Page 8 of Song Bird Hearts

The man steps forward dangerously. “Are you suggesting my wife cheats on me?”

The man hesitates despite his pain. “No, of course not. It was all my mistake.”

The leader shakes his head. “This isn’t our first meeting, Jeremy. Unfortunately, you’re beginning to cause too much trouble for the Foundation. It seems we may have picked the wrong person to make famous.”

“No,” Jeremy says. “Please, it won’t happen again. It’s just a learning curve?—”

“You slept with my wife!” the man snarls. “And then bragged about it online. The time for learning is done.”

Jeremy begins to cry, blubbering like a baby on the floor. I watch, wide-eyed, not sure what I can do to help. Turns out, I wait too long. The leader pulls out a gun, and the man on the floor begins to wail and beg.

“Please! I’ll tell everyone it was a joke, that I was mistaken. Please, I’ll do anything. Anything you ask!”

“You should have thought about that before you wet your dick in my wife,” the man says. “And here I’d hoped you weren’t a one hit wonder, Jeremy. Such a shame you gave into the drugs so soon.”

The man on the floor looks anything but on drugs, but I hear the lie for what it is. I don’t have time to react, to figure out the words. The man points the gun at Jeremy and pulls the trigger. The sound is loud in the marble room. I’m no stranger to shooting guns, but in the room, the echo makes me wince. I gasp in both pain and shock, not sure what I just witnessed. That’s my mistake.

I must make a sound, because a man appears in front of me, his eyes hard as he takes me in. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” he snarls, and then his eyes drop to the phone in my hand.

Where I’d been livestreaming.

Where I’m still livestreaming.

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck!

“Umm. . . I was looking for a bathroom,” I lie, tucking my phone in my back pocket without turning it off. “I really have to pee,” I whine, pretending like I hadn’t just witnessed a murder. “Can you show me where it’s at?”

He pulls a gun from his hip and I don’t waste time pretending any longer. I grab the nearest thing to me—a vase that probably costs more than my savings—and throw it as hard as I can at his face. It shatters and he grunts in pain, immediately reaching up to his face when he starts to gush blood from where the broken ceramic cuts him. I don’t wait for him to recover. I turn and run, sprinting toward the door I’d come in through. Someone grabs me by my ankle and I go down hard, my arm screaming in pain when I land on it slightly wrong. I grunt and kick back at the man holding me, more of them coming from the room. I know I have literal seconds to get out of here. If they all get into this room, I’m as good as dead, another cover story in the newspaper that says I overdosed on a drug I’ve never touched in my life. The leader had mentioned the Foundation. I’m not stupid enough to dismiss that claim. I’m also not stupid enough to stick around and try and convince them I didn’t just livestream their business out to the internet. They’re gonna find out soon enough.

I struggle, kicking as hard as I can at the man holding me. Thank God for wooden heeled cowgirl boots. He lets go with a shout of pain and I scramble to my feet, slamming my way through the door and out onto the balcony again. I immediately rush toward the party, crashing through that door. A few eyes look over at me, but when they see the men following behind, they look away quickly.

Owned. Controlled. Ignored.

I’m in big fucking trouble.

I scramble through the party, rushing toward the front door and trying to push my way through the crowd, but it’s too thick. I’m not gonna be able to make it. It’s almost like these people are purposedly holding me back. They probably are.

And then my reprieve comes. He appears like a guardian angel wearing a wolf mask, his hand wrapping around my elbow and pulling me through the crowd.

“What are you?—”

“Trust me,” he says, and his eyes flicker behind his mask. “I’ve got you, little star.”

He pulls me through the crowd, who move out of the way happily for him when they wouldn’t for me. He drags me toward a small door, and when he opens it, I get a perfect view of the outside driveway where my driver waits for me with everyone else’s.

“Thank you,” I breathe.

“Don’t thank me,” he says. “Now, it’s best you run.” He presses a kiss to the back of my hand. “I’ll find you, little star. No matter where you go.”

It feels like a threat, but one I’ll take over the threat of the people chasing me. I throw my arms around him in a rushed, hard hug, and then turn away, sprinting toward where Perry, my driver, had told me he’d be waiting.

When I find the blue car in the middle of the large circular driveway, I find Perry leaning against the car, waiting for me. I hadn’t planned to be here long, so there’d been no use of him going somewhere else. He’s smoking a cigarette but when I come rushing up to him, he immediately straightens and puts it out.

“We need to go right now!” I shout at him. “Get in the car, Perry!”

“What’s going on?” he asks, rushing to open my door.

I shove him away toward the driver seat. “Not right now. Just get in the fucking car!”

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