Page 16 of Wrapped in his Highland Sins

I’d moved out of New York City because I couldn’t handle the frenetic energy making my brain swell with noise and too many voices. Even before the accident, there’d been no space to think. Every time I’d turned around, there was someone asking me for something.

Collab with me!

When is your next gallery show?

I have an idea. We can create the next viral moment.

How do you come up with your ideas?

How do you...

On and on.

I’d worked my ass off to be a successful metal artist. It was all I’d ever wanted when I lived in Chicago. Just to get the ideas out of my head. The twisted darkness that was a breathing monster in my brain needed to go somewhere or I’d be living in a junkie flop house like my old man. So, I’d worked with whatever materials I could get my hands on.

And the easiest place to go had been the junkyard.

The things no one wanted had become my muse. I understood it. I’d been much like the old cars I’d torn apart with a blowtorch and metal saw. Maybe if I rearranged them into a cohesive piece that someone wanted—that would make them want me.

How was that for some self-awareness?

Fucking stupid.

Until it wasn’t.

Until it actually worked.

I’d finally been able to get out of the stinking apartment in the shittiest south side of Chicago.

The minute I’d seen a way out, I’d left everything behind, including the monsters of my past. Even when I’d sacrificed the one person who didn’t deserve it.

My fingers squeaked on the leather as I gripped the steering wheel. I had to find some way to show her I was worthy of a second chance. Macy was all I had left. I just wasn’t ready to face her yet. Which is why I was in this small, up and coming hamlet outside of Syracuse to eat dinner instead of the new small town I called home. It was a small city, and Kensington Square had just enough people to allow me to be anonymous for a little while longer.

Until now.

Little Dick was now a flag on the side of my truck. Perfect.

I shoved my hand through my wet hair. I was soaked to the skin and my truck was fogging up from it. I flipped on the fans to defog as I headed out to the lake. Without other cars and their glaring lights reflecting off the rain on the road, I could manage the drive. Since the accident, my eyes were sensitive to light and night driving was pain in the ass even on a clear evening. But the torrential rain didn’t help my splitting headache.

My dash lit up with a call and I swore at the name on the readout.

Maeve O’Dwyer.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

I hit the end button.

She’d leave a message, but I wasn’t talking to my agent right now.

I didn’t have anything for her. And I wouldn’t for the foreseeable future.

My mind was as blank as my old dusty chalkboard, ready for the scrap heap. Including the broken frame and cracked slate—courtesy of one of my rage binges. The minute I’d stopped trying to force ideas to come, the anger had become so much more manageable. Which was why I’d sold the busted slate. The fact that I’d gotten an absurd amount of money at the auction still blew my mind. Just because I used to draw my ideas on a chalkboard, it had summoned a mint.

I wasn’t sure why the billionaire in Turkey had wanted it, as well as the final piece in my Chaos vignette.

He’d hung them together.