Page 98 of The Fix

I shudder with an aftershock and hang up.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Anna

Another notification dings across the screen of my phone, and yet, it hangs in the limbo of my hand, my eyes trained on the other device in front of me.

I can’t take my sight off of the headlines lighting up my laptop, my stomach jumping up to stick in my throat.

After all the long hours and months spent, the stories fed to the tabloids, and the payoff of one pesky person, I am staring at a leak of As Above’s personal life, live on the screen for everyone to see.

I swallow thickly.

Twenty-five thousand dollars went to Toby’s accuser, in exchange for her disappearance from the media. Enough cash to get her life started somewhere far away from them—him—and a promise of more if she kept her silence.

It didn’t matter that the baby isn’t his.

It didn’t matter that the paperwork she possessed was forged.

It didn’t matter that she never actually had any contact with Toby at all.

None of it mattered.

Leo and I both agreed that it was for his peace.

His protection.

And yet …

Conveniently, less than twenty-four hours after the transfer of funds, Tobias Jeffers is once again the top story of not just the vultures of media, but every news outlet I can think to check.

My phone pings, and I absentmindedly thumb my way through the screens until the voicemail plays in a low voice.

It’s another one from Leo.

He’s begging me to stay.

I can’t.

Deleting the voicemail so I have the space for others, I remind myself that I’m down to one more week. Seven more days of carrying the burden of protecting the band at all cost, deceiving the world, and myself, in their honor. Seven more days of fake narratives, pushy reporters, and terrifying camerapersons.

Only seven more days until I can move on to the next chapter of my life.

I have a new place in a new town, a job far away from here, a new everything waiting for me.

Just one more week.

My phone spits out another notification and I hit the screen without looking to silence it.

I’m too tired to do much else.

So damn tired of all the calls, seeing the hateful words spewed across the internet.

The stress and loneliness left in its wake.

Letting the phone drop next to me to free my hands, I set up a blast email I’ve already had to utilize for these situations and send it out in hopes of overshadowing the negative headlines about Toby and his current stint in rehab.

Maybe the baby rumor would have been a better pill to swallow.

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