Page 76 of The Omega Verse

She proceeds to tell me what she learned from Finn Visser - that dangerous-as-fuck alpha who has Mike’s knickers in a knot – and I can feel myself going numb the longer she talks. Celine, that twisted cunt, broke into both her apartment and this house, and then stole a dozen original Stix Rain songs and plans to sell them at some kind of black-market auction.

“That’s not happening,” I growl, flames crackling at the edges of my vision. Celine has been a fucking thorn in our side for years, getting her claws into Steven when he was at his lowest, feeding him pills and her own brand of poison until it was like being best friends with a damn corpse. He went to rehab, and I got the bitch away from him for a while. But then River came along and, like a parasite, she latched back on, trying to suck out all their happiness. “I need to talk to the cunt,” I spit, and I don’t realise I’m on my feet until I catch Cass gazing up at me. “Shit. Sorry, babe. You don’t need to listen to me go off.”

“Can you sit back down?” She has her arms out, so there’s not like I’m going to say no. The beans slip and puff around us until we get settled, and she picks up the stack of papers. “We’ve got a plan to deal with Celine, but I wanted you to play these for me.”

Everything seems to slow down as I take the papers from her hand. The blood is still beating in my ears, but in the way it does before going on stage. Adrenaline, trepidation, and even a bit of shock that I’m about to lay my soul bare.

But this isn’t my soul, it’s Steven’s. And these aren’t songs, but lyrics. “There’s no music,” I tell her, glancing over them without latching onto any of the words. “They’re not finished.”

I almost kick myself when her face falls. “Of course. That’s so stupid. I thought you could just pick them up and start playing, but the notes are missing.”

“Yeah, I mean, Steven was great at the music. I’d come up with some words and a half-arsed tune and he’d fill in the blanks. He’d lay down the beat, then switch to guitar and give me a riff. Structure, bridge, chord progression – it was fucking magic.”

Her face softens, clearly picturing some Lennon and McCartney mojo, and I snort, stealing a hard kiss. Jesus, she still barely knows a thing about her brother. “Nah, it hurt like hell. Music came easy to him, but he never liked to share, and hated giving up control. Me and the other guys would step in, put our spin on it, tweak a strand, or add a melody, and the whole fucking thing would come down on our heads. We’d start again, hash it out, switch it up. Go round and round until my head exploded. But we got there in the end, and it was always a Sundowners’ hit. Because it was Stix Rain’s vision, exactly how he wanted it to be from the first fucking note.”

“Is that why you don’t want to play music anymore?”

I look at her in surprise. As far as anyone knows – River included - this is R&R before we claw the band back together and churn out our next album. “What’s the point? Anything we do now will be a ghost of what it could be.”

And that’s the truth. I’ve finally spoken the words that have been bouncing around in my head for months. And no one screamed. The roof didn’t fall in. Steven didn’t rise from the dead and hit me over the head with my guitar. In fact, the only reaction I get from Cass is a small crease between her brows. “I can see how you’d feel that way. And you’re probably right. The Sundowners without Steven would always feel strange. But maybe it could be something different.” She lifts her chin at the papers in my hand. “Steven gave us his words for a reason, right?”

“Gave you his words,” I correct her. “That’s your birth date at the top.”

“Yeah, but he gave you the address to get us here,” she reminds me. “He wanted you to steer us, bring the rest of us along for the ride.” Her eyes slip past me to the mural, and she bites her lip. “You don’t think he wanted us to do this together?”

I think that’s exactly what he wanted. In one future reality, at least. Steven wasn’t God, even though he liked to make us think he was in the studio. He couldn’t guess where we’d all end up. He might have befriended Kobi for my sake, and shortlisted Silva because he liked his style, but other than River, he didn’t give a fuck about many people in the world. I know Cass is asking if he wanted us to play his songs, but the bigger question is, would he have chosen any of us to mate his precious sister?

I seriously fucking doubt it.

But I’d have paid a lot of money to watch him have that conversation with Tom Bush.

“You got a favourite?” I ask her instead of trying to answer any of that.

She sits up and sifts through the pages while I catch some of their titles: Lost Girl, Hurt Strings, Tomorrow’s Tears, Waving Alone… Jesus Christ, no wonder she’s crying. “This one,” she finally says, and I see it’s the most recent, based on the date. “Ghost Notes.”

“Those soft, sweet notes you use to fill in the gaps.”

“That’s what Silva said,” she murmurs, and tilts her head back on my shoulder while I run my eyes over the lyrics. I can instantly see why she loves it. Yeah, it’s sad, because her brother was a moody bastard, but there’s hope there, too. The glimmer of something on the horizon. A sister? A mate? Or just a damn good song, once we fill in the gaps.

I think about picking up the guitar, but it’s not where my heart is right now. “Cassie, I don’t want you coming to the Hall of Fame as my date,” I tell her, tilting her face up so I can watch those sweet lips turn down in a pout. “I want you there as more. As mine. You think you’ve got room to add another groupie to your harem?”

I watch the confusion flicker though her eyes – because of course, I made groupie a fucking trigger for her, since I’m a dick – but then her pupils blow, and her lips soften. “Are you asking me to be your mate, Jett?”

“I figure this sweet spot next to your pulse should have my name on it.” I kiss it just to taste it, and because yeah, no one wants you to give back something you’ve already licked. “I could grab a sharpie and sign it, or maybe get you a tattoo of my initials…” I nibble the skin, watching the shiver that ripples down her spine. “Or you could let me bite you, Cassie, because let’s face it, you already own my arse.”

Cass

I own Jett Colter’s arse – which I’m hoping is a code word for his heart – and now he wants to claim me. I kind of expect him to just ravish me right here on the studio floor, but after locking Steven’s songs in the control room, he takes my hand and leads me upstairs. I glance at my bedroom door, but he shakes his head. “We’re doing this the rock 'n' roll way.”

I gape at him. “Please tell me it doesn’t involve karaoke.”

He stops to cock a brow at me. “Is it karaoke when you’re singing your own songs?”

Probably not, but singing really isn’t my forte, and the last thing I want to do is murder a Jett Colter song. In front of Jett Colter.

Ugh.

The guys are still upstairs in the kitchen eating the pastries I brought back from the bakery, and they just smirk when Jett announces his intentions. But then River comes over and envelopes us both in the sweetest hug. “I’m so glad. This is exactly how it should be.”

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