Page 89 of Chasing Lyric
Hefuckingknows.
And we both rememberexactlywhat it cost me.
His eyes narrow, and he sighs. “I was across the street, eating dinner. Had a clear view through the front window. I watched you the entire night.”
Time stops, and the air vanishes from my lungs, sharp and sudden like I’ve been sucker punched. “Youwatchedme?” My voice is low, almost guttural, grinding against the back of my throat like gravel. I take a staggering step back, my heart thudding as if it’s trying to break out of my chest.
I rake a hand through my hair, every muscle in my body screaming with the need to punch a wall or rip something apart. My skin crawls like I’ve been exposed, like every fucking vulnerable moment I shared with Lyric wasn’t mine at all.
It was his.
Observed, judged, and weaponized.
“You sat there like a fucking puppet master, pulling strings while I made a fool of myself. While I introduced her to my friends, while I let her in, when I told her I fucking l-loved her!” My voice cracks, but I don’t stop. “Jesus, Dad.” My hands clench into fists, trying to breathe through the fury and the bone-deep shame. “You sat there and watched me as if it were a show. Like I’m your fucking entertainment.” My chest heaves as I point toward the window, still feeling his gaze crawling over my shoulders. “You violated something real. You don’t get to watch me fall in love and then try to monetize it!”
He exhales, seemingly unfazed by my outpouring of emotions. “Lyric is talented,” he says with a shrug, like that’s supposed to justify any of it.
I snort out a semblance of a laugh. “She’s not a damn product, Dad. She’s not some acquisition to be scouted and pitched and profited off. She’s the first person I’ve been real with—” I cut myself off, swallowing the lump in my throat, the one that knows this whole thing was never going to end in anything but disaster.
He holds my stare. And for once, there’s no challenge in his eyes, no smirk on his lips, just silence. The kind that says he’s not proud of what he did, but he’d do it again if it meant there’d be a deal on the table.
I take a step forward, heat pounding through my veins, my voice rough with disbelief. “I put mylifeon the line for you. I gave upeverything. My name. My freedom. And you repay me by circling Lyri like a vulture the second you smellopportunity?”
“I did what needed to be done,” he says, his tone hardening. “That’s how this business works, son.”
“No!” I bark, my voice slicing through the air like a blade. “That’s howyouoperate. You lie, you manipulate, and you justify it all in the name of business. ButIam the one drowning in the wreckage while you keep your hands clean.”
His mouth stays shut. Not because he’s out of things to say, but because for the first time, he knows I won’t buy a single line of his bullshit.
I step back, trying to hold my shit together as everything in me threatens to implode. “I don’t know what kind of man that makes you,” I rasp, the ache in my chest pulsing like a second heartbeat. “But I know what kind of man it’s making me. And I hate him!”
The silence stretches, thick and damning.
And then it shifts.
Because something’s just not adding up.
I level a hard stare on him as the pieces of this fucked up puzzle start clicking into place. “You didn’t just stumble into thatbar last night to Joe Goldberg me, didyou?” My voice lowers, sharp and dangerous.
Dad rolls his eyes. “Calling me a serial killer stalker now? A bit extreme, don’t you think—”
“You knew she’d be singing…” I narrow my eyes on him, “… because someone tipped you off.” I stiffen, my stomach turning, because I already see where this is going.
The slow twist of the knife, straight into my back.
His eyes flicker, barely, but it’s enough to know that I’m right.
My voice tightens.“Tell me!”My voice rises higher, a clear warning this time.
“Fine,” he mutters, the word scraping out of him as if it burns. “Dax told me about the girl. He said you were seeing someone and mentioned that you told him she had the voice of an angel. He mentioned you were going for drinks at a karaoke bar, and that if she sang, he’d give me the heads-up.”
The admission hits me like a sucker punch to the ribs.
My breath shudders out of me, fury tightening my chest. I turn away before I do something I regret. I run my fingers through my hair, gripping hard, tugging until it hurts, anything to channel the storm inside me somewhere that isn’t into him.
“You’re saying Dax, my best friend, theoneperson who swore he had my back, handed you a goddamn playbook on her and told you when to show up?”
A long pause. Then his jaw clenches, his head dipping with reluctant finality. “Yes.”
