13. Chapter 13 Phoenix

Chapter 13 Phoenix

I stared at the angry message thread on my laptop screen. The emails from Cyrus Rowe, CEO of Rowe stating it all became too much. But what if…

What if it had been more than that? What if the man I called father, the man whose approval I'd so desperately sought for so long…

What if he was the reason I found my mother bloody and splayed across the garden path?

"Where do I even start?" I asked, my voice small in the cavernous quiet of the room. "It's been years. The trail's gone cold."

Talia smiled, sharp and flinty. "Not entirely. I did some digging of my own, called in a few favors from my journalism days. There's a lead, one the original detectives never fully pursued."

She reached into the folder and pulled out a grainy black and white photo, sliding it across to me. "Recognize this man?"

I squinted at the image, trying to make out the blurry features. Dark hair, a scruff of stubble, broad shoulders beneath a leather jacket...

Recognition slammed into me like a freight train, stealing my breath and sending my pulse into overdrive .

"Marcus Wade," I breathed, disbelief and burgeoning hope warring for dominance in my chest. "My father's business partner. Or at least, he was, until..."

"Until he disappeared without a trace, right around the time your mother died," Talia finished grimly. "Funny coincidence, don't you think?"

No. Not a coincidence at all. A pattern, a puzzle piece clicking into place with sickening precision.

Marcus had been my father's right-hand man, his confidant and closest friend. Until one day, he simply vanished, leaving behind a trail of rumors and a gaping hole in Cyrus's inner circle that he'd never quite managed to fill.

At the time, I'd been too young, too consumed by grief to question it. But now...

Now, I couldn't shake the feeling that Marcus held the key. That he knew something about my mother's death, something that had forced him to run.

Something that might finally, finally, lead me to the truth.

"I have to find him," I said, my voice trembling but shot through with steel. "I have to know what he knows. What really happened that night."

Talia nodded, her smile triumphant. "And I'll be with you every step of the way. Me, you, and lover boy. The Scooby gang, unraveling the mystery and serving justice for Olivia Rowe."

A prickle of unease slithered down my spine at the mention of Damon. "I don't...I don't know if I can involve him in this, Tal. It's too dangerous. If my father really is behind all of this, if he went so far as to..."

I couldn't say it. Couldn't voice the awful, lurking suspicion that had taken root in my heart.

That Cyrus, the man who'd raised me, who'd held me as I cried for my lost mother...

That he might be a murderer. A monster hiding behind a mask of respectability and ruthless ambition.

Talia squeezed my knee, her gaze fierce and unflinching. "All the more reason to have Damon in your corner. That boy would walk through fire for you, and you know it. He's not going to let you face this alone."

I wanted to argue, to protect him from the ugliness and danger I could feel looming on the horizon. But I couldn't deny the selfish part of me that craved his strength, his unwavering faith.

The part of me that knew I'd never be able to do this without him.

"Okay," I agreed, letting out a shuddering breath. "Okay. I'll talk to him, bring him into the fold. But we have to be smart about this, Talia. Careful. If Cyrus catches wind of what we're doing..."

I didn't need to finish the thought. The grim set of Talia's mouth told me she understood the stakes. The risk we'd be taking by kicking this particular hornet's nest.

But it was a risk I had to take. For my mother. For the little girl I'd once been, the one who'd cried herself to sleep every night, wondering why her mommy had left her behind.

For myself, and the woman I wanted to become. The one who stood tall and fierce, unbowed by the shadows of her past.

The one who looked those shadows dead in the eye and demanded the truth, no matter how ugly or painful.

The one who was done running. Done hiding.

Done letting fear and doubt rule her life, her choices.

"I'm in," I said, my voice ringing with conviction. With purpose. "Let's find Marcus Wade. Let's find out what really happened to my mother."

Talia grinned, feral and bright. "And let's burn Cyrus Rowe to the fucking ground if he's behind it. Show the world exactly what kind of a monster he really is."

I matched her grin, feeling a flicker of heat spark to life in my veins. A righteous, explosive fire, fueled by years of repressed anger and simmering suspicion.

Cyrus had controlled me for so long. Dictated my every move, my every breath.

But not anymore.

He'd raised a Rowe, after all. And we were nothing if not tenacious.

Nothing if not utterly, ruthlessly relentless in our pursuit of what we wanted.

And what I wanted...was answers. Justice.

Freedom from the gilded cage of my father's making, and the lies that had bound me for so long.

I wanted my life back. My truth, my agency.

And come hell or high water, I was going to get it.

No matter who or what stood in my way.

Grabbing my phone, I sent off a quick text to Damon. Just three simple words, heavy with promise and unspoken meaning.

"I need you."

His response was immediate, as if he'd been waiting, phone in hand, for my digital signal flare.

"On my way. Always."

***

I threw myself into the investigation with a fervor that bordered on obsession. Every spare moment was spent poring over old police reports, tracking down witnesses, and chasing leads that more often than not led to dead ends and frustration.

But I couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. The hunger for the truth gnawed at my insides, a constant ache that no amount of expensive whiskey or heated glances from Damon could soothe.

He was worried about me, I could tell. It was there in the furrow of his brow when he caught me hunched over my laptop at 3AM, in the gentle press of his lips against my temple as he coaxed me back to bed.

"Come on, baby," he'd murmur, his voice rough with sleep and concern. "It'll still be there in the morning. You need to rest."

I would go with him, letting him wrap me in his warmth, and breathe in the scent of his skin. But even as my body melted into his, my mind whirred and buzzed, a ceaseless hum of theories and suspicions that chased me into my dreams.

Talia was my rock, my unflinching partner in crime. She used her journalistic prowess and network of contacts to dig up information I never could have accessed on my own, piecing together a disturbing picture of my father's empire.

Bribes. Blackmail. Mysterious disappearances of artists who got too vocal, too defiant. And at the center of it all, Cyrus Rowe, pulling the strings like a malevolent puppet master.

The weight of it settled on my chest, a leaden press that made it hard to breathe. How could I have been so blind, so willfully ignorant of the monster lurking behind the facade of familial devotion?

But even as the ugly truth took shape, the specifics of my mother's death remained frustratingly out of reach. Talia and I hit wall after wall, each new lead fizzling out like a dud firecracker.

And then, just when I was ready to scream with impotent rage, Fate tossed a match on the powder keg .

Damon's phone rang, a jarring burst of noise in the predawn stillness of our bedroom. He answered with a groggy curse, his free arm tightening around my waist as if to anchor himself.

I listened to the one-sided conversation with a prickle of unease skittering down my spine. Damon's voice was tight, his muscles tensing against me with each bitten off response.

When he finally hung up, the silence that descended was thick and charged, a living thing that slithered between us.

"What?" I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. "What's wrong?"

He shifted to face me, his eyes glittering in the shadows. "The album leaked. The whole fucking thing, all over the internet. Twitter's having a field day, and the groupies are going nuts over the songs about you."

I closed my eyes, a wave of mingled dread and exhilaration crashing over me. Damon's music was a raw nerve, a throbbing vein of lust and longing and unbridled passion.

The thought of those private declarations, those intimate odes to my body and soul, laid bare for public consumption...

It was terrifying. Thrilling. A twisted little thrill shivered through me, chased by a chaser of icy fear at the reaction it would provoke.

And provoke it did.

My phone started blowing up before the sun had even fully crested the horizon, a barrage of texts and voicemails from industry insiders, journalists, and one very pissed off Cyrus Rowe.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he snarled, not bothering with a greeting. "Letting that degenerate pant after you like a dog in heat, airing our family's dirty laundry for the whole world to see?"

I held the phone away from my ear, wincing at the volume and vitriol in his voice. But beneath the anger, I could hear something else, something that made my stomach clench and my palms go damp.

Fear .

Desperation. The cornered animal panic of a man watching his carefully constructed kingdom start to crumble.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied, forcing my tone to stay steady. "Damon's music is his business, his art. I had nothing to do with it."

"Don't play coy with me, girl." The sneer in Cyrus's words could have stripped paint. "That gutter rat doesn't take a piss without your say so. This is on you. You and that poisonous cunt you call a best friend."

Red washed my vision, a Kill Bill scream reverberating in my skull. "You leave Talia out of this," I hissed, my fingernails biting into my palm hard enough to draw blood. "She has nothing to do with the album, or with your goddamn ego trip."

"Watch your mouth," Cyrus snapped. "Talia has everything to do with this. She's the one filling your head with lies and delusions, turning you against me. Against your own blood."

I laughed, a jagged, serrated sound. "You want to talk blood? Let's talk about Mom. Let's talk about what really happened the night she died."

The line went preternaturally silent. For a beat, all I could hear was the rasp of Cyrus's breathing, the distant thud of my own heart.

And then he spoke, his voice cold and flat as a marble slab. "Be very careful, Phoenix. You're treading on dangerous ground. Ground you can't come back from."

Rage and reckless abandon surged through my veins, a potent cocktail that made me feel drunk on my own daring. "Is that a threat? Because from where I'm standing, you're the one who should be careful. I know about Marcus, Dad. I know he left after that night. And I'm going to find out the truth, with or without your permission. "

Cyrus let out a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snarl. "Marcus Wade is a ghost. A has-been who couldn't handle the pressure and went crawling into a bottle. You really think the word of the town drunk holds any weight against mine?"

I smiled, a slow, savage thing. "I guess we'll find out. Because I'm not going to stop, Dad. Not until I know what happened to my mother. And if that means burning your precious empire to the ground in the process? Well, that's just a bonus."

He was silent for a long, fraught moment. I could practically hear the gears turning, the calculations whirring behind those cold, lizard eyes.

When he finally spoke, his voice held an oily sheen of magnanimity that made my skin crawl. "Phoenix. Sweetheart. I know you're confused, hurting. That vile man and his libel have clearly gotten in your head. Come home, and we can put all this behind us. I'll make sure Damon pays for his slander, and you can focus on your career, your future. Your family."

The urge to scream, to put my fist through the wall, was so strong I could taste copper on my tongue. How dare he? How dare he sit there in his tower of ill-gotten gains and play the wounded party?

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear," I said, each word dripping icicles. "I am never coming back. Not to Rowe & Wade, not to you. My future is my own, as far away from your toxic bullshit as humanly possible."

"Phoenix-"

"And if you come after me, if you so much as breathe in Damon or Talia's direction, I will rain hellfire and brimstone down on your head. I will scorch the fucking earth and salt the ground where you once stood. Do you understand me?"

His sharp inhale echoed down the line, a hiss of shocked indignation. "You would threaten me? Your own father?"

"You stopped being my father the day you buried my mother and kept on living like nothing happened," I spat. "Now you're just the sad, pathetic little man who tried to break me because he couldn't control me."

I hung up before he could respond, my hand shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone on the plush carpet. Adrenaline sang in my blood, a dizzying, swooping rush of terror and exultation.

Strong arms wound around my waist from behind, tugging me back against a wall of solid muscle. I went willingly, sinking into Damon's warmth and letting it steady the tremors wracking my frame.

"Hey," he murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. "I heard screaming. Are you okay?"

A shattered laugh bubbled up my throat. "Not even remotely. But I will be. I'm done letting him dictate my life, Damon. Done being afraid of his judgment and his expectations and his fucking mind games."

I twisted in his embrace, looping my arms around his neck and staring up into those fathomless eyes. "I love you. I love your music, and how it makes me feel seen, cherished, worshiped. And I don't give a damn who knows it."

Damon's answering smile was brighter than the desert sun, fiercer than the inferno raging in my chest. "Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you."

He dipped his head, his lips a hairsbreadth from mine. "I love you, Phoenix," he breathed, the words hot and sincere against my mouth. "I love everything about you, even the dark, messy parts. Especially the dark, messy parts."

I closed the distance between us, the kiss a hard, bruising clash of lips and tongue and clashing teeth. It was a declaration, a war cry, a fistfight in the back of a seedy bar.

And God, I wanted more. More of his fire, his fight, his unshakeable faith in me, in us.

Because together, we were an inferno. A conflagration that would scorch the earth and blacken the skies.

And heaven help anyone foolish enough to stand in our way.

The leak of Damon's album, the explosive confrontation with my father...it was the opening of a much larger battle.

One I intended to win, no matter the cost.

With Damon's music as my war drums and Talia's unflinching support as my armor, I would storm the gates of my father's twisted kingdom.

I would tear down the altars of his greed and neglect, built on my mother's broken body.

I would raze his legacy to rubble and ash, and dance on the ruins of his hubris.

Because here's the truth my father never learned, the secret he tried so hard to scorch from my bones:

You can't break a Phoenix. Can't crush her or cage her or force her to heel.

All you can do is watch her rise, reborn and incandescent, from the pyre of your own making.

And by the time I was done, Cyrus Rowe would know the full weight of his folly.

He would choke on the ashes of his sins, and I would be the one holding the fucking match.