7. Dusting of Mauve

7

DUSTING OF MAUVE

SOPHIA

With what I assume is a broken nose, merited by my defiance and smart mouth, I find my way home, stomach clenched tight with unease. I can't believe I managed to pierce Julian Caddell where it counts and convince him that the best route to ensure his payday was to free me, allowing me to go back on tour.

Money really does talk.

I'm one step closer to getting my freedom. I'll collect my check at the end of the tour, a check that will now go directly to him. Liberating Lacey and me from his wrath for good.

Triumph curls my lips despite how swollen and dry they are. It's not lost on me that people walking the busy streets with their sun-kissed shoulders and saltwater-waved hair are all gawking at me like I just climbed out of a gutter.

I hear several clicks from what I assume are cameras as I stroll by, unhurried.

Abandoning the need to sink into an alleyway and call for help, I feel like I've won the right to walk down the street with my head held high despite my unruly appearance. I survived being kidnapped. I survived being beaten like a grown-ass man and not the one-hundred-thirty-pound female that I am. I close my mind as my feet guide me home on autopilot, knowing that somehow Lindsey, the band's PR lady, will spin this incident into a fable that the world will believe. There's no way in hell she'll allow the band's name to be tarnished by my almost-comatose walk of shame.

There's a giant rip at the sleeve of my shirt. Two of my fingernails are missing, and my nose feels like it was used as a human punching bag. I'm afraid that my eye socket is broken. If anyone should cower though, it's not me. It's Knox and Julian because if our encounter has taught them anything, it's that I'm not going down without a fight.

My feet ache as I climb the stairs to my apartment. Trying to hold on to some control is futile at this point. I can't barge through the door looking like death while crying my eyes out, so I sniffle back my tears, caging them once more.

Even when I begged for death, I did it out of spite. I did it to protect my sister. I vow to turn the tables on Caddell. The weak woman he thought I was gained a fiery pair of wings in that basement. Ridding him from our lives once and for all is all I care about.

I'm barely able to control my gasp of surprise when I fling open the door to my apartment, only to find every member of Kings of Jupiter in my living room, including Jupiter himself.

The shock of their presence hits me full force when the room goes quiet. Several pairs of eyes widen in a mixture of relief, mingled with what appears to be pure terror in their gazes, no doubt from my appearance. Their silent frowns convey a clear message—they care about me. The thought of that alone hurts worse than the back of Caddell's hand. Their looks of anguish only solidify what I already knew in my heart—I care about them too, and now, I have more people to protect with my life.

Like an old wound aching on a rainy day, I take one step inside my apartment, mind still colored with the memories of the days before … before the world goes black.

A rainbow of eyes, skin tones, and worried expressions stare at me wordlessly as I peel open my eyes. Correction: one eye. The one that isn't completely swollen shut. My vision is blurry. Fortunately for me, my other senses kick in. I'm relieved to be alive.

The sound of a sharp intake of breath rings louder than the sound of the loud machine beeping seconds before I feel a pair of arms around my neck.

"Easy," I muster, my warning broken off mid-sentence. An inexplicable feeling of happiness brushes over me.

A soft gulp escapes my hugger. "I'm sorry, sis. I'm just so glad you're okay. I'm so sorry."

Lacey.

I want to retort. Tell her that she has no reason to be sorry. I want to hug her back, tell her that everything is going to be fine. That I have a plan.

My heart thuds in my chest as tears stream down her face, little pieces of pink hair sticking to her cheeks. I'm already emotionally spent, seeing her come undone in front of me. I've only just awoken, and I already feel like both my mind and body ran a marathon. Settling my head, I nestle onto a soft pillow, breathing a sigh of relief as my eye meets hers.

She's alive and safe. That's all I've ever wanted.

I'm disappointed when a series of questions, rambled off by various unnamed voices, interrupts our exchange, leaving my head throbbing in an excruciating melody.

"What happened?" Oliver's timid voice registers through the onslaught. His voice sounds puny, scared.

I turn my head to meet his concerned glare and find his mouth twisted with worry.

There's no time to agonize over how to explain what happened without bringing more danger to their doorstep.

Another gravelly voice demands my attention. "You had me … us … worried."

I know without turning my head in the opposite direction to sneak a glance at the blond-haired drummer that it's Cannon speaking. I'm remarkably proud of his blunt admission. He's made strides in silencing his dark, brooding persona that he hides behind like his massive drum set. I can't fight the magnetic urge to turn toward him any longer. When I face the man staring back at me, he doesn't appear to be worried in the slightest about his reputation, his tortured identity, or his emotional admission. No. The man staring back at me is torn only by conflicting feelings that he's trying to harness, though he's failing miserably. I want to tell him that he can speak freely. That I want to hear his words more than I want this incessant machine to keep beeping so loudly. I need to be overcome by the intense smile that he fights but loses against more than I need my next breath.

"I missed you. So. Much. I thought … I can't … lose you, Sophia. You're the …" He shakes his head, collecting his though ts. "You mean a lot to me," the brute of a drummer says before looking around the room. "To all of us."

His declaration adds to my sudden bewilderment. Was he truly that scared to lose me? Has Mazen not told him about my son yet? Surely, if he knew I've been keeping secrets, he wouldn't be showering me with this deep emotion and blunt adoration, right?

I feel my hospital mattress dip before a dainty pair of hands grasp on to my arm. I'm painfully aware of the IV that is plunged into my vein by the way that Vanna's soft embrace nearly misses the tubing.

"What he means to say is, we're all relieved that you're okay. Safe. Alive. I'm going to drag them to the waiting room before I fetch Mazen. I think that's him I hear right now." She tilts her head slightly, like she's straining to listen to something. "For hours, he's been yelling at everyone who walks by in a pair of scrubs, demanding to know why you haven't woken up yet."

The dam on my eyes breaks, like my heart. The waterworks flow freely.

"I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Sorry." I struggle to get the words out. My throat dry. "Why would he care?"

"Don't you dare be sorry. We're sorry. We had no idea about your … past."

There goes my secret. Though I don't know if she's referring to the monster in it or the ghost of my deceased child.

Forging on, Vanna continues, "Why wouldn't he care is the bigger question? It seems that you've checkmated the world's biggest bachelors with your charm. You and I both know it's that magic pussy though." Her smile is wide, her teeth strikingly white against her tan glow. "You're their queen, Sophia. Make them bow. It'd do them some good to be put in their place for once."

I want to say so many things, ask so many questions. What does she know about my past? Why does she think my kitty—using the P-word sometimes makes me cringe if it's not said between a sheet and a warm male body—is golden enough to tame almost an entire band?

The intensity in the room shifts from the relief seen in my friends'—family's—eyes to discomfort as my heart rate increases. Its increase is mimicked by the sound on the overhead machine. It chimes loudly, echoing in the private hospital room we're in.

Words die on my tongue when my brain decides it's had too much, and my extreme fatigue, paired with the cocktail of pain medication flowing freely in my IV, pulls me into its tight grasp again.

What must be hours later, I wake to a black sky and a nearly empty room. Covering my face with my hands, I'm careful not to touch my pounding nose. When I glance up, I'm surprised to see Mazen Wilde's intoxicating eyes watching me intently. Something along the lines of relief and a dash of indifference take up residence on his handsome face.

Handsome? These must be top-tier drugs running through my veins.

"I can smell myself." Breaking the silence, I gesture to my gown-covered body under the white hospital blanket that wouldn't keep a flea warm—it's so thin. "Help me get to the shower, please? I know if I can smell myself, we have an issue." I honest to God don't know what day it is or the last time I showered.

His straight-lined mouth gives nothing away as he rises from his chair. In one step that leaves me wondering if he's turned into a vampire— Team Edward for life —he's at my bedside.

I've been the victim of Mazen's harsh moods on many occasions. Far too many, it seems, for the time in which I've been working for them … tattooing them. Though, if I'm being honest, thanks to Julian Caddell, I now remember that I know Mazen, or knew him in a previous era of our lives.

There's a heavy silence that lingers between us. Even in the dead of night, it's deafening. I fight through the cobwebs of trying to figure out Mazen, redirecting my thoughts to my life that has been turned upside down. It's utter chaos. The last thing I have time for is trying to piece together the man in front of me. Still, I can't swallow down the need to stop giving a crap about him and focus my mind on other very important matters.

Vanna's comment about him threatening the entire hospital staff sends a current of curiosity through me. For someone who knows without a shadow of a doubt that I kept a huge secret from him … them … he doesn't appear to hold the same distaste in his eyes as he did when he bid me farewell and watched me board his private plane.

I'm suddenly hyper-focused on him. Everything about him.

The way that his large hands—one covered in the jellyfish I tattooed on him—hold on to the side of my bed railing with more force than necessary. I'm fearful he's going to crack the hardened plastic in half. To the glint in his eyes that cuts through the dimly lit room, seemingly staring into my soul.

Hooded eyes, which once held hatred toward me when his friend hired me to follow their band on tour, have morphed into something akin to the color of a silvery fog.. It's as if a painter swiped away and erased the tarnished steel that once held my gaze. Those same eyes now hold a muddled stare. The both of us feel confused … chaotic… cautious.

It's not until Mazen offers a wordless dip of his chin, a brief nod, that the spell is broken, and I'm slammed back into reality. I swallow down my foolishness. His heated glare has nothing to do with feelings of relief that I'm alive. Most likely, he's contemplating smothering me with my own pillow for lying and deceiving him.

He turns his back, gracing me with the sight of him in … sweatpants? Why is he dressed so casually? Thoughts race as wildly as a stampede of horses through my drug-altered brain. My thoughts still aren't in order when he reappears a moment later and lowers the rail to my hospital bed.

Moving my IV rod out of the way so I don't trip over the long tubing that's connected to it, I breathe in a smidgen of relief. Thoughts of him strangling me with said clear tubing infiltrate my mind as we stand in place, rooted to the floor. Call it guilt or my subconscious screaming at me, demanding my mouth to move when I'm able to weave together a sentence, an answer to the question he left me with.

"Where is your son?"

Mazen has every right to put me out of my misery, using the only tools at his disposal. I probably wouldn't even put up much of a fight.

Any fight I had has vanished.

Caddell stole that too. The only shred of willpower floating through my veins is knowing that if I bow out of this life, Caddell will turn his attention to my sister. Demanding she pay his debt, just like I inherited it from my dad.