Page 2 of Our Deceptive Heat

Idly, I wonder if my father hates me because he hates my mother or if I am some extra torment for him.

It doesn’t matter. My father, with his crisp suits and his infallible routines, will be a thing of the past. No longer will his dead brown eyes torment me as they measure my worth and find me wanting. I will achieve what Chile Raines never could, and I will escape the man who controls our lives.

I’m playing the long game now.

And I’ll do it in a way that will make him eat every horrible word he’s ever said to me.

And then he’ll be dead to me, too.

“Ryn, I’m not sureabout this. If you get caught-”

“Locke, for god’s sake, lower your voice,” I hiss. “I’m not getting caught. You’re going to reach out to them and tell them about someone you know who can help with their little problem, that’s all.”

My cousin is the lead singer of the rock band Derision, but right now, he’s looking at me from where he’s perched on the stairs of our cousin Lia’s house, the old Raines family mansion, and trying to destroy my dream. She is, of course, setting up all manner of pranks in her desperate bid to outwit the Mirakill Pack that she met a month ago. One month, and they have become her obsession, still it’s nice to see life in her eyes. Who would have thought infamous bikers would devolve into two-year-old children around my cousin?

I want to find it pathetic, but I’m envious. The way they look at her. The way she talks about them, they are the thing that makes love songs ache.

“Please, Locke. You have to help me. If I don’t find something soon to aid my escape, he’s going to gift me to one of his old cronies as a broodmare. Help me!”

Locke tosses his golden hair, his eyes flashing with frustration. I don’t understand why he’s being so stubborn about this.

“Ryn, no. I won’t do it.”

I stare at him, my hope dying, but I have one last weapon against him. Guilt churns in my gut, but I ignore it. “Then you acknowledge who wrote those songs.”

He inhales sharply. The fear that flickers across his face almost makes me take back the words, almost.

“That wouldn’t help any of us, and it would make your situation worse, and you fucking know it. What the fuck, Ryn?” Locke explodes, furiously standing up to pace. “How can you even say that to me?”

“I wrote those songs for you. Hell, I gave them to you in good will to help you get to the top!” I growl back at him, matching his anger for anger. “Locke, I deserve acknowledgement. I just want a little word in their ear, an intro. Fucking hell, Locke the world’s at your feet. You have everything. Give me this. Help me, damn you!”

Locke looks down at his ring-covered hand for a couple of minutes. I wait, knowing that he’s often slow to act when he needs to think things through.

“You’ll be working as a silent partner?”

“Right up until I have enough street credibility that he can’t just sell me off,” I say with a grin. The flutter of hope explodes, leaving me feeling weak.

“Why music? You could have done anything else. You can draw, dance, write. Why on earth would you chase the one industry that could destroy you?”

Locke sounds like he’s completely confused about why I’m doing this. But surely, he, of all people, would understand? I can’t believe he’s even asking me.

“Because music is my heartbeat. It’s every breath. It’s every thought, and it’s who I am, Locke. Don’t you feel that way?”

Locke shakes his head as he stares at me. “I am what they made me to be.” He hesitates. “No, I guess I don’t feel that way. I went into music because it's all she let me do. I don’t love it like that. Some days I don’t even like it.”

She being my aunt Cara. She’s been on a one track mission to turn Locke into a superstar. His act of rebellion was joining a rock band instead of a pop band she’d selected and signing so fast she lost control of his future. She went from being in his life every moment to ignoring his existence. I’m not even sure when she last spoke to him.

He huffs and stands up. Locke is tall but lithe. Almost bordering on thin. He holds out his large hand. He is everything a Raines should be, tall, heartbreakingly handsome, rich, famous, and golden. I put mine in his.

“I’ll talk to them. I’m not sure how much I can do. They’re doing fine on their own, and they’re pretty closed off.”

I shrug, knowing that they aren’t as well off as Locke thinks but unwilling to share that knowledge with my cousin. “Thank you. I just need a window. I can do the rest.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

We let go and turn as one as Lia comes screaming with laughter back to the house. She jumps up into Locke’s arms, laughing.

---