me?”

Do I get her
? What is her deal with me, that she needs to blackmail me? “Why would you do this to me?” I whisper.

Placing her hands flat on the table, she slowly stands from the chair, and leans forward. What comes out of her mouth next, sends a shudder throughout my body. “Because my daughter belongs with her mother.”

“What?” I gasp. “My mother?” No wonder her eyes looked so familiar. They look just like my dad’s. I have never mentioned being adopted before. There was no reason to. Only being a baby at the time of being adopted, I never knew my biological mother. I look so much like Tilly, I wasn’t questioned. To be honest, I didn’t care about the woman who gave birth to me. My dad never kept the truth from me. He told me he was really my uncle and that he was my “mother’s” brother. He saw the lifestyle she was living; drugs and alcohol. So he did what he thought was right. He took me away from the horrid situation, and never looked back.

“That’s right. I’m your mommy,” she smiles - a horrible yellow stained, lethal smile that makes me want to throw up. It’s like she’s proud to be this type of person, which makes this whole situation that much more worse.

“You can’t be!” I yell. Staring back at me is a stranger, thief and a junkie. To even call her my mother is stab in the gut. “No mother would do this to her own child!”

“This one would,” she laughs. Oh my God, I actually have this woman’s blood inside my body? This is such a nightmare! I can’t do this anymore. My dad needs to know what his sister is doing. However, before I get the chance of calling him, Violet threatens me. “Now, now darlin’, don’t get any ideas. If you as so much call the cops, or my brother, these babies will be up on the internet so fast, you won’t know what hit ya.”

“You are sick,” I hiss.

“Yeah, I’ve been told that,” she sighs, then crosses her arms. “My whole life my parents’ told me I was a worthless nobody, that my brother was going to leave me behind, and you know what? He did,” she scoffs. “He left me to start his career and never thought about me. Not once was I important enough to pick up the phone to see how I was doin’. To see how my singing career was goin’. I was trash under his foot. Not even when I had a hit song did he come calling for me.” I want to tell her the reason why my dad never contacted her was because she was a user, and only wanted money out of everyone. She would use it on her drug addiction. He had to cut ties with her to help himself. From the stories my dad told me, their parents’ really were horrible parents’. They forced my dad into acting. He didn’t want to do it, but once he started getting call backs and actual acting jobs, he’d come to love it. He left behind his parents’ as well as Violet because they were poison to him. Violet continues, “Plus, he took you away from me. Couldn’t ever get in contact with you because, again, that bastard I called a brother didn’t give one fuck about me.”

This all makes sense now. She’s only doing this to me to get back at my dad. “So, you’re getting him back by blackmailing me? Why do you think he never contacted you? You’re a junkie!” I make her flinch a bit, which was my intention. “If I was raised by you, who knows what could have happened to me. You should be thanking him for saving my life, but instead you’re out to start a war. How dare you do this to me, and to my family!”

“I’m your Goddamn family!” she slams her fist down on the table.

“Like hell you are!” I fire back. “You’re out to destroy me. You’re nothing to me, do you hear me, Violet? I don’t want you in my life. I never needed to know who my biological mother was, because as far as I’m concerned she’s dead! I don’t know you, and I don’t want to get to know you. You’re a sick, sick woman who only wants money. So tell me how much you want for those pictures. I’ll pay as much as you want, so as long as you get the hell away from me.” I’m suddenly out of breath, like I just hiked up fifty stories in the hotel. This crazy bitch is taking everything out of me, causing me to see red. She’s a filthy woman.

“I don’t want your Goddamn money!” She walks around the table and inches her way in front of me. She’s a bit shorter than I am, so she glares up into my eyes and says, “Either you become my manager, or those
lovely
photos go straight to the media. I have a stinkin’ feeling I’ll get what I want, because you don’t want your lover boy getting this kind of publicity. You love him too much, now don’t ya?” she cocks an eyebrow. No, I don’t want this anywhere near Slim. This would kill him, much less ruin JINKS. Violet can sense my anxiety. “That’s what I thought. I’ll just leave those here for ya,” she chin lifts at the pictures. Standing stiff and shaken, I don’t move a muscle when she makes her way up to my ear, and whispers, “I have many more copies at home. I’ll be in touch.”

Once Violet left the small, enclosed room I didn’t know what to do next. My whole life was spinning out of control, I couldn’t see what was ahead of me. Any happiness I had with Slim was going to be ripped away from me, and it was all because of the woman who called herself my mother.

After getting my bearings together, I took that wretched envelope, and had one of the guards lead me to an empty conference room on the second floor. I needed space, a dark one to clear my head. Going back down to Faith’s party wasn’t an option any longer. I couldn’t face anyone. Violet drained my system, causing me to feel weak and alone. The fight I had inside of me was no longer there. Once I got to the room, I broke down and cried. Slim texted me multiple times before I finally decided to answer him.