Wreck the Halls

“Really.” Trina frowned. “The man might have been carried in the womb of a demoness, but, uh . . .” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you were in the county jail for an hour and he acted like you’d served a ten-year sentence of hard labor. It was obvious that his sun rose and set on your happiness, Melody Anne. When you were singing ‘Rattle the Cage,’ he looked at you like his heart was dangling from your pinkie finger.”

That was painful to hear. All of it. “Maybe he changed his mind.” Melody swiped quickly at the tears that escaped her eyes. “I’m trying to remember everything we said while we were live on the air, but it’s a blur. I think we were both caught off guard by them bringing out Fletcher as a surprise guest—”

“Who?” Trina’s back went ramrod straight. “They brought out who?”

“Fletcher Carr,” Melody repeated. “You remember, the original Steel Birds drummer.”

“Remember him? He’s the reason the band broke up.”

That confession knocked the wind out of Melody. “He is?”

“My God.” The color had leached from her mother’s face. What was going on here? “Why the hell would he resurface after all this time?”

“This is why you need the internet, Mom. Or at least an email address.” Melody wet her lips, wary of how Trina would receive this next piece of information if the man’s reappearance had already triggered her so hard. “He offered to be part of the reunion. Live on the air.”

Trina shot to her feet and stomped to the other side of the living room. “Oh, the unmitigated nerve of that bastard.” Were her mother’s hands shaking? “Does Octavia know about this?”

“I assume she does.”

“And?”

“And . . . I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Beat in three days.”

Her voice cracked on that last word, drawing her mother’s attention. “I’m sorry if it seems like I’m ignoring your pain. I just . . . I can’t believe Fletcher would pop up like this out of nowhere. I’ll be honest, I was hoping he’d died in a freak accident or something. But isn’t it just like him to sit around, waiting in the shadows for his chance to terrorize us again.”

The truth hit Melody like a thunderbolt to the stomach.

Waiting in the shadows.

Terrorize us.

Beat’s odd reaction to Fletcher walking onto the soundstage. How he’d hardly spoken after the drummer’s appearance. And afterward, when they were off the air, he’d been an entirely different person. Not the man she loved. Not Beat.

“Oh shit,” Melody breathed, nearly doubling over. “Oh my God, Mom.”

Trina stopped pacing. “What?”

Telling Beat’s secret was wrong, but Melody did it anyway, because the truth was going to tear her in half if she didn’t let it out. “Beat has been getting blackmailed for five years. By his biological father. He wouldn’t tell me the man’s identity, but that’s him. It’s Fletcher Carr.” Her entire body was starting to shake—for so many reason. Chiefly among them was denial that Beat had been confronted with his emotional captor live on the air and he’d been reeling from that blow all by himself. Without her. Ridiculous that she should leap to worry for him while in the midst of her own torturous pain, but that was love, apparently. Putting someone’s well-being in front of your own. He would have done it for her . . .

He would have done it for her.

Melody lunged into a standing position, then had to use the arm of the couch for support so she wouldn’t topple over on her shaky legs. “That man. He must have said something to Beat. He must have . . . something to do with me, maybe? I don’t know.”

She was so lost in the shock of her realization that she didn’t notice her mother had gone white as a sheet. “Melody Anne . . .” Trina closed her eyes, swiping a wrist across her brow. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but take me to Octavia, please.”





Chapter Thirty




If Beat didn’t get out of his apartment, he was going to tear the walls down with his bare hands. The live stream had gone black half an hour ago and Danielle was no longer answering her phone. He’d been calling the producer nonstop for the last three days to assure himself of Melody’s safety, living in frozen fear that Fletcher Carr would show up on her doorstep looking for money, despite Beat’s efforts to throw the drummer off the trail—and the fact that staying away from her was eating him alive, bite by bite.

Now, his last image of Melody was of her sitting on her couch with Trina, shadows under her eyes. So delicate and strong and perfectly Melody, refusing to talk about him on camera.

Checking the live stream was slowly torturing him to death, but he couldn’t stop himself from sneaking into the bathroom to watch it where Ernie couldn’t film him. At this point, the cameraman thought Beat was a compulsive showerer, but Beat couldn’t sever his last remaining connection to Melody. In between distracted bouts of working, he hunkered down on the tile floor of his bathroom and watched her walk around Brooklyn surrounded by teeming throngs of people, seemingly oblivious to their fervor and sending his blood pressure shooting through the roof every single time.

What if they’d gotten past security and into her apartment and that was why the live stream had gone dark? With the arrival of Trina, it wasn’t that far-fetched. He couldn’t simply take the train or hop in an Uber and go to her apartment, though, could he? No. No, because he would kneel at her feet and beg for redemption. Fletcher would see it happen live and Beat’s actions would once again throw her right back into the line of fire. The last three days and all the endless days ahead would be for nothing.

He would have hurt her for nothing.

Beat shoved his feet into a pair of loafers, yanked on his coat, and blew out the door of his apartment, dialing Danielle again as soon as he got in the elevator. Just before the metal doors could smack shut, a foot inserted itself into the elevator and they reopened, allowing Ernie to follow him with the camera. When a man forgets he’s actively filming a reality show, things have officially taken a turn for the worse.

“Sorry,” he muttered, squeezing his gritty eyes closed. “Pick up the phone, Danielle. Pick up—”

“She’s fine,” Danielle chirped in his ear. “The stream crashed. But I can’t talk, we’re on the move.”

Relief clattered in his chest. “On the move to where?”

“Talk later, Beat.”

The line went dead.

He stashed the phone into his pocket and fell back against the elevator wall. Okay. Melody was fine. And he . . . was most definitely not. He needed to get a grip on himself. For better or worse, Christmas Eve was two days away. Without a reunion—or the million dollars—in sight, he’d instructed his accountant to secure the loan. Come hell or high water, by Christmas morning, the terrible pressure would be off his back and that should have afforded him a small sense of comfort.

But it didn’t.

In fact, he only felt worse.

Keeping his mother’s reputation intact and his father’s heart from breaking had always been enough to keep him motivated to appease the blackmailer. Now? Those things were still more than worthy of protecting, but he needed to start acknowledging the cycle.