Page 193 of Hayden's Stalker

She explains about a friend she has in specialist security who apparently tracked down Sarah’s real name after linking her to Daniel and then found the property. She tells us her perspective of what happened with the rescue.

When we finally finish talking about it, I think our entire group is emotionally exhausted. We’ve all cried a lot this morning, and it’s a relief when the topic of conversation moves on. We’ve been talking for about half an hour when there’s a knock on the door of the suite, and Gabriel goes to see who it is. He comes back with Cooper trailing behind him.

My friends are all on edge when he enters the room. He’s been such an asshole to us so many times in the past. I warned him last year that we would fire him if he pulled any more shit.

As soon as Cooper sees Tati sitting next to me and holding my hand, he narrows his eyes at us, and his nostrils flare. “I see how it is.”

After everything that’s happened the last three days, I’m not in the mood to deal with his shit.

I shake my head. “You can stop right there, Cooper. I don’t want to hear whatever it is that you have to say.”

“I’m here to talk about what will happen with the tour. Imagine my surprise to see that your useless security specialist has apparently tricked you into some kind of relationship.”

My blood boils as he calls Tati useless, and years of watching him mistreat my friends come to my mind. I glare at him, with zero desire to have to deal with him when everything is already so hard for me at the moment.

There’s silence in the room, and I know my friends are leaving this decision up to me. When I made the threat to fire him last year, I did so fully prepared to cover the entire cost of breaking the contract. I have little doubt my friends will be onboard, but I’m once again prepared to bear this fee personally, or I wouldn’t make this call.

“I’ve been told about what happened while I was gone. You can leave now. You’ll be hearing from our lawyer about us terminating your contract.”

Cooper stares at me, his jaw set, before he says in an ominous tone, “You can’t do this.”

He has no idea how little he scares me. He’s nothing more than a minor annoyance in comparison toher. He’s good at what he does, but he keeps crossing the line, and I was already pissed at him for wanting Tati to keep information about Sarah away from me months ago. His calling Tati useless after trying to freeze her out when she was trying to find me is the final straw.

“I just did. Goodbye, Cooper. Leave now, or Tatiana will make you leave.”

Cooper’s gaze flicks between Tati and me a few times, then he growls, “I’ll fight this, you know.”

As if I could care less. I know the terms of our contract, and I know the balance of my bank account. I am perfectly happy to pay him what I need to in order to evict him from our lives.

“Great. Just make sure all of your communication goes through our lawyers from now on. Goodbye.”

Cooper glares at me, and Tati’s body tenses in the chair next to me, but he spins on his heel without another word and leaves the suite.

“I guess we need to find a new manager?” Sebastian says, sounding amused.

“Good riddance! I’ll break my contract as well. I’m done with that asshole,” Heather says with a grin on her face for the first time today.

I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but they’re right. When we signed on with Cooper, we were completely unknown. I feelstrangely free after firing him, and we’ll be able to seek new management with a lot more bargaining power this time.

“I guess we do need to find someone new to manage us. At least now we won’t be stuck with the only person willing to sign us,” I point out with a shrug before I turn to look at Harrison. “Any idea if Tanya will be willing to continue working with us now that we’ve fired Cooper? I don’t want to lose her after this tour.”

She’s been a godsend for us on tours right from back when we didCards Have Been Dealt, and I hate the thought of her leaving us.

Harrison and I generally handle band business, so I’m relieved when he offers to speak with Tanya in her hotel room about the situation.

I’m relieved when he comes back half an hour later and says, “I told her about what happened with Cooper, then asked if she was willing to continue working with us. I told her that we don’t have a manager at the moment and asked her to liaise with me instead until we do.”

“And Tanya’s okay with that?” Gabriel asks.

Harrison gives him a wry grin. “Honestly? She seemed glad to not have to deal with his shit anymore. She’s talking about postponing the concerts for the next four weeks in light of what’s happened. She’s already in discussions with venues, etc. about the possibility of moving those concerts to the back end of the tour. She said there might be a couple of venues who can’t accommodate the change, but if we’re flexible with our schedule, it should be able to be worked out.” He smiles over at me. “Her biggest concern is that you’re okay, and you get a break to rest after what’s happened.”

“Shit. Is this what it’s like to have someone who cares about more than money in charge for once?” Sebastian laughs.

“Apparently so,” I tell him, but guilt floods through me from knowing that I’ll be the reason we’ll be disappointing the fans who have tickets to our shows over the next month. “I don’t know how I feel about postponing concerts, though.”

Tati looks at me and says, “I know that you love your fans, Hayden, but they love you, too. You wouldn’t be canceling on them, just taking a break to get your head together after a pretty traumatic experience. It’s important that you take care of yourself.”

It makes sense objectively, but that doesn’t make me feel any less bad about it. These fans will have made plans to come to see us. Some will have organized flights and accommodation. Non-refundable deposits that they could lose. All because of me. It feels terrible, but at the same time,Ifeel terrible. I know in my heart that I’m not ready to be on stage right now.

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