Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
I’m halfway through the song, and a wave of shock flows through the crowd, and I watch as one by one, the audience starts pulling out their phones, gasping, and looking up at me in horror. My brow furrows as I glance toward Dylan, who shrugs his shoulders, clearly seeing what I’m seeing.
Rock seems just as confused, and when the people in the front start holding out their phones toward me and screaming for my attention in a way they never have before, I have no choice but to cut the song short. “Okay, okay,” I say into the microphone as the boys cut the music. “Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”
I glance toward the wing of the stage toward where a few of the backstage crew stand, and when one of them pulls out their phone and his face turns ghostly white, it’s all I can take.
I throw myself off the stage, landing with a thud in front of the barricaded audience, and I step up to the person closest to me with a phone. “The fuck are you looking at?” I demand, never having cut a song short like that in my life, but I’m starting to get pissed that I don’t have any answers. Don’t get me wrong, the second I figure out what’s happening, we’ll be right back on stage, starting the song again.
The dude holds his phone out toward me, and I turn it to face me, expecting to see a terrible natural disaster or some kind of political announcement that will severely affect the whole globe, but instead, I’m faced with a live video of Rae on her social media account.
“The fuck?”
I take her in, finding her naked on the very hotel bed we shared last night, and my heart immediately starts to race. Something feels very off about this. I shake my head, wondering what the fuck is happening when I notice her hands aren’t just behind her back, they’re bound by rope.
Fear rockets through my chest when another figure steps into the camera, and horrified gasps fill the stadium. I hear cries around me, but I’m too focused to look up as the man in the room moves toward the camera and bends low to be seen. And when his face finally comes into view, the deepest rage explodes in my chest.
“She’ll always be mine,” he says into the camera, and somehow, I know it’s a direct message to me. “You ruined my little girl, and now I’m going to ruin her for you.”
He walks over to her, grabs her thigh, and yanks her down the bed, positioning her in a way that every last person watching the stream can see directly between her legs. “You see that?” Michael Stone says, glancing over his shoulder to look directly at the camera. “You’ll never touch this filthy little whore again. She’s all mine.”
He smacks her so hard, I hear it through the phone. “SCREAM FOR ME,” he roars at her, gripping her hair and yanking her back so hard it looks as though her spine could snap. “FUCKING SCREAM FOR ME, WHORE.”
Horror blasts through my chest, and when he reaches for the front of his pants, I can’t take it another fucking second.
I take off, launching myself back up onto the stage, passing Rock and Dylan who both look at their phones, absolutely horrified. My feet pound against the stage, and as I sprint by Lenny and the other executives, none of them have a damn clue what’s going on.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lenny roars at my back. “Get back out there and finish the goddamn show.”
My gaze drops to the stranger’s phone still in my hand at the same moment Rae’s father grabs her face and shoves it into the mattress, ignoring her cries as she tries to fight him off, and not a moment later, he brutally slams inside of her.
I feel fucking sick, knowing I’m already too late, knowing that no matter how many times I vowed that he would never hurt her again, I’m reduced to nothing but a liar.
I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to keep her safe.
Her cries and desperate pleas come through the phone, and every last one of them sends me hurtling through the backstage area faster. I leap over sound equipment and knock over the row of spare guitars waiting on standby.
Hold on, baby. I’m coming for you. And this time, I’ll make sure the bastard never touches you again.
Breaking out through the back, I find three of my security guards already waiting by a car. “Get in,” my head of security, Hardin, says.
I dive through the open car door, the stranger’s phone clutched tightly in my hand, and as the door closes behind me and the noise of the stadium is blocked out, Rae’s cries through the speakers seem so much louder.