Page 119 of Before You Fell

“That is not happening.”

The woman with silver glasses speaks before I can. “I think that is reasonable.”

The room stills.

Damon turns toward her. “Are you serious? You think bringing her back after she’s made headlines for an overdose is—”

“Sit down, Damon.” The female executive doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t need to. The room belongs to her now.

Damon hesitates. Then obeys like a good little pup.

“If we want this tour to proceed,” she says calmly, “we need the band.” Her gaze sweeps the table. “And from what I can see, the band has made its position very clear.”

Silence settles over the room.

I glance toward the guys.

Jax wears the smallest grin I have seen in days. Cruz gives me a nod that says about fucking time and Jett meets my gaze, giving me a slow nod.

They are with me. Because for once, I am not fighting for the stage, the spotlight, or my own selfish ass. I am fighting for Willow. And these bastards have loved her longer than the label has been cashing checks with her name hidden in the fine print.

One week later, a stadium packed with ninety thousand people roar and scream.

Ninety thousand throats screaming because I stepped into view. Ninety thousand bodies waiting for my voice, my hands, my mouth, and my ego. That cocky little frontman routine, wrapped in sweat, black denim, and bad intentions.

It used to make everything inside me seem pure for a time. But now it just sounds loud.

The stage lights cut out, leaving only black and the cheers that used to make me feel immortal. Jax counts us in from behind the kit and the first drum hit cracks through the dark—hard enough to split the stadium open. Jett’s bass rolls beneath it. Cruz’s guitar screams, sharp enough to draw blood, and the lights explode across the stage as I step up to the mic.

And the crowd loses its fucking mind.

I grin because that is what I do. I give them teeth. Swagger. The cocky fucker they paid to see. The lead singer, his black shirt half open, and his tattoos out. I stalk the edge of the stage and let the front row claw at the air for me because I still know how to make ninety thousand people beg without saying the word.

A hot chick near the barricade lifts her shirt and I smirk down at her because I am still me. Fucked up. Famous. And not suddenly a saint.

“Careful, sweetheart,” I say into the mic between lines, my voice rough enough to make the whole front section scream. “If you start flashing me this early, I’m going to have to take you out back before the next song.”

A few more tits are shown. I laugh like the arrogant asshole I am and launch into the chorus.

Willow’s chorus.

Her words come out of my mouth and slam into ninety thousand people. They throw them right back at me, loud enough to shake the whole fucking stadium, and something under my ribs twists so hard I nearly miss the next line.

I look left. I already know she isn’t there, but I look anyway. It’s what I have always done. I look for honey-brown hair. For that unimpressed little line her mouth made whenever I changed a lyric just to piss her off. For that eye roll that always came before she told me I was a dramatic asshole.

For half a second, the stage seems too fucking big. Then instinct takes over.

I turn back to the crowd and flash that filthy grin, throwing confidence into the lights because if there is one thing Phoenix Stone has always been good at, it is selling a lie so well that people thank me after buying it.

I drag the mic stand toward me, lean into it, and let the camera catch the sweat running down my neck and the ring in my lip. The giant screens blow me up to forty feet high, turning me into every bad decision in the building.

Women scream.

I wink. I smirk. And I give them exactly what they came for.

My body knows this job better than anything else. My voice knows exactly where to crack. My hands know when to drag down the mic stand, when to point into the crowd, and when to grip the microphone like the whole fucking stadium belongs to me.

I’m brilliant at it.