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He opened his mouth to argue but when I raised an eyebrow, he seemed to think better of it because he said, “I’ll get the menus.”
With my gaze firmly on his retreating back, I knew I was going to miss him, but being on my own was what was best for everyone.
CHAPTER17
RONNIE
The anger I felt was close to making my head explode. The need to punch something was all that I could think about. That or destroying something. Tearing something to shreds was a lot better than the alternative.
“You need to calm down, Ron,” Joey said as I paced the conference room at Concepta Music.
“Joey’s right,” Ali said. “We get why you’re angry but losing your temper isn’t going to help.”
Pulling to a halt, I clenched my hands into fists at my side as my blood turned black. My reaction wasn’t to Ali, or anyone else in the room, it was all aimed at the fucking board of our record company.
“They’re fucking cowards.” My gaze fixed on the gold disc on the wall. It wasn’t one of ours, it belonged to a band from the nineties. Probably the last time this fucking record company had had any success until we joined. Okay, so maybe not seeing as they represented Katie Delaney, but as far as I was concerned, they were a steaming pile of shit. “We have to get out from this label.”
“I sympathise with you, Ron, we all do,” Ali said, “but while you’re still under contract to them there isn’t much we can do.”
“How do we get out of contract?” Beau asked, his tone non-negotiable.
I turned to see Ali smooth her hands along the table as she looked at me. “You’re tied in for this tour and one album.”
“We make it a greatest hits album then,” Elliot said. “Because I refuse to work for a record company who condones wife beating, amongst all the other shit they’ve let go.”
“The way they see it,” Ali said with a sigh, “is that it was just an argument and because he was drunk, Jimmy lost control. They’ve made him sign up for online anger management.”
The fury in me increased as I recalled Amber’s frantic phone call that night. I remembered how scared she was, and they wanted Jimmy to take anonlinefucking course.
“That’s a load of bollocks,” Joey snapped. “He hit her. He’s made her life a damn misery and I repeat,he hit her. Hepunchedher.”
“It doesn’t matter that it was the first time, if she hadn’t called Ronnie and stayed with him, Jimmy’d do it again and again.” Elliot got up and stood in front of me. “Have you told Amber yet?”
I shook my head. “She’s gone to look at a house she’s thinking of renting.”
“I think you should tell her.”
“El’s right,” Beau said. “You should go and tell her.”
“Yeah,” Joey added. “Go and tell her that a bunch of twats in suits thought it was okay for a wife beater to continue fronting a band.”
“Joey,” Ali warned.
“What? You’re telling me you think they made the right decision?”
“No, I’m not, but winding him up isn’t going to help.”
“He hasn’t wound me up,” I protested. “Those twats in suits he’s talking about did that.” My fingertips tingled as I unfurled my fists and ran a hand through my hair. “How can they even think it’s okay to sweep this under the carpet?”
“And what about Blind Devil?” Beau asked. “What do they think?”
“Hugo and Brandon wanted him out, Chris had nothing to say on the matter,” Ali replied. She looked at me and pointed to the empty chair next to her. “Please sit down, love. We need to decide how we proceed with this without it costing you millions.”
“We don’t care about the money,” Elliot said, his hand on the small of my back, guiding me to the chair. “Or what the record company say.”
To hear him say that felt like I was finally being listened to. The guys were great and always asked my opinion on everything, valued my opinion on everything, but this was different. This was something deeper than a chord change or which songs should go on an album or even who our manager should be. It was our reputation.
“I know that.” Ali cleared her throat. “And I agree with every single thing you’re saying but you also need to think about Amber.”
